families of the earth, and, therefore, he expects in a special manner to be owned by you. Of all houses, the house of Israel, the house of Aaron, and the house of Levi, have most reason to bless the Lord, and to say, His mercy endureth for ever.

| beg the blessing. God by promise blesses David's house, and, therefore, David by prayer blesses it too, 2 Sam. vi. 20.

[5.] You ought to make family intercessions for others also. There are families you stand related [4.] You ought to present your family petitions to, or which by neighbourhood, friendship, or acfor the mercy and grace which your families stand quaintance, you become interested in and concernin need of. Daily bread is received by families to-ed for; and these you should recommend in your gether, and we are taught not only to pray for it every day, but to pray together for it, saying, Our Father, give it us. There are affairs and employments which the family is jointly concerned in the success of, and, therefore, should jointly ask of God wisdom for the management of them, and prosperity therein. There are family cares to be cast upon God by prayer, family comforts to be sought for, and family crosses which they should together beg for the sanