tion." Therefore were his judgments executed upon them,
agreeably to his threatening; and they are left on record for our
instruction. "Now these things happened unto them for ensamples [sic];
and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the
world are come."

REFLECTIONS.

In the part acted by the father of the Rechabites, we witness the
concern of a good man, that his children should mind the things of
religion. That good man did not scruple to lay heavy burdens on his
descendants, and cut them off from many temporal enjoyments, if it
might serve to keep them humble, and cause them _to stand before the
Lord_. He chose rather to have his family poor, than to have them
proud and vicious.--Hardships which might serve to keep them mindful
of their situation here, he judged advantageous: Therefore the charge
he left with them.

Pious parents do not generally leave such things in charge to their
children. They do not, however, neglect the concerns of religion, or
leave their families ignorant of them, or their obligation to regard
them. They teach them to fear the Lord, and live in all good
conscience before him.

II. In the historical sketch here given of the Rechabites, we see how
good people of old, were influenced by parental authority--how they
considered themselves bound to remember and obey the injunctions of
religious ancestors, as they wished the blessing of God. Where such
injunctions are disregarded it is an evidence of great depravity.

Sad instances of this kind we sometimes witness in this degenerate
age. We sometimes see godly parents, who had labored before in vain to
render their children truely religions, spend their last hours in
urging them not to receive the grace of God in vain--see them with
deep concern, and with their dying breath, charging them to mind the
things of religion, and not rest until they have found the Savior.
Though at first some impression seems to be made, it often soon wears
off, and the warnings and counsels of those who loved them as their
own souls, are forgotten and neglected!

Could these things be foreseen, sense of duty would only extort such
admonitions from a pious parent, at the solemn period of his
departure; for like a neglected gospel, they are "a favor of death
unto death," to those who hear them!

But this is not always the case. No means have a more direct and
powerful tendency to awaken the secure, and excite the attention of
the careless,