MR BROWN's DYING ADVICES

TO HIS

YOUNGER CHILDREN.

MY DEAR CHILdren,

BELIEVING that God hath made with me, and with my feed after me, his everlafting covenant, to be a God to me, and to my feed, I did, in your baptism, and often fince, and now do, before God and his angels, make a folemn furrender of you all into the hands of my God, and my father's God, and of the God of your mother, and her father's God; in the prefence of that God, and as ye fhall answer at his fecond coming, I charge you-

1. To learn diligently the principles of our Christian and Proteftant religion from your Catechisms and Confeffions of Faith, but especially from your BIBLE: God's word hath a light and life, a power and sweetness in it, which no other book hath, and by it your fouls must be quickened and live, or you must be damned for ever; and the more closely you prefs the words of the Bible to your own hearts, and pray, and think them over before God, you will find them the more powerful and pleafant. My foul hath found inexpreffibly more sweetnefs and satisfaction in a single line of the Bible, nay, in

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two fuch words as these, THY GOD, and MY GOD, than all the pleasures found in the things of the world, fince the creation, could equal.

2. Give yourselves to prayer: Jefus hath faid, 'Suffer • little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; ❝ for of fuch is the kingdom of heaven. I love them that 'love me; and those that seek me early shall find me :— Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.

The Lord is good to them that seek him. He is the 'hearer of prayer; and therefore to him fhould all flesh 'come.'-The Lord, the father of the fatherless, takes an especial pleasure in hearing the prayers of the fatherlefs young ones.

When I was left deftitute of a father, and soon after of a mother, the Lord dealt fo with me; and, though I was too bent on childish diverfions, yet the Lord, on fome occafions, made prayer more pleasant to me than any of them. By prayer improve the Lord as your father, confulting him, and asking his direction in all your ways; and seeking his bleffing on your learning, and on whatever you do, agreeable to his will.

3. Study earnestly to love, honour, and obey your mother, and to be a comfort to her. Much trouble hath she had in bringing you so far in the world, and much affection hath the fhewed you.' She hath now a double charge and authority over you. The Lord now obferves particularly what is done to her.-Oh, for the Lord's fake, do not dishonour her, nor break her heart, by your difobedience and gracelefs walk; otherwise the Lord's dreadful curfe will light upon you, and ye will readily foon perish: for think what God hath faid, Prov. xvii.

25. A foolish fon is a grief to his father and bitternets

Chap. xx. 20.

to her that bare him.' feth his father or his ' out in obscure darkness.' See also Lev. xx. 3, 4. Deut. xxi. 18, 19. Prov. x. 1. xiii. 1. XV. 5, 20. xix. 13, 26. xxviii. 7, 24. xxx. 17.

Whofo curmother, his lamp fhall be put

4. Avoid, as plagues, every light, frothy, and wicked companion. Be not a difgrace to me, and caufe of damnation to yourselves, by keeping company with idle talkers, fwearers, drunkards, tiplers, frothy or lewd perfons. Scarce any thing more infallibly brings perfons to misery in this world, or to hell in the next, than loose and trifling companions, Prov. xiii. 20. He that walketh with wife men fhall be wife; but a companion of fools fhall be deftroyed.' Chap. xxviii. 7. • Whofo keepeth the law is a wife fon; but he that is a compa 'nion of riotous men fhameth his father.' See alfo Prov. i. ii. v. vi. vii. and ix. and I Cor. v. 9, 11.-Neyer make any your companions with whom you would not wish to appear at the judgment-feat of Chrift, and with whom you would not wish to live for ever.

5. Mind earnestly the infinitely important concerns of your eternal falvation. I hereby conftitute these addref fes, annexed to my fhorter and larger Catechifms, a part of my dying directions to you. Oh, ponder and prac tife them! Wo to you, if, by your careleffnefs and wickedness, you thruft the grace of God out from among my pofterity! Ah, my dear young children, fhall I, at the last day, echo my AMEN to Christ's sentence of your eternal damnation!-In order to ftir up your concern about eternal things, let me befeech you to read Boston's Fourfe

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Fourfold State, Pierce's Beft Match, Rutherford's Letters, Guyfe's Sermons to Young People, Allien's Alarm, and Baxter's Call; but beware of fome legal directions in the last two. Read alfo the lives of Elizabeth Cairns, of Alexander Archibald, and especially the lives of Meffrs Thomas Halyburton, James Frazer, and James Hog. Perhaps alfo my Journal may be useful to you; but, above all, read the Book OF INSPIRATION.

6. Never affect conformity to the vain and vile fafhions of this world: if you do, you difobey God, and hazard the ruin of your own fouls. Rom. xii. 2. • Be

⚫ not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.' Jam. iv. 4. Know · ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity with • God? whofoever, therefore, will be a friend of the ⚫ world, is the enemy of God.' See alfo 1 Cor. vii. 31. 1 John ii. 15, 17. iv. 5, 6. v. 4, 19. Pfal. xv. 4. cxxxix. 21. cxix. 53, 115, 136, 158. ·

19. John vii. 7. xv. 18,

7. Never marry, nor take one step toward marriage, without much serious and folemn confultation of God, and patient waiting for his direction.-By means of rafh marriages was the old world defiled; and it was partly on this account that it was drowned, Gen. vi. In confequence of following thefe examples, Efau's pofterity were caft out from the church of God to all generations, Gen. xxvi. 34, 35. Judah's was difgraced and killed ; and it is to be feared that his two fons perished, Gen. xxxviii. Not only by Jehoshaphat's family, but even the kingdom of Judah, was almost ruined, 2 Chron. xxi. xxii. How dreadful for your own fouls, and for those of your children, if you take into your bofom an uncon

verted lump of wrath! For the Lord's fake, let no beauty, no affability, no wealth, decoy any of you into this dangerous fnare, which may exclude the grace of God from your family, till the end of time, 1 Cor. vii. 39. Deut. vii. 3, 4. Ezra ix. 2, 3, 12 14.

8. If the Lord give you families and children, bring them up for God. I have effayed to point out your duty, in this refpect, in my two fermons at Whitburn and Inverkeithing, which were prinred: I pray you feriously to peruse thefe, and to comply with the advices given in the fame.

9. Set the Lord always before you as your Saviour, witness, master, pattern, and future judge. David faith, Pfal. xvi. 8. I have fet the Lord always before me:

because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved. It is the command of God, 1 Cor. x. 31. • Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatfoever ye do, do all ' to the glory of God.'

10. Adhere conftantly, cordially, and honeftly to the covenanted principles of the church of Scotland, and to that teftimony which hath been lifted up for them.. I fear a generation is rifing up which will endeavour filently to let flip these matters, as if they were ashamed to hold them fast, or even to speak of them. May the Lord forbid that any of you fhould ever enter into this confederacy against Jefus Chrift, and his caufe !-This from a dying father and minifter, and a witness for Christ.

JOHN BROWN