The Young Mans Monitor, Chapter 5
CHAP. V. Instruction in respect of relation, and a right deportment therein.
BUt this precedent Subject being exceeding large, even as large as life it self with all the various occurrences and passages of it; I must forbear the further unfolding of it; it is more than this present Paper is able to admit. I shall only now request you.
1. As Children, to an obediential carriage toward your Parents.
2. As Servants, to a due subjection toward your Masters.
1 A Children toward Parents.First, As Children in relation to your Parents; Let it not seem a burden to you to honour them as becomes you in the Lord. God doth not so much urge your duty upon you by force of bare command: but fatherly sweetens it with a very welcome and grateful promise.Eph. 6.2. Honour thy Father and thy Mother; which is the first Commandment with promise. Be you truly dutiful to those from whom, under God, your life came: and God shall poure forth his dear blessing upon you, and your whole life, all your daies in the Land of the living. Sow not sparingly, if you desire to reap plentifully.
Writers have been on all hands voluminous in this righteous and lovely subject, and have frequently told us *Deo & parentibus non possumus reddere aequalia. Cajetan.There is no equal requital can be made to God, or Parents. So great is your debt, so great is your duty to both. The †Pl…t…rch de amore fraterno.Heathen have been very full and express in it; professing that it is no waies enough that we barely refrain such evil courses as would become a positive grief and sorrow to Parents; which yet too many will not forbear: but it will be further expected that we do not privatively detain from them that joy and comfort which is their just due: but endeavour in the most filial deportment to lay before them all sweet matter of gladness and of rejoycing.
Honour them, and obey them. It was no meaner Person than our Saviour himself, of whom we read, that he went down with Ioseph and Mary his Mother,Luk. 2.51. and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. Loe! here an example indeed; Be ye followers of Christ as dear Children.
Accept their Counsels with thankfulness; They are the counsels of their long-drawn experience, and may be of great use, faithful guides through your following life. Bear their rebukes with meekness; they are the rebukes of Parents, that have authority over you; they are the fruits of tenderest love, which your selves know they so affectionately bear unto you.
Despise not their age though frail; slight not their persons though mean. Divulge not their infirmities, though many; lest the Curse of Cham overtake you, for adding to their weakness your wickedness.
These things it may be the Lord may thus order for your trial, for the more kindly and genuine expression of your duty.Pro. 23.22. Hearken unto thy Father that begat thee, and despise not thy Mother when she is old. Where the hedge is lowest God repairs it strongest; that our duty might still remain inviolable.
If they be, as Iacob, in any straights; be you, as Ioseph, their staff; or like the pious Stork, *foreign a beneficentia, nam genetricum senectam educant, &c. Buxt.the nourisher of their Age. If God shall hereafter shine upon you, and raise your future condition to an honour amongst men; Hide not your eyes from your meaner Parents. Acknowledge them chearfully, Honour them willingly. Behave your selves in their presence very respectfully. Say still as that †Lewis the 13th.King of France; Though I be now Superiour to many others, I am still Inferiour to my Parents.
The glory of the Aged is their experience and their wisdom. The glory of the young man is his modesty and submission. And we may truly say, as the Apostle in a case not altogether unlike, He that honoureth not his natural Parents whom he hath seen; how shall he honour his heavenly Father whom he hath not seen?
Your Parents have hitherto cared for you with an exceeding great care; and what shall now be done for them? Oh! requite their affectionate tenderness toward you with a filial Ingenuity and Respectfulness toward them. *A se migrat, & abhomin…e totus transit in besliam, paterne pietatis immemor, gratiae genitoris oblitus.He were hard-hearted indeed, and unnatural beyond expression, who could requite his Parents evil for all their good.
Secondly, As Servants in relation to your Masters. 2 As Servants toward Masters.Be ye indeed their Servants to whom you yield your selves to obey. Your very relation speaks you not your own: but theirs. If you receive their wages, do not your own, much less Satans work.
Be you to your several Masters as Eleazar once to Abraham, religious, prudent,Gen. 24. industrious, and faithful in all your Masters business. Interesting the Lord (as he) by humble prayer in all your undertakings. Careful (as he also was) though at the greatest distance from your Masters eye. Speaking (as he likewise did) becomingly of the Family in the hearing of strangers; and very desirous (as he still shewed himself) that your Masters affairs might prosper under your hands.
Such a Servant the heart of his Master shall rejoyce, and easily trust in him. Such a Servant we may truly say, is already preferred to an higher place. The Apostle plainly tels us, that such serve the Lord Christ, Col. 3.24and shall of him receive the reward of inheritance. Faithful Servants (whatever others do) God will take a particular care of them, and will see that their wages shall not be abridged or detained from them. Their Masters may account with them for their outward service: but when they have so done, God will assuredly yet further requite them an hundred fold, because they have done this thing in the singleness of their hearts, serving their Masters as in the sight of God, and for his sake.
You are ready it may be sometimes too dejectedly to sit down and complain, That the Orbe and Sphaere in which you are placed is low and mean; (and so indeed comparatively it is) but still it is such that the Lord reckons his very Gospel stands capable of receiving great lustre, much honour from you and your gracious carriage. It is you that in so particular a manner may adorn the doctrine of God and our Saviour. Tit. 2.10.To be saved by the Gospel is much: but to be an ornament to the Gospel seems more; yet this may the meanest, the poorest Servant be. And oh what praise (like the widows mite above the stately gifts of richer ones) doth it offer to the name of the Lord! when a Child of God intituled to heaven, can bring down his heart willingly to stoop and serve him in the meanest capacity which he shall please to set him in here on earth. Blessed are those Servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall sind so doing.
Be ye then satisfied, rest your selves contented in the condition wherein the Lord hath called you.
Service may seem some Eclipse: but still (as the Eclipse) it needs no… …e total. Your *Si qui… existi…at servitutem in totu… hominem …, pars ejus melior est excepta. Ser… est, se… sort… …, liber. Seneca.nobler part, your soul, (without the least injury to your service) may nevertheless fairly enjoy a divine liberty.
Service and freedom the Lord himself tells us, are sweetly compatible. You may be servants to others accordin to the flesh: and yet as truly the Lords freemen walking in much liberty of Spirit.
Cast not away your encouragements. Let not the comforts that are so peculiarly su…ed to your condition seem mean in your eyes. A vertuous Epi…letus may at any time live s… better, and more honourably upon his poor service, than a vicious Nero upon a whole Empire.
Your service in your several places for the present, it is not your M…sters advantage only, but your own als…; it is your preparation and making ready for your selves against the …, wherein we may all too …ruly conclude; …vil courses under anothers roof are rarely mended, very sel…om redressed when we come to live under our own. Be …eful to serve the Families wherein you …r pre…en… …; diligently, cherfully, and … now, and in that sweet habitu…l … sition you shall gr…w up and beco…e a blessing to yours, whenever God shall make you … by your selves.