is so very seldom in our thoughts Thirdly Because this Age is of all other the fittest and best to begin a Religious course of Life And this does not contradict the former Argument tho it seems to do so For as it is true of Children that they are most prone to be idle and yet fittest to learn so in the case we are speaking of both are true that youth is an Age wherein we are too apt if left to our selves to forget God and Religion and yet at the same time fittest to receive the impressions of it Youth is aetas Disciplinae the proper Age of Discipline very obsequious and tractable fit to receive any kind of impression and to imbibe any tincture Now we should lay hold of this golden Opportunity This Age of suppleness and obedience and patience for labour should be plyed by Parents before that rigor and stiffness which grows with years come on too fast Childhood and Youth are choice Seasons for the planting of Religion and Virtue and if Parents and Teachers sleep in this Seed time they are ill Husbandmen for this is the time of plowing and sowing This Age is certainly the most proper for Instruction according to that of the Prophet Isa 28. 9. Whom shall he teach knowledge Whom shall he make to understand Doctrine Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast For precept must be upon precept and linâ— upon line here a little and there a little And the sooner this is done the better only things must be instilled into them gently and by degrees It is a noted Saying of Aristotle That young Persons are not fit to hear Lectures of Moral Philosophy because at that Age Passion is so predominant and unruly By which I think he only means that the Minds of young Persons are least prepared to receive the Precepts of Morality and to submit to them but that he does not hereby intend that therâ—fore no care ought to be used to form the Minds and Manners of Youth to Virtue and Goodness He certainly understood the nature and power of evil Habits too well to be of that mind and consequently must think that the Principles of Morality ought with great care and diligence to be instill'd into young persons betimes Because they of all other have the most need of this kind of Instruction and this Age is the most proper Season for it And the less their Minds are prepared for it so much the more pains ought to be taken with them that they may be taught to govern and subdue their Passions before â—hey grow too sâ—iff and headstrong So that if the Seeds of Religion and Virtue be not planted in our younger years what is to be expected in old Age according to that of the Son of Sirach Ecclus 25. 13. If thou hast gâ—thered nothing in thy Youth how canst thou expect to find any thing in thine Age Young years are tender and easily wrought upon apt to be moulded into any fashion they are udum molle lutum like moist and soft clay which is pliable to any form but soon grows hard and then nothing is to be made of it It is a very difficult thing to make impressions upon Age and to deface the Evil which hath been deeply imprinted upon young and tender minds When good instruction hath been neglected at first a conceited Ignorance doth commonly take possesâ—â—on and obstruct all the passages through which Knowledge and Wisdom should enter into us Upon this Consideration the Work of Religion should be begun betimes because it is a mighty advantage to any thing to be planted in a ground that is newly broken up It is just the same â—hing for young persons to be enter'd into a Religious course and to have their Minds habituated to Virtue before vicious Customs have got place and strength in us For whoever shall attempt this afterwards will meet with infinite difficulty and opposition and must dispute his ground by inches It is good therefore to do that which must be done one time or other when it is easiest to be done when we may do it with the greatest advantage and are likely to meet with the least and weakest opposition We should anticipate Vice and prevent the Devil and the World by letting God into our hearts betimes and giving Religion the first seisine and possession of our Soulsâ— This is the time of sowing our Seed which must by no means be neglected For the Soul will not lye fallow good or evil will come up If our minds be not cultivated by Religion Sin and Vice will get the possession of them But if our tender years be seasoned with the knowledge and fear of God this in all probability will have a good influence upon the following course of our Lives In a word this Age of our Lives is proper for Labour and Conflict because Youth is full of heat and vigor of courage and resolution to enterprize and effect difficult things This heat indeed renders young persons very unfit to advise and direct themselves and therefore they have need to be advised and directed by those who are wiser and more experienced But yet this heat makes them very fit for practice and action for though they are bad at counsel they are admirable at execution when their heat is well directed they have a great deal of vivacity and quickness of courage and constancy in the way wherein they are set Besides that Youth hath a great sense of Honour and Virtue of Praise and Commendation which are of great force to engage young persons to attempt worthy and excellent things For hope and confidence strength and courage with which sense of Honour and desire of Praise are apt to inspire them are admirable instruments of Victory and Mastery in any kind and these are