Counsels for Young Men

Some Counsils let me leave with you.

1. Do nothing which you are unwilling that ever the world should know that you have done that thing. For it is certain that at the day of Judgment all will be known: even every work whether it be good, or whether it be evil. All the passages of your lives wherever you have been, will be called over. They are all written down in a book (Revelation 20:12). The Jews have an apprehension that the angels write down all the works of men, and will produce them at the day of Judgment. To be sure, God writes them down, and conscience will remember them, and the world will hear of them. This is a good rule for every man to remember: I would not have it known that such a thing has been done by me, then never let me do it. If young men would remember this, it would keep them from committing many a sin. Remember therefore the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has said, There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known (Luke 12:2).

2. Beware of those sins in a special manner which do often times prove the ruin of young men. To instance, breaches of the Seventh Commandment are evils which young men are often found guilty of, and by indulging themselves therein they provoke God in a way of judicial dispensation to give them up to that and to other lusts of their own heart also. The Lord in his fiercest wrath says, He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Again, those sins of drinking and company keeping prove fatal to the souls of many young persons. A father once hearing that a son of his was become a drunkard, gave him up for lost and gone. I shall never forget with what anguish a young man that died in this place above twenty years ago, on his deathbed laid the ruin of his soul to his vain drinking companions. Beware of that sin of idleness, or mispence of precious time: there are many young men who have much to answer for in this respect. They have not been diligent in their callings. They have enticed one another to go to the ale-house, or to the coffee-house, or to the tavern, when they have no call to be there; and there do they spend a world of precious time in drinking, or in unprofitable discourse, or it may be in gaming; for which they will have a fearful account to give to God at the hour of death, and at the Judgment to come. An old dying man once said to some young persons, O children prize your time, I would give a thousand worlds that I had not lost the time of my youth.

3. Let the counsils of godly parents be of great weight with you. Hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother (Proverbs 1:8). To disobey and disregard the admonitions of a father is one of the blackest marks of reprobation that can be. Witness the sons of Eli, of whom it is said, They hearkened not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them (1 Samuel 2:25). If you are such a child as will not hearken to the voice of your father, you may fear that the Lord has determined your destruction. The very heathen have reverence for the counsils — especially the dying counsils — of their parents. And have you who are born of Christian parents less religion in you than they? Oh, beware of becoming guilty of the Fifth Commandment, lest your light be put out in obscure darkness. Signal blessings are wont to attend dutiful, and signal curses follow disobedient children. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you, and you may be long on the earth. Did you ever know any die on the gallows, but they professed that their ruin began with disobedience to their parents? And no doubt (as one speaks) Hell rings with the same complaints.

4. Remember death, and the day of Judgment. Think seriously and often of your dying. You have heard, and daily experience of it before your eyes, may convince you that young persons may die as well as others. Serious thoughts about it would put you upon prayer and preparations for it. A man whose constant practice was to pray six times every day gave this reason for his doing so: I remember I must die. I have elsewhere spoken of a gracious praying child, whom the thoughts of death caused to be much in prayer; and when some said to him, you are a child and may live many years, what should you think of death for, he replied, I was in the burying place, and there I saw a grave that was shorter than I am. You young ones may die, and therefore you are concerned to repent and pray, and make sure of an interest in Christ. And think sadly with yourself, If I should die this night, what would become of my soul? In what place would my immortal soul be lodged for ever? And remember the great day of Judgment. Live now as you will wish you had lived, when that day comes. Think with yourself, If Jesus Christ the Son of God should now rend the heavens and come down to judge the earth, what would He say to me? What sentence would He pronounce upon me? Would He say to me, Come you blessed, or would He not say, Go you cursed? Remember these things now, so may you hope to find mercy in that day.