S

LII.

SER M. influence upon all their actions; and unless fome powerful luft, or temptation to vice hurry them away, they will probably accompany them and stick by them as long as they live.

Many parents, according to their best knowledge and apprehenfions of religion in which they themfelves have been educated, and too often according to their zeal without knowledge, do take great care to plant little and ill-grounded opinions in the minds of their children, and fo fashion them to a party by infufing into them the particular notions and phrases of a fect, which when they come to be examined have no fubftance, nor perhaps fenfe in them: And by this means, instead of bringing them up in the true and folid principles of chriftianity, they take a great deal of pains to inftruct them in fome doubtful doctrines of no great moment in religion, and perhaps falfe at the bottom; whereby instead of teaching them to hate fin, they fix them in fchifm, and teach them to hate and damn all thofe who differ from them and are oppofite to them; who yet are perhaps much more in the right, and far better chriftians than themselves.

And indeed nothing is more common and more to be pitied, than to fee with what a confident contempt and fcornful pity fome ill-inftructed and ignorant people will lament the blindness and ignorance of those who have a thousand times more true knowledge and skill than themselves, not only in all other things, but even in the practice as well as knowledge of the chriftian religion : believing those who do not relish their affected phrases and uncouth forms of speech to be ignorant of the mystery of

the

the gospel, and utter ftrangers to the life and power S ER M. of godlinefs.

But now what is the effect of this mistaken way of education? The harveft is just answerable to the husbandry,

Infelix lolium & fteriles dominantur avenæ ;

As they have fown, fo they must expect to reap; and instead of good grain to have cockle and tares;

They have fown the wind, and they fhall reap "the whirlwind," as the expreffion is in the prophet; instead of true religion, and of a fober and peaceable converfation, there will come up new and wild opinions, a factious and uncharitable spirit, a furious and boisterous zeal, which will neither fuffer themselves to be quiet, nor any body that is about them.

But if you defire to reap the effects of true piety and religion, you must take care to plant in chil dren the main and substantial principles of chriftianity, which may give them a general bias to holinefs and goodness, and not to little particular opinions, which being once fixed in them by the strong prejudice of education will hardly ever be rooted

out.

Thirdly, do all that in you lies to check and difcourage in them the first beginnings of fin and vice: fo foon as ever they appear pluck them up by the roots. This is like the weeding of corn, which is a neceffary piece of good husbandry. Vices like ill weeds grow apace, and if they once take to the foil it will be hard to extirpate and kill them: but if we watch them and cut them up as foon as 6 C 2

they

LII.

SERM. they appear, this will difcourage the root and make

LII.

it die.

Therefore take great heed that your children be not habituated and accustomed to any evil course. A vice that is of any confiderable growth and continuance will foon grow obftinate, and having once fpread its root, it will be a very difficult matter to clear the ground of it. A child may be fo long neglected till he be overgrown with vice to that degree, that it may be out of the power of parents ever to bring him to good fruit. If it once gain upon the depraved difpofition of children, it will be one of the hardest things in the world to give a ftop to it. It is the Apoftle's caution" to take "heed of being hardened by the deceitfulnefs of "fin," which they who go on in an evil course will most certainly be. We fhould observe the first appearances of evil in children, and kill those young ferpents as foon as they ftir left they bite them to death.

66

Fourthly, bring them, as foon as they are capable of it, to the publick worship of GoD, where he hath promised his more especial presence and bleffing. It is in Zion, the place of God's publick worship, where "the LORD hath commanded the bleffing, even life for evermore:" There are the means which God hath appointed for the begetting and increafing of grace in us: This is the pool where the angel useth to come and to move the waters: bring your children hither, where if they diligently attend they may meet with an opportunity of being healed.

And

LII.

And when they come from the church, call them SER M. Frequently to an account of what they have heard and learned there: this will make them both to. attend more diligently to what they hear, and to lay it up in their memories with greater care, and will fix it there fo as to make a deeper and more lafting impreffion upon their minds.

Fifthly, be careful more especially to put them upon the exercise and practice of religion and virtue, in fuch inftances as their understanding and age are capable of. Teach them some short and proper forms of prayer to GOD, to be faid by them devoutly upon their knees in private, at least every morning and evening. A great many children neglect this, not from any ill disposition of mind, but because no body takes care to teach them how to do it. And if they were taught and put upon doing it, the habit and custom of any thing will after a little while make that eafy and delightful enough, which they cannot afterwards be brought to without great difficulty and reluctancy.

Knowledge and practice do mutually promote and help forward one another. Knowledge prepares and disposeth for practice, and practice is the best way to perfect knowledge in any kind. Mere fpeculation is a very raw and rude thing in comparison of that true and diftinct knowledge which is gotten by practice and experience. The most exact skill in geography is nothing compared with the knowledge of that man, who befides the speculative part hath travelled over and carefully viewed the Countries he hath read of. The most knowing man in the art and rules of navigation is no body in com

parison

LII.

SER M. parifon of an experienced pilate and feaman. Because knowledge perfected by practice is as much different from mere fpeculation, as the skill of doing a thing is from being told how a thing is to be done. For men may eafily mistake rules, but frequent practice and experience are feldom deceived. Give me a man that conftantly does a thing well, and that fhall fatisfy me that he knows how to do it. That faying of our bleffed SAVIOUR," If any man "will do my will, he fhall know of the doctrine

whether it be of GoD, or whether I fpeak of

my felf," is a clear determination of this matter, namely, that they understand the will of GoD best who are moft careful to do it. And fo likewife the best way to know what God is, is to transcribe his perfections in our lives and actions; to be holy, and juft, and good, and merciful as

he is.

Therefore when the minds of children are once throughly poffeft with the true principles of religion, we should bend all our endeavours to put them upon the practice of what they know: let them rather be taught to do well than to talk well; rather to avoid what is evil, in all its fhapes and appearances, and to practise their duty in the feveral inftances of it, than " to speak with the tongues Job xxviii." of men and angels :" "Untò man he said, be"hold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom, and

28.

1 Joh. ii. to depart from evil is understanding." "Hereby, "faith St. John, we know that we know him, if

3, 4.

66

we keep his commandments: he that faith I "know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him."