proper and most peculiar to Youth I write unto you young men â—aith St. John because ye are strong and have overcome the evil One And besides the spirit and vigor of Youth young persons have several other qualities which make them very capable of learning any thing that is good They are apt to believe because they have not been often deceived and this is a very good quality in a Learner And they are full of hopes which will encourage them to attempt things even beyond their strength because Hope is always of the future and the Life of young persons is in a great measure before them and yet to come And which is a good Bridle to restrain them from that which is evil they are commonly very modest and bashful And which is also a singular advantage they are more apt to do that which is honest and commendable than that which is gainful and profitable being in a great measure free from the love of Money which Experience as well as the Apostle tells us is the root of all Evil. Children are very seldom covetous because they have seldom been bitten by want Fourthly This is
to manage it is a very pernicious thing And yet how many Parents are there who omit no Care and Industry to get an Estate that they may leave it to their Children but use no means to form their Minds and Manners for the right use and enjoyment of it without which it had been much happier for them to have been left in great Poverty and straits Dost thou love thy Child This is true love to any one to do the best for him we can Of all your toil and labour for your Children this may be all the fruit they may reap and all that they may live to enjoy the advantage of a good Education All other things are uncertain You may raise your Children to Honour and settle a Noble Estate upon them to support it You may leave them as you think to faithful Guardians and by kindness and obligation procure them many Friends And when you have done all this their Guardians may prove unfaithful and treacherous and in the Changes and Revolutions of the World their Honours may slip from under them and their Riches may take to themselves wings and fly away And when these are gone and they come to be nipp'd with the Frosts of Adversity their Friends will fall off like leaves in Autumn This is a sore evil which yet I have seen under the Sun But if the good Education of your Children hath made them wise and virtuous you have provided an Inheritance for them which is out of the reach of Fortune and cannot be taken from them Crates the Philosopher used to stand in the highest Places of the City and to cry out to the Inhabitants O ye People why do you toil to get Estates for your Children when you take no care of their Education This is as Diogenes said to take care of the Shooe but none of the foot that is to wear it to â—ake great pains for an Estate for your Children but none at all to teach them how to use it that is to take great care to undo them but none to make them happy Thirdly Consider that by a careful and Religious Education of your Children you provide for your own Comfort and Happiness However they happen to prove you will have the comfort of a good Conscience and of having done your Duty If they be good they are matter of great Comfort and Joy to their Parents A wise Son saith Solomon maketh a glad Father It is a great satisfaction to see that which we have planted to thrive and grow up to find the good effect of our care and industry and that the work of our hands doth prosper The Son of Sirach among several things for which he reckons a Man happy mentions this in the first place He that hath joy of his Children Ecclus. 25. 7. On the contrary in wicked Children the honour of a Family fails our Name withers and in the next Generation will quite be blotted out Whereas a hopeful Posterity is a prospect of a kind of Eternity We cannot leave a better and more lasting Monument of our selves than in wise and virâ—uous Children Buildings and Books are but dead things in comparison of these living Memorials of our Selves By the good Education of your Children you provide for your Selves some of the best Comforts both for this World and the other For this World and that at such a Time when you most stand in need of Comfort I mean the Time of Sicknâ—ss and old Age. Wise men have been wont to lay up some praesidia Sâ—nâ—ctutis something to support them in that gloomy and melancholy Time as Books and Friends or the like But there is no such external Comfort at such a Time as good and dutiful Children They will then be the light of our Eyes and the Cordial of our fainting Spirits and will recompence all our former care of thâ—m by their present care of us And when we are decaying and withering away we shall have the pleasure to see our Youth as it were renewed and our selves flourishing again in our Children The Son of Sirach speaking of the comfort which a good Father hath in a well educated Son Though he dye says he yet he â—s as if he were not dead for he hath left one behind him that is like himself While he lived he saw and rejoiced in him and when he died he was not sorrowful Ecclus 30. 