God are here concealed under innumerable veils. How often does he seem to countenance iniquity by granting a profusion of favours to the contrivers of the most infernal schemes? How often doth he seem to declare himself against innocence by the misfortunes, which he leaves the innocent to suffer? How often have we seen tyrants on a throne, and good people in irons? Doth not this awful phenomenon furnish us with an irrefragable argument for the doctrine of a general judgment and a future state? Which of your preachers hath not frequently exhorted you to judge nothing before the time, 1 Cor. iv. 5. at the end of time cometh the restitution of all things, Acts iii. 21. which will justify providence?

Now, it should seem, this argument, which none but infidels and libertines deny, and which is generally received by all Christians, and by all philosophers, this argument, I say, favours, not to say establishes in an incontestible manner, the opinion of those who think that the saints will know one another in the next life. Without this how could we acquiesce in the justice of the sentence, which will then be pronounced on all? Observe St. Paul, whose ministry was continually counteracted. What motive supported him under so much opposition? Certainly it was the expectation of seeing one day with his own eyes the conquests which he obtained for Jesus Christ; souls which he had plucked out of the jaws of Satan; believers whom he had guided to eternal happiness. Hear what he said to the Thessalonians, What is our hope, or joy, or crown of re

joicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy, chap. ii. 19, 20.

Now, this is the hope, this is the crown, which I propose to you, heads of families, to engage you to dedicate your children to God by a religious education.

It was this thought which supported one of the wisest of the heathens against the fears of death, I mean Cato of Utica. No man had a greater affection for a son, than he had for his. No man bore the loss with greater firmness and magnanimity. "O happy day, when I shall quit this wretched crowd, and join that divine and happy company of noble souls, who have quitted the world before me! I shall there meet not only these illustrious personages, but my dear Cato, who, I will venture to say, was one of the best of men, of the best natural dispositions, and the most punctual in the discharge of his duties, that ever was. I have put his body on the funeral pile, whereas he should have placed mine there but his soul hath not left me, and he hath only stepped first into a country where I shall soon join him."

If this hope made so great an impression on the mind of a pagan, what ought it not to produce in the heart of a Christian? What infinite pleasure, when the voice shall cry, Arise ye dead, to see those children whom God gave you? What superior delight, to behold those whom an immature death snatched from us, and the loss of whom had cost us 30 many tears? What supreme satisfaction, to em

brace those who closed our eyes, and performed the last kind offices for us? O the unspeakable joy of that Christian father, who shall walk at the head of a Christian family, and present himself with all his happy train before Jesus Christ, offering to him hearts worthy to serve such a master, and saying to him, behold me, and the children which God hath given me, Heb. ii. 13.

We have been speaking of the fatal consequences of an irreligious education; and now we wish we could put you all into a condition to prevent them. But, alas! how can some of you reduce our exhortations to practice? You disconsolate fathers, you distressed mothers, from whom persecution has torn away these dear parts of yourselves, ye weeping Davids, ye mourning Rachels, who, indeed, do not weep because your children are not, but because, though they are, and though you gave them existence, you cannot give them a religious education; Ah! how can you obey our voice? Who can calm the cruel fears, which by turns divide your souls? What results from all the conflicts, which pass within you, and which rend your hearts asunder? Will you go and expose yourselves to persecution? Will you leave your children alone to be persecuted? Will you obey the voice that commands, flee out of Babylon, and deliver every man his own soul, Jer. 1. 6. or that which cries, Take the young child? Matt. ii. 20. O dreadful alternative! Must you be driven, in some sort, to make an option between their salvation and yours, must you sacrifice yours to theirs, or theirs to your own?

Ah! cruel problem! Inhuman suspence! Thou tyrant, is not thy rage sufficiently glutted by destroying our material temples, must you lay your barbarous hands on the temples of the Holy Ghost? Is it not enough to plunder us of our property, must you rob us of our families? Is it not enough to render life bitter, would you make eternity desperate and intolerable?

But it is not to tyrants that we address ourselves, they are inaccessible to our voice, or inflexible to our complaints. It is to God alone, who turns them as he thinks proper, that we address our prayers. Hagar found herself banished into a desert, and she had nothing to support her but a few pieces of bread, and a bottle of water. The water being spent, her dear Ishinael was ready to die with thirst. She laid him under a bush, and only desired that she might not see him die. She rambled to some distance, wept as she went, and said, Let me not see the death of the child, Gen. xxi. 16, &c. See, she cannot help it, she sits over against him, lifts up her voice, and weeps. God heard the voice of the mother and the child, and, by an angel, said unto her, what aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad. Arise, take hold of his hand, and lift him up, for I will make him a great nation. See what a source of consolation I open to you! Lift up the voice and weep. O Father of spirits, God of the Spirits of all flesh, Heb. xii. 9. Numb. xvi. 22. Thou Supreme, whose essence is love, and whose chief character is mercy, thou who wast touched to see Ninevah repent, and who wouldst not involve in the

general destruction the many infants at nurse in that city, who could not discern between their right hand and their left, John iv. 11. wilt not thou regard with eyes of affection and pity our numerous children, who cannot discern truth from error, who cannot believe, because they have not heard, who cannot hear without a preacher, and to whom, alas! no preacher is sent? Rom. x. 14.

But you happy fathers, you, mothers, favourites of heaven, who assemble your children around you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, Matt. xxiii. 37. can you neglect a duty, which is impracticable to others? That tyrants and persecutors should display their fury by making havoc of our children, and by offering them to the devil, is, I allow, extremely shocking, but there is nothing in it very wonderful: but that christian fathers and mothers should conspire together in such a tragical design would be a spectacle incomparably more shocking, and the horror of which the blackest colours are unable to pourtray.

How forcible soever the motives, which we have alleged, may be, I fear they will be ineffectual, and such as will not influence the greatest part of you. It must be allowed, that, if there be any case, to which the words of our Saviour are applicable, it is this of which we are speaking, "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it," Matt. vii. 14.

A reformation of the false ideas which you form on the education of children, is, so to speak, the first step which you ought to take in the road set

.