that which the apostle prescribes in the last words of the text, to consider ourselves as the servants of God, who enjoins dutiful submission to civil authority, as his ordinance; and to whom we are accountable for the use we make of the liberty which we enjoy under it. Since men cannot live out of society, nor in it without government, government is plainly a divine appointment; and consequently submission to it, a most evident duty of the law of nature. And we all know in how forcible a manner it is put upon our consciences in Scripture. Nor can this obligation be denied formally upon any principles, but such as subvert all other obligations. Yet many amongst us seem not to consider it as any obligation at all. This doubtless is, in a great measure, owing to dissoluteness and corruption of manners: but I think it is partly owing to their having reduced it to nothing in theory. Whereas this obligation ought to be put upon the same foot with all other general ones, which are not absolute and without exception: and our submission is due in all cases but those, which we really discern to be exceptions to the general rule. And they who are perpetually displaying the exceptions, though they do not indeed contradict the meaning of any particular texts of Scripture, which surely intended to make no alteration in men's civil rights; yet they go against the general tenor of Scripture. For the Scripture, throughout the whole of it, commands submission; supposing men apt enough of themselves to make the exceptions, and not to need being continually reminded of them. Now if we are really under any obligations of duty at all to magistrates, honour and respect, in our behaviour towards them, must doubtless be their due. And they who refuse to pay them this small and easy regard, who despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities, should seriously ask themselves, what restrains them from any other instance whatever of undutifulness? And if it be principle, why not from this? Indeed free government supposes, that the conduct of affairs may be inquired into, and spoken of with freedom. Yet surely this should be done with decency, for the sake of liberty

* Jude 8.

itself; for its honour and its security. But be it done as it will, it is a very different thing from libelling, and endeavouring to vilify the persons of such as are in authority. It will be hard to find an instance, in which a serious man could calmly satisfy himself in doing this. It is in no case necessary, and in every case of very pernicious tendency. But the immorality of it increases in proportion to the integrity and superior rank of the persons thus treated. It is therefore in the highest degree immoral, when it extends to the supreme authority in the person of a prince, from whom our liberties are in no imaginable danger, whatever they may be from ourselves; and whose mild and strictly legal government could not but make any virtuous people happy.

A free government, which the good providence of God has preserved to us through innumerable dangers, is an invaluable blessing. And our ingratitude to him in abusing of it must be great in proportion to the greatness of the blessing, and the providential deliverances by which it has been preserved to us. Yet the crime of abusing this blessing receives further aggravation from hence, that such abuse always is to the reproach, and tends to the ruin of it. The abuse of liberty has directly overturned many free governments, as well as our own, on the popular side; and has, in various ways, contributed to the ruin of many, which have been overturned on the side of authority. Heavy therefore must be their guilt, who shall be found to have given such advantages against it, as well as theirs who have taken them.

Lastly, The consideration, that we are the servants of God, reminds us, that we are accountable to him for our behaviour in those respects, in which it is out of the reach of all human authority; and is the strongest enforcement of sincerity, as all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Artificial behaviour might perhaps avail much towards quieting our consciences, and making our part good in the short competitions of this world: but what will it avail us considered as under the government of God? Under

* Heb. iv. 13.

his government, there is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.* He has indeed instituted civil government over the face of the earth, for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise, the apostle does not say the rewarding, but, for the praise of them that do well. Yet as the worst answer these ends in some measure, the best can do it very imperfectly. Civil government can by no means take cognizance of every work, which is good or evil; many things are done in secret; the authors unknown to it, and often the things themselves: then it cannot so much consider actions, under the view of their being morally good, or evil, as under the view of their being mischievous, or beneficial to society: nor can it in any wise execute judgment in rewarding what is good, as it can, and ought, and does, in punishing what is evil. But God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.‡

SERMON IV.

PREACHED IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF CHRIST-CHURCH, LONDON, ON THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1745, BEING THE TIME OF THE YEARLY MEETING OF THE CHILDREN EDUCATED IN THE CHARITY-SCHOOLS IN AND ABOUT THE CITIES OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.—Prov. xxii. 6.

HUMAN creatures, from the constitution of their nature and the circumstances in which they are placed, cannot but acquire habits during their childhood, by the impressions which are given them, and their own customary actions. And long before they arrive at mature age, these habits form a general settled character. And the observation of the text, that the most early habits are usually the most lasting, is likewise every one's observation. Now whenever children are left to themselves, and to the guides and companions which they choose, or by hazard light upon, we find by experience, that the first † 1 Pet. ii. 14.

*Job xxxiv. 22.

P

Eccles. xü. 14

impressions they take, and course of action they get into, are very bad; and so consequently must be their habits, and character, and future behaviour. Thus if they are not trained up in the way they should go, they will certainly be trained up in the way they should not go; and in all probability will persevere in it, and become miserable themselves, and mischievous to society: which, in event, is worse, upon account of both, than if they had been exposed to perish in their infancy. On the other hand, the ingenuous docility of children before they have been deceived, their distrust of themselves, and natural deference to grown people, whom they find here settled in a world where they themselves are strangers; and to whom they have recourse for advice, as readily as for protection; which deference is still greater towards those who are placed over them: these things give the justest grounds to expect that they may receive such impressions, and be influenced to such a course of behaviour, as will produce lasting good habits; and, together with the dangers before mentioned, are as truly a natural demand upon us to train them up in the way they should go, as their bodily wants are a demand to provide them bodily nourishment. Brute creatures are appointed to do no more than this last for their offspring, nature forming them by instincts to the particular manner of life appointed them; from which they never deviate. But this is so far from being the case of men, that, on the contrary, considering communities collectively, every successive generation is left, in the ordinary course of Providence, to be formed by the preceding one; and becomes good or bad, though not without its own merit or demerit, as this trust is discharged or violated, chiefly in the management of youth.

We ought, doubtless, to instruct and admonish grown persons; to restrain them from what is evil, and encourage them in what is good, as we are able: but this care of youth, abstracted from all consideration of the parental affection, I say, this care of youth, which is the general notion of education, becomes a distinct subject, and a distinct duty, from the particular danger of their ruin, if left to themselves, and the particular

reason we have to expect they will do well, if due care be taken of them. And from hence it follows, that children have as much right to some proper education, as to have their lives preserved; and that when this is not given them by their parents, the care of it devolves upon all persons, it becomes the duty of all, who are capable of contributing to it, and whose help is wanted.

These trite, but most important things, implied indeed in the text, being thus premised as briefly as I could express them, I proceed to consider distinctly the general manner in which the duty of education is there laid before us: which will further show its extent, and further obviate the idle objections which have been made against it. And all this together will naturally lead us to consider the occasion and necessity of schools for the education of poor children, and in what light the objections against them are to be regarded.

Solomon might probably intend the text for a particular admonition to educate children in a manner suitable to their respective ranks, and future employments: but certainly he intended it for a general admonition to educate them in virtue and religion, and good conduct of themselves in their temporal concerns. And all this together, in which they are to be educated, he calls the way they should go, i. e. he mentions it not as a matter of speculation, but of practice. And conformably to this description of the things in which children are to be educated, he describes education itself: for he calls it training them up; which is a very different thing from merely teaching them some truths, necessary to be known or believed. It is endeavouring to form such truths into practical principles in the mind, so as to render them of habitual good influence upon the temper and actions, in all the various occurrences of life. And this is not done by bare instruction; but by that, together with admonishing them frequently as occasion offers; restraining them from what is evil, and exercising them in what is good. Thus the precept of the apostle concerning this matter is, to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord;* as it were

* Eph. vi. 4.