4 5. Whereas on the contrary a foolish Son is as Solomon tells us a heaviness to his Mother the miscarriage of a Child being apt most tenderly to affect the Mother Such Parents as neglect their Children do as it were provide so many pains and Aches for themselves against they come to be Old And rebellious Children are to their infirm and aged Parents so many aggravations of an evil Day so many burthens of their Age They help to bow them down and to bring their gray hairs so much the sooner with sorrow to the grave They do usually repay their Parents all the neglects of their Education by their undutiful carriage towards them And good Children will likewise be an unspeakable Comfort to us in the Other World When we come to appear before God at the Day of Judgment to be able to say to Him 〈◊〉 here am I and the Children which thou hast given me How will this comfort our Hearts and make us lift up our Heads with joy in that Day Fourthly Consider that the surest Foundation of the publick welfare and happiness is laid in the good Education of Children Families are increased by Children and Cities and Nations are made up of Families And this is a matter of so great concernment both to Religion and the Civil happiness of a Nation that anciently the best constituted Commonwealths did commit this care to the Magistrate more than to Parents When Antipater demanded of the Spartans fifty of their Children for Hostages they offer'd rather to deliver to Him twice as many Men so much did they value the loss of their Country's Education But now amongst us this Work lies chiefly upon Parents There are several ways of reforming Men by the Laws of the Civil Magistrate and by the publick Preaching of Ministers But the most likely and hopeful Reformation of the World must begin with Children Wholsome Laws and good Sermons are but slow and late ways The timely and the most compendious way is good Education This may be an effectual Prevention of evil whereas all after-ways are but Remedies which do always suppose some neglect and omission of timely care And because our Laws leave so much to Parents our Care should be so much the greater and we should remember that we bring up our Children for the Publick and that if they live to be Mâ—n as they come out of our hands they will prove a publick Happiness or Mischief to the Age. So that we can no way better deserve of Mankind and be greater Benefactors to the World than by Peopling it with a Righteous
For Sin will soon take possession of that person whom Shame hath left He that is once become shameless hath prostituted himself Therefore preserve this Disposition in Children as much as is possible as one of the best means to preserve their innocency and to bring them to goodness 3 dly To diligence sine quâ vir magnus nunquam extititâ— without which says one there never was any great and excellent person When the Roman Historians describe an extraordinary man this always enters into his Character as an essential part of it that he was incredibili industriâ diligentiâ singulari of incredible industry of singular diligence or something to that purpose And indeed a Person can neither be excellently good nor extremely bad without this quality The Devil himself could not be so bad and mischievous as he is if he were not so stirring and restless a Spirit and did not compass the Earth and go to and fro seeking whom he might devour This is part of the Character of Sylla and Marius and Cataline those great Disturbers of the Roman State as well as of Cesar and Pompey who were much greater and better men but yet gave trouble enough to their Countrey and at last dissolved the Roman Common-wealth by their Ambition and Contention for Superiority This I say enters into all their Characters that they were of a vigorous and indefatigable spirit So that Diligence in it self is neither a Virtue nor a Vice but may be applied either way to good or bad purposes and yet where all other requisites do concur it is a very proper Instrument and Disposition for Virtue Therefore train up Children to diligence if ever you desire they should excel in any kind The diligent hand saith Solomon maketh rich Prov. 10. 4. Rich in estate Rich in knowledge Seest thou a man diligent in his business as the same Wise-man observes Prov. 22. 29. he shall stand before Princes he shall not stand before mean or obscure men And again Prov. 12. 24. The hand of the diligent shall bear rule but the slothful shall be under Tribute Diligence puts almost every thing into our power and will in time make Children capable of the best and greatest things Whereas Idleness is the bane and ruin of Children it is the unbending of their Spirits the Rust of their Faculties and as it were the laying of their Minds fallow not as Husbandmen do their Lands that they may get new heart and strength but to impair and lose that which they have Children that are bred up in laziness are almost necessarily bad because they cannot take the pains to be good and they cannot take pains because they have never been inured and accustomed to it which makes their Spirits restive and when you have occasion to quicken them and spur them up to business they will stand stock still Therefore never let your Children be without a Calling or without some useful or at least innocent employment that will take them up that they may not be put upon a kind of necessity of being vicious for want of something better to do The Devil tempts the active and vigorous into his service knowing what â—it and proper instruments they are to do his drudgery But the slothful and idle no body having hired them and set them on work lie in his way and he stumbles upon them as he goes about and they do as it were offer themselves to his service and having nothing to do they even tempt the Devil himself to tempt them and to take them in his way 4 thly To sincerity