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Timothy Williamfon, Esq. Hertford.
Mrs. Wentworth, Mill-Hill, Hendon.
Mrs. Wells, Hill-House, Edgware.

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SERMON I.

1

ON

EDUCATION.

PROV. xxii. 6.

Train up a child in the way he shall go ; and, when he is old, he will not depart from it.

IN

N all ages and histories of the world, the best and the wisest of mankind have con

fidered the right education of their children, as a principal object of their care; knowing well, that riches and honours are adventitious; that they depend on accident; but that a well-formed mind is an inestimable treasure, that is in great degree, independent of the good or ill of this life, and that it is both a public and a private blessing. Solomon, as a patriot king, as a father, as a philo

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philosopher, well knowing the mighty in fluence of education, and highly regarding the welfare of his family and of his people, hath, in various parts of this book of Proverbs, drawn up feveral short and useful rules, by which all, especially young perfons, may, wisely, direct their conduct; but the text is addressed to parents, and not to them only, but to all persons who are entrusted with the education of children; and therefore, as the admonition is, almost, of general concern, fuffer me to difcourse upon it digressively as well as closely; for furely nothing can be too much said, provided that it be well faid, upon the usefulness of training up a child in the way that he should go, for, it is most certain, that, when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Ist Then I do not seruple to condemn that fashionable, but most unnatural custom, of robbing a new-born infant of its proper aliment, namely, its mother's milk; if the infant be regarded, it cannot be too foon, after its birth, applied to the parent's breast; for the first milk, consisting, chiefly, of a thin ferous matter, is a powerful cleanfer of the infant's body, and it acts much better than

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than any other medicine that can be given; but if the milk be denied to the infant, and it be suffered to stagnate in the breast, the dangers that arise from such coagulation, need, I hope, only to be mentioned, in order to strike a general alarm! Often do hence arise, most painful inflammations and ill conditioned tumours, which not, unfrequently, degenerate into cancerous matter, which, when it pervade the system, is always incurable. The poor infant too, despoiled of its natural and most proper nourishment, and receiving food that is quite improper for its tender and feeble organs of digestion, (whether it be the milk of an hireling, which may be either too rich, or too poor, either too acid, or too alcalefcent, whether it be culinary preparations that regard the palate more than the constitution, or whatever be the unnatural food) it often wastes away its days and nights in pain, and, at last, it dies a mournful proof of the evils that proceed from excessive refinement and civilization. But the hazard of lofing both health and life, is not all that is to be dreaded from this wretched practice; the fear of displeasing almighty God by thus cancelling

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ling the very bonds of nature, should awaken families to an awful sense of their duty. The divine displeasure not only appears, frequently, in divers diseases and in sundry kinds of death, but often it is seen, like a mighty flood, overwhelming individuals with reiterated ruin and misfortune; if the children, by their future undutifulness, be the instruments of God's wrath, the wretched parents may, in vain, exclaim against their ingratitude, not 'weighing their own demerits, not confidering that these overwhelming miseries are the fatal effects of their own fordid and impious neglects-nay more, if it be true that children imbibe the dispositions of the persons from whom they receive their nurture, how must it rend a mother's heart with grief and remorse, to see, in her child, those ungovernable vices and deformities of mind, which were never found in herself or in her husband; and when, at last, old age, when infirmities and decay deprive us of our meridian comforts, when we must depend upon the attentions of those about us for the little happiness that we can then have, how irksome must be a mother's reflection, that she deserves no happiness from

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