fcripture proofs fet down at large, and make much ufe thereof. Laftly, As you ought to cause them attend punctually this day upon the ordinances, fo you ought carefully this night to ask an account of the text, and their notes of the lecture and fermons; reprove them for careless hearing, encourage them when they give any tolerable good account, and promise them fome reward to do better the next Sabbath.

4. You ought this day to learn and enjoin your children to pray, and to afk a bleffing, and give thanks for their meat: you may fee fome helps for them in the end of the Mother's Catechifm before mentioned Children cannot pray at firft without help: Therefore it is fit to teach them fome fhort forms; and, in the first place, the Lord's Prayer, the great pattern of all prayer. Teach them to retire every morning and evening to pray, and to pray frequently on the Lord's day; and alfo caufe them go and pray together by turns; this would be a good mean to engage their love to one another, and to caufe them ftudy to be more grave and exact in their prayers: and therefore it were fit also to caufe them pray fometimes in your own hearing. Enjoin them alfo to be fervent and fincere in prayer, and to pray with a lively fenfe of God's all-feeing eye that beholds in fecret, and with an awful regard to the judgment of the great day. Likewife, when they come to any capacity, tell them, That they must not restrict themselves to their forms, but must make additions of their own framing; tell them, That God loves these. words beft that come from the heart; and, for their help therein, tell them often of their fin and mifery by nature, and of their need of Chrift, and his blood to wash and fave them; direct them frequently to say, "Lord teach me to pray, give me thy Spirit to help me to pray." Alfo every Sabbath night enquire at them what new words and expreffions they have got and added to their prayers, and encourage and reward them according to their diligence. O parents, neglect not to teach your poor children to pray and read: Will you teach them to work, and not teach them to pray? if you do it not, the devil will teach them to ban, lie, and

play

play on the Lord's day. reckoning that you will have to make ere long for their prayerlefs and perifhing fouls? A great many children neglect prayer, not fo much from their averfion to it, as from this, that none takes care to teach them how to do it; and hence it is, they often neglect it all their days. Whereas, if they were early taught and put on the duty of prayer, the habit and cuftom of the thing would make it turn eafy and delightful; but, when this is neglected, they cannot afterwards be brought to it, without great reluctance and difficulty. So that you fee, O parents, if yè improve not the feafon of youth, the blood your childrens fouls will be laid to your door.

And will it not be a fearful

of

5. It is very proper on this day, affcon as your children are capable, to take them afide, and folemnly to tell them the vows you took on at baptifm in their name, and as fponfors for them, and how you publicly engaged that they would be the Lord's, and renounce the world, the devil, and the fleth :" And therefore, for your own exoneration, you should take them folemnly engaged to do and perform all thofe things which your promifed in their name. Put them to it perfonally and explicitly to own and renew their baptifmal covenant, to fhew themfelves Chriftians, not only by their parents dedication, but also by their own deed and voluntary confent. Let each of them profefs and fay, "I chufe God the Father for my God and Father, I chufe God the Son for my Redeemer and Saviour, I chufe the Holy Ghoft for my Guide and Sanctifier, God's word for my rule, God's people for my companions, holinefs for my way, and heaven for my home."

and man.

6. Take care this evening to give both them and your fervants, many ferious and affectionate admoni tions concerning their fouls, and their duties to God. Warn them folemniy against sin and vice, and particularly those vices that are too common among us; ftudy to check and difcourage the beginnings of vice in children; obferve and watch the firft appearances thereof, and pluck them up by the roots: For, if vice be connived at in the beginning, it will turn afterwards too strong for you; but when it is never fuffered Ff2

too

to appear to pafs without reproof or correction, this helps by degrees to breed in children an abhorrence of it. Labour in a fpecial manner to beget in them frightful impreffions of the fins of fearing, and profaning the name of God, the fin of difobedience to parents, the fin of Sabbath-breaking, of lying, obfcene wordɛ, ftealing, pride, paffion, revenge, neglect of prayer and reading, &c. Study to perfuade them to godliness with the most endearing language, and prevailing arguments, according to Prov. xxxi. 1. 2. 3. that so you may convince them that in all your admonitions and reproofs, you have an earnest defire for their welfare, and that you and they may dwell in heaven together through all eternity. It is fometimes needful folemnly to obteft and charge them to mind their duty; as Mr Bolton, a godly man, faid to his children on his deathbed, "I charge you, my children, not to meet me at Chrift's tribunal in a Christless and graceless condition."

