A DISCOURSE ON THE WAY OF INSTRUCTION BY CATECHISMS, And of the best Manner of composing them. CHILDREN LThe Duty of instructing Children in Religion. have souls as well as men : They soon discover their capacity of reasoning, and make it appear theycan learn the things of God and religion. The great God therefore ex- pects that little children should be taught to know and love, and worship him : for he bath not bestowed their early powers in vain. Their souls also in their own nature are immortal ; and thousands of them are summoned away from this world by death. The righteous Judge of the world will call the small as well as the great to his bar of account. All those whom he shall esteem capable of duty and sinning must be answerable for their own personal conduct : and how early he will begin to require this account, he only knows. Parents therefore cannot well be- gin too soon to let children know that they have Souls that must live when their bodies are dead ; they should instruct them there is a future judgment, and an account to be given of their behaviour in this life, as soon as they have well learned there is a God, and what duties he requires of them. I am by no means of their opinion who let children grow up almost to the age of manhood before their minds are informed of the principles of religion. Their pretence is, that thechoice of religion ought to be perfectly free, and not biassed and in- fluenced by the authority of parents, or the power of educa- tion. But surely the great God who framed the soul of man hath made it capable of learning religion and the knowledge of God, by the instruction of others in the years of childhood, long before it is capable of tracing out the knowledge of God and religion by its own reasoning powers; and why should not parents follow the order of God and nature ; why should they not instruct children in the knowledge and love and fear of God, as soon as they are capable of these divine lessons, and not leave them to grow up to their full bulk and size, like the offspring of brute animals, without God and with, but knowledge? Besides, sloth not the very light of nature teach us that lia- rents are entrusted with the care of their children in younger yeár, to furnish their minds with the seeds of virtue and happi-
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