Early piety; exemplified in Elizabeth Butcher of Boston

Let godly Parents be excited and encouraged to come to the Throne of Grace, to ask Grace for their Children. Blessed be God! The Infant-Seed of Believers, are not Aliens from the Common-Wealth of Israel, nor Strangers to the Covenant of Promise. No, The Promise is to you, and to your Children. God's Promise to Abraham, before the giving of the Law, was, That He would be a God to him, and to his Seed after him, Gen. 17.7. And the Word of God assureth us, that the Blessing of Abraham is come upon the believing Gentiles, Gal. 3.13, 14, 16. What an Encouragement is here given to our Faith, in praying for our Children! What an Obligation is here laid upon us, to ⟨p. iii⟩give up our Children unto God in Baptism, and then to bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord! The more diligent and faithful we are in answering our Covenant Engagements, the more Comfort shall we probably enjoy in our Children while they live, and the more Hope shall we have in their Death, if it pleaseth God to take them from us in their Childhood.

Let Children also be affected and moved to inquire after the God of their Fathers, and to seek him early. Cry to him, My Father, Thou art the Guide of my Youth. Offer up your first ripe Fruits unto God. Begin in the Morning of your Days to serve him who is the Lord of all your Time. You are strongly obliged to this, not only as God is your Creator, but also as you are his Children by a Covenant Relation. When you were baptized, God's Name was called upon you, and you were devoted to his Service. Do not then alienate yourselves from him; but glorify him with your Souls and Bodies which are his. Prize this great Privilege of being born under the Shadow of the Covenant; but take heed lest you be carnally confident and secure. Know it, if your Lives are among the Unclean, you shall be cast into outer Darkness, tho' you are the Children of the (visible) Kingdom. Be earnest with God therefore to give you that invisible Grace which is represented by Water in Baptism. This divine Ordinance teacheth you, That by Nature you are defiled, being shapen in Iniquity and conceived in Sin. Seek to God then to wash you thoroughly from your Iniquity, and to cleanse you from your Sin, by pouring out his holy Spirit upon you, and so applying the Blood of Christ