Certain sermons, first preached, and after published at several times, by M. Thomas Gataker…Certaine sermons, first preached, and after published at severall times, by M. Thomas Gataker…

Use 1 Now this First may teach you that be Parents, Masters and Teachers, what to labour in, if you desire the true welfare and happiness of those that be under your charge, or Gods blessing upon them, and ⟨p. 16⟩your labours and endeavours with them; even to teach them the fear of God. You are not to think it enough, that you have taught them some trade, that you have given them learning, (humane learning, I mean) that they may live by another day; but you must withal, or else you come far short of that you should do, teach them also to fear God, and so to serve him here, as they may live with him eternally, when they go hence.

Vse 1 Now this First may teach you that be Parents, Masters and Teachers, what to labour in, if you desire the true welfare and happinesse of those that be under your charge, or Gods blessing upon them, and ⟨p. 16⟩your labours and endevours with them; even to teach them the feare of God. You are not to thinke it enough, that you have taught them some trade, that you have given them learning, (humane learning, I meane) that they may live by another day; but you must withall, or else you come far short of that you should doe, teach them also to feare God, and so to serve him here, as they may live with him eternally, when they goe hence.

To which purpose it is well observed, that the promise of a blessing to be continued to posterity, though made to the observance of all Gods precepts, yet is^r more specially annexed to the second Commandment in the Decalogue, which is concerning the service and worship of God; God thereby intimating what Parents and others should principally apply themselves to have planted in their Families, if they would have Gods blessing entailed upon their issue. For as for other things, even Heathen and Infidels, or mere Civill and natural men, will be ordinarily teaching and instructing their Children, to forbear and abhor lying, and stealing, and looseness of life, and surfeiting, and excess, and the like; because such things may make them unfit for common and civill society, or may be a means to waste them, and that, that they shall leave them. But God would have us (and those that be truly godly will regard it) to go a step further, and to teach them a lesson beyond all this, not civility alone, but true piety too; that we may be blessed in them, and they inherit Gods blessing with us.