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vain company, and low pursuits in which the unbelieving party can only take pleasure. Yet, in this, trying situation, the power of faith will display itself to great advantage; it will produce an invincible meekness, and a patient expectation in love, that God peradventure may give repentance, to the acknowledgment of the truth. It will excite to greater circumspection in behaviour, that the mind disaffected to the truth and service of God may be won over; it will excite frequent and earnest prayer, that, being already united by wedlock, they may become also one spirit in the Lord; a prayer frequently answered.

SUNDAY XXXVI.

CHAP. XXXVI.

The natural Duty of Parents and Children.

THE nearest connexion, after the nuptial union, and often springing from it, is that between parents and their children. From this relation, parents are indispensably obliged to provide for their eternal welfare. And all real Christians will give great attention to this matter. They are required to do so. "These words," saith the Lord, "which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, Deut. vi. God established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that

they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments." Thus emphatically does scripture enjoin parents to bring up

their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," as the grand means of preserving the knowledge of God, his works, and truth, amongst men.

This injunction is solemnly acknowledged by the covenant into which Christians enter their children, almost as soon as they are born. In the ordinance of baptism, they vow to educate them in the service, and for the honour of their Maker and Redeemer ; or, if they do not answer in person for their children, they choose friends who solemnly engage to join with them in seeing their children properly instructed; and by negligence in doing this duty, a religious rite, which undoubtedly claims God our Saviour for its author, is turned into a worthless ceremony.

Natural affection also must influence to take much pains for the salvation of their children. They know the worth of the immortal soul, otherwise they are not Christians, but infidels. If then they neglect the cultivation of its faculties, desirous only to provide a temporal subsistence, their affection is not rational or Christian; it is no higher than bears and wolves feel for their young. A rational, a Christian love for their children, dictates such sentiments as follow. These tender plants, sprung from ourselves, possess capacities of knowing, serving, loving God, and enjoying the vision of him for ever. If their capacities are not improved to this highest end, their existence, instead of a blessing, will turn out an insupportable curse. Our love for them makes us think no pains or cost too great to heal

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them when sick, and provide for their present wellbeing. But what avails it to secure them (were we able) from the transient evils of sickness, pain, and poverty, if woes of endless duration are to be their final portion? What avails the most ardent affection, which reaches only to the mortal part, if all that lieth in our power is not done, that, after passing through the present short-lived scene, they may enter eternity in the favour of God?

Where there is any conviction of the certainty of the world to come, a small degree of natural affection will powerfully and constantly suggest thoughts of this kind, and be followed with correspondent care in the education of their offspring. But all Christian parents clearly see the realities of the eternal world, they strongly feel their unspeakable importance; and such love have they to God and man, that, was their power equal to their kind regards, there should not remain upon the earth one rebel against his Maker. They are grieved to see any perishing, whilst Jesus, mighty to save, and merciful to pardon, is ready to receive, with open arms, all who will come to him for life.

With what stronger force must this benevolent spirit work toward their own offspring! How active must they be to secure their spiritual welfare, which, from paternal love, must be their chief concern?

Besides, it is the duty of parents, in the first place, to teach their children the knowledge of God and his word, because they have the charge of forming them, while they are in the fittest state to receive and to retain good impressions. Should they neglect this noble opportunity of seasoning their minds with the truth of divine revelation, so profitable to all men, every future method of instruction, or means of grace, will in general fail of having a

good effect. For children very soon and naturally conclude, that what their parents never mention, or earnestly inculcate, can be of little advantage to them. If they have never been taught to consider the glorious majesty of God, the absolute dependence of every living thing upon him, his rich bounty and mercies towards us all, they will attend public worship in as much ignorance as Pagans bow down before their dumb idols; and with an offensive levity and profaneness, which Pagans do not. What mere babbling also must their prayers in secret be (if they are directed to pray at all), since they have never been instructed in the nature of sin, or the worth of the soul; never been taught to observe how great is human weakness and depravity, on which the need of prayer and divine grace are founded? What an invincible obstacle, humanly speaking, must be found in the hearts of young people against receiving the gospel, where natural ignorance, pride, self-will, and unbelief, have been suffered to strengthen, by their parents' criminal neglect? Nay, even afflictions and misfortunes in the family, the death of dear relations or intimate friends, generally lose their effect, where no care has been taken in the education of children. These awakening calls, sent from God to lead men to repentance, and to consider their transgressions, wherein they have exceeded, make no useful impression on minds never accustomed to advert to God their Maker, Governor, and Judge.

It is true, (adored be his free grace, and the power of his spirit), some children utterly neglected, and even depraved to the last degree by their wicked parents, are daily brought to the knowledge of Christ. Nevertheless, the prevalence of open profaneness, and of senseless formality in religion, may be traced up, as to its springs, in parents utterly neglecting their children, and must be answered for

by them. This suggests another motive, which should engage the study and labour of parents in promoting the salvation of their children. The Lord God takes particular notice of their behaviour in this matter. Hear the high commendation of Abraham, the father of the faithful, and the friend of God. "The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him." There were many shining excellencies in his character; but God selects that in which he took peculiar delight, naming it, together with a repeated promise of Christ, "That Abraham would, above all things, regard the religious education of his children, and the honour of God in bringing them up for his service."

On the other hand, how very awful is the scripture account of the indignation God manifests against parents who neglect their children. Though Eli was not without the knowledge and fear of God in some measure himself; yet, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not; only mildly reproving, when he should have rebuked with all authority and severity; only expressing disapprobation, when he should have warned them at their peril to persist in their evil ways, and, upon their obstinate refusal to obey, have executed upon them the law for this crime, he is first branded as an accessary in their iniquity, "as kicking at the sacrifice of God, and honouring his sons above him." Then a terrible doom is denounced upon his family; they are to be degraded from their most honourable office; they are to be cut off from the altar, and the iniquity of his house is never to be purged. "From them that honour me," saith the

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