2dly, Neglect not family-catechifing. Oblige them to get the Shorter Catechifm, and labour to make them underftand it by examining them, For which caufe ye have many good helps laid to your hand.

3dly, Often inculcate on them their finful and miferable ftate by nature, and the falvation for them in Jefus Chrift.

4thly, Join a practical exhortation with your catechifing. It might be profitable to close the catechifing on every queftion of the Catechifm upon a particular head, with a fhort admonition to them by way of ufe. Ex. gr. on the firft, Well, mind that the great thing ye have to do in the world, is to glorify God; and that the great thing ye have to feek, is the enjoyment of him.

5thly, Inculcate upon them, and train them up in a reverence and efteem of the miniftry of the gofpel, as an ordinance of Chrift for the falvation of finners. And oblige your family to a confcientious attendance; none of them to fit at home that are capable of profiting by the word, without a reafon that will bear weight before God, I Cor. i. 21. I urge this the rather that fome are trained up in a neglect, a neglect, or in a contempt of it, to the infnaring of their poor fouls. Mind the children of Bethel.

6thly, Inculcate and labour to impress them with the belief of the vanity of the world, and the impoffibility of finding a reft to their heart in any creature. Tell it them from the word, your own and their experience.

7thly, Inculcate and labour to impress them with the belief of the full happiness to be found in a God in Chrift, held forth to them in the promise of the gospel.

gofpel. Solemnly affure them, that there they may find a reft to their heart; and that God is offering himself to them as fuch.

8thly, Make it known to them, how good a mafter God is; how pleasant the way of holiness is: what an ill mafter Satan is; how contrary and odious fin is to God; how dear it flood Christ; how bitter it will be to the finner here or hereafter.

9thly, Put them on praying by any means, and teach them to pray, and inculcate on them the neceffity of it.

rothly, Make known to them how God is a Godof exact juftice, and pureft truth: and from thence, as ye love their fouls, endeavour often to inculcate on them, and imprefs them with a horror of injuftice in the leaft things, and of lying in any cafe, The fad way fome are brought up in those points, leave them without any confcience of common honefty or truth.

And mind that precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little, If. xxviii. 10.

And be not difcouraged though ye fee not the fruit. The fruit may come when ye are in your grave. Mind Manaffeh's converfion, when his godly father was dead and gone.

Now, ye young folk, and young ones, for whofe caufe fo much has been faid, I will leave this text, with three words to you, and a great offer.

1. Chrift and the devil is ftriving about you. Chrift is ftriving for you by his minifters, your parents, and mafters, that fhow a concern for your foul, and by your own confciences. The devil is

ftriving

ftriving to hold you, by his temptations, a vain world and wicked, and your own lufts. But the devil is a murderer, the world is falfe, and

luffs are deceitful, which ye will find if ye truft them. //

2. Ye are between the lofing and the winning now. If Chrift get you when ye are young, ye will ferve him with life and fpirit: if the devil prevail, the elder ye grow, ye will go the farther from God. For youth goes with a great fwing right or wrong...

3. Eternity is at ftake with you; eternal well or eternal woe, according to the fide ye fhall chufe.

I offer Chrift to you, and declare that he is willing to be yours, and make you happy for ever, and be a reft to your hearts: Matth. xxii. 4. Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. Prov. viii. 17. I love them that love me, and thofe that feek me early shall find me. Remember this, and fay Amen.

FINI S

A Collection of SERMONS on feveral important Subjects in Divinity.

By the late Mr BOSTON of Ettrick.

The TEXTS are as follow.'

T

I. LUKE xiii. 5. I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewife perish.

II. PROV. vi. 10. 11. Yet a little fleep, a little Jumber, a little folding of the hands to fleep. So fhall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

III. LUKE Xxiii. 42. Lord, remember me when thou comeft into thy kingdom.

IV. Ece L. viii. 11. Becaufe fentence against an Sevil work is not executed speedily; therefore

the heart of the fons of men is fully fet in them to do evil.

V. LUKE VI. 46. And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ?

VI. JOHN xiii. 8. If I wash thee not, thou haft no part with me.

VII. TIM. vi. 12. Fight the good fight of faith. VIII. PHIL. iii. 3. For we are the circumcifion, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Chrift Jefus, and have no confidence in the flesh. IX. REV. xxi. 22. And I saw no temple therein for the Lord God almighty, and the Lamb ́are the temple of it.

N. B. The above Texts are largely opened up, and applied.

To be printed from the Author's original Manu fcripts.

BRITISH

BRARY