* Jenk. on Jude, part 2. p. 170.
160 lirsBANDEY SPIRITUALIZED ; Oil,
ruption and wickedness, and not a rod of reproof used to breiife tliem off it.
It is observed of the Persians,* that they put out their children to school, as soon as they can speak, and will not see them in seven years after, lest their indulgence should do them hurt.
2. You keep your constant set times, morning and evening to feed, water, and dress your cattle, and will by no means neglect it once : but how many times have you neglected moi'nmg smA evening duties in your families ? Yea, how many be there, whose very tables, in res- pect of any worship God hath there, do very little differ from the very cribs and mangers at which their horses feed ? As soon as you are up in a morning, you are with your beasts before you have been with your God. How little do such differ from beasts ? And happy were it, if they were no more accountable to God than their beasts are.
The end of your care, cost, and pains about your cattle is, that they may be strong for labour, and the more serviceable to you : thus you comply with the end of their beings. But how rare a thing is it to find these men as careful to fit their posterity to be useful and ser* viceable to God in their generations, which is the end of their beings? If you can make them rich, and provide good matches for them, you reckon that you have fully discharged the duty of parents r if they will learti to hold the plow, that you are willing to teach them : but, when did you spend an hour to teach them the way of salvation .?
Now to convince such careless parents of the heinousness of their sin, let these queries be solemnly considered.
Qu. 1. Whether this be a sufficient discharge of that great duty which God hath laid upon Christian parents, in reference to their fa- milies ? That God hath charged them with the souls of their fami- lies, is undeniable, Deut. vi. 6, 7. Eph. vi. 4. If God hath not cloth- ed you with his authority, to command them in the way of the Lord, he would never have charged them, so strictly to yield you obedience as he hath done, Eph. vi. 1. Col. iii. 20. Well, a great trust is re- posed in you, look to your duty ; for, without dispute, you shall an- swer for it.
Quest. 2. Whether it be likely, if the time of youth (which is the moulding age) be neglected, they will be wrought upon to any good afterwards .? Husbandmen, let me put a sensible case to you ; do you not see in your very horses, that whilst they are young, you can bring them to any way ; but if once they have got a false stroke, and by long custom it be grown natural to them, then there is no breaking them off it : you see it in your very orchards ; you may bring a tend- er twig to grow in what form you please ; but when it is grown to a sturdy limb, there is no bending it afterwards to any other form than what it naturally took. Thus it is with children, Prov. xxii. 6.
* Clark's Mir. p. 506.
THE HEAVENLY USE OF EARTHLY THI^'GS. 161
«* Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he «* will not depart from it/'
Qu. 3. Whether if you neglect to instruct them in the way of the Lord, Satan, and their own natural corruptions, will not instruct them in tlie way to hell ? Consider this, ye careless parents : if you will not teach your children, the devil will teach them : if you shew them not how to pray, lie Avill shew them how to curse and swear, and take the name of the Lord in vain ; if you grudge time and pains about their souls, the devil doth not. Oh ! it is a sad consideration, that so many children should be put to school to the d^vil.
Qu. 4. What comfort are you like to have from Them when thev are old, if you bring them not up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord when they are young ? Many parents have lived to reap in their old age the fruit of their own folly and carelessness, in the loose and vain education of their children. By Lycurgus's law, no parent was to be relieved by his children in age, if he gave them not good education in their youth ; and it is a law at this day among the Switzers, That if any child be condemned to die for a capital offence, the parents of that child are to be his executioners : these laws were made to provoke parents to look better to their charge. Believe this as an undoubted truth. That that child which becomes through thy default, an instrument to dishonour God, shall prove, sooner or later, a son or daughter of sorrow to thee.
1. God hath found out my sin this day. This
hath been my practice ever since I had a family A reflection for committed to my charge ; I have spent more careless pai'ents. time and pains about the bodies of my beasts, than the souls of my children : beast thatl am for so doins^ ! Little have I considered the precious ness of my own, or their immortal souls. How careful have I been to provide fodder to preserve mv cat- tle in the winter, whilst I leave my own and their souls to perish to eternity, and make no provision for them ? Surely my children will one day curse the time that ever they were born unto such a cruel fa- ther, or of such a merciless mother. Should I bring home the plague in to my family, and live to see all my poor children lie dead by the walls ; if I had not the heart of a tyger, such a sight Avould melt my heart : and yet the death of their souls, by the sin which I pro- pagated to them, as I have done for a beast that perisheth !
2. But, unhappy wretch that I am ! in,- ^ .t 7. God cast a better lot for me ; 1 am the /.r^^^'^f.?/^': '^^ '^''' ofF-spring of religiousand tender parents, ""^/'^'"''^ '^''^^ ^ " ^''^- who have alwaysdeeply concerned them- '''^' P""''"''^'
selves in the everlasting state of my soul: many prayers and tears have they poured out to God for me, both in my hearing, as Avell as in secret ; many holy and wholesome counsels have they from time to time dropt upon me ; many precious examples have they set in their
162 HUSBAXDllY SPIRITUALIZED ; OK,