VeR. 20.] SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. 447
be a great advantage to us all our life after. On the other side, the want of a good education is a great disadvantage to grace, a maim hardly cured ; it leaves a scar, and makes a man limp as long as he lives, if he doth not begin with God betimes, though afterwards he be converted ; for when a man is not framed betimes to God, he suffers the canker of self-will to fret so deep, .that reason, law, and religion hath much ado to bring them to the denial of themselves. To give you an instance in Adonijah, 1 Kings i, 5, 6, ' Who exalted himself, saying, I will be king.' A rough self-willed young man ; he would have sovereignty and a crown, and not stay for it till David was dead, or submit to the appointment of a successor : ' I will be king ; ' and why ? It is said, ' His father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so ? ' He had too much of his will when he was a youth. As Plutarch noteth of Coriolanus, a noble Eoman, that for want of a good and seasonable education, being left young under the tutelage of his mother, and she left him to his own will, was so impatient and wilful that no man could hardly converse with him. 0 christians ! when religion begins late, and men have to do with corrup- tions habituated and confirmed by long time and loose education, it cannot show itself with such lustre and advantage. Therefore it is good to break the will of young ones, to train them up to bear the yoke from their youth ; otherwise though they should be subdued by grace and in a great measure broken, yet this disadvantage remains with them to their dying day. Those that are seasoned well with sober education, either they are not so bad as others, or it woi'se becomes them to do evil, and they cannot sin without many checks of conscience which others have not. Therefore a good and sober education is a great advantage, to be trained up from our youth, though it be but to moral virtue.
2. While parents and governors are careful to season those tender vessels, the Lord is pleased many times to replenish them with grace from above, and to give in his blessing upon their education, and many have been converted that way. We read of Obadiah, 1 Kings xviii. 12, ' But I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth.' Josiah, 2 Chron. xiv. 3, ' In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.' So Timothy, 2 Tim. i. 5, ' When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice, and
1 am persuaded that in thee also.' His mother and grandmother were full of faith and sobriety, and they were seasoning of him, and training him up from his youth to be acquainted with the will of God ; and what a notable instance of abstinence and sobriety did he prove :
2 Tim. iii. 15, 'And that from a child thou hast known the holy scrip- tures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.' Certainly it is much to have youth brought up in knowledge and in the power of godliness. Families are societies to be sanctified to God as well as churches, and governors of families have a charge of souls as well as pastors of churches, and therefore they should be careful of them, and may wait for God's blessing upon the education of youth. There be many ofi'er their children to God in baptism (and they do well in so doing), but educate and train them up for the world and the flesh
448 SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. [SeR. IV,
which they renounce in baptism. You will bewail any natural defect of your children, and seek to cure it while they are young, if they have a stammering tongue, a deaf ear, or a lame leg j certainly you ought much more to bewail the want of grace. We murmur at outward defects, which is a taxing of providence, it being a fruit of the Lord's dominion ; but these belong to our care ,; ' Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it,' Prov. xxii. 6. Dye the cloth in the wool, and not in the web, and the colour is more durable. God works strangely in children, and many notable things have been found in them beyond expectation.
[3.] It prevents many sins which afterwards would be a trouble to us when we are old. Oh ! many think that the tricks of youth are long since forgotten and forgiven ; but alas ! the guilt of them may fly in our faces afterward ; nay, though they be pardoned, and the persons reconciled to God. The sins of youth trouble many a tender conscience in age ; witness David, Ps. xxv. 7, ' Eemember not the sins of my youth.' And Job, chap. xiii. 26, ' Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.' A good man may remember old sins with new fears that they are not pardoned. While it is easy to sin, it is easy to believe the pardon of sin (marvel not at the expression) ; while we are young, and sin freely, we think God will forgive those sins, and they will soon be forgotten ; but as a man grows up into more tenderness of conscience, and into a greater awe, and sense, and esteem of God's holiness, what a holy God he serves, he finds it the more difficult to believe the pardon of sin. Good men have with much bitterness of soul called to mind the sins of their youth, when they see the sins of their younger days are so many, and the breaches of God's law so innumerable, whereby they have offended God, that either through ignorance or inconsideration they have so sinned against God that they have much ado to believe the pardon of the multitude of their youthful sins. New afflictions may awaken the sense of old sins, as old bruises may trouble us long after upon every change of weather. There are some that feel the sins of their youth in their bodies, when the pains and aches of their miserable age are the fruits of their youthful vanities and intemperance ; as it is said, Job XX. 11, ' His bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.' They carry the marks of their youthful sins ; their bones feel them till they lie down in the dust. Nay, God's children, that have repented, and God hath been reconciled to them through Christ, they have many a bitter remembrance of their youth- ful follies and vanities, that make their hearts ache at the thoughts of them : Jer. xxxi. 19, ' Surely after that I was turned I repented, and after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh, I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.' Therefore upon these considerations certainly it is very good to begin with God betimes, that it may not be a disadvantage to us after God shall call us to grace ; for though the Lord may bless the education of youth with supernatural grace, yet youthful vanities may prove very bitter in the remembrance of them when we grow old.