some time hence thou shalt be with me "in paradise." I think the former the true sense. You will say, all this requires attention, thought, and a diligent exercise. True, and for this reason I urge the practice. You may indeed, by such means, entertain very different ideas of the same Scriptures; but as there is no state so dangerous as that of dead ignorance, and no heresy like that of imposing unexamined senses of Scripture on the consciences of tame believers, so while you retain the charity that "hopeth all things," you may, and ought to examine the Scriptures for yourselves.

Our third word of advice is, as you read, dare to think for yourselves. Read the Scriptures with a generous love of truth, and always believe yourselves as free to think and judge for yourselves, as any other creatures in the world are. Suppose this assembly, having never seen a New Testament, were assembled to day by the express command of God, to receive every person one from the hands of Jesus Christ himself; and suppose him to come into the congregation, followed by the Evangelists, and the Apostles, with the books to deliver; and suppose him to say to each of us when we accepted the present, "Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." Is it imaginable, that at the next meeting, or at any future time, one of us would have a right to say to another, You, countrymen, search the Scriptures! You ought not to think about the Scriptures; at least you ought to think of them as I do; or if that be impossible, you ought to say you do; or if you refuse that, you ought to be silent and say nothing; and if you persist in pretending to have as much right to search, and think, and speak, as I have, you ought to be driven out of the assembly. I will not set fire to you, for I hate persecution; but I will render your situation so unhappy that you shall be obliged to remove yourself. To remove out of a Christian church for peace! For the sake of peace to quit the territories of the "Prince of peace," inhabited by the "sons of peace;" what a project, what a mad project is this! And where are people to go in search of peace, when it is not to

be found in a Christian church? For your parts, my brethren, your folly and guilt must be great, if you do not enter thoroughly into this part of our subject, for you have not even the plea of a temptation to excuse your negligence; and so far from having "many masters," you have not one "Diotrephes, who loveth to have pre-eminence among you." Should such a savage ever rise up among you, say of him, "This is a deceiver, and an antichrist." Keep thinking as free as breathing, and, if any church be a prison, filled with foul and infectious air, let self-preservation induce you to avoid it. Who can enough deplore the misery of such Christians as choose to live and die in shackles, rather than assert "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free!"

Our last word of advice is, Reduce as much Christianity as you know to practice. Remember the saying of Jesus Christ, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." For example, you know it is the duty of a Christian to pray. Exercise yourselves in prayer then. It is the duty of a Christian parent to teach his children. Instruct your children then; and so of the rest. As you practise religion, you will make an experiment of the ease and pleasure of religious practice; and consequently you will grow more and more into a persuasion that the knowledge of God is the chief good of man. Practise the duties of religion freely and openly, and ever look an enemy in the face. I recollect an example in the Old Testament. In the time of the Judges, the Midianites and the Amalekites used to come at harvest-time," as grasshoppers for multitude," and carry away cattle and corn, so that the Israelites had no sustenance left, and, not aware of their own strength, they hid themselves in dens and caves. Gideon raised an army of thirty-two thousand men to rid the country of these bold robbers. The Lord, to convince this people that he was a patron of freedom, and that they, acting properly, had nothing to fear, reduced the army to three hundred. These were furnished with trumpets, pitchers, and lamps, and with the clatter of breaking the

pitchers, with holding up the lights, with blowing the trumpets, and shouting, "The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon," they frighted this innumerable multitude away like a flock of fowls. A great lesson; for tyrants are not unfrequently cowards, and Israel must blush that they had not acquired a victory so cheap before. To them, and to all other men acting properly in the fear of God, it may be truly said, "One of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord is he that fighteth for you." Let no Christian be ashamed of any part of his holy profession; let him reduce every command of God to practice, both such as are in the good graces of the world, and such as are out of fashion, and therefore contemptible. To sum up this matter, we advise all Christians to read the Scriptures, to read them so as to understand them, to expound them to themselves by their own good sense, and by a diligent course of holy obedience.

