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ter-ways are but remedies, which do always fuppofe fome neglect and omiffion of timely care.

And because our laws leave fo much to parents, our care should be fo much the greater and we fhould remember, that we bring up our children for the publick; and that, if they live to be men, as they come out of our hands, they will prove a publick happiness or mischief to the age. So that we can no way better deserve of mankind, and be greater benefactors to the world, than by peopling it with a righteous offspring. Good children. are the hopes of pofterity; and we cannot leave the world a better legacy than well-disciplined children. This gives the world the beft fecurity, that religion will be propagated to pofterity, and that the generations to come fhall know God; and the children that are to be born, fball fear the Lord.

This was the great glory of Abraham, next to his being the friend of God, that he was the father of the faithful. And the careful education of children, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, is fo honourable to parents, that God himself would not pafs it by in Abraham without fpecial mention of it to his everlasting commendation: I know Abraham, (fays God), that he will command his children, and his houshold after him, to keep the way of the Lord, and to do juftice and judgment, Gen. xviii. 19.

5. Confider yet further the great evils confequent upon this neglect. And they are manifold. But, not to enlarge particularly upon them, they all end in this, the final mifcarriage and ruin of children. Do but leave depraved corrupt nature to itfelf, and it will take its own courfe; and the end of it, in all probability, will be miferable.

If the generous feeds of religion and virtue be not carefully fown in the tender minds of children, and thofe feeds be not cultivated by good education, there will certainly fpring up briers and thorns; of which parents will not only feel the inconveniences, but every body elfe that comes near them.

Neglectis urenda filix innafcitur agris.

If the ground be not planted with fomething that is good,

good, it will bring forth that which is either useless or hurtful, or both: for nature is feldom barren; it will either bring forth useful plants, or weeds.

We are naturally inclined to evil; and the neglect of education puts children upon a kind of neceffity of becoming what they are naturally inclined to be. Do but let them alone, and they will soon be habituated to fin and vice. And when they are once accustomed to do evil, they have loft their liberty and choice. They are then hardly capable of good counsel and inftruction; or, if they be patient to hear it, they have no power to follow it, being bound in the chains of their fins, and led captive by Satan at his pleasure. And, when they have brought themselves into this condition, their ruin feems to be fealed; and, without a miracle of God's grace, they are never to be reclaimed.

Nor doth the mischief of this neglect end here; but it extends itself to the publick, and to pofterity. If we neglect the good education of our children, they will, in all probability, prove bad men; and thefe will neglect their children: and fo the foundation of an endless mischief is laid; and our pofterity will be bad members both of church and commonwealth.

If they be neglected in matter of instruction, they will either be ignorant or erroneous; either they will not. mind religion, or they will disturb the church with new and wild opinions. And I fear that the neglect of inftructing and catechizing youth, of which this age hath been fo grofsly guilty, hath made it fo fruitful of errors and ftrange opinions.

But if, befides this, no care be taken of their lives and manners, they will become burdens of the earth, and pests of human fociety, and fo much poison and infection let abroad into the world.

6. and lastly, Parents should often confider, that the neglect of this duty will not only involve them in the inconvenience, and shame, and forrow of their childrens mifcarriage, but in a great measure in the guilt of it: they will have a great fhare in all the evil they do, and be in fome fort chargeable with all the fins they commit. If the children bring forth wild and fowre rents teeth will be fet on edge.

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The temporal mifchiefs and inconveniences which come from the careless education of children, as to credit, health, and eftate, all which do ufually fuffer by the vitious and lewd courfes of your children; thefe, methinks, fhould awaken your care and diligence. But what is this to the guilt which will redound to you upon their account? Part of all their wickedness will be put upon your fcore; and poffibly the fins which they commit many years after you are dead and gone, will follow you into the other world, and bring new fuel to hell, to heat that furnace hotter upon you.

However, this is certain, that parents must one day be accountable for all their neglects of their children : and fo likewife fhall minifters and mafters of families, for their people and fervants, fo far as they had the charge of them.

And what will parents be able to fay to God at the day of judgment, for all their neglects of their children, in matter of inftruction, and example, and restraint from evil? How will it make your ears to tingle, when God fhall arife terribly to judgment, and fay to you, "Be"hold, the children which I have given you; they 66 were ignorant, and you inftructed them not; they "made themfelves vile, and you reftrained them not. "Why did you not teach them at home, and bring them "to church, to the publick ordinances and worship of "God, and train them up to the exercise of piety and "devotion? But you did not only neglect to give them good inftruction, but you gave them bad example: "and lo, they have followed you to hell, to be an ad"dition to your torment there.

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"Unnatural wretches that have thus neglected, and, "by your neglect, deftroyed thofe, whofe happiness, by "fo many bonds of duty and affection, you were obliged to procure. Behold, the books are now open, and "there is not one prayer upon record that ever you put 66 up for your children there is no memorial, no not "fo much as of one hour, that ever was feriously spent to train them up to a fenfe of God, and to the knowledge of their duty; but, on the contrary, it appears, "that you have many ways contrived their mifery, and "contributed to their ruin, and helped forward their. "damnation.

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"damnation. How could you be thus unnatural? how "could you thus hate your own flesh, and hate your

own fouls? How much better had it been for them, "and how much better for you, that they had never "been born?"

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Would not fuch a heavy charge as this make every joint of you to tremble? Will it not cut you to the heart, and pierce your very fouls, to have your children challenge you in that day; and fay to you, one by one, "Had you been as careful to teach me the good know"ledge of the Lord, as I was capable of learning it; "had you been but as forward to inftruct me in my duty, as I was ready to have hearkened to it, it had not "been with me as it is at this day; I had not now stood trembling here in a fearful expectation of the eternal "doom which is just ready to be paffed upon me. Cur"fed be the man that begat me, and the paps that gave 66 me fuck it is to you that I must in a great measure 66 owe my everlasting undoing?" Would it not strike any of us with horror to be thus challenged and reproached by our children in that great and terrible day of the Lord?

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I am not able to make fo dreadful a representation of this matter as it deferves. But I would, by all this, if it be poffible, awaken parents to a fenfe of their duty, and terrify them out of this grofs and fhameful neglect which fo many are guilty of. For when I feriously confider how fupinely remifs and unconcerned many parents are as to the religious education of their children, I cannot but think of that faying of Auguftus concerning Herod, "Better be his dog than his child." I think it was spoken to another purpofe; but it is true likewise to the purpose I am speaking of. Better be fome mens dogs, or hawks, or horses, than their children: for they take a greater care to breed and train up these to their feveral ends and uses, than to breed up their children for eternal happiness.

Upon all these accounts, train up a child in the way he fhould go, that when he is old, he may not depart from it; that neither your children may be miferable by your fault, nor you by the neglect of fo natural and neceffary a duty toward them. God grant, that all that are concerned VOL. III.

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may

may lay these things seriously to heart, for his mercies fake in Jefus Chrift. To whom, with thee, O Father, and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, both now and Amen.

ever.

S

ERMON LIV.

Of the advantages of an early piety.

Preached in the church of St. Lawrence-Jewry, in the year 1662.

ECCLES. xii. 1.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt fay, I have no pleasure in them.

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N the former difcourfes, concerning the education of children, I have carried the argument through the ftate of childhood to the beginning of the next step of their age, which we call youth, when they come to exercise their reason, and to be fit to take upon themfelves the performance of that folemn vow which was made for them by their fureties in baptifm.

To encourage them to fet ferioufly and in good earneft about this work, I fhall now add another difcourfe concerning the advantages of an early piety. And to this purpose I have chofen for the foundation of it these words of Solomon, in his book called Ecclefiaftes, or The Preacher: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt fay, I have no pleafure in them.

It will not be neceffary to give an account of the context, any further than to tell you, that this book of the Royal preacher is a lively description of the vanity of the world in general, and particularly of the life of man. This is the main body of his fermon; in which there are here and there fcattered many ferious reflexions upon ourfelves, and very weighty confiderations to quicken

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