Page images
PDF
EPUB

Your good precept will not ftick, if it be not faftened with a good example.

6. Encouraging of them to do well; and when they do well, with kind looks, fpeeches, and actions, 1 Chron. xxviii. 20. Ingenuous spirits are but abused, when they are always driven by way of authority, and not drawn in the way of kindness. The name of a father and mother founds of bowels of kindness; it is a pity it fhould ever degenerate into the nature of mere masterly authority.

7. Lastly, Seasonable difpofing of them in marriage, if need be, Ruth iii. 1. 1 Cor. vii. 36. So did Abraham with his fon Ifaac, Gen. xxiv.; and Ifaac with his fon Jacob, Gen. xxviii.; always confulting their own inclinations, not forcing them to this or that marriage against their will, which is but either to oblige them to difobey their parents, or to make themselves miserable to please them. The neglect of this duty may prove a fnare to the child, and bring grief and forrow to both.

4. There is a duty they owe to them at all times; and that is praying for them. Sometimes this is all they have accefs to do for them. But be they never fo far away, they fhould not be forgotten. Though they be out of your family, they should not be out of your prayers, as Job's children were not, Job i. 5. And parents fhould confider the feveral cafes of their children, and be very particular before the Lord for them. It is marked of Job, that "he offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all," ib. And though in fome cafes this may not be convenient in family-prayers, yet, in fecret, parents fhould have their particular petitions for their particular children, according to their particular cafes.

5. Lastly, The duty that parents when a-dying owe to their children. We muft all die, and leave our children, elfe they will leave us before. Lay up thefe few advices, then, for that time.

(1.) If providence furprise you not, call together your children, that you may do them good by your advice at your latter end, as Jacob did, Gen. xlix. 1. And do it timeously, left, if you delay, you be not able to fpeak to them when you would. A word from a deathbed has usually more influence than ten words in a time of health; and words spoken with the dying breath of a parent are fair to stick.

(2.) Lay over your children whom ye are to leave, on the Lord himself; and whether ye have any thing to leave them or not, leave them on your covenanted God by faith, Jer. xlix. 11. Accept of the covenant now, renew it then, and lay the stress of their through-bearing on that God on whom ye have laid the strefs of your own fouls.

(3.) Give them your teftimony for God, against fin, and concerning the vanity of the world. If ye have had any experience of religion, commend Chrift, and the way of the Lord, to them from your own experience, Gen. xlviii. 15, 16. If ye have had experience of the evil and bitterness of fin, fhew them the ill of it. What courses ye have found profitable for your foul, and what hurtful; mark these to them particularly. If experience fail, yet confcience may help you out, if awakened, to this testimony.

(4.) Give them your dying advice to make choice of Christ as their portion, and holinefs as their way, to cleave to it, living and dying in it. And what faults ye know are in any of them, which ye could not before get reformed, let your dying lips again reprove, exhort, obteft, and testify against, if fo be they may be perfuaded to hearken at last.

(5.) Bless them, in praying for them to God, the fountain of bleffing; declaring withal, that they fhall be bleffed, if they keep the way of the Lord.

(6.) Let your temporal affairs be fo ordered, as that after your decease they may not be a fnare to your children, a bone of contention, or an occafion of grudge, one of them against another, If. xxxviii. 1.

Use 1. This ferves for conviction and humiliation to those that are in that relation. In these things we offend all, both in the matter and manner of duty; which may send us to the Father of mercies, through Chrift, for grace to remove our guilt, and to fit us to reform.

2. I exhort parents to be dutiful to their children, according to the will of God laid before you in his word. For motives, confider,

(1.) The ftrong tie of natural affection laid upon you. Our children are parts of ourselves, and therefore our bowels fhould yearn towards them, moving us to do them all the good we can. There are three things that may make our affection work towards dutifulness to them.

[1.] They have fin conveyed to them by natural genera

tion, Pfal. li. 5. We may rejoice in them, indeed, as God's gifts; but, alas! we may mourn over them as bearing naturally our own finful image. As they are our children, they are children of wrath; they have a corrupt finful nature conveyed unto them. Did they derive fome heredatary bodily disease from us, how would we pity them, and do what in us lies to help them? but they derive a hereditary foul disease from Adam by us, and fhould we not pity and pray for them?

[2.] Great is the danger they are in, if we do not our duty to them. They are in a world of fnares; if we be not eyes to them, they may fall to their ruin. If the wild afs's colt be not tamed by education, they are in a fair way to be ruined in time by a finful life, Prov. xxix. 15.; and if mercy prevent it not, they are in a fair way to be ruined to eternity.

