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tempest, wild and outrageous as they seem to us,only as and where God appoints their course, with infinitely more exactness than the best disciplined troops obey the signals of their leader; and that though the earth should be moved, and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea, the Lord of hosts is with his obedient people, and is their refuge and trust.

Thus by pointing out to your children the invisible God, as working in all these most sensible changes; and by furnishing their minds with those sublime scriptures, in which he asserts his immediate and absolute dominion over all the elements of fire and water, earth and air; you will make the creation a school of instruction to them. By this manner of teaching you will give a body and substance to the truth, which otherwise is too abstracted for their clear apprehension. Lectures of this kind, repeated not too frequently, (lest they should surfeit children, a thing greatly to be guarded against), but at such intervals as these various appearances occur, will early form your children to adore their great Creator, and impress them with a sense of his presence and agency in every place. Thus, in the most rational manner, and in obedience to your Maker's command, you will talk of him, and his works, and truth, when you go out, and when you come in, when you sit down, and when you rise up.

Another truth of the last importance, which young children are capable of being taught, is, that health and strength are the gifts of God. This you must frequently assure them is the truth. But more effectually to realize this truth, watch some opportunity, and regard it as the noblest employ, to carry them to the bed of a brother, a sister, or play-fellow, who is sick and in pain. Immediately after the visit, take them aside to tell them you waited for this opportunity to persuade them of the truth of what you have often taught them, that it is God who maketh sick and maketh well: that it is owing to his sovereign and infinitely wise appointment, that some are on a bed of languishing, crying out through strong pain, others decked with health, and smiling with joy; and conclude with observing how thankful you are to God, that they are still preserved by him in strength. The very same instruction may also be brought to their remembrance

with a still more powerful application, when they themselves feel the blessing of ease after the smart of pain.

It is of great benefit early to teach your children also that life and death, as well as sickness and pain, are at the supreme disposal of God. The proper season to rivet this instruction, is when a servant, a friend, or neighbour known to your children, is just expired, and the awful report is brought to their ears. Then the circumstances of the deceased immediately before death, the medicines used, the help of physicians, the sorrows, sighs, and tears of friends and relations, are to be urged as sensible proofs that it is God that taketh away our breath in infancy, youth, or riper years, just as he sees fit, and that none can deliver out of his hand.

At the same time especially, you should be careful to instruct your children what is meant by the news just brought to their ears, Such a one is dead. Then assure them that to die is to pass out of a changing world into one unchangeable: that it is the removal of an immortal soul out of a corruptible body, to be happy or miserable in an extreme degree, according to what it has done in this life that to every proud, every wicked, every unbelieving man or woman, whether rich or poor, a king, or a beggar, death is the beginning of endless sorrow: but that to every one who has loved God, and lived and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, death is the door to endless joys, and the perfection of glory.

And if it should please God ever to bring your own children into extreme danger of death, and yet restore them again to your arms, it would be a very criminal ne.glect in you to omit telling them; that you hung over their bed with tears, and felt for their pains, but could give them no ease; that you made your prayer to God, and by his power alone they were relieved and made whole. Suppose also, that either of you their parents have been recovered from the borders of the grave, and brought again with joy to see your offspring; then is the season to impress them with the truth, that God is the Lord of life and death; that it is he, who hath spared you in tender mercy to be still the guide of their youth, and a place of refuge for them.

All these methods of instruction should have been used,

all these religious truths you ought to have inculcated upon your children, before they have exceeded the age of twelve or fourteen. After this period, generally speaking, they are capable of being reasoned with; capable of perceiving the force of all those capital arguments, upon which a godly and christian life is supported, against all opposition from without or within. Now their faculties are strong enough to receive those important doctrines, which before they were scarcely able to understand. The duty of parents therefore now requires them to proceed in inculcating christian principles; in representing to them the excellency and absolute necessity of loving God, and delighting in his word and service; the sin of being peevish and discontented, passionate and proud, envious or revengeful, lewd, worldly, or covetous.

