SECTION VII. 73 a bright example of piety and virtue in your own behaviour? Have the lessons which you have taught them by your own prac- tice happily concurred with the instructions of your lips to train them up for God and heaven ? What can you say my friends to such enquiries as these ? Have you been faithful to this trust, and have you doneany thin; answerable to these highengagements ? Cr have you only brought these infants into,a world of sin and sorrow, and taken no thought nor pains to make them holy and happy ? I-Iave you introduced them into a state of immortal ex- istence, and yet employed no care nor labour to render that ex- istence happy, and to bring them up for the blessedness of hea- ven ? Is not this what you owe to your young offspring, and to your own character as parents ? I should here address all governors of families, as well as parents, and those whose business it is to teach and instruct chil- dren, or who take servants into their house. You provide the conveniences of this life for servants, and ought you not tohave some care of their souls as well as of your own? It is the ho- nourable character that God himself gave Abraham ; Gen. xviii. 19. I know him, i. e. Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord ; and his servants as well as his sous were circumci- sed And entered into the bond of the covenant. Where servants are instructed and admonished by their superiors, with that just tenderness and respect as creatures made of the same flesh and blood, there may be much done to win them to Christ, and where there appears a hearty solicitude for the welfare of their souls and their highest interest, they are not always such on- tractable creatures as to refuse the assistance that a master or mistress might give them in the way to heaven ; and re- member this assistance comes with a double influence upon the hearts and consciences of those that are under your government, when the mingled principles of authority and love join in reli- giousadvice. Here I might address magistrates with a warm enquiry, what do you more than others ? But we have fewof that cha- racter who attend our separate assemblies. I might address mi- nisters in the same language, who are eminently entrustedwith the care of souls ; but while each of us are engaged in fulfilling our own proper posts of service, we have but very little oppor- tunity of giving or receiving such mutual advices in our public ministry. 'Yet would I not suffer this moment to pass away without renewing the enquiry upon my own conscience, What do Imore than others? And in pressing the solemncharge upon my own heart of behaving in all my ministrations; and all my studies, as becomes one that is interested in the care of immor- tal souls,
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