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Lord, "I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."

From this affecting contrast in the characters of Abraham and of Eli, judge how much parents are concerned diligently to train up their children in the knowledge of God.

Further, the condition in which they are born lays a strong obligation upon parents to do all in their power to promote their salvation. What compassion is due to them! They are born wholly distempered. Do not you see how much grief, anger, and vexation they feel, even in their childhood, from natural stubbornness, passion, envy, pride, and selfishness? Do you not know what these disorders portend; what greater troubles and severer conflicts await them; what frequent and more cutting vexations they are to meet with, unless these violent and baleful passions are subdued? Are you not conscious that the lattent seeds of various lust in their hearts will by time and occasion grow up, ripen, and bring forth in abundance every evil work, unless preventive methods are, in childhood, seasonably applied by those who have authority over them? Can you consider all this, and neglect to bring them, in the arms of faith and prayer, to the physician of the soul? Can you be satisfied, nature should have its course without discipline, without laying salutary restraints upon them, without repeating to them a thousand times, in all affection and earnestness, how much they need, and ought to seek, his power and grace, who came to save the lost?

Was a parent to desert his child in a wilderness infested with ravenous beasts, or full of covered pits, when his presence, counsel, and experience might have given protection, would not his barbarity shock every humane mind? But do you, O parent, act in a more tender manner, who leave your child

to walk through a world full of enticing objects, smiling only to enslave, and where subtle malicious foes lie in ambush to destroy? To pass through such a world, without the light of faith, the defence of God, the influence of his Spirit; ignorance of the foundation of justice, truth, sobriety, chastity, and a Christian life; in what strength they must be practised; why so absolutely required, and what irreparable loss follows the violation of these duties to the last. A young man or woman entering upon the stage of life, in ignorance of these things, is as a child deserted by its unnatural parent in the howling desert, and not more likely to escape destruction.

Again, was you, O parent, to abandon your child to poverty, or see him hastening to a jail, and an infamous death, yet use no pains to reclaim him from his courses, how could you excuse your conduct? Be not deceived; you are doing so in effect, whilst you despise their souls, and neglect deeply to impress them with a sense of their duty. For go now, and ask confined debtors what deprived them of sweet liberty, their family and society of their labours (a few cases only excepted), the answer from that place of wretchedness would be this: No cruel rigour of our creditors, or losses unavoidable, but headstrong passions, unchecked by the fear of God, which was never instilled in our childhood, brought us to this shameful house of our prison. Our parents were first accessary to our ruin. Some of them have lived to see it, and been tortured by self-accusation on our account. Amidst all other instances of their love for us, the grand one was still wanting; they took no pains to give conscience authority, by teaching us God's work. This would have made us tremble at those sins, which have destroyed our peace, our character, our substance, and leave us no hope of a better condition in the world to come, than we have in this.

Consider, O parents, with yourselves, how would you be able to bear such a charge from them, who were intrusted of God to your care, that you might early instil into their minds the principles of the Christian faith, and guide them into the paths of righteousness.

But should there be parents so hardened in profane principles, as not to regard what becomes of their offspring after death, provided they prosper in this world, let them hear once more (whether they will believe it or no), the day is coming, when they must see their relation to their children was constituted for much higher ends than to secure them any worldly advantages, or to keep them from poverty and want. Then, what agony will be felt, when children call out for justice on their infidel parents, imputing, in some measure, to their cruelty, the everlasting miseries which are come upon them? They kept the dreadful danger out of sight, they suffered their passions to rule, they joined in extolling pleasure, riches, honour, and power; but never exposed the mischief, infamy, and ruin, inseparable from obstinate disobedience to God. How insufferable the anguish, when children, with bitter imprecations, will rage against their father and mother, and curse the day in which they were born to them; born finally to aggravate their misery, by perishing all together!

The united force of these various obligations and heart-affecting considerations should make all Christian parents do what lies in their power to prepare their offspring to receive the truth of God, in the use of those methods on which they may expect his blessing.

SUNDAY XXXVII.

CHAP. XXXVII.

The same Subject continued.

THE duty of all Christian parents to instruct their children in the knowledge of God has been laid before you. But as the capacities of men differ no less than their condition, it is accordingly the duty of some, and what will undoubtedly be required at their hands, to bestow more time and pains on this matter than others are capable of doing, though ever so desirous.

Poor people will discharge their duty to their children by correcting them, from their infancy, for stubbornness and quarrelling, for lying, using bad words, for pilfering in the least degree, and for every mark of a cruel disposition; by frequently telling them, it is a good and gracious God who gives their parents strength to earn food for them; that his eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good, that he may give to every one according to his do. ings, when he shall judge the world; that this glori ous God will ever love, bless, and comfort those who fear and love him, and their fellow creatures; but will punish, with inconceivable pains, all the ungodly, for doing the things, and living in the tempers, which he hates, and hath forbidden.

Every poor day-labourer, who loves God, has it farther in his power to teach his children to pray morning and evening; to tell them the Bible is the word of God, which must judge them, and all Christians, and which they must obey and love; to carry them to church on the Lord's day, and keep them from

profaning it. When these things are enforced by good example, there is little doubt but the children of the poor will, in general, be much restrained; they will have a conscience well informed, and tread in the steps of their poor, but right honourable parents; and where so little time can be spared from hard and continual labour, and the understanding be so little improved, this, I apprehend, may be esteemed a full discharge of their duty towards their children, whilst they are very young.

When years have ripened their minds, all who believe in Jesus, however poor, will be able to enlarge their instructions which they give to them: they will assure them, their own consciences never were purged from guilt, till they depended on the atonement made on the cross, and pleaded that alone for their pardon before God; that they have obtained victory over their own wickedness, and violent tempers, in his strength and power; that they have been preserved in much peace from worldly fears and anxiety for their bread, by seeking, in the first place, the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and by casting all their care upon him.

In the middle ranks of life. a better education qualifies parents to go much beyond the poor in this important matter. Such persons, therefore, must not only use the methods of instruction above mentioned to form in their children a love for truth, justice, and mercy, a desire to serve and please God, but study, to make divine knowledge pleasant to them. This may be done with great success by using not books so much as outward objects and particular occurrences, which will give a body and substance to religious truths; and, by proper attention, a most agreeable variety of instances may be chosen, which will take in the several grand branches of divine knowledge.

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