and offences unto him with great shame and confusion of face and with true grief and sorrow of heart ackowledge your iniquities make particular confession so far as you remember of your stubbornness and disobedience to your Parents of your contempt and neglect of them of your hating them and wishing Evil to them of your speaking irreverently and wickedly to them or of them of your not submitting to their Corrections of your not heeding their Admonitions and Counsels nor regarding their just Reproofs c. Beg of God for Christ's sake to have mercy on you and to blot out your Sins and to make you what you ought to be After this it is fit to form sincere and hearty Resolutions of doing your Duty in all respects to your Parents for the time to come of loving honouring obeying and serving them as you ought to do Resolve to amend whatever has been amiss and defective either in your thoughts words or deeds with relation to them Beg of God to strengthen you in your Resolutions to fortifie you against all Temptations to inspire you with his Fear and Love to guide you by his good Spirit and that he would never leave you nor forsake you If the Example and Society of other wicked Children has been an occasion of making you so bad and of hardening you in your Contempt Stubbornness and Disobedience resolve to break off your Familiarities with them let them and all others know and see that you are sorry for your Disobedience to your Parents for your having dishonoured slighted and neglected them and that you are resolved to do so no more but will by the help of God approve your selves Dutiful Kind and Obedient Children Not only must you in this manner make your Humble and Penitent Confession to Almighty God your Heavenly Father whom you have provoked as by your other Sins so particularly by your disobedience to your Parents and by your dishonouring of them but you must likewise confess unto your Parents the Crimes whereof you have been guilty against them you must say as the Prodigal did I will arise and go to my Father and will say unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy Son Luke 15.18,19 Let your Parents see that you are heartily sorry for your Offences against them by Word or Deed beg of them to forgive you and desire them to pray to God that he would forgive you You are to be careful after this to fulfil your Purposes and Resolutions and to perform all those Duties of Love Honour and Obedience to your Parents wherein you were formerly so defective For this end it is fit daily and earnestly to beg of God that he would direct and assist you by his Holy Spirit to do what is well-pleasing in his sight It is necessary for you to be very jealous of your deceitful and desperately wicked Hearts to watch over them carefully lest they turn aside towards your former crooked Ways lest you return with the Dog to the Vomit Watch against all those Temptations whereby you are most in danger of being seduced and intangled again in your former perverse Practices and Customs As you have been formerly very negligent and defective in Honouring and Obeying your Parents endeavour for the future so much the more to perform all those Duties which you owe unto them with great care and exactness As you have been great Examples of Disobedience strive to be so much the greater Patterns of Obedience Endeavour to do all that you can that they who have been by your Counsels or Examples corrupted and made stubborn and disobedient may be reformed and rescued from their Sins and Wickedness that as you have been Instruments to promote Satan's Kingdom so you may be zealous for the glory of God for promoting Piety and true Virtue in the World whereof this is no inconsiderable part that Children Honour their Father and Mother and do all those Duties with chearfulness unto them which God requires This is the way to obtain the divine pardon to turn away his Wrath and to keep off those heavy Judgments which are threatned against stubborn Children and such who mock and scorn their Parents Or if God see it fit to punish you here he will make your Corrections and Punishments and all other things work together for your good and after he hath tryed you he will bestow upon you rewards of everlasting Life and Glory As for those who are so perverse as to despise all Counsel and Advice who refuse to hearken to any Instructions who are resolved to go on in their stubbornness and disobedience to their Parents in slighting and vilifying them let them remember what the Wise Man saith Eccles 11.9 Rejoice O young Man in thy Youth and let thine heart chear thee in the days of thy youth and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine Eyes But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into Judgment An Appendix concerning the Duties of Children to their Step-Parents The Duties of Children to their Step-Parents HAving spoken of the Duties of Children to their Natural Parents I shall add a few things concerning their Duties to their Step-Parents Children ought to honour their Step-Parents to carry themselves Respectfully towards them and to avoid every thing either in words or deeds which has an appearance of Neglect and Contempt They ought to Obey them and to shew great readiness to serve them in any thing that is in their power to do for them and to avoid whatever looks like stubbornness especially in such things wherein their Natural Parent requires them to be Obedient to their Step-Parent They ought to carry themselves kindly and lovingly towards them and to avoid whatever looks like Hatred or Malice They ought to submit to their Reproofs and to their Chastenings especially when their Natural Parent desires the Step-Parent to reprove or correct them for their faults They ought to hearken to their Admonitions to follow their good Counsels and Examples and to be thankful for whatever they either do or say for their benefit and advantage They ought to bear patiently with my thing in their humour and temper that is not so sweet and pleasant and to beware lest they be thereby provoked to do or say what becometh not Children towards those who are in the place of Parents to them As to these particular Duties I thought it needless to say much having treated of them more fully in the preceeding Discourse about Childrens Duties to their Natural Parents I shall therefore in the next place propose Some Motives to stir up Children to be Dutiful to their Step-Parents Some Motives to stir up Children to be Dutiful to them The first thing which should prevail with Children to carry themselves Dutifully towards their Step-Parents is the regard that is due to the Laws of God whereby it is declared that Man and Wife are