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to years, they do not feriously endeavour to poffefs their hearts and minds with faving knowledge, and a juft concern for their fouls. For what will all other knowledge profit a man who does not know how to escape the temptations of a wicked world, how to please God, and how he may fave his foul from eternal death?

There may be fome excufe, if, while they are children, they do not know thefe things. But to let this ignorance grow up with us, and when we are men, and capable of understanding the things we have been taught, and that our everlasting intereft lies at stake, we are plainly without excufe, not to confider things of fo great concern to us.

II. Another character of children is, that they have no apprehenfions of future evils. The prefent is what most affects them, and it is often to no purpose that you speak to them of fpiritual enemies, of the anger of God, and of the terrors of the world to come. And the mifery is, this fearless temper grows up with them, and they learn to live in a careless fecurity all their days.

And what can we fay to awaken them? Shall we often repeat what the holy fcriptures tell us of fuch as live without God in the world? Shall we affure them, that all the judgments mentioned in the Bible, and executed upon ungodly men, are but faint repre

fentations

sentations of the worm that never dies, and the fire that never fhall be quenched.

Alas! this is what they have often heard, and what they profefs to know and believe; but indeed they do neither. For who can be fearless and unconcerned at the thoughts of eternal death, though at fome distance? None but children, who cannot confider; and fools, who make a mock of fin.

III. Another character of children is, to live without any aim, or end of their actions. We blame them for this. We ask them what they propose to themselves? We affure them, that if they once get an evil habit of living at random, and without defign, they will be unfettled all their life long, and miferable at the laft. We defire they would confider, that they did not come into the world only to eat, and drink, and fleep, and take their pleasure; that this is merely the life of a beast; and that fince God has given them an understanding foul, he expects they should make use of their reason in propofing to themselves an end worthy of their creation.

By fuch arguments as thefe, we endeavour to fix their minds, that they may think and apply themselves to fomething, and be of fome ufe in their generation.

Well then; will unthoughtfulness ruin our children, and will it not hurt ourselves? Shall we blame them for not thinking why they live, or what will become of them: and

fhall

fhall we never blame ourselves, when we know in our confciences, that we have never ferioufly thought of this fhort question, What was I made for?

Why, you will fay, do not all Christians know, that the falvation of their fouls is what they were fent into the world for? Do not all Christians propofe that to themselves, and doubt not but at laft they fhall be happy? Yes; just as children do, without ever confidering in good earneft, what is the happiness they hope for, how it is to be obtained, what God expects of fuch as fhall be admitted into heaven, and what will certainly hinder men from ever going thither.

In fhort; we hope for happiness in general, without faying to ourfelves, As I hope for happiness, I must first feek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; that is, I mult, before all things ftudy to know what the Chriftian religion propofes to us, what it requires of us, what is the will of God, and how we may do his will. Without this, we fhall ftill be like children, trying one thing after another, looking and hoping for happiness and fatisfaction every where, and always meeting with disappointments: because we do not feriously fay, this is the happiness I was made for, this I must think of, this I muft labour for, whatever elfe I lose or neglect.

And we think and speak like men, when we make this our great aim; and refolve, that

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by the grace of God, neither business, nor pleasures, nor any other thing, fhall divert us from working out our falvation with a concern becoming fo great a prize.

And though a Chriftian must live in the world, and must take care of himself, and of thofe that depend upon him, yet ftill he remembers, that this is not the world he was made for; that he is haftening to another world, which, therefore, he ftrives to keep his eye upon, left the hurry or the pleasures of this world fhould divert him from thinking upon God, who is the fountain of eternal bleffednefs, and from loving him with all the powers of his foul.

He confiders, that let his circumstances here be what they will, he must take thought for hereafter, or be undone for ever; that if his condition be never fo hard, he may, in God's good time, fee an end of his forrows; and if he has never fo many enjoyments, he must leave them all in a very fhort time; that therefore it will be no fenfe to make that one's aim, and choice, and delight, which we know can never make us happy, which has deceived us a thousand times, and which we should utterly defpife, if we did but once truly confider the happiness God proposes to us.

And why should we not confider it? We have very many reasons to do so, if either the truth of God, the greatness of the reward, or

VOL. IV.

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the

the disappointments of this life, have any weight with us.

To conclude, therefore, this particular:We are not surprised when we fee a child fond of fome gaudy thing, which in truth is worth very little, and only pleaseth the senses. But then, are there not men as weak? Are there not men who, as Job expreffes it, fay unto gold, thou art my hope; faying unto the fine gold, thou art my confidence; that is, whose hearts are entirely fet upon their riches, which, after all, are of no real value? Are there not people who are fo extremely fond of pleasures, that they will not deny themselves let what will follow? And can any thing be more childish, than to make that their own main end, which all people are agreed in would be the ruin of their children?

IV. Lastly; there is another weakness for which we justly blame and correct our children, and that is, They are unftable in all their ways. The Apostle takes notice of this character of children, and tells us how ill it would become men to be, like them, toffed to and fro by every temptation.

And indeed we eafily fee in children the mifchief of being giddy and uncertain. We fee plainly what it will end in; and that if this unfteadiness of temper be indulged, they will be in danger of wafting their whole life in purposes and defigns which will end in nothing except their ruin.

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