and the blind impulfe of unruly paffions, fhould fometimes drive them out of their course; yet as foon as this tumult and infatuation is over, and the mind calmed to the dictates of reafon, they will again return into the way they should go; and when they are old, they will not depart from it.

From these words, thus explained, I shall make it the business of this, and fome following discourses, to lay down the duty of parents to their children, in all its parts: and this I fhall endeavour to do, in the illuftration and proof of the following propofitions.

First, Parents are to take care of the health and conftitution of their children. Secondly, They are to give them good inftruction.

Thirdly, They are to correct them in their faults.

Fourthly, They are to fhew them good examples.

Fifthly, They are to make a proper provifion for them, as far as they are able. And, laftly, They are to pray to God for

them.

First,

First, Parents are to take care of the health

and conftitution of their children. And this care should begin earlier, and extend further, than is commonly imagined.

It is a conftant care in the culture of trees, to have a strict regard to the goodness and health of the stock you plant from; because fuch as the stock is, fuch will the cyon be: and the prudent husbandman exerts the same care, in relation to all the creatures, whose increase he is concerned in: and would count it ftrange ftupidity, to breed from beasts, that were either diseased, or vicious-And with great reafon; because such as the fire or dam is, fuch, in all probability, will the iffue be. And, if men be so much, and so justly, concerned for the fruits of their trees, and the offspring of their brutes; can it be a queftion, whether they should be much more concerned for their own? Especially as it is of far worse consequence, to bring a vicious man into the world, than a bad apple, or a vicious horse. And therefore all persons that intend to marry, should take particular care, both of their body and their mind; to form both in fuch a manner, as that neither fhould be a fource of evil to the world:

they

they should, above all things, take care not to become the founders of a vicious and an infected race. For this reason they are to take care to ftrengthen their bodies by temperance and exercise, and to abstain from all excess in eating and drinking, by which their health and strength may be impaired. And, above all, they are carefully to abstain from that vice, fo common and fo fatal to youth, for whose punishment God Almighty hath, in fignal judgment, appointed fo fevere and dreadful a distemper; a distemper, of such diftinguished malignity, and inveterate infection, that it defcendeth to late posterity; and is one of the chief, among those remarkable methods, by which GOD vifiteth the fins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation.

And as the body is to be difciplined to health and strength by temperance and exercife; fo likewise fhould the mind be difciplined to knowlege and religion, by proper information and inftruction, and by the practice of every virtue. Good habits should be acquired, and vicious habits removed and rooted up, with all poffible diligence, before men become parents; that they may not de

rive the guilt upon themselves, of having filled the world with a race of fiends and monsters; nor the curfe upon their posterity; of having evil conftitutions, and evil habits, conveyed to them with their very being: fuch habits, as may make them very miferable in this world, and lead them to everlafting mifery in the world to come! for afmuch as it is well known, that the difpofitions of the mind, like the features of the body, are conveyed down from father to fon, and, as the common obfervation is, run in the blood and therefore the first duty that parents owe their children, is, to convey health, and strength, and a good conftitution of body and mind to them, as far as it is in their power fo to do, by a proper care of their own health, and a confcientious abftinence from all excefs and vice of every kind.

And when that is done, the next care they owe their children, is, to provide for their health and strength, by proper nourishment.

The parents are not to think they have done enough, in bringing their children into the world in as good a condition as they could. That, although not the leaft, is how ever but the first part of their duty. The

next is, to support the good conftitution they have brought into the world, by proper nourishment, and care of their health. And, to this purpose, GOD Almighty hath impreffed a ftrong inftinct of love and tenderness for their young, upon all the creatures. And this love is attended with so much delight and complacence in the tender offspring, as is a natural relief and compenfation for all the trouble of education, and even for the pains of travail: agreeable to our bleffed Saviour's obfervation, xvi. chap. of St. John, 21. ver. A woman, when she is in travail, hath forrow, because her hour is come; but as foon as she is delivered of the child, fhe remembreth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And that women may have wherewithal to cherish this joy in their hearts, and to fupport these tender objects of their love with delight, GOD Almighty hath furnished them with breafts, filled with the most proper food in the world, for the nourishment of their young; and hath annexed a very uncommon degree of pleasure to the administration of it; and as uncommon a degree of pain and danger, to the with-holding of it from the

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