To neglect the education of our children is to refuse to retrench that depravity which we communicated to them. Suppose the Scriptures had not spoken expressly on the subject of original depravity, yet it would argue great stupidity to question it. As soon as infants discover any signs of reason, they discover signs of depravity, and their malice appears as their ideas unfold themselves. Sin in them is a fire at first concealed, next emitting a few sparks, and at last bursting into a great blaze, unless it be prevented in time. Whence do they derive so great an infection? Can we doubt it, my brethren? They derive it from us, and by communicating our nature we communicate our depravity. It is impossible, being our children, that they should not be depraved, as we are; for, to use the language of scripture, their fathers are Amorites and their mothers are Hittites,' Ezek. xvi. 13. Here I wish I could give you some notion of this mortifying mystery; I wish I could remove the difficulties which prevent your seeing it; I wish I could show you what a union there is between the brain of an infant and that of its mother, in order to convince you that sin passes from the parent to the child.

What can we in cool blood behold our children in an abyss, into which we have plunged them; can we be sensible that we have done this evil, and not endeavour to relieve them? Not being able to make them innocent, shall we not endeavour to render them penitent? Ah! victims of my depravity, unhappy heirs of the crimes of your parents, innocent creatures, born only to suffer, I think I ought to reproach myself for all the pains you feel, all the tears you shed, and all the sighs you utter. Methinks, every time you cry, you reprove me for my insensibility and injustice. At least, it is right, that, as I acknowledge myself the cause of the evil, I should employ myself in repairing it, and endeavour to renew your nature by endeavouring to renew my own.

This reflection leads us to a third. To neglect the education of our children is to be wanting in that tenderness, which is so much their due. What can we do for them? What inheritance can we transmit to them? Titles ? They are often nothing but empty sounds without meaning and reality. Riches? They often make themselves wings and fly away,' Prov, xxiii. 5. Honours? They are often mixed with disagreeable circumstances, which poison all the pleasure. It is a religious education, piety, and the fear of God, that makes the fairest inheritance, the noblest succession, that we can leave our families.

If any worldly care may lawfully occupy the mind of a dying parent, when in his last moments the soul seems to be called to detach itself from every worldly concern, and to think of nothing but eternity, it is that which has our children for its object. A Christian in such circumstances finds his heart divided between the family, which he is leaving in the world, and the holy relations, which he is going to weet in heaven. He feels himself pressed by turns between a desire to die, which

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is most advantageous for him, and a wish to live, which seems most beneficial to his family. He says, 'I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you,' Phil. i. 23, 24. We are terrified at that crowd of dangers, in which we leave these dear parts of ourselves. The perils seem to magnify as we retire from the sight of them. One while we fear for their health, another while we tremble for their salvation. My brethren, can you think of any thing more proper to prevent or to pacify such emotions, than the practice of that duty which we are now pressing as absolutely necessary? A good father on his death-bed puts on the same dispositions to his children as Jesus Christ adorned himself with in regard to his disciples immediately before the consummation of that great sacrifice, which he was about to offer to the justice of his Father. The soul of our divine Saviour was affected with the dangers to which his dear disciples were going to be exposed. Against these gloomy thoughts he opposed two noble reflections. First, he remembered the care which he had taken of them, and the great principles which he had formed in their minds and secondly, he observed that "shadow of the Almighty, under which he had taught them to abide,' Ps. xci. 1. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,' John xvii. 6, 12, 16. This is the first reflection. Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where l am,' ver. 11, 15, 17. This is the second reflection.

These two reflections are impenetrable shields, and a parent should never separate them. Would you be in a condition to oppose the second of these shields against such attacks as the gloomy thoughts just now mentioned will make upon your hearts on that day in which you quit the world and leave your children in it? endeavour now to arm yourself with the first. Would you have them abide under the shadow of the Almighty?' Inculcate his fear and his love in their hearts. Would you be able to say as Jesus Christ did, Holy Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me, that they may behold my glory; keep them through thy name?' Put yourself now into a condition to enable you then to say to God as Christ did, 'I have given them to thy word, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.'"

