TO MY
CHILDREN.

My dear Children,
THO this Plain Discourse of The
Necessity of SERIOUS CONSIDERATION
and SPEEDY
REPENTANCE, seem to me very
needful to many, and is therefore published, that
all who need it, and please to make use of it, may
have by them a friendly Rememebrancer to
put them in mind to take all due care of themselves:
Yet because of the special Love and
Care I ought to have for you, as I am your Father,
I do in a more special manner commend it
to you, as the very best Advice I am able to give
you; and seeing my life cannot now be much longer,
it may be the last.
If I have expected from you the Duty of Obedient
Children, it hath been always more for
your sakes than mine own; that you might be
sharers in that special Promise which St.Paul
tells you belongs to them that Honour their Father
and Mother, Ephes. 6. 2, 3. And I shall
always reckon, that you very fully pay all that
Honour which you owe to me, so long as I see

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you make it your chief business to fear God, and
keep his Commandments, which is your
whole Duty, Eccl. 2. 13. Honour always your
Father which is in Heaven; and be sure you can
do no greater Honour than that to your Parents
upon Earth. And as you may justly expect from
me the Love and Care of a Father; so you
ought to think, that I never better express either
of them towards you, than when, as the same
St. Paul hath commanded me, I endeavour to
bring you up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord, v. 4. For whatever else God shall
enable me to do for you, in this I take care at
once both of your Souls and Bodies; Godliness
having the promise of the life that now is, and
of that which is to come, Tim. 4.8.
I dare not be confident, that I have not much
fail'd you in this Duty of a Father, whilst you
were all at home with me, and under my eye. Neither
can I now hope to have you again much with
me whilst I live, or indeed that I shall live much
longer to take any care at all of you. The only
way therefore that is now left me, either to make
you amends for such neglects of you, as I may
have been at any time guilty of; or to testify
my earnest desire, that you may be always happy
in the Service, and under the Blessing of Almighty
God, the FATHER, SON, and
HOLY GHOST, to whom you were in your
Baptism dedicated; is first, daily so long as I

live to pray for his Grace to guide and govern
you in the ways of Truth and Holiness to Eternal
Life; and then to put into your hand the
substance of all those pious Instructions which
I could ever be able to give you, were we to live
here together to the World's end.
This, if I mistake not, I have already in some
good measure done in three small Books, viz.
CHRISTIANITY in SHORT; the
SCRIPTURE-CATECHISM, and the
COMMUNICANT'S GUIDE. If you be
perfect in these, you will understand reasonably
well both what you are to believe, do, desire, and
hope for; and will be able to reap more benefit by
the reading of other more excellent Books, and
chiefly that Book of books, the BOOK of
GOD, which I do charge you with all the Authority
of a Father, to read so long as you live,
when not unavoidably hinder'd (some part of
it daily); and that with the greatest seriousness
and attention of mind, with the devoutest Reverence
to the Great GOD, whose Word it
is, and with most earnest Prayers to Him, to enlighten
your understandings by it, and to conform
your Wills wholly unto it.
Consider well all that you read or hear, and
speedily put in practice all that is your Duty to
do, and cast off every Sin without delay; As
this Discourse will, I hope, convince you, it is
altogether necessary for you to do. Having therein

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said so much to you and others joyntly, I
shall not need to say much more now to you
alone. Only let me advise you to bear this always
in remembrance, That if you will be saved,
it must be by obeying the Gospel of JESUS
CHRIST, our only Saviour, which you cannot
do, but by denying your selves, by doing his
will and not your own; following his Rules,
and not the Customs and Fashions of the Persons,
great or small, amongst whom you live.
Our Wills are corrupt and perverse, and the
Multitude is always in the broad way to Destruction.
You have need of much Christian
courage to save your selves from this untoward
Generation. O, as you love God and your selves,
be neither ashamed nor afraid to live as the
few do, which are in the narrow way to Life.
Stoutly resolve to be as indifferent for the
World, as you see many zealous for it; and as
zealous for God and Heaven, as you see others
regardless of them. Pray fervently for strength
to do as you resolve; and then I doubt not,
but you will be a comfort to me whilst I live,
and an Honour to me when I am dead; and
when you are dead too, we shall all live together
again in the Eternal Joys of Heaven, through
JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Amen.
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