On supposition you understand religion yourselves, we proceed to show you "how to teach it to others." We suppose first the welfare of your children to lie nearest your heart. In vain you provide the comforts of life, and a settlement in the world for them, without training them up in the principles of religion. It is like loading a boat with valuable commodities, and sending it down a stream into the ocean, without any animal except a jackdaw aboard. These principles ought to be imparted in a manner suited to their own dignity, to yours, and to that of your children. All truths have a worth but the truths of religion are the first in value, and ought to be the first in rank. Such subjects as the Scripture calls "milk for babes" are not mean; for there is nothing mean in religion, but of the same kind with others called "strong meat." The skill of a teacher is seen in the choice of such plain and easy parts of religion as are proper to inform tender minds, and they sit easy on such minds when they are admitted freely to place themselves in the understanding. Let not the understanding be degraded into the seat of a beggar, a mere bench by the road side to hold whatever is put upon it: but train it up to know its own dignity, to refuse to admit what doth not appear to be true, and to

preserve its rank as a seat of truth, a throne of God. Preserve also your own dignity as a parent. The father of a family is not a keeper of a prison to subdue by blows and hard fare: but he is like himself when he resembles a wise and placid patriarch. The Jewish schools were formed on this plan, and Paul, who was brought up "at the feet of Gamaliel," was "taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers." Our Lord, when a youth, was 66 sitting" in such a school "in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions." No sullen orders, no hard, stern commands, accompanied with threatnings, not to understand, but to get by heart what cannot be understood, and what therefore the pain of learning prepares the heart to abhor. Man is a noble creature, and a little man in arms is a little "image of God." Providence gives us children, each with this charge, "Take this child and nurse it for me:" take care of its health, cherish its understanding, form its manners, prepare it to be a citizen of "the heavenly Jerusalem," a companion of angels, and of the spirits of just men made perfect." Far be it from you to spend life in contending for mastery with them, in subduing a free-born soul into the servile temper of a slave, in applying the discipline of a mere animal to a creature endued with reason and sense, in bringing forward sorrow before the calamities of life oblige them to suffer and to mourn, in neglecting to cultivate a soil so very improveable: far from your habitations be all such methods of mismanaging children.

There are two general ways of teaching children the truths of religion. Some make use of catechisms, which children are made to get by heart. This is an exercise of the memory, but not of the understanding, and therefore nothing is more common than to find children, who can repeat a whole catechism, without knowing any thing more than how to repeat it. The hardest catechisms are certainly the worst; but the most plain are nothing but an exercise of memory. The chief recommendation of them is, they save a parent a great deal of trouble but does not the death of a child save you a

great deal more? Yet who would part with her child on that ground? The other method is by hearing them read some little histories of Scripture, and by asking them questions to set them a thinking and judging for themselves. This is an exercise of the understanding, and when the understanding is taught its own use, it is set a going true, and if it gets no future damage, it will go true through life. In order to instruct our children, we should inform ourselves; otherwise they may put us to the blush, and on this principle Joshua enforced religious knowledge among the Jews, "that," saith he, "when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean you by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, The waters of Jordan were cut off," and

so on.

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You should teach religion by conversation. an holy art of conversing on the subjects of religion, and the first in this, as well as in every other excellence, was Jesus Christ. "Master," said one of his disciples as he went out of the temple, "see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here." Hence Jesus took occasion to speak of the destruction of the temple, the accomplishment of the prophecy of Daniel, the end of the world, and the nature and necessity of watchfulness. When the tax-gatherers came to Peter, and said, "Doth your master pay tribute ?" Jesus replied, Yes," and went into the house; and hence he took occasion to show the injustice of the Romans for taxing strangers, and sparing their own citizens: we are taxed, and they are free; however, "lest we should offend them, go” and exercise your own trade, and I will prosper your industry, and "give unto them a piece of money for me and thee." When some told him the news, that Pilate had killed some Galileans, and "mingled their blood with their sacrifices," he took occasion to dissuade them from rash judging, and taught them the necessity of living in habits of repentance, and in a most familiar manner confirmed this by telling them a sad event that lately fell out at the tower of Siloam. We call this the art of conversing like a Christian, when without any force, without any rudeness and impertinence, people take oc