Use 2. Is comfort to poor dying saints, when they leave a great charge behind them ; though you leave them no great matter, it is a good portion to lay up some prayers for them, to leave them a God in covenant with them. God doth strangely provide for the children of his people ; a little holdeth out, like the widow's oil and meal. As to visible means, a man cannot tell how they live, yet live they do, and flourish, and by unexpected providences thrive into a great increase. Therefore moderate your feai-s and cares ; God will provide. I look upon this meeting with joy of heart, as being in a great measure the fruit of the promise, and I hope you will go away refreshed with the sight of it, and increased in confidence, saying, ' Lord, the children of thy servant shall continue, they shall be established.'
Use 3. Advice to the children of godly parents.
I shall first speak to them in the general, and then to this day's meeting more particularly. In the general —
1. Bless God for this privilege. Better be the child of a godly than wealthy parent. I hope none are of so vile a spirit as to hate and con- temn your parents because of their piety. Certainly it is a great privi- lege when you can go to God, and plead your Father's covenant : Ps. cxvi. 14, ' Lord, I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid.' So did Solomon : 1 Kings iii. 25, 26, ' Lord, make good thy word to thy servant David, my father.' That you are not born of infidels, or popish parents, nor fautors and upholders of superstition and formality, but in a strict, serious, godly family, it is a great advantage that you have. It is better to be the sons of faithful ministers than of nobles.
2. Do not interrupt and break off the blessing. It is the greatest unworthiness that can be to be imgodly children of godly parents, and to cast off the God of your fathers : Jer. ii.. 12, ' Be astonished, 0 ye heavens, at this ! ' He would have the sun to look pale upon such a wickedness, and the spheres to cast out their stars, that a people should cast off their God. Solomon continued alliance with Hiram because hy had been a lover of David ; and it is his advice to others, ' Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake thou not.' Surely, then, not the
472 A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE SONS OF THE CLERGY.
father's God. Wilt thou be a traitor to thy father's God ? ' Be aston- ished, 0 ye heavens ! ' None stain their blood so much as you that forsake the sincerity and strictness of religion which your fathers pro- fessed. Treasons in the posterity are counted a stain to noble ances- tors ; so is apostasy and loss of church privileges in you. It is an ex- cellent thing to see the power of religion preserved from father to son : Heb. xi. 9, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are called ' heirs of the same promise.' Pliny writeth that it was counted a great honour and point of felicity that in one house of the Curios there were three excellent orators one after another, and of the Fabii three presidents of the senate in the same succession. Oh, what an honour is it when there is a constant sucqession from father to the son, from the son to the grandchild, and all heiis of the same promise ! The third descent, they say, maketh a gentleman in a new and opulent family. Here is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all heirs of the same promise; this is the true noble blood, a holy kindred, true gentry ; otherwise omnis sanguis concolor — all blood is of a colour. It is a high honour to be born of such a race. My father, my giandfather, and great-grandfather were all servants of the Lord, and will you cut off the entail ? Christians, I must speak to you not only as sons of private christians, but as the sons of ministers, of whom special holiness is required, and which will engage a special blessing to their posterity , and will you stop the course of it ? Oh ! let not the ministerial blessing be worn out of your generations. I remember one observeth of the Jews, that as long as the strength and virtue of manna continued in their constitutions, they were a fortunate, valorous, and brave people ; but when, after some successions of generations, that it was worn out, they grew pusillani- mous and base. The ministerial blessing, while that lasteth, the pos- terity thrive, and by a wonderful providence arrive to great increase, many times from small beginnings. Oh ! therefore keep up the warmth and vigour of godliness in your families, and then you will transmit the blessing to ages to come, and the children that are yet unborn. But alas ! many times, through our carelessness and default, in the next generation it is worn out ; as Phylostratus said of the son of Eufus, Perrinthius, a great master, ' As for his son, I have nothing else to say but that he was his son.' If that be all your honour, that you are the son of such an eminent man, but have nothing worthy in you, that will be a sorry commendation ; much more if you should fall to looseness and riot, you are the stain of your parents, and put them to shame when they are dead and gone. There is a notable place. Lev. xxi. 9, ' The daughter of any priest, if she shall play the whore, she profaneth her father, and shall be burnt with fire.' Let us comment on this text a little. Under the daughter, saitli Calvin, the sons were also comprised ; but if that were not, the daughter of the priest suiteth with your case ; for the sons of priests were priests, which you are not now in the times of the gospel ; and her case was more like yours, who are not always public persons. Now it is said, ' She profaneth her father.' How ? That is, she was a defilement to his name and house. And so the Septuagint, to ovofia rov jrarpo^ auTr)9 avT7] ^e^T]\oc, she is a reproach to the dignity of his office. Ministers must be not only good in their own persons, but in their