A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties

And thus have we showed the causes of the great neglect of this holy exercise. Let us in the next place consider of some reasons which may reform it, and persuade all sorts of men to put it in practice with more diligence. The which may be reduced unto two heads, as respecting either governors of families, and Ministers who are to give instruction, or inferiors in the family, as children and servants, and people in the congregation, that they may give themselves over to be instructed by them. The former sort may be persuaded by these reasons. First, because it is Gods Commandment, that parents and governors of families should teach and catechize their children and servants, not only instructing them in the knowledge of Christian Religion, but also requiring an account of them by way of questions and answers, how they have profited by their teaching, for the increasing of their knowledge. Thus the Lord requireth of the people of Israel, that they should not only themselves remember and lay up in their hearts his words and works which they had heard and seen, but also that they should teach them their sons, and ¹their sons sons. And in another place: These words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou lyest down, and when thou risest up. So the Psalmist saith, that God established a Testimony in Jacob, and appointed a Law in Israel, which he commanded their fathers, that they should make them known