[3.] Education is a bleffed mean of grace. So was it to good Obadiah, 1 Kings xviii. 12.; and fo it was to Timothy, 2 Tim. iii. 15. compare chap. i. 5. Why, because it is a mean appointed of God for that end, and therefore may be followed in faith of the promise, Prov. xxii. 6. “Train up a child in the way he fhould go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Chap. xxiii. 14. "Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and fhalt deliver his foul from hell.” Augustine's mother was a good woman; but fuch was his life, that it cost her many prayers and tears; and weeping to one about his cafe," Go thy way (faid he to her), for it cannot be that a fon of these tears can perifh;" and fo it was.

(2.) This is a great part of our generation-work, the work that we have to do for the honour of God in the world, Pfal. lxxviii. 3. 4. to do our endavour to hand down religion and honesty to the fucceeding generation. And we must give an account to God of it. And as kings must account to God for what they have done for him in their kingdoms, and ministers in their congregations, fo must parents account to him for what thay have done in their families.

(3.) The vows of God are upon us for that cause. These are little minded by many, but God does not forget them. As Sarah was under the bond of the covenant by her husband's circumcifion; fo mothers are under the bond of the covenant by the vows taken on by their husbands; and are VOL. III. No. 22. C

therefore obliged to use their utmost endeavours to fulfil thefe vows in the education of their children.

And the due confideration of this might engage children to be obedient and pliable to the commands, inftructions, and directions of their parents, for their good.

I come now to the relation betwixt masters and fervants, for which you may read Col. iii. 22. & iv. 1. "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleafers, but in fingleness of heart, fearing God. Masters, give unto your fervants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven."

The fervants duty is laid down, ver. 22. "Servants obey in all things your mafters," &c. Wherein confider, (1.) The duty enjoined them," obedience." (2.) The extent of it, "in all things," in things religious and civil, in eager or harder pieces of fervice; nothing is excepted but what is finful; and that is accepted in that clause, " ' your masters according to the flesh;" that is, the outward man, to distinguish them from the great Lord and master of the confcience; in which refpect we are forbidden to be "fervants of men," 1 Cor. vii. 23.; and to "call no man master,' Matth. xxiii. 8. Therefore Jofeph is commended for refufing the folicitations of his mistress to uncleannefs, and Saul's fervants that they would not flay the Lord's priests. (3.) The manner of it; negatively," not with eye-fervice;" that is, when the mafter's eye is the measure of their work, bufy before him; but if he turn his back, they flacken their hand pofitively, "in fingleness of heart;" that is, faithfully, as under the eye of God, to whom they must give

account.

[ocr errors]

The master's duty is laid down, Chap. iv. 1. Wherein (1.) We have the duty they owe to their fervants. It is taken up in two general heads. [1.] They are to "give them what is juft;" that is, what they are obliged to give them by ftrict law or condition; give them what they owe them by ftrict juftice. [2.] "What is equal;" that is, what they are tied to by the law of charity and Christian meekness though not of strict justice. (2.) The reafon enforcing it is, because masters on earth "have a Master in heaven," to whom they must give an account, as of other things, fo of how they do to their fervants.

Before I come to the duties of fervants and masters, two things are to be confidered, viz. who are meant by fervants, and who by masters.

1. Who are meant by fervants. Not to speak of bondfervants or flaves, whose bodies are perpetually under the power of their mafters, their being no fuch fervitude among us; fervants, who are mercenary, or hirelings, are of two forts. (1.) Domestic, fervants, who live in their master's family. (2.) Extra-domeftic fervants, who, though they live not in their master's family, but by themselves, yet receive his wages, whether for a few days, as day-labourers, men or women; or for certain terms, as herds, hinds, &c. All these come under the name of fervants, and owe a duty to their masters, according to the law God.

2. Who are meant by mafters. (1.) There is the principal master, the master of the family, who pays the wages. (2.) There are fubordinate masters. Such are, [1.] The mistress of the family, Pfal. cxxiii. 2. [2.] Fellow-fervants, or others deputed by, and having power from, the principle master, to oversee others, Gen. xxiv. 2. Thefe must be obeyed, as having the mafter's authority, unless it be known. that they go cross to the will and interest of the principal master. And here I fhall confider,

1. The duty fervants owe to their masters.

2. The duty of masters with respect to their fervants. First, I am to fhew the duty which fervants owe to their mafters. They owe,

1. Inward reverence towards them, and fear of them, 1 Pet. ii. 18. Mal. i. 6. They fhould have a hearty respect to the character of a master, with a confcientious regard to the fuperiority that God has given them over them, wherein they are, fo far, to them in the place of God, Eph. vi. 5. " as unto Chrift." They fhould fear to offend them, to displease them by doing or omitting any thing which they know will offend them, Eph. vi. 5.

2. Honour, Mal. i. 6. They ought outwardly to carry respectfully to them, whatever they be, if they be their mafters, and that both in word and deed. An humbly fub, miffive and respectful countenance and carriage towards a master, is an excellent ornament of a fervant. Neither the badness of the master, nor his goodness and piety, leaves fervants a latitude in this point. Though they be bad men,

« PreviousContinue »