A Letter of Advice, &c. Dear Children, FOR SO I must call you, not only as you are descended from me, but also because, by the death of your parents, I stand, as it were, your immediate father. I am now grown to a great age, (threescore and four years,) and am now hastening out of this world into a better; and you are all very young, and setting out for a voyage into this world, like small pinnaces into a dangerous and troublesome sea full of rocks, and shoals, and storms, and tempests, and I cannot do a more seasonable and fatherly office, than to prescribe you some rules and directions, which by the blessing of God may be a help and guidance to you to steer and order your course through it B when I am gone, and this is the business of this letter. The things that ordinarily give weight and efficacy to counsel, besides the evidence and truth of the counsels themselves, are commonly, 1st. The authority of him that gives them good counsels oftentimes given by one that hath no authority, are despised. 2d. The intelligence and understanding of him that gives them : where a fool gives counsel or advice, though possibly it may be sound and seasonable by accident, yet the counsel is despised, because men usually judge of the counsel by the person that gives it. 3d. The age and experience of him that gives it: this contributes to the credit and esteem of the counsel; and on the other side, the counsel of a young man, though of good intelligence and understanding, is oftentimes suspected and neglected. 4th. The sincere affection of him that gives it: counsel given by a man that loves not him to whom it is given, is commonly either ungrateful and unacceptable, or suspected to be given by design, to delude or deceive him to whom it is given. The counsel and advice which I give you, besides the true solidity and prudence of the counsels themselves, comes unto you with all |