which is not so properly a single Virtue as the life and soul of all other Graces and Virtues and without which what shew of goodness soever a man may make he is unâ—ound and rotten at the heart Cherish therefore this disposition in Children as that which when they come to be men will be the great security and ornament of their lives and will render them acceptable both to God and Men. 5 thly To tenderness and pity Which when they come to engage in business and to have dealings in the World will be a good bar against Injustice and Oppression and will be continually prompting us to Charity and will fetch powerful Arguments for it from our own bowels To preserve this goodness and tenderness of nature this so very human and useful affection keep Children as much as is possible out of the way of bloody Sights and Spectacles of cruelty and discountenance in them all cruel and barbarous usage of Creatures under their power do not allow them to torture and kill them for their sport and pleasure because this will insensibly and by degrees hardâ—n their hearts and make them less apt to compassionate the wants of the poor and the sufferings and afflictions of the miserable Secondly As the main Foundations of Religion and Vertue Children must be carefully train'd up to the Government of their Passions and of their Tongues and particularly to speak truth and to hate lying as a base and vile quality 1 st To the good Government of their Passions It is the disorder of these more especially of Desire and Fear and Anger which betrays us to many evilsâ— Anger prompts men to contention and murther Inordinate Desire to covetousness and fraud and oppression And Fear many times awes men into Sin and deters them from their Duty Now if these Passions be cherish'd or even but let alone in Children they will in a short time grow headstrong and unruly and when they come to be men will corrupt the judgment and turn good nature into humour and the understanding into prejudice and wilfulness But if they be carefully observed and prudently restrained they may by degrees be managed and brought under government and the inordinacy of them being prun'd away they may prove excellent Instrumentsâ— of Virtue Therefore be careful to discountenance in Children any thing that looks like Rage and furious Anger and to shew them the unreasonableness and deformity of it Check their longing Desires after things pleasant and use them to frequent disappointments in that kind that when you think fit to gratify them they may take it for a favour and not challenge every thing they have a mind to as their due and by degrees may learn to submit to the more prudent choice of their Parents as being much better able to judge what is good and fit for them And when you see them at any time apt out of Fear to neglect their Duty or to fall into any Sin or to be tempted by telling a Lye to commit one fault to hide and excuse another which Children are very apt to do The best Remedy of this Evil will be to plant a greater Fear against a less and to tell them what and whom they should chiefly fear not him who can hurt and kill the Body but Him who after He hath kill'd can destroy both Body and Soul in Hell The neglect of Children in this matter
to enquire into that they may apply the Seed to the Soil and plant in it that which is most proper for it Quid quaeque ferat regio quid quaeque recuset Hic segetes illic veniunt foâ—liciùs uvae Every Soil is not proper for all sorts of Grain or Fruit one ground is fit for Corn another for Vinâ—s And so is it in the tempers and dispositions of Children Some are more capable of one Excellency and Virtue than another and some more strongly inclined to one Vice than another Which is a great Seâ—ret of Nature and Providence and it is very hard to give a just and satisfactory account of it It is good therefore to know the particular Tempers of Children that we may accordingly apply our care to them and manage them to the best advantage That where we discern in them any forward inclinations to good we may cast in such Seeds and Principles as by their suitableness to their particular Tempers we judge most likely to take soonest and deepest root And when these are grown up and have taken possession of the Soil they will prepare it for the Seeds of other Virtues And so likewise when we discover in their Nature a more particular disposition and leaning towards any thing which is bad we must with great diligence and care apply such Instructions and plant such Principles in them as may be most effectual to alter this evil disposition of their Minds that whilst Nature is tender and flexible we may gently bend it the other way And it is almost incredible what strange things by Prudence and Patience may be done towards the rectifying of a very perverse and crooked Disposition So that it is of very great use to observe and discover the particular Tempers of Children that in all our instruction and management of them we may apply our selves to their Nature and hit their peculiar Disposition By this means we may lead and draw them to their Duty in human ways and such as are much more agreeable to their Temper than constraint and necessity which are harsh and churlish and against the grain Whatever is done with delight goes on cheerfully but when Nature is compell'd and forc'd things proceed heavily Therefore when we are forming and fashioning Children to Religion and Virtue we should make all the advantage we can of their particular