Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

Will you then study & heartily apply to your Duty to this purpose? will you teach your Children and Servants the good knowledge and fear of the Lord? Labour to instil betimes into them right Principles, and be dropping as they are capable of receiving. Will you be provoking and spurring them on to their Duty by your warm Counsels and Exhortations? will you lay your strict Commands upon them to do it as they would have your love and avoid your displeasure. Allure them by your own example, that is a strong silken Cord which draws sweetly. The way to have them write well, is for you to set them good Copies. Oh let them not see Irreligion in you, and Profaneness in you, for an hundred to one but if they do, that will do them more mischief than all your Precepts and Counsels will do them good. Are you in good earnest when you tell them you would have them good? then take care that you be good your selves. Be sure to set up and keep up in your Families the Worship of God. There were indeed Saints in Nero's House, and an Ahijah in Jeroboam's, in whom there was some good thing toward the Lord God of Hosts, who can make Flowers grow in Dunghills and Wildernesses, as well as Springs of Water in Deserts, but these are Rarities, there is no great reason to expect them, such soils do not usually afford them. Therefore do you worship God, and Pray with your Families Morning and Evening, a Duty I fear too much neglected by some who know better; follow you the pattern of good Joshua in that excellent resolution, that He and his house would serve the Lord, not He alone, nor they alone, but all in a Conjunction. Company is comfortable and desirable in that which is good. Keep a watchful eye upon them, do not trust them with themselves, for the Scripture tells you that Childhood and Youth are Vanity, and that Folly is bound up in the hearts of young ones; there is an whole pack of folly in them, and if you do not look to them, they will both add to the pack and open it. They bring into the world with them a great deal of corruption, and that is just like Tinder and ⟨p. 359⟩Touchwood, that will quickly catch and be fired by those sparks of Temptation which fly up and down thick in the World. Give unto them all the encouragement that is fit for them.

Will you then study & heartily apply to your Duty to this purpose? will you teach your Children and Servants the good knowledge and fear of the Lord? Labour to instil betimes into them right Principles, and be dropping as they are capable of receiving. Will you be provoking and spurring them on to their Duty by your warm Counsels and Exhortations? will you lay your strict Commands upon them to do it as they would have your love and avoid your displeasure. Allure them by your own example, that is a strong silken Cord which draws sweetly. The way to have them write well, is for you to set them good Copies. Oh let them not see Irreligion in you, and Prophaness in you, for an hundred to one but if they do, that will do them more mischief than all your Precepts and Counsels will do them good. Are you in good earnest when you tell them you would have them good? then take care that you be good your selves. Be sure to set up and keep up in your Families the Worship of God. There were indeed Saints in Nero's House, and an Ahijah in Jeroboam's, in whom there was some good thing toward the Lord God of Hosts, who can make Flowers grow in Dunghils and Wildernesses, as well as Springs of Water in Deserts, but these are Rarities, there is no great reason to expect them, such soils do not usually afford them. Therefore do you worship God, and Pray with your Families Morning and Evening, a Duty I fear too much neglected by some who know better; follow you the pattern of good Joshua in that excellent resolution, that He and his house would serve the Lord, not He alone, nor they alone, but all in a Conjunction. Company is comfortable and desirable in that which is good. Keep a watchful eye upon them, do not trust them with themselves, for the Scripture tells you that Childhood and Youth are Vanity, and that Folly is bound up in the hearts of young ones; there is an whole pack of folly in them, and if you do not look to them, they will both add to the pack and open it. They bring into the world with them a great deal of corruption, and that is just like Tinder and