7. Join fervent prayers this day with your endea vours; for prayerlefs inftructions will not profit. Parents may plant, minifters may water, " but God only can give the increase." You ought to take fome time this day to pity, mourn and pray for your children, fervants and relations, that are in the darkness of a natural ftate, and under the flavery of fatan. If any of them were taken by the Turks, and laid in dark dungeons, treated as flaves, fcourged every day, and barbaroufly ufed; would not your bowels yearn, and your hearts bleed for them? Or, if any of your near relations were dead, would you not mourn for them? And are you not more concerned to mourn and pray for them that are fatan's flaves, juftice's prisoners, fpiritually dead, and fentenced to everlasting death? Have you any love to your children, and will you not carry them this day in the arms of faith and prayer to the bleffed Jefus, befeeching him "to put his hands of mercy on them, and bless them?" as in Mat. xix. 13. yea, not only pray for them, but take them alongft with you, and let them be the eye and ear witneffes of your prayers, fighs and tears, for the converfion and falvation

of

of their fouls; and who knows but this might work upon their hearts? Let them hear you fay to God, as Jacob, Gen. xxxiii. 5. "Lord, thou haft graciously given me thefe children, but, Oh! (you may add) Lord, I have given them fin, that is their portion from me. Lord, though I cannot give them Chrift and grace, yet thou canst do both; they are born to me once, ◊ that they may be born to thee a fecond time! Say as Abraham, Gen. xvii. "O that my Ifhmael may live before thee!" And Deut. xxxiii. "Let my Reuben live, and not die." Let thefe who are pieces of my bowels, and are now dead in trefpaffes and fa, live in thy fight; thou art the Lord of life, breathe on them, and they fhall live. Lord let not these who are fo dear to me fry in the flames for ever; one houfe holds us now, let one heaven hold us hereafter. Cry, as thofe in the gofpel, Mat xvii. Lord, have mercy on my fon; my daughter is grievoudly vexed:" Lord, come and heal them, and let me fee my children to be the work of thy hands in the midft of thy houfe; then fhall not my face wax pale, nor be afhamed, but I will fanctify the holy One of Ifrael," Ifa. xxix. 22. 23.

But, in midst of these fecret and family duties, neceffary on the evening of the Lord's day, it is needful that our frail bodies be refreshed with meat and drink; and, the work of the day being near over, you are at the more freedom to eat plentifully; yet ftill with holy fear and caution, and a defire spiritually to improve the time of eating, and to make God's glory your end, in eating and drinking, 1 Cor. x. 31.

If you be to have company or ftrangers with you, then look to God for wisdom to behave yourfelves in all your words and deportment, that you may neither do them harm, nor get harm from them. Say, "O that my lips this night were like thofe of the righteous which feed many

When you are called to fit down to fupper this night, think or fay, "How happy were I, if I were now called to fit down and fup with Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, at that higher table that fhall never be drawn, where they enjoy an everlating

Sabbath,

Sabbath, that hath no night nor darkness to follow upon it, as this hath!"

When you see the table covered for you, O bless the Author of it and fay, " When God remembers me, let me not forget him: Oh let not my table turn a fnare to me; let me never make a god of my belly, nor employ my chief care for the meat that perifheth."

When the meat is brought, let us, according to our Saviour's example, look up to heaven, and pray for a bleffing on our food, and for the fanctified ufe of God's creatures, that we may taste covenant love in common mercies, and enjoy the Creator while using the creature. Then think, "O how fweet would these mercies be, if they come dipt in the blood of Chrift, and through the channel of the everlasting covenant to me! If I could enjoy them, not as a creature, but as an heir, " and a` joint heir with Chrift," who is the " heir of all things," and hath been pleased to adopt believers in his right! O how fweet, if every morfel did come from my Father's hand, and fent from his table, as an earnest of greater and better things laid up for me above! Lord, I am not worthy of the leaft crumb that falls from the table of thy providence, and yet thou coverest a full table to worthless me; "what fhall I render to the Lord ?"

Is thy provifion but fmall? Then ftudy to be content therewith: Confider how cheerfully Chrift the Heir of all things did thank God for coarse and mean fare, John vi. when he had but a few barley loaves and fmall fifhes for himself and his whole family. How much better provided are we, than Chrift and his numerous family was? And fhall we not be easy and thankful?

Have you a full table? Then fear left thefe outward things infnare your heart; and, for preventing of it, think, "O what a poor portion would these things be, if I get no better! O how miferable will I be, if, when God gives me bread to the full, he should fend leannefs to my foul !" Therefore remember Luther's folemn proteft to God, when a bountiful prefent was fent him, he protested, "That he would not be put off with common mercies.":

But,