To neglect the education of our children is to let loose madmen against the state, instead

of furnishing it with good rulers or good subjects. That child intended for the church, what will he become, if he be not animated with such a spirit as ought to enliven a minister of religion? He will turn out a trader in sacred things, and prove himself a spy in our families, a fomenter of faction in the state, who, under pretence of glorifying God, will set the world on fire. That other child in. tended for the bar, what will he become, unless as much pains be taken to engage him to love justice as to make him know it, or to make him not disguise it as well as understand it? He will prove himself an incendiary, who will sow seeds of division in families, render law suits eternal, and reduce to indigence and beggary even those clients, whose causes he shall have art enough to gain. And that child, whom you have rashly determined to push into the highest offices of state without forming in him such dispositions as are necessary in eminent posts, what will he become? A foolish or a partial judge, who will pronounce on the fortunes and lives of his fellow citizens just as chance or caprice may impel him a public blood-sucker, who will live upon the blood and substance of those whom he ought to support: a tyrant, who will raze and depopulate the very cities and provinces which he ought to defend.

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The least indulgence of the bad inclinations of children sometimes produces the most fatal effects in society. This is exemplified in the life of David, whose memory may be truly reproached on this article, for he was one of the most weak of all parents. Observe his indulgence of Amnon. It produced incest. Remark his indulgence of Absalom, who besought him to allow his brethren to partake of a feast, which he had prepared. It produced an assassination. See his weak fondness of the same Absalom, who endeavoured to make his way to the throne by mean and clownish manners, affecting to shake hands with the Israelites, and to embrace and kiss them (these are the terms of Scripture), and practising all such popular airs as generally precede and predict sedition. This produced a civil war. mark how he indulged Adonijah, who made himself chariots, and set up a retinue of fifty men. The sacred historian tells us, that his father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, why hast thou done so?' 1 Kings, i. 6. This produced a usurpation of the throne and the crown.

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To neglect the education of your children is to furnish them with arms against yourselves. You complain that the children, whom you have brought up with so much tenderness, are the torment of your life, that they seem to reproach you for living so long, and that, though they have derived their being and support from you, yet they refuse to contribute the least part of their superfluities to assist and comfort you! You ought to find fault with yourselves, for their depravity is a natural consequence of such principles as you have taught them. Had you accustomed them to respect order, they would not now refuse to conform to order: but they would per

form the greatest of all duties; they would be the strength of your weakness, the vigour of your reason, and the joy of your old age.

To neglect the education of children is to prepare torments for a future state, the bare apprehension of which must give extreme pain to every heart capable of feeling. It is beyond a doubt, that remorse is one of the chief punishments of the damned, and who can question, whether the most excruciating remorse will be excited by this thought; I have plunged my children into this abyss, into which I have plunged myself?

Imagine a parent of a family discovering among the crowd of reprobates a son, whom he himself led thither, and who addresses to him this terrible language. Barbarous father, what animal appetites, or what worldly views inclined you to give me existence? to what a desperate condition you have reduced me! See, wretch that you are, see these flames which burn and consume me. Observe this thick smoke which suffocates me. Behold the heavy chains with which I am loaded. These are the fatal consequences of the principles you gave me. Was it not enough to bring me into the world a sinner? was it necessary to put me in arms against Almighty God? Was it not enough to communicate to me natural depravity? must you add to that the venom of a pernicious education? Was it not enough to expose me to the misfortunes inseparable from life? must you plunge me into those which follow death? Return me, cruel parent, return me to nothing, whence you took me. Take from me the fatal existence you gave me. Show me mountains and hills to fall on me, and hide me from the anger of my judge; or, if that divine vengeance which pursues thee, will not enable thee to do so, I myself will become thy tormentor; I will for ever present myself, a frightful spectacle before thine .eyes, and by those eternal howlings, which I will incessantly pour into thine ears, I will reproach thee, through all eternity I will reproach thee, with my misery and despair.'

Let us turn our eyes from these gloomy images, let us observe objects more worthy of the majesty of this place, and the holiness of our ministry. To refuse to dedicate our children to God by a religious education, is to refuse those everlasting pleasures, which as much surpass our thoughts as our expressions.

It is a famous question in the schools, whether we shall remember in heaven the connexions we had in this world? Whether glorified spirits shall know one another? Whether a father will recollect his son, or a son his father? And so on. I will venture to assert, that they who have taken the affirmative side, and they who have taken the negative on this question, have often done so without any rea

son.

