The Necessity of Serious Consideration and Speedy Repentance, Imprimatur – Dedication
IMPRIMATUR,
R A. BARKER. August 24. 1691.
THE NECESSITY OF Serious Consideration, AND SPEEDY REPENTANCE, As the only WAY to be SAFE BOTH LIVING and DYING.
By CLEMENT ELIS, M. A. Rector of Kirkby in Nottinghamshire.
Psalm 119.59, 60.
I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.
I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments.
LONDON: Printed, and are to be Sold by William Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street, and Thomas Elis in Mansfield. 1691.
TO MY CHILDREN.
My dear Children,
THO this Plain Discourse of The Necessity of SERIOUS CONSIDERATION and SPEEDY REPENTANCE, seem to me very needful to many, and is therefore published, that all who need it, and please to make use of it, may have by them a friendly Rememebrancer to put them in mind to take all due care of themselves: Yet because of the special Love and Care I ought to have for you, as I am your Father, I do in a more special manner commend it to you, as the very best Advice I am able to give you; and seeing my life cannot now be much longer, it may be the last.
If I have expected from you the Duty of Obedient Children, it hath been always more for your sakes than mine own; that you might be sharers in that special Promise which St. Paul tells you belongs to them that Honour their Father and Mother, Ephes. 6.2, 3. And I shall always reckon, that you very fully pay all that Honour which you owe to me, so long as I see you make it your chief business to fear God, and keep his Commandments, which is your whole Duty, Eccl. 2.13. Honour always your Father which is in Heaven; and be sure you can do no greater Honour than that to your Parents upon Earth. And as you may justly expect from me the Love and Care of a Father; so you ought to think, that I never better express either of them towards you, than when, as the same St. Paul hath commanded me, I endeavour to bring you up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, v. 4. For whatever else God shall enable me to do for you, in this I take care at once both of your Souls and Bodies; Godliness having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come, 1 Tim. 4.8.
I dare not be confident, that I have not much fail'd you in this Duty of a Father, whilst you were all at home with me, and under my eye. Neither can I now hope to have you again much with me whilst I live, or indeed that I shall live much longer to take any care at all of you. The only way therefore that is now left me, either to make you amends for such neglects of you, as I may have been at any time guilty of; or to testify my earnest desire, that you may be always happy in the Service, and under the Blessing of Almighty God, the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST, to whom you were in your Baptism dedicated; is first, daily so long as I live to pray for his Grace to guide and govern you in the ways of Truth and Holiness to Eternal Life; and then to put into your hands the substance of all those pious Instructions which I could ever be able to give you, were we to live here together to the World's end.
This, if I mistake not, I have already in some good measure done in three small Books, viz. CHRISTIANITY in SHORT; the SCRIPTURE-CATECHISM, and the COMMUNICANT'S GUIDE. If you be perfect in these, you will understand reasonably well both what you are to believe, do, desire, and hope for; and will be able to reap more benefit by the reading of other more excellent Books, and chiefly that Book of books, the BOOK of GOD, which I do charge you with all the Authority of a Father, to read so long as you live, when not unavoidably hinder'd (some part of it daily); and that with the greatest seriousness and attention of mind, with the devoutest Reverence to the Great GOD, whose Word it is, and with most earnest Prayers to Him, to enlighten your understandings by it, and to conform your Wills wholly unto it.
Consider well all that you read or hear, and speedily put in practice all that is your Duty to do, and cast off every Sin without delay; As this Discourse will, I hope, convince you, it is altogether necessary for you to do. Having therein said so much to you and others joyntly, I shall not need to say much more now to you alone. Only let me advise you to bear this always in remembrance, That if you will be saved, it must be by obeying the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST, our only Saviour, which you cannot do, but by denying your selves, by doing his will and not your own; following his Rules, and not the Customs and Fashions of the Persons, great or small, amongst whom you live. Our Wills are corrupt and perverse, and the Multitude is always in the broad way to Destruction. You have need of much Christian courage to save your selves from this untoward Generation. O, as you love God and your selves, be neither ashamed nor afraid to live as the few do, which are in the narrow way to Life. Stoutly resolve to be as indifferent for the World, as you see many zealous for it; and as zealous for God and Heaven, as you see others regardless of them. Pray fervently for strength to do as you resolve; and then I doubt not, but you will be a comfort to me whilst I live, and an Honour to me when I am dead; and when you are dead too, we shall all live together again in the Eternal Joys of Heaven, through JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Amen.