_Direct._ VIII. Yet prudently take heed that you speak nothing to any in the presence of others, that tends to open their ignorance or sin, or the secrets of their hearts, or that any way tendeth to shame them (except in the necessary reproof of the obstinate). If it be their common ignorance that will be opened by questioning them, you may do it before your servants or children themselves, that are familiar with each other, but not when any strangers are present. But if it be about the secret state of their souls that you examine them, you must do it singly, when the person is alone. Lest shaming and troubling them make them hate instruction, and deprive them of all the benefit of it. _Direct._ IX. When you come to teach them the doctrine of religion, begin with the baptismal covenant, as the sum of all that is essential to christianity; and here teach them briefly all the substance of this at once. For though such general knowledge will be obscure, and not distinct and satisfactory, yet it is necessary at first; because they must see truths set together: for they will understand nothing truly, if they understand it but independently by broken parts. Therefore open to them the sum of the covenant or christian religion all at once, though you say but little at first of the several parts. Help them to understand what it is to be baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And here you must open it to them in this order. You must help them to know who are the covenanters, God and man: and first the nature of man is to be opened, because he is first known, and God in him who is his image. Familiarly tell them, "That man is not like a beast that hath no reason, nor free-will, nor any knowledge of another world, nor any other life to live but this: but he hath an understanding to know God, and a will to choose good and refuse evil, and an immortal soul that must live for ever: and that all inferior creatures were made for his service, as he was made for the service of his Creator. Tell them that neither man, nor any thing that we see, could make itself; but God is the Maker, Preserver, and Disposer of all the world. That this God is infinite in power, and wisdom, and goodness, and is the Owner, and Ruler, and Benefactor, Felicity, and End of man. That man was made to be wholly devoted and resigned to God as his Owner, and to be wholly ruled by him as his Governor, and to be wholly given up to his love and praise as his Father, his Felicity, and End. That the tempter having drawn man from this blessed state of life, in Adam's fall the world fell under the wrath of God, and had been lost for ever, but that God of his mercy provided us a Redeemer, even the eternal Son of God; who being one with the Father, was pleased to take the nature of man, and so is both God and man in one person; who being born of a virgin, lived among men, and fulfilled the law of God, and overcame the