Of the duty

punished; for no unkindness nor fault of a parent can difcharge the child of this duty, which God has commanded. VII. Hence it cannot be very difficult to collect that there is a duty also incumbent upon the parent to the child: a duty that is taught by nature, and inforced of parents to by the strongest terms in the gofpel; which begins children. the moment we are born, and never can be dispensed with fo long as the child liveth, and is not wanting in his duty to his parents. For, did we only view the natural care of the very brutes for their young, it must be granted that the slothful, over-nice, or unnatural mother must read her They must own conviction, and neglecting or difdaining to nurse them." nurfe her own child, when able, muft confefs that the God of nature ordained that creature, who is bleffed with a a living offspring, to give the fame its firft nourishment. Thus much nature demands on the very first appearance of the child. And, When we confider that the new-born babe is full of the ftain and pollution of fin, which it inherits from our first parents through our loins (for all men are them to conceived and born in fin, and before his age is a baptifm. day long he is full of corruption) how diligent should the parent be in bringing the child to that baptifm, which was ordained by Chrift to wash away our original corruption, to make us members of the church of Chrift; and to give us a right to the adoption of the children of God, and to the reverfion of the kingdom of heaven? and whoever neglects this part of their duty, though we hope God is more merciful than to lay it to the child's charge, is furely guilty of a great misdemeanor, and contempt of Chrift's holy inftitution. Again,

And bring

As foon as the child can begin to learn, the parent must also begin to train him up in the way he fhould Educate walk through every flage of his fucceeding life: them. For children have fouls as well as men: they foon discover their capacity of reasoning, and make it appear that they can learn the things of God and religion. The great God therefore expects that little children fhould be taught to know and love and worship him; for he hath not bestowed their early powers in vain. And as the child has promised to renounce the devil and all his works, to believe in God, and to ferve 04

him;

him; fo it is the parents duty to teach him, fo foon as he fhall be able to learn, what he has promifed in that facrament by his fureties; to carry them to hear fermons, to furnish him with an early knowledge of the chriftian belief, Lord's prayer, and ten commandments, and all other things which a chriftian ought to know and believe to his foul's health; and that he be christianly and virtuously brought up to lead a godly and chriftian life. For all thofe, whom God fhall efteem capable of duty and finning, must be answerable for their own perfonal conduct; and how early he will begin to require this account, he only knows. And the very light of nature teaches us, that parents are intrusted with the care of their children in their younger years, to furnish their minds with the feeds of virtue and happiness, as well as to provide for their bodies food and raiment. Muft the parent give him the best inftructions he can in the affairs of this perishing life, and refuse and neglect it in things of everlasting moment and divine importance? Is it not infinitely better that children fhould know and ferve God, because their parents teach them to do it, than that they should be utterly ignorant of God, and live in a stupid neglect of him and his fervice; can a religious parent fatisfy himself with this philofophical pretence of not byaffing the judgment of his children, and let them go on, and die, before they arrive at manhood, in a state of shameful ignorance and rebellion against their Maker? Are children intrusted to the affection and care of parents by the God of nature, for fo deplorable an end as this? And will the life and foul of the child never be required at the parent's hand?

And furely, if parents had but that just share of tendernefs and affection for their young fons and their daughters that nature requires, or the fcripture injoins; if they did but look upon them as little parts of themselves, they could not forbear to acquaint them with the things that belong to their everlasting welfare. Many other arguments may accrue from experience and obfervation, to convince parents that it is their duty to bring their children up in the christian religion; to teach them what they are to believe and practise; to instruct them in the knowledge of God, and of Jefus Chrift; to fhew them in what condition they are by nature, and to what

And teach

what they are advanced by grace; to how much mifery their being defcended from fo corrupt an original had reduced them, and how their actual fins indangered them by expofing them to God's wrath, and what deliverance from them was wrought by Christ our Lord. For where this is wanting, neither wisdom, riches, nor honours, can make them happy; without this they will, with all the reft, be miferable. Therefore, if parents would have children honour them, and behave obediently, they must thus bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord; they must furnish them with arguments both against error and vice, and them their teach them the christian law, where they will fee duty. their duty, and find fuch leffons of inftructions, fuch encouragements and promises of rewards, as will fecure their honour and respect, their service and obedience. The only way to educate children rightly is to teach them early to deny themselves the gratification of thofe irregular appetites which nature has implanted. Self-will, and an inclination to things forbidden, merely because they are forbidden, discover themfelves even in our infancy: vice is the natural product of the foil; the more uncultivated the mind is, the more it is overrun with it: but virtue is the flow laborious refult of repeated self-denials, hardships, and difficulties. I might add this alfo, as a small confideration, that, if parents take no care to inform their children of the duty they owe to God, they will quickly find that children will pay very little duty to their parents; and they will read their own crime of fhameful negligence towards God, in the rebellion of their offspring against themselves. But, if care be taken to catechise them, they will, in all probability, prove the good ground that is spoken of by our Saviour; and when they come to years to chufe for themselves, there is little doubt to be made but they will voluntarily and heartily espouse the religion of Jefus Christ, and will find all the reafon in the world to do fo. Therefore, if it pleases God to blefs you with children, begin very early to inftil into their tender minds the principles of virtue and religion; teach them to remember their Creator in the days of their youth, and bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Set before them the example of a holy and religious life; and endeavour to wean them

from

from the pride and vanity of the world, and from those hurtful lufts and paffions, which tend only to make them miferable both here and hereafter. Inftruct them in that knowledge which is ufeful and profitable, which will give them a right understanding of themselves and of their duty, and make them wife unto falvation. But if no care be taken of them, but the weeds of vice (which are natural enough) be fuffered first to poffefs the foil, that is, if their paffions, and luft, and pride, and fenfuality, and love of the world, have once taken up their hearts, it is very doubtful whether ever they will afterwards be fit for the kingdom of God; whether ever they will be prepared and difpofed for eternal life. It must be an extraordinary providence of God that muft make them so.

them good

Parents must take fpecial care never, as the manner of too Must give many is, to fet their child a bad example; for while a child fees his parents give them felves up to drunkexample. ennefs, or fwearing, or any other notorious breach of God's commands, it can fcarce be thought but that the child will too nearly copy after the parents example, and think himself ill-ufed if the parent fhall curb or correct him for his mifdemeanors. And

Means to

It is no lefs the parents duty, when they fee their children falling into evil courfes, to reclaim them, and prevent their mifery; and tho' it anger them, they must not let their duty give place to the child's paffion, but only regard what in likelihood will follow, and that is amendment; and not wards the how it will be relished by their children. It is true education of parents are forbid to provoke their children to children. wrath; yet to use restraint, reproof, and correction in reafon, tho' it provoke them to anger and impatience, is not to be forborne by parents. The laws of God and man have left the children to the parents, and will not punish them for doing that to them, which would be punishable if done to Atrangers: yet parents may not do any thing truly injurious to children; for nature gives them power to do them all the good they can, and only allows them the liberty of afflicting them for a time, in order to their amendment. Where the parent's confcience tells him, that the affliction he is laying upon his child is not likely to do him good, it tells him he has no autho

rity to do it, but that he is without natural affection. It should be the parent's care therefore, that he mistake not the filence of God's word, and the liberty that human laws leave to parents in the management of the children; that he mistake not these for the power and authority that nature gives him: for he may be unnatural to his children, though God's word prefcribes him no rule how far he may proceed, and though human laws will allow what he does, and though his own temper incline him to inhuman courfes; aparent may be unnatural for all these, and will be punished by our common parent for cruel ufage, which breaks the fpirits, fo that they have no heart to fet about any thing: when they perceive that all they fay and do is ill-taken, they have no courage to go on; when they perceive their endeavours fruitless, when children do all they can to win the affections of parents, and find them ftill morofe and untractable, it is natural to think they should be difconfolate, and give up all endeavours for the time to come. Such is the confequence of a fevere and rugged treatment. But it seldom ftops here, it produces a flavish and difingenuous fear of their parents, and fuch a fear puts children upon mean fhifts to make their peace, or to avoid their fight; they are never eafy but at a distance; they cannot please with truth, and therefore try how they can fucceed with falfhoods. And as it is a common obfervation, that love and kindness beget love: fo nothing is more likely to beget hatred than conftant ill-ufage; because that looks like the real fruit of hatred and ill-will. We caneafily difcern a difference betwixt a fudden tranfient anger, and a fettled difpofition to severity: when anger becomes habitual, and parents are not provoked, but always upbraid, and punish; then it is natural for the children to defpair of pleafing them, and to conclude they are the objects of their hatred and averfion; and this will naturally beget a coldness, mean thoughts, evil fufpicions, difregard to their commands, and fuch an averfion as will quickly end in downright hatred and contempt. Children not Moreover, it is a point of the greatest folly for either to fide with father or mother, as it too often is the cafe, to fup- against anport the children in contempt and disrespect to the other. other; this must never be attempted; it is indifcreet and un

one parent

just;