5PIRITUAL PEACE AND COMPORT. 417 witha prediction or half promise, that if we " train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he shall not depart from it ; " Prov. xxii. 6. Now, it is certain that God will usually bless that which he appointethto be the usual means, if it be rightly used. For he hath appointed nomeans to be used in vain. I hope, therefore, by this time, you see, that, instead of being troubled, that the work was done on your soul by the means of education: i. You had more reason to be troubled if it had been done first by the public preachingof the word ; for it should grieve you at the heart to think, 1, That you lived in an unregenerate state so long, and spent your childhood in vanity and sin, and thought not seriously on God and your salvation, for so many years together. , 2. And that youoryour parent's sin shouldprovoke God so long to withdraw his Spirit and deny you his grace. iì. You may see also what inconceivable thanks you owe to God, who made edilcation.the means of your early change : 1. In that he prevented so many and grievous sins which else you would have been guilty of. (And you may read in David's and Manasseh's case, that even pardoned sins have ofttimes very sad effects left behind them.) 2. That you have enjoyed God's Spirit and love so much longer than else you would have done. 3. That iniquity took not so deep rooting in you, as by custom it would have done. 4. 1'hat the devil cannot glory of that service which you did him, as else he might; and that the church is not so much the worse, as else it might have been by themischief you would have done ; and that you need not all your days look back withso much trouble, as else you must, upon the effects of your ill doing; nor with Paul, to think of one Stephen ; yea, many saints, in whose blood you first embrued your hands ; and to cry out, ' I was born out of due time. I am not worthy to be called a Christian, because I persecuted the church of God. IIwas mad against them, and persecuted them into several cities. I was sometimes foolish, disobedient, serving divers lusts and pleasures.' Wouldyou rather that God had per- mitted you to do this ? 5. And methinks it should be a comfort to you, that your own father was the instrument of your spiritual good ; that he that was the means of your generation, was the means of your regeneration, both because it will be a double com- fort to your parents, and because it will endear and engage you to them in a double bond. For my part, Iknow not what God did se- cretly in my heart, before I had the .use of memory and reason ; but the first good that ever I felt on my soul, was from the coun- sels and teachings of my own father in my childhood ; and I take it now for a double mercy, being more glad that he was the instru- ment to do me good, than if it had been the best preacher in the world. How foul an oversight is it, then, that you should be trou- VOL. T. 53
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=