LETTER OF ADVICE TO HIS GRANDCHILDREN, MATTHEW, GABRIEL, ANNE, MARY, AND FRANCES HALE. BY SIR MATTHEW HALE, LORD CHIEF JUSTICE IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES 11. Now first published. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY WELLS AND LILLY. SOLD BY VAN WINKLE AND WILEY, NEW-YORK; WEBSTERS AND .... CHAP. 1. Danger of the Times in relation to Religion 2. Dangers incident to your Age A LETTER OF ADVICE, &c. DEAR CHILDREN, FOR SO I must call you, not only as you are descended from me, but also because, by the death of your parents, I stand, as it were, your immediate father. I am now grown to a great age, (threescore and four years,) and am now hastening out of this world into a better; and you are all very young, and setting out for a voyage into this world, like small pinnaces into a dangerous and troublesome sea full of rocks, and shoals, and storms, and tempests, and I cannot do a more seasonable and fatherly office, than to prescribe you some rules and directions, which by the blessing of God, may be a help and guidance to you to steer and order your course through it when I am gone; and this is the business of this letter. |