SERM. the church with new and wild opinions: and I fear, LIII. that the neglect of inftructing and catechizing

youth, of which this age hath been fo grofly 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 humane fociety, and fo much poison and infection let abroad into the world.

Sixthly and lastly, parents fhould often confider that the neglect of this duty will not only involve them in the inconvenience and shame, and forrow, of their childrens miscarriage, but in a great measure in the guilt of it they will have a great share 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 four grapes, the parents teeth will be fet on edge.

The temporal mifchiefs and inconveniences which come from the careless education of children as to credit, health and estate, all which do usually suffer by the vicious and lewd courfes of your children; these methinks should awaken your care and diligence: but what is this to the guilt which will redound to you upon their account? Part of all their wickednefs will be put upon your score; 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

LIII.

And what will parents be able to fay to GoD at the SER M. day of judgment for all their neglects of their children, in matter of instruction, and example, and reftraint from evil? How will it make your ears to tingle, when GOD fhall arife terribly to judgment, and fay to you, "Behold! the children which I have

up to

given you; they were ignorant, and you instructed "them not; they made themselves vile, and you re"ftrained them not: why did not you teach them at "home, and bring them to church to the publick or"dinances and worship of GOD, and train them "the exercise of piety and devotion? But you did not only neglect to give them good inftruction, but gave them bad example: and lo! they have fol"lowed you to hell, to be an addition to your tor"ment there."

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you

“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 up for your children: there is no memorial, "no not fo much as of one hour that ever was seriously

spent to train them up to a sense 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 help'd "forward their 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 ?”

VOL. IV.

6 G

Would

SERM.

LIII.

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 children challenge you in that day, and fay to your you one by one, "Had you been as careful to "teach me the good knowledge 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 hearken'd to it, it had not "been with me as it is at this day; I had not "now ftood trembling here in a fearful expecta❝tion of the eternal doom which is just ready to "be pafs'd upon me. Curfed be the man that begat "me, and the

that paps gave me fuck. 'Tis to you that I must in a great measure owe my everlafting undoing." Would it not ftrike any of us with horror to be thus challenged and reproached by our children "in that great and terrible day of "the LORD?"

I am not able to make fo dreadful a reprefentation of this matter as it deferves. But I would by all this, if it be poffible, awaken parents to a fense of their duty, and terrify them out of this grofs and fhameful neglect which so many are guilty of. For when I feriously confider how fupinely remiss 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 fpoken to another purpofe, but it is true likewise to the purpose I am speaking of: better be fome mens dogs, or hawks, or horfes,

than

LIII.

than their children: for they take a greater care SER M. to breed and train up these to their feveral ends and uses, than to breed up their children for eternal happiness.

Upon all thefe 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 towards them. God grant that all that are concerned may lay these things seriously to heart, for his mercies fake in JESUS CHRIST; to whom, with thee O FATHER, and the HOLY GHOST, be all honour and glory both now and ever. Amen.

SERMON LIV.

Of the advantages of an early piety.

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

SERM.
LIV.

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.

N the former difcourfes, concerning the education of children, I have carried the argument through the state 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 themselves the performance of that folemn vow which was made for them by their fureties in baptifm.

To encourage them to set seriously and in good earnest about this work, I fhall now add another difcourfe concerning the advantages of an early piety. And to this purpose I have chosen for the foundation of it these words of Solomon, in his book called Eclefiaftes or the Preacher: "Remember now thy cre

ator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days

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