grace, and bleffing, they must pray for them; that God has appointed one day in feven, to the end that men, laying afide all worldly business and care for the body, may take care of their fouls, and honour their Creator and Redeemer, by going to his house, and there begging his pardon, and giving him thanks for his mercies.

In one word; your children ought to be told over and over again, that they need not be at pains to go to hell; that they will go thither of courfe, if they will not go to church, and there learn how to escape damnation.

They should be put in mind also, that the neglect of the publick worship of God is the beginning of every wickednefs. That even criminals at the gallows generally confefs this, that the breach of the fabbath, and the neglect of the publick worship, was the beginning of thofe fins which brought them to an untimely end.

Keeping of idle and loofe company has been the ruin of an infinite number of young people. Parents complain too late of the ill ways their children take, when they have suffered them, without reproof, and without correction, to follow their own ways in the choice of the company they keep.

How many wicked oaths, curfes, and other blafphemous expreffions, muft children hear and learn, when they are fuffered to keep

wicked company! How often will they hear the name of God taken in vain! How often will they hear fin, and hell, and damnation, made a mock of, even till they learn to do it themselves! And then it is a miracle if they are not loft for ever.

Parents therefore fhould often put their children in mind, that the devil is in all wicked companies, and especially where God, or any thing that belongs to God, is difhonoured or profaned.

And lastly, they fhould be often put in mind, how hard it will be to leave off most of those fins which they have been accustomed to hear, and take delight in.

PRIDE is a vice eafily feen and hated in grown people; but it is not confidered, that the feeds of pride are fown in youth. If parents will fuffer their children to have their own wills in almost every thing; if they will deny them nothing they have a mind to; if they will be pleased even with their faults and failings; they must expect, that when they are grown up, they will over-value themselves, and defpife others; not fuffer themselves to be contradicted, right or wrong; they will be headftrong, felf-willed, not to be perfuaded; they will not fee their own faults, but even defend them; they will not be beholden to any body for advice; their parents' counsel shall be set little by, and the inftruction and reproof of the very minifters of God fhall be defpifed.

These

These and many others' are the instances of pride begun in youth, for want of parents teaching their children to be humble, modeft, and obedient.

There is another inftance of pride both pernicious and common, the making children in love with finery. Parents do not always fee the evil effects of this. They will fee it to their forrow, when their children are grown up, and put them to expences beyond their ability or condition; when they are tempted to take unlawful ways to be finer than they ought to be; and when by this they give occafion to men of lewd lives to make attempts upon their chastity..

Parents fhould rather take all occasions to inftil into their children this moft certain truth, that nobody ever was, or will be, refpected the more for being finer than their ftate or condition of life requires, but rather become the fcorn and contempt of others.

To proceed:-If parents would but take a little more pains to give their children a great abhorrence of the most shameful vice of pilfering and fealing, we fhould not have fo many complaints of people when they are. grown up being given to the fcandalous fin of defrauding their mafters or parents of their goods.

Children should be feriously and often warned against fetting their hearts upon what is not their own, and that it will never profper

profper with them; and that they will be tempted from small fins of this kind to greater, which has at laft brought many a man and woman to the gallows, (by a juft judgment of God) who little thought of coming to fuch an untimely end.

The feeds of intemperance, of gluttony, and drunkenness, are very often fown in youth, and grow up with their years. And a fad account parents will have to give, who indulge their children in any of these vices.

In the first place, they lay a fure foundation for future miferies, for fickness, very often for poverty, for the ruin of their families, for untimely death, and too, too often, for death eternal.

Parents, instead of indulging their children in any thing that leads to any of thefe vices, fhould endeavour all they can to make them fenfible, that by giving way to their appetites. they are making themselves bonds which cannot easily be broken, that it will cost them dear to leave off the love of drink, of eating to intemperance, of being fond of dainties. They fhould therefore use them betimes to a fober way of living; to deny their appetites; to lay a prudent reftraint upon them before. cuftom is become a fecond nature. Their children should be often put in mind, that meat and drink are the gifts of God; that we should never take them without begging his bleffing upon them, and giving him thanks

for

for them; and that the doing of this is the likeliest way to keep us from abusing any of the gifts of God to his difhonour and our own mifery.

Youthful lifts are very naturally and too often the fruits of intemperance. Whoredom and wine (faith the Spirit') take away the heart; that is, all fear of God, all care for the foul, all concern for what must come hereafter. In fhort; the fins of impurity and uncleanness will in time root out all good principles, make men forget their most folemn refolutions, and grieve that holy Spirit by which we are fealed unto the day of redemption.

And yet these are crimes too often laughed at, made a jeft of, and committed, without fear of the judgment and vengeance of God, with which he has threatened fuch finners, to make them have their portion with devils and everlasting fire.

What pains therefore ought parents to take to fave their children from falling into these fins, and the punishment which certainly attends them? How often fhould they repeat to them the leffon which faved Jofeph from being ruined by this fin: How can I do this great wickedness, and fin against God? How often should they put them in mind of the truth fet down by the wifeft of men: The boufe of the whore is the way to hell.

f Hofea iv. 11.

• Prov. vii. 27.

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