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and to have fo powerful and lasting an influence SERM their whole lives.

V. And lastly; I fhall, by the most powerful arguments I can offer, endeavour to ftir up and perfuade those whofe duty this is, to discharge it with great care and conscience.

I. I fhall fhew more generally wherein the good education of children doth confift, and feverally confider the principal parts of it. And under this head I fhall comprehend promiscuously "the duty of parents, and, in cafe of their death, of guardians; and of godfathers and godmothers; though this for the most part fignifies very little more than a pious and charitable care and concernment for them, because the children for whom they are fureties are seldom under their power: And the duty likewise of those who are the teachers and inftructors of them: And the duty also of masters of families towards fervants in their childhood and younger years: And lastly the duty of minifters, under whofe parochial care and inspection children are as members of the families committed to their charge: I fay, under this head I fhall comprehend the duties of these respectively, according to the feveral obligations which lie upon each of them in their feveral relations to them. And I fhall reduce them to these eight particulars, as the principal parts wherein the education of children doth confift.

First, in the tender and careful nurfing of them. Secondly, in bringing them up to be baptized and admitted members of CHRIST's church, at the times appointed or accustomed in the national church of which the parents are members.

Thirdly,

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Thirdly, in a due care to inform and inftruct them in the whole compafs of their duty to GoD and their neighbour.

Fourthly, and more especially in a prudent and diligent care to form their lives and manners to religion and virtue.

Fifthly, in giving them good example.

Sixthly, in wife restraints from that which is evil, by seasonable reproof and correction.

Seventhly, in bringing them to be publickly catechized by the minister in order to confirmation.

Eighthly, in bringing them to the bishop to be folemnly confirmed, by their taking upon themfelves the vow which by their fureties they enter❜d into at their baptifm.

I. In the tender and careful nurfing of children. I mention this firft, because it is the firft and most natural duty incumbent upon parents towards their children: And this is particularly the duty of mothers. This affection and tenderness, nature, which is our fureft guide and director, hath implanted in all living creatures towards their young ones: And there cannot be a greater reproach to creatures that are endued with reafon, than to neglect a duty to which nature directs even the brute creatures by a blind and unthinking inftinct. So that it is fuch a duty as cannot be neglected without a downright affront to nature, and from which nothing can excufe but difability, or fickness, or the evident danger of the mother, or the interpofition of the father's authority, or fome very extraordinary and publick neceffity.

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This I foresee will feem a very hard faying to nice S ERM. and delicate mothers, who prefer their own eafe and pleasure to the fruit of their own bodies: but whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, I think myself obliged to deal plainly in this matter, and to be fo faithful as to tell them that this is a natural duty; and because it is fo, of a more neceffary and indifpenfible obligation than any pofitive precept of revealed religion; and that the general neglect of it is one of the great and crying fins of this age and nation; and which, as much as any fin whatsoever, is evidently a punishment to itself in the palpable ill effects and confequences of it: which I fhall, as briefly as I can, endeavour to reprefent; that if it be poffible, we may in this first point of education, fo fundamental and neceffary to the happiness both of parents and children, and consequently to the publick good of humane fociety, be brought to comply with the unerring inftinct of nature, and with the plain dictate of the common reafon of mankind, and the general practice of all ages and nations.

First, the neglect of this duty is a fort of expofing of children; especially when it is not done, as very' often it is not, with more than ordinary care and choice. It always expofeth them to manifeft inconvenience, and fometimes to great danger; even to that degree as in the confequence of it is but little better than the laying a child in the streets, and leaving it to the care and compaffion of a parifh. There are two very visible inconveniencies which do commonly attend it.

Ift, Strange milk,which is very often difagreeable to the child, and with which the child to be fure fucks in VOL. IV.

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the

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SERM. the natural infirmities of the nurse, together with a great deal of her natural inclinations and irregular paffions, which many times ftick by the child for a long time after and which is worse than all this, it sometimes happens that fome fecret disease of the nurse is conveyed to the child.

2dly, A fhameful and dangerous neglect of the child, efpecially by fuch nurfes as make a trade of it; of whom there are great numbers in and about this great city who, after they have made their first and main advantage of the child by the exceffive, not to say extravagant vails, which usually here in England, above all other places in the world, are given at christnings: and then by the ftrait allowances which are commonly made afterwards for the nurfing and keeping of the child, are often tempted, not to fay worse, to a great neglect of the child; which, if it happen to die for want of due care, fets the nurfe at liberty to make a new advantage by taking another child.

Nor can it well be otherwise expected than that a nurse, who by this courfe is first made to be unnatural to her own child, fhould have no great care and tenderness for a child which is not her own.

I have heard a very fad obfervation made by those who have had the opportunity to know it, that in feveral of the towns and villages about London, where this trade of nurfing children is chiefly driven, hardly one in five of these children lives out the year: and this furely is a danger which natural affection as well as duty does oblige parents to take all poffible care to prevent.

Secondly, this course doth most certainly tend very much to the eftranging and weakning of natural af

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fection on both fides; I mean both on the the mother and of the child. The pains of nurfing as well as of bearing children doth infenfibly create a ftrange tenderness of affection and care in the mother. “Can a woman, fays GOD, forget her fuck- Ifa. xlix. ❝ing child, that she should not have compaffion on 15. "the fon of her womb ?" Can a woman? that is, a mother, not a nurse; for the fucking child is faid to be the fon of her womb. GOD fpeaks of this as a thing next to impoffible.

And this likewife is a great endearment of the mother to the child: which endearment, when the child is put out, is transferred from the mother to the nurse, and many times continues to be fo for a great many years after; yea, and often to that degree as if the nurse were the true mother, and the true mother a mere ftranger. So that by this means natural affection must be extremely weaken'd; which is great pity, because when it is kept up in its full ftrength it often proves one of the best fecurities of the duty of a child.

But because this severe doctrine will go down but very hardly with a great many, I must take the more care to guard it against the objections which will be made to it. Those from natural difability, or fickness; from evident and apparent danger of the mother, or from the interpofition of the father's authority, or from plain neceffity; or if there be any other that have an equal reason with these, I have prevented already by allowing them to be juft and reasonable exceptions from the general rule, when they are real, and not made pretences to shake off our duty.