On the one side, the first have pretended to establish their thesis on this principle, that something would be wanting to our happiness if we were not to know in a future state those persons, with whom we had been united by the tenderest connexions in this present world.

of our families? Is it not enough to render life bitter, would you make eternity desperate and intolerable?

But, it is not to tyrants that we address ourselves, they are inaccessible to our voice, or inflexible to our complaints. It is to God alone, who turns them as he thinks proper, that we address our prayers. Hagar found herself banished into a desert, and she had nothing to support her but a few pieces of bread, and a bottle of water. The water being spent, her dear Ishmael was ready to die with thirst. She laid him under a bush, and only desired that she might not see him die. She rambled to some distance, wept as she went, and said, 'Let me not see the death of the child,' Gen. xxi. 16, &c. See, she cannot help it, she sits over against him, lifts up her voice, and weeps.' God heard the voice of the mother and the child, and, by an angel, said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad. Arise, take hold of his hand, and lift him up, for I will make him a great nation.' See what a source of consolation I open to you! Lift up the voice and weep. O Father of spirits, God of the spirits of all flesh,' Heb. xii. 9; Numb. xvi. 22. Thou Supreme, whose essence is love, and whose chief character is mercy, thou who wast touched to see Nineveh repent, and who wouldst not involve in the general destruction the many infants at nurse in that city, who could not discern between their right hand and their left,' John iv. 11; wilt not thou regard with eyes of affection and pity our numerous children, who cannot discern truth from error, who cannot believe, because they have not heard, who cannot hear without a preacher,' and to whom, alas! no preacher is sent? Rom. x. 14.

But you, happy fathers, you, mothers, favourites of heaven, who assemble your children around you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,' Matt. xxiii. 37; can you neglect a duty, which is impracticable to others? That tyrants and persecutors should display their fury by making havoc of our children, and by offering them to the devil, is, I allow, extremely shocking, but there is nothing in it very wonderful: but that Christian fathers and mothers should conspire together in such a tragical design would be a spectacle incomparably more shocking, and the horror of which the blackest colours are unable to portray.

How forcible soever the motives, which we have alleged, may be, I fear they will be ineffectual, and such as will not influence the greatest part of you. It must be allowed, that, if there be any case, to which the words of our Savior are applicable, it is this of which we are speaking, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,' Matt. vii. 14.

A reformation of the false ideas which you form on the education of children, is, so to speak, the first step which you ought to take in the road set before you this day. No, it is not such vague instructions as you give your children, such superficial pains as you take to make

them virtuous, such general exhortations as you address to them, is it not all this, that constitutes such a religious education as God requires you to give them. Entertain notions more rational, and remember the few maxims, which I am going to propose to you as the conclusion of this discourse.

First maxim. Delays, always dangerous in cases of practical religion, are peculiarly fatal in the case of education. As soon as children see the light, and begin to think and reason, we should endeavour to form them to piety. Let us place the fear of God in these young hearts, before the world can get possession of them, before the power of habit be united to that of constitution. Let us avail ourselves of the flexibility of their organs, the fidelity of their memories, and the facility of their conceptions, to render their duty pleasing to them by the ease with which they are taught to discharge it.

Second maxim. Although the end of the divers methods of educating children ought to be the same, yet it should be varied according to their different characters. Let us study our children with as much application as we have studied ourselves. Both these studies are attended with difficulties; and as self-love often prevents our knowing ourselves, so a natural fondness for our children renders it extremely difficult for us to discover their propensities.

Third maxim. A procedure, wise in itself, and proper to inspire children with virtue, may sometimes be rendered useless by symptoms of passion, with which it is accompanied. We cannot educate them well without a prudent mixture of severity and gentleness. But on the one hand, what success can we expect from gentleness, if they discover, that it is not the fruit of our care to reward what in them is worthy of reward, but of a natural inclination, which we have not the courage to resist, and which makes us yield more to the motions of our animal machine, than to the dictates of reason? On the other hand, what good can they derive from our severity, if they see, that it proceeds from humour and caprice more than from our hatred to sin, and our desire to free them from it? If our eyes sparkle, if we take a high tone of voice, if our mouths froth, when we chastise them, what good can come of such chastisements?