Tempers This will be a good direction and help to us to conduct Nature in the way it will most easily go Every Temper gives some particular advantage and handle whereby we may take hold of them and steer them more easily But if we take a contrary course we must expect to meet with great difficulty and reluctancy Such ways of Education as are prudently fitted to the particular dispositions of Children are like Wind and Tide together which will make the Work go on amain But those ways and methods which are applied cross to Nature are like Wind against Tide which make a great stir and conflict but a very slow progress Not that I do or can expect that all Parents should be Philosophers but that they should use the best wisdom they have in a matter of so great concernment Secondly In your instruction of Children endeavour to plant in them those Principles of Religion and Virtue which are most substantial and are like to have the best influence upon the future government of their Lives and to be of continual and lasting use to them Look to the Seed you sow that it be sound and good and for the benefit and use of mankind This is to be regarded as well as the Gâ—ound into which the Seed is cast Labour to beget in Children a right apprehension of those things which are most fundamental and necessary to the knowledge of God and our Duty and to make them sensible of the great evil and danger of Sin and to work in â—hem a firm belief of the next Life and of the eternal Rewards and Recompences of it And if these Principles once take root they will spread far and wide and have a vast influence upon all their actions and unless some â—owerful Lust or temptation to Vice â—urry them away they will probably accompany them and stick by them as â—ong as they live Many Parents according to their â—est knowledge and apprehensions of Religion in which they themselves â—ave been educated and too often according to their Zeal without knowledge do take great care to plant little and ill-grounded Opinions in the minds of their Children and to fashion them to a Party by infusing into them the particular Notions and Phrases of a Sect which when they come to be examin'd have no substance nor perhaps sense in them And by this means instead of bringing them up in the true and solid Principles of Christianity they take a great deal of pains to instruct them in some doubtful Doctrines of no great moment in Religion and perhaps false at the bottom whereby instead of teaching them to hate Sin they fix them in Schism and teach them to hate and damn all those who differ from them and are opposite to them who yet are perhaps much more in the right and far better Christians than themselves And indeed nothing is more common and more to be pitied than to see with what a confident contempt and scornful pity some ill-instructed and ignorant people will lament the blindness and ignorance of those who have a thousand times more true knowledge and skill than themselves not only in all other things but even in the practise as well as knowledge of the Christian Religion believing those who do not relish their affected Phrases and uncouth Forms of speech to be ignorant of the Mystery of the Gospel and utter strangers to the Life and Power of Godliness But now what is the effect of this mistaken way of Education The Harvest is just answerable to the Husbandry Infoelix lolium steriles dominantur avenae As they have sown so they must expect to reap and instead of good Grain to have Cockle and Tares They have sown the Wind and they shall reap the Whirlwind as the expression is in the Prophet instead of true Religion and of a sober and peaceable Conversation there will come up new and wild Opinions a factious and uncharitable spirit a furious and boisterous zeal which will neither suffer themselves to be quiet nor any body that is about them But if you desire to reap the effects of true Piety and Religion you must take care to plant in Children the main and substantial Principles of Christianity which may give them a general byass to holiness and goodness and not to little particular Opinions which being once fix'd in them by the strong prejudice of Education will hardly ever be rooted out Thirdly Do all that in you lies to check and discourage in them the first beginnings of Sin and Vice So soon as ever they appear pluck them up by the Roots This is like
considerable time before they appear above ground it is long before they shoot and grow up to any heighth and yet they may afterwards be very considerable Which as an ingenious Author observes should excite the care and prevent the despair of Parents For if their Children be not such speedy Spreaders and Branchers as the vine they may perhaps prove proles tardè crescentis Olivae It is a work of great pains and difficulty to rectify a perverse Disposition It is more easy to palliate the corruption of Nature but the cure of it requires time and careful looking to An evil temper and inclination may be covered and conceal'd but it is a great work to conquer and subdue it It must first be check'd and stopp'd in its course and then weaken'd and the force of it be broken by degrees and at last if it be possible deâ—troyed and rooted out Seventhly and Lastly To all these means we must add our constant and earnest Prayers to God for our Children that his Grace may take an early possession of them that he would give them virtuous inclinations and towardly dispositions for goodness And that he would be pleased