ined his first
estate. It would then have belonged to parents to cultivate the tender
mind and direct it in right ways. Marriage was instituted before the
apostasy, of which a principal design is that mentioned in the text:
For the prophet speaks of man in his original state. In innocence man
had his work assigned him--was made for action. Idleness would have
constituted no part of his felicity, had he remained upright. When he
came out of the Creator's hand, he was "put into the garden to dress
it and to keep it." His disposition to idleness may have been
occasioned by the fall. Had man retained his maker's image, it is not
probable that young minds would have received habits of virtue, and
been imbued with knowledge, without parental aid--that instinct would
have supplied the place of instruction, and superseded the use of it.

Had man remained upright his whole work have been diverse from that
which now employs him. The earth would have required little culture
--none which would have wearied its inhabitants. The mind, free from
every corrupt bias, would have been open to instruction, which would
have flowed from the parent and been received by the child, with
delightful ease and joy. Man devoted to the service of God, would have
devoted his all to God, especially his offspring. Then to have poured
knowledge, and especially the knowledge of God, into the placid docile
mind of the pious youth, what delight would it have given to the soul
glowing with divine love!

Since the apostasy, children are the joy of parents. With all their
depravity and perverseness, which greatly lower down the comfort
parents would otherwise occasion, they love them next to life, and see
their improvements with peculiar joy. Especially doth the godly
parent rejoice to witness in them good things toward the Lord--
religious dispositions--concern to know and serve God, and become _a
godly seed_. "He hath no greater joy than to observe his children
walking in the truth." Had man retained his first estate, his joy of
this kind would have been full. He would have trained up a holy, happy
progeny--"a seed to serve the Lord."

In the present state of human nature, the raising of _a godly seed_,
is more difficult, but no less necessary. Endeavors to this end may be
even more so. Man left from his childhood, uninstructed and
unrestrained, to follow his natural bias, would become a monster
among God's creatures! Therefore the importance of parental