the sons of God. They are borne anew, and are well shapen in beautifull proportion; make them not monsters. He is a monster, whosoever knoweth not God. By you they are borne into the world; bee carefull also that by your meanes they may bee begotten unto God. You are carefull to traine them in nurture, and comely behaviour of the body; seeke also to fashion their mind unto godlinesse. You have brought them to the fountaine of Baptisme, to receive the marke of Christ; bring them up in knowledge, and watch over them, that they be not lost. So shall they be confirmed, and will keepe the promise they have made, and will grow unto perfect age in Christ."
When children shall thus be brought up, not with occasional reference to religion (as it is called), or with occasional religious instruction, but "setting God always before them;" judging of all their actions with reference to God's law; looking at them as little ones, indeed, but still as members of Christ, and so imparting to them the privileges of His members; disciplining their wills in the same way, according to their proportion, as we should discipline our own; placing before them no motives but those upon which, as Christians, we would act ourselves; taking no standard of little or great, right or wrong,—(not custom, nor nature, nor affection, nor ease,)—but only God's law; regarding them, in fact, as miniatures, or rather as the first outline of the full-grown Christian, which, by God's blessing, shall acquire, day by day, fresh depth and breadth and consistency: then may we, indeed, hope that "our sons may be as plants, grown up in their youth; our daughters as corner-stones, polished like a temple:" then may our country be once more "the glory of lands," a chosen instrument of extending our Redeemer's kingdom in others, because it will have come "with power" in our own: then may we take the blessing of the Psalmist, "Happy is that people that is in such a case, yea, blessed is the people that hath the Lord for their God." Such also, we may see, has been the method of God, for the most part, in extending His Church hitherto, since its first planting. He has used, namely, the instrumentality of Christian nations, even more than that of individual Christians, however eminent. It is
