their aid in adversity-of their consolation in sorrow-of their gay and cheering conversations in those hours of lassitude and melancholy, which are the frequent and unavoidable attendants upon oldage. But can you be said to deserve these kind services, if you have neglected to inspire them with thankfulness to their first and greatest benefactor; or can you expect them, if the consequences of that neglect in the corruption of their morals, and the ruin of their fortunes, has made them incapable of serving you? Should your children be wicked, you will incur their reproaches, and-O dreadful mortification to the folly and pride of irreligious parents-even if they are virtuous, you will not be entitled to their respectful gratitude. Mourn you may with them, and for yourselves, while they are tasting the bitter fruits of their sins; but you will neither be permitted, nor often disposed to partake the triumphant rewards of their righteous

ness.

Parents are, I know, continually employing the language of love to their children, as an excuse for their weakness, and sometimes, I suspect, as a disguise for their indolence. But allowing it to be sincere, can it be honourable, while it operates only as an instinct, which is not only undirected by reason, but averse to it? Can it be meritorious, while it does not operate for the ends, which alone have induced the Creator to implant it in you? Can it be justifiable, when in its effects, it produces mischiefs not less malignant than might be apprehended from the most determined cruelty?

As you often keep religion at a distance from the thoughts of your children, lest you should incur the imputation of rugged austerity and gloomy churlishness, chill their affection, and alienate their confidence, I beseech you to mark well the usual result of this misplaced caution. It weighs, I suspect, with many unthinking parents; and it will most certainly deceive every one of you with whom it weighs. A blind and unprincipled partiality (for I will not debase the name of filial affection) in your favour your children will naturally conceive, if you bear with them in every perverse humourif you gratify them in every extravagant wish-if you permit them to excel in the petty ornaments of exterior manners-to glitter in the gay circle of fashionable amusements-and in uninterrupted successions to slumber in inactivity, and to revel in dissipation. But the gratification arising from such causes is itself of transient duration, and consequently the affection grounded upon them will be unstable and fleeting. Nay, that affection itself may be in a moment turned into hatred, when they awake from their delusion, and agonize under the punishment of the vices which you have fostered.

Would you then obtain the unfeigned and lasting love of your children, you must endeavour to deserve it; and to deserve it, is the privilege of him who bestows upon them solid and essential kindness-who trains them up to self-respect, which sets them above meanness, and to self-denial, which secures them from vice-and who by these means conducts them to that tranquillity of mind, and that

dignity of character, which to the thoughtless the world cannot give, and from the virtuous, it cannot take away.

The best security that can be obtained for the obedience of children to their parents is their love of God. Conscious of your regard for their real and permanent interests, they will be ashamed of repelling your advice with wanton petulance, or hardy contradiction. They will, as their faculties grow more and more improved, listen to the information you offer them not only with seriousness, but with pleasure; and in following the commands you lay upon them, they will be melted into gratitude for your kindness, and awed into reverence for your authority-a kindness which they know to be directed by wisdom-and an authority, which they feel to be tempered by benevolence. Yes, my brethren, even in this world you will reap the rewards of your labour. The seeds which yourselves have sown-which you have cherished with unwearied toil, and watched with fond anxiety, you will see watered by the kindly dew of heaven. As year

rises upon year, you will find it taking deeper root, strengthened with new vigour, and at last flourishing in all the perfection of maturity. But should it perish for want of the culture you were able but not willing to bestow, how different will be the scene! Consider with yourselves-you who are not totally lost to all the principles of a Christian, and all the finer feelings of a parent-consider how dreadful a thought it is for a beloved ruined child to fall into the hands of an offended God. Think,

if you can endure the thought, how it must hereafter deepen your guilt, and aggravate your sorrow, that their ruin is to be ascribed to your unfeeling carelessness, or mistaken indulgence. For if such be the case, if an early inattention to the business of their heavenly Father should terminate in an incurable disinclination, nay a total incapability to perform it, the crimes of your children will rise up in judgment against you; and justly will you be condemned to partake the punishment, which, by not preventing, you have virtually occasioned.

623

SERMON XXIV A. *

ON THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE,

LUKE xvii. 17.

Were there not ten cleansed; but where are the nine?

THAT the rapture of enjoyment is more transitory, than the anguish of disappointment, and that favours once anxiously expected are imperceptibly disregarded, the experience of every day abounds with proofs equally decisive and lamentable. Hence the stubborn and untractable disposition of the human heart towards its benevolent Creator-the reluctance of some men to acknowledge the reality of his providence-and the captiousness of others in arraigning its dispensations. Has it pleased God, for purposes which, as it is the perfection of his wisdom to discern them, it would be an imperfection in his goodness not to pursue, to visit you with calamities? Your minds are instantly racked with excessive grief; and every reflection you make on the conduct of God is attended with dark suspicion, or desperate defiance. Has the same God rescued you from the galling load of adversity, or poured

* 1779.