Fourth marim. The best means of procuring a good education lose all their force, unless they be supported by the examples of such as employ them. Example is also a great motive, and it is especially such to youth. Children know how to imitate before they can speak, before they can reason, and, so to speak, before they are born. In their mothers' wombs, at the breasts of their nurses, they receive impressions from exteriar objects, and take the form of all that strikes them. What success, miserable mother, can you expect from your exhortations to piety, while your children see you yourself all taken up with the world, and its amusements and pleasures; passing a great part of your life in gaming, and in forming criminal intrigues, which, far from hiding

from your family, you expose to the sight of all mankind? What success can you expect from your exhortations to your children, you wretched father, when they hear you blaspheme your Creator, and see you living in debauchery, drowning your reason in wine, and gluttony, and so on?

Fifth maxim. A liberty, innocent when it is taken before men, becomes criminal, when it is taken before tender minds, not yet formed. What circumspection, what vigilance, I had almost said, what niceties does this maxim engage us to observe? Certain words spoken, as it were, into the air, certain imperceptible allusions, certain smiles, escaping before a child, and which he has not been taught to suspect, are sometimes snares more fatal to his innocence than the most profane discourses, yea, they are often more dangerous than the most pernicious examples, for them he has been taught to abhor.

Sixth maxim. The indefatigable pains, which we ought always to take in educating our children, ought to be redoubled on these decisive events, which influences both the present life, and the future state. For example, the kind of life to which we devote them, is one of these decisive events. A good father regulates his views in this respect, not according to a rash determination made when the child was in the cradle, but according to observations deliberately made on the abilities and manners of the child.

Companions too are to be considered as deciding on the future condition of a child. A good father with this view will choose such societies as will second his own endeavours, he will remember the maxim of St. Paul, Evil communications corrupt good manners,' 1 Cor. xv. 33; for he knows, that a dissolute companion has often eradicated from the heart of a youth all the good seeds which a pious family had sown there.

Above all, marriage is one of these decisive steps in life. A good father of a family, unites his children to others by the two bonds of virtue and religion. How can an intimate union be formed with a person of impious principles, -without familiarizing the virtuous by degrees with impiety, without losing by little and little that horror which impiety would inspire, and without imbibing by degrees the same spirit? So necessary is a bond of virtue. That of religion is no less so, for the crime which drew the most cutting reproofs npon the Israelites

after the captivity, and which brought upon them the greatest judgments, was that of contracting marriages with women not in the covenant. Are such marriages less odious now, when by a profane mixture people unite 'light and darkness, Christ and Belial, the temple of God and idols?' 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15. Are such marriages less hateful now, when, by a horrible partition, the children, if there be any, are mutually ceded before hand, and in cold blood disposed of thus, the sons shall be taught the truth, the daughters shall be educated in error, the boys shall be for heaven, the girls for hell, a son for God, a daughter for the devil.

Seventh maxim. The best means for the education of children must be accompanied with fervent prayer. If you have paid any attention to the maxims we have proposed, I shall not be surprised to hear you exclaim, Who is sufficient for these things?' 2 Cor. ii. 16. But, if it be the fear of not succeeding in educating your children, which dictates this language, and not that indolence, which tries to get rid of the labour, be you fully persuaded, that the grace of God will triumph over your great infirmities. Let us address to him the most fervent prayers for the happiness of those children, who are so dear to us, and let us believe that they will return in benedictions upon them. Let each parent collect together all his piety, and then let him give himself up to the tenderest emotions towards his children. O God! who didst present thyself to us last Lord's day under the amiable idea of a parent pitying them that fear thee as a father pitieth his children,' Ps. ciii. 13. O God! who thyself lovest thy Son with infinite tenderness and vehemence: O God! author of the tender affections, which unite me to the children thou hast given me, bless the pains I take in their education; disobedient children, my God, I disown: let me see them die in infancy, rather than go along with the torrent of general immorality, and run,' with the children of the world to their excess of riot,' 1 Pet. iv. 4. I pray for their sanctification with an ardour a thousand times more vehement than I desire their fortune: and the first of all my wishes is to be able to present them to thee on that great day, when thou wilt pronounce the doom of all mankind, and to say to thee then, 'Lord, behold, here am I, and the children thou hast given me.' May God excite such prayers, and answer them! To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen.