The saints everlasting rest

1. What plain and pressing commands of GOD are there, that require this great duty at your hand! Deut. vi. 6, 7, 8. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou li•st down, and when thou risest up. And how well is GOD pleased with this in Abraham, Gen. xviii. 17.19. Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the LORD. Prov. xxii. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. So that you see it is a work that the LORD of heaven and earth hath laid upon you; and how then dare you neglect it?

2. You will else be witnesses against your own souls: your great care and pains, and cost for their bodies, will condemn you for your neglect of their precious souls: you can spend yourselves in toiling and caring for their bodies, and even neglect your own souls, and venture them sometimes upon unwarrantable courses, and all to provide for your posterity: and have you not as much reason to provide for their souls? Do you not believe that your children must be everlastingly happy or miserable? And should not that be fore-thought in the first place?

3. Consider, GOD hath made your children to be your charge; yea, and your servants too: every one will confess they are the minister's charge, and what a dreadful thing is it for them to neglect them, when GOD hath told them, That if they tell not the wicked