to accompany all our endeavours to that end with his powerful Assistance and Blessing without which all that we can do will prove ineffectual Parents may plant and Ministers may water but it is God that must give the increase Be often then upon your knees for your Children Do not only teach them to pray for themselves but do you likewise with great fervour and earnestness commend them to God and to the power of his Grace which alone is able to sanctify them Apply your selves to the Father of lights from whom comes every good and perfect gift Beg his H. Spirit and ask Divine knowledge and wisdom for them of Him who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth no man Beseech Him to season their tender years with his Fear which is the beginning of Wisdom Pray for them as Abraham did for Ishmael Oh that Ishmael may live in thy sight Many Parents having â—ound all their endeavours for a long time together ineffectual have at length betook themselves to Prayer earnest and importunate Prayer to God as their last Refuge Monica the Mother of St. Austin by the constancy and importunity of her Prayers obtained of God the conversion of her Son who proved afterwards so great and glorious an Instrument of good to the Church of God According to what St. Ambrose Bishop of Milain to encourage her to persevere in her fervent Prayers for her Son had said to her Fieri non potest ut filius tot lachrymarum pereat It cannot be says he that a Son of so many Prayers and Tears should miscarry God's Grace is free but it is not likely but that God will at last give in this Blessing to our earnest Prayers and faithful Endeavours Therefore pray for them without ceasing pray and faint not Great importunity in Prayer seldom fails of a gracious answer Our B. Saviour spake two Parables on purpose to encourage us herein Not because God is moved much less because he is tired out with our Importunity but because it is an Argument of our firm belief and confidence in his great Goodness And to them that believe all things are possible says our B. Lord To whom c. SERMON III. OF THE Education of Children PROV XXII 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it I Proceed to the next general Head which I proposed namely III. To discover some of the more remarkable and common Miscarâ—iâ—ges in the management of this Wâ—â—k I do not hereby mean gross neglects for want of care but mistakes and miscarriages for want of prudence and skill even when there is no want of care and diligence in Parents and Instructers And I shall for Method's sake reduce the more considerable and common Miscarriages to these three Heads First In matter of Instruction Secondly In matter of Example Thirdly In matter of Reproof and Correction I. In matter of Instruction Parents do very often mainly miscarry in not teaching their Children the true difference between Good and Evil and the degrees of them As when we teach them any thing is a Sin that really is not or that any thing is not a Sin which in truth is so Or when we teach them to lay more stress and weight upon things than they will bear making that which perhaps is only covenient to be in the highest degree necessary or that which it may be is only inconvenient or may be an occasion of Scandal to some weak Christians to be a Sin in its own nature damnable Parents do likewise lay too great a weight upon things when they are as diligent to instruct them in lesser things and as strict in enjoining them and as severe in punishing the commission or neglect of them according as they esteem them good or evil as if they were the weightier things of the Law and matters of the greatest moment in Religion Thus I have known very careful and well-meaning Parents that have with great severity restrained their Children in the wearing of their hair Nay I can remember since the wearing of it below their Ears was looked upon as a Sin of the first magnitude and when Ministers generally whatever their Text was did in every Sermon either find or make an occasion with great severity to reprove the great Sin of long hair and if they saw any one in the Congregation guilty in that kind they would point him out particularly and let fly at him with great zeal I have likewise known some Parents that have strictly forbidden their Children the use of some sorts of Recreations and Games under the notion of heinous Sins upon a mistake that because there was in them a mixture of Fortune and Skill they were therefore unlawful a Reason which I think hath no weight and force in it tho I do not deny but human Laws may for very prudent reasons either restrain or forbid the use of these Games because of the boundless expence both of Money and Time which is many times occasioned by them I have known others nay perhaps the same Persons that would not only allow but even encourage their Children to despise the very Service of God under some Forms which according to their several apprehensions they esteemed to be Superstitious or Factious But this I have ever thought to be a thing of most dangerous consequence and have often observed it to end either in the neglect or contempt of all Religion And how many Parents teach their Children douâ—tful Opinions and lay great stress upon them as if they were saving or damning Points and hereby set such an edge and keenness upon them for or against some indifferent modes and circumstances of God's Worship as if the very Being of a Church and the Essence of Religion were concerned in them These