By this time your children will have committed so many faults, have been so often corrected, or reproved for them, and only restrained, contrary to natural inclination, from committing many more and greater; that you will have various striking proofs to convince them, that they are creatures corrupted in their nature, disaffected to the government and will of the glorious God, and full of vile propensities. Now shew them the scripture character of fallen man; produce that awful passage, "Yea also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live." Eccles. ix. 3. And that parallel to it, "We all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way." Isai. liii. 6. In full confirmation that they themselves are included in those scriptures, and that their depravity is such as is here set forth, you may tell them what pains, what correction, what restraints you have been using with them from their very infancy, on account of their faults; to conquer their evil tempers, and inspire them with love to God and man. And then appeal to their consciences, whether they do not find contrary tempers still rising and getting the mastery within, though they dare not suffer them to break out. Whilst you are thus unanswerably proving their innate corruption, it is however your duty to do it with tender expressions of love, lest by seeming to upbraid, pride and prejudice should be excited.

The use you are immediately to make of this discovery

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is to prove to them the great need of the Redeemer's interposition and merits. For, after having fixed a conviction upon their consciences, that they have often knowingly done what God has forbidden, what their own hearts condemned them for, and that they have taken pleasure therein, having proved that there has been a complication of injustice, ingratitude, and rebellion, in their conduct towards God;-you may draw with great force this important conclusion, that it did not become him, "by whom are all things," to pardon and receive into his favour such sinful creatures, without an atonement; without some sufficient and everlasting demonstration of his infinite abhorrence of their sin, whilst he shews an astonishing degree of love for their persons; that without shedding of blood there can be no remission; nor any other way than through Christ Jesus, for the wisdom, justice, and mercy of God to act harmoniously in the salvation of sinners; and that it is upon account of what Jesus did and suffered that they have been spared, and never yet punished, as their provocations deserved.

Now, also, is the time to bring to their mind the great doctrines which the scriptures reveal; that the Redeemer who was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery. to be equal with God, took upon him the form of a servant, and died on a cross to the end that all who believe in him might be pardoned, sanctified, and saved. From this it will be easy to observe further to your children, that no morality, no religion, (where the Gospel is known) can be acceptable to him, however applauded and extolled by men, but that which is exercised in an entire dependence upon Jesus Christ,-which proceeds out of a believing humble heart, and which consists in a constant exercise of all those tempers towards the world, our fellow-creatures, and our God, which were in Christ Jesus.

One point more with respect to scripture doctrines, which your children are now very capable of being taught, is, their weakness and inability to live up to what the law of God justly requires. You may observe to them how often they have been breaking their resolutions, acting against their convictions, sorry for doing amiss, wishing and striving in their own fancied power to make themselves better, yet still defeated, still only the more entan

gled, vexed, and guilty in their own eyes. Tell them that this must ever be the case if they ask not for the spirit of God, if they place not their trust wholly in his power and influence that God knowing our weakness has promised this spirit, and commanded us to implore his continual aid and guidance. Desire them to make the experiment for themselves; to have done with placing confidence in their vows, promises, and good resolutions; and to pray, as creatures without strength and utterly depraved, for the spirit of God to work effectually in them and conclude with assuring them, that in this very manner you yourselves make application for power to lead a christian life. And that whatever conformity to the will of God they see in your own behaviour towards themselves or others, is wholly owing, not to any goodness of yours, but to the grace of God which is in you.

Other methods of forming their children after the scripture model, may be used by parents, who have much leisure and a good understanding, when their offspring grow up to a state of manhood. At this season of life it will be of excellent use to inform them that the unhappy creatures, whose crimes are made public, and whose persons are doomed to an ignominious death, were very early the despiser's of God's word, his Son, and his grace; wherefore they were left to themselves, and their sin soon grew to such a horrid size. Help them to trace the gay pleasure-loving young woman from her first contempt of serious godliness and scripture, to the loss of her honour, the disgrace of her friends, the irreparable ruin of her character, perhaps to the imbruing her hands in the blood of her own offspring. Point out to them the robber, the thief, perhaps the assassin,-in the young man of spirit, infected with the plague of uncleanness, the love of gaming, or the proud desire of appearing above his circumstances. Mark out to them the course and issue of ungovernable passion and revenge, from its impatience of the control of God's word, and the meek religion of Jesus, till it presents itself unmasked, delivering up the man of sense, of education, perhaps of noble birth, into the hands of the common hangman. It is your duty, in this alarming manner, not only to warn your children against lust, extravagance, passion, and revenge; but above all things,