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former impreffions, except the Latin, have abounded with, to the great perplexity and difheartning of the reader) the misquotations of icripture; the meaneft reader being able, by having the words at large, to ratify whatever mistake may be in the printer in citing the particular place; partly to prevent the trouble of turning to every proof, which could not but be very great: partly to help the memories of fuch who are wil ling to take the pains of turning to every proof, but are un able to retain what they read; and partly that this may fervo as a Bible common-place, the feveral paffages of fcripture which are scattered up and down in the word, being in this book reduced to their proper head, and thereby giving light each to other. The advantages, you fee, in this defign, are many and great: The way to fpiritual knowledge is hereby made more eafy, and the ignorance of this age more inexcufable.

If therefore there be any spark in you of love to God, be not content that any of yours fhould be ignorant of him whom you fo much admire, or any haters of him whom you so much love. If there be any compaffion to the fouls of them who are under your care, if any regard of your being found faithful in the day of Chrift,if any refpect to future generations; labour to fow thefe feeds of knowledge, which may grow up in after-times. That you may be faithful herein, is the earneft prayer of.

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Mr. Thomas. Manton's Epiftle to the reader. CHRISTIAN READER.

I Cannot fuppofe thee to be fuch a franger in England, as to

be ignorant of the general complaint concerning the decay of the power of Godliness, and more especially of the great corruption of youth; wherever thou goeft, thou wilt hear men crying out of bad children and bad fervants: Whereas indeed the fource of the mifchief must be fought a little higher; 'tis bad parents, and bad mafters,that make bad children. and bad fervants; and we cannot blame fo much their untowardness, as our own negligence in their education.

The devil hath a great spight at the kingdom of Chrift, and he knoweth no fuch compendious way to crush it in the egg,as by the perverfion of youth, and fupplanting family-duties. He ftriketh at all duties,thofe which are Public in the assemb lies of the Saints; but thefe are too well guarded by the folemn injunctions and dying charge of Jefus Christ, as that he should ever hope totally to fubvert and undermine them But at family-duties he ftriketh with the more fuccefs, because the institution is not fo folemn, and the practice not so serious ly and confcientiously regarded as it should be, and the omiffi on is not fo liable to notice and public cenfure, Religion was first hatched in families, and there the devil feeketh to crush it; the families of the Patriarchs were all the churches God had in the world for the time, and therefore (I fuppofe) when Cain went out from Adam's family, he is faid to go out from the face of the Lord, Gen. iv. 16. Now the devil knoweth that this is a blow at the root, and a ready way to prevent the fucceffion of Churches: If he can fubyert families, other Societies and communities will not long flourish and subsist with any power and vigour ; for there is the stock from whence they are fupplied both for the present and the future.

For the prefent, a family is the feminary of Church and tate; and if children be not well principled,there all mifcar, rieth: A fault in the first concoction is not mended in the Second; If youth be bread ill in the family, they prove ill in the

Church

church and common wealth; there is the firft Making or Marring, and the prefage of their future lives to be thence taken, Prov. xx. 11. By family difcipline, officers are trained up for the church, 1 Tim. iii. 4. One that ruleth well his own house, &c. and there are men bred up in lubjection and obedience. 'Tis not d, Acts xxi. 5. that the difciples brought Paul on his. Way with their wives and children; their children probably are mentioned,to intimate, that their parents would, by their own example and affectionate farewell to Paul,breed them up in a way of reverence and refpect to the paftor of the

church.

For the future, 'tis comfortable certainly to fee a thriving nursery of young plants, and to have hopes that God shall have a people to ferve him when we are dead and gone; the people of God comforted themselves in that, Pfal. cii. 28. The children of thy fervants fhall continue, &c.

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Upon all these confiderations, how careful should minifters and parents be to train up young ones, whilst they are yet pliable, and, like wax, capable of any form and impreffion, in the knowledge and fear of God; and betimes to instill the principles of our most holy faith, as they are drawn into a Short Sum in Catechifms,and fo altogether laid in the view of Confcience? Surely thefe Seeds of truth planted in the field of memory, if they work nothing elfe,will at least be a great check and bridle to them, and, as the cafting in of cold wa ter doth stay the boiling of the pot, fomewhat allay the fervours of youthful lufts and paffions.

I had upon intreaty refolved to recommend to thee with the greatest earneftness the work of catechifing,and, as a meet help, the usefulness of this book as thus printed with the fcriptures at large but meeting with a private letter of a very learned and Godly divine, wherein that work is excellent ly done to my hand, I fhall make bold to tranfcribe a part of it, and offer it to public view.

The Author having bewailed the great distractions, corrup tions, and divifions that are in the church, he thus represents the cause and cure: Among others, a principle cause of these mifchiefs is the great and common neglect of the governors of families, in the discharge of that duty which they owe to God for the fouls that are under their charge, especially in teaching them the doctrine of chriftianity families are.

So

focieties that must be fanctified to God, as well as churches; and the governors of them have as truly a charge of the fouls that are therein, as paftors have of the churches. But, alas, how little is this confidered or regarded! but, while negligent ministers are (deservedly) cast out of their places, the ne gligent masters of families take themselves to be almost blamelefs. They offer their children to God in baptifm, and there they promise to teach them the doctrine of the gofpel, and bring them up in the nurture of the Lord; but they easily promife, and easily break it; and educate their children for the world and the flesh, altho' they have renounced thefe, and dedicated them to God. This covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the fouls of their children to the devil, must lie heavy on them here or hereafter. They beget chil dren, and keep families, merely for the world and the flesh; but little confider what a charge is committed to them, and what it is to bring up a child for God, and govern a family as a fanctified fociety. O how fweetly and fuccefsfully would the work of God go on, if we would but all join together in our feveral places to promote it! men need not then run with. out fending to be preachers; but they might find that part of the work that belongeth to them to be enough for them, and to be the best that they can be employed in. Efpecially wo men should be careful of this duty, because as they are moftabout their children, and have early and frequent opportu nities to instruct them, fo this is the principle fervice they can do to God in this world, being restrained from more public work, And doubtless many an excellent magiftrate hath been fent into the common-wealth, and many an excellent paftor into the church, and many a precious faint to Heaven, through the happy preparations of a holy education, perhaps by a woman that thought herfelf ufelefs and unferviceable to the church, Would parents but begin betimes, and labour to affect the hearts of their children with the great matters of everlasting life, and to acquaint them with the substance of the doctrine of Chrift, and, when they find in them the know. ledge and love of Chrift, would bring them then to the pastors of the church to be tried, confirmed and admitted to the fur ther privileges of the church, what happy, well-ordered churches might we have? then one paftor need not be put to do the work of two or three hundred or thousand gover,

nors,

nors of families; even to teach their children thofe princi ples which they should have taught them long before: nor fhould we be put to preach to fo many miferable ignorant fouls, that be not prepared by education to understand us: nor fhould we have need to fhut out fo many from holy communion upon the account of ignoraifce, that yet have not the grace to feel it and lament it, nor the wit and patience to wait in a learning state, till they are ready to be fellow-citizens with the faints, and of the houfhold of God. But now they come to us with aged felf-conceitedness, being paft children, and yet worse than children ftill; having the ignorance of children, but being overgrown the teachablenels of children; and think themselves wife, yea, wife enough to quarrel with the wifeft of their teachers, because they have lived long enough to have been wife, and the evidence of their knowledge is their aged ignorance: and they are readier to flee in our faces for church-privileges, than to learn of us, and obey our inftructions, till they are prepared for them that they may do them good; like fnappifh curs, that will snap us by the fingers for their meat, and fnatch it out of our hands; and not like children, that stay till we give it them. Parents have fo used them to be unruly, that minifters have to deal but with too few but the unruly. And it is for want of this laying the foundation well at first, that profeffors themselves are fo ignorant as most are, and that fo many, especially of the younger fort, do fwallow down almost any error that is offerred them, and follow any fect of dividers that will entice them, fo it be but done with earneftnefs and plaufibility. For alas, though, by the grace of God, their hearts may be changed in an hour, (whenever they understand but the effentials of the faith) yet their understandings must have time and diligence to furnish them with fuch knowledge as must stablish them, and fortify them against deceits. Upon thefe and many the like confiderations, we should intreat all chriftian fa milies to take more pains in this neceffary work, and to get better acquainted with the fubftance of christianity. And to that end (taking along fome moving treatises to awake the heart) I know not what work fhould be fitter for their use, than that compiled by the affembly at Westminster; a fynod of as godly, judicious divines, (notwithstanding all the bitter words which they have received from difcontented and

felf

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