they are there exposed. The leprosy has spread into the walls of houses, and corrupted whole families. All that parents can now do, is to use proper antidotes against the spreading poison. In the first place, they ought to shut their lips, and never suffer a profane word to drop from them. This must be done before they can use any other antidote successfully; for it will be in vain to attempt to restrain their children from profaneness if they practice it themselves. In the next place, they must read the Bible from day to day before their families, and teach their children to read it; and especially the ten commandments, the third of which expressly forbids them to take the name of the Lord their God in vain, upon pain of his righteous and everlasting displeasure. In the next place, they must attentively watch their children, and if they ever hear them utter a profane oath, never let it pass without verbal reproof, or more severe correction. They must be made to know that it is not a venial fault, but an enormous crime, which must be restrained by the most powerful and effectual means. In the last place, they must never allow any profane person to reside in their house for service or friendship. Let parents use these antidotes against profane language, and they will seldom fail of preserving their children from taking the name of the Lord their God in vain, so long as they are minors, and under their care, instruction and authority.

3. This subject applies to youth in particular, and reads a seasonable and solemn lecture to you in the morning of life, upon your dangerous situation. You are by nature depraved, and live in a depraved world, and in a degenerate day. You are surrounded by your superiors, your inferiors, and your equals, in age, knowledge, and moral corruption. And you know that many of them have already learned to take the name of the Lord their God in vain. You must be sensible that you are in peculiar danger of being led astray by those who wish to corrupt you. Though many of you have pious parents, who have in a public and solemn manner devoted you to God, instructed, warned, and restrained you from the abounding sin of profaneness, yet you are in great danger of backsliding and breaking over the restraints that have been laid upon you, and are painful to you. For corrupters will aim to increase your uneasiness under parental influence, and inspire you with the vanity to think that it will be manly and noble to throw off a yoke of bondage as early as possible. Lean not to your own understanding, nor trust in your own heart, which is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Many a youth, as confident in his own resolution and strength, has been seduced and corrupted. Some of you, perhaps, now

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know by your own experience the weakness of your sober resolutions. You may possibly remember the time when you uttered your first profane oath, which struck you with horror; but you have since lost your fear of God and the terror of an oath, and your profane language has become so familiar to you, that you cannot tell when you pour out your oaths and imprecations. If you have lost all fear of God, and are hardy enough to take his name in vain without remorse, your case is deplorable and next to desperate. You cannot be restrained and reformed by human means. You have a habit of profaneness, which is a second nature, and as hard to govern as your corrupt nature. If you have said with the sinners in Zion, "With our tongue will we prevail, our lips are our own, who is lord over us?"-tremble at your presumption, and reflect a moment upon your character and condition. You are under a sentence of condemnation, which God may execute at any moment. You have not yet reached the years of manhood, and what reason have you to hope you ever will? God knows if he should spare your life, and you should continue your course, your mouths will be full of curses, and destruction and misery will be in all your ways. God has said the wicked shall not live out half their days; and who are more wicked than profane swearers, who spread the most fatal infection to all around them, wherever they are? You have already done evil enough. Cease then to do evil, and learn to do well, that your iniquity may not be your ruin.

But I would hope, that some of the youth before me are yet innocent of the great sin of taking the name of the Lord their God in vain. If you are innocent, preserve your innocence. Avoid all language which resembles profaneness, and easily leads to it. Avoid the company, and especially the intimacy of all such as allow themselves in profaneness, and let them know that you disapprove and abhor their mean and low-lived vice. This you may decently and safely do, without assuming the authority of monitors. Never countenance or connive at the profaneness of your equals or inferiors, nor attempt to cover their guilt, or screen them from deserved reproach or punishment. If you hear swearing, God requires you to bear testimony against it. This the express command of God obliges you to do. "If a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness whether he hath seen or known of it, if he do not utter it, then shall he bear his iniquity." It would be well indeed, if both young and old would constantly remember and obey this command. It would be a very great restraint upon profane swearers in the day of degeneracy. How often, my hearers, are you bound to do your duty in respect to profane swearers!

4. This subject applies with all its force to veterans in the land-defiling vice of profaneness. It requires no critical search to find men of this character; for they freely and openly show themselves, in every town, in every parish, and almost in every neighborhood. You have abused and offended your God. You have injured your country, and caused the land to mourn. You have wounded the feelings of all the friends of piety and virtue. It is more than possible that you have drawn tears from the eyes, and groans from the hearts of kind, tender, and faithful parents. You have taught the rising generation to despise their God and their fathers' God, to set at nought his commands, and disregard all his reproofs. You have done as much as you could to spread vice and irreligion every where. You have been the troublers of our Israel. You are entreated to consider your ways, to review your past lives immediately, and seriously reflect upon the immense guilt you have contracted, and the heavy doom to which you are imminently exposed. Your days will soon be finished, and your eternal state unalterably fixed. The door of mercy now stands open, but it will be soon shut, and never opened again. The mercy of God has no bounds. He saved Manasseh; and if you humble yourselves deeply as he did, and cry for mercy, he will save you at the eleventh hour. To-day then, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, nor delay to submit to the terms of life.

But there may be a larger class of hearers than any that have been mentioned, who may console themselves with the pleasing thought that they are better than others, and that God will treat them better than he will treat others, because they have never taken his name in vain, nor uttered a profane oath. But have you not committed innumerable other sins, and opposed greater light, resisted stronger remonstrances of conscience, and violated more repeatedly solemn vows and resolutions to obey all the divine commands, than the most abandoned swearers? Have you not often contended with your Maker in your hearts, while you have presumed to bless him with your tongues? This God has told you is an abomination in his sight. You have no reason to boast of your superior goodness, but have abundant reason to judge and condemn yourselves for your numerous and aggravated transgressions; and "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

SERMON XXXV.

PARENTAL GOVERNMENT OF A FAMILY.

FOR I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment;

that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he

hath spoken of him. - GENESIS, Xviii. 19.

ABRAHAM was one of the excellent of the earth. He believed in the being and perfections of the true God, and placed an unshaken confidence in him, while his father, and friends, and the world in general, fell into gross idolatry. His faith produced cordial obedience and submission to the will of God. For, by faith, when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, he obeyed; and went out, not knowing whither he went. In return, God exercised corresponding love to him, and confidence in him. He condescended to make a new and everlasting covenant with him, and engaged to be his God, and the God of his seed, from generation to generation. After he had formed this intimate and important connection with him, he considered and treated him as his peculiar friend. For when he was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." God here expresses full confidence in Abraham, that he would exercise parental authority over his family with pro

priety and fidelity. This representation of Abraham naturally leads us to consider,

I. Who they are that compose a family.

II. What is implied in exercising parental authority over a family. And,

III. The importance of exercising parental authority over a family.

I. We are to consider, who they are that compose a family. Some families are smaller, and some are larger than others. Families are usually composed of parents and their children, which are sometimes less, and sometimes more numerous. But parents may have other children and youths committed to their care and instruction, and those equally belong to their family. Besides their own and other children, they may have those whom they employ in their service, and who reside in their house; and these all belong to their family. They may also have some persons whom they invite to reside with them gratuitously. These likewise belong to the family. In a word, all whom they permit to enter under their roof for pleasure, entertainment, protection, or relief, belong to their family for the time being. Parents are heads of their families, whether larger or smaller, and whether they are composed of persons of different ages, characters and conditions, or not. Their parental authority extends to every individual of their family. Abraham had a very numerous family, composed of persons of various ages, characters and conditions. He had six sons beside Ishmael and Isaac. He had three hundred servants born in his house, and some that he bought with his money. Over all these he exercised paternal authority. For we read, "In the self-same day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son, and all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him." All parents, or heads of families have the same parental authority over their children and households that Abraham had. Parental authority is founded in the nature of things, and discoverable by the light of nature. The natural dependence of children upon their parents, gives their parents a natural right to govern them so long as that dependence continues; and children early see and feel the propriety and obligation of submitting to such parental authority. Parental authority is as fully and universally claimed by parents, and acknowledged by children, among heathens as among christians. All heathen parents, whether civilized or savage, are capable of seeing that they ought to govern their children and households; and their children and households are capable of seeing that they ought to submit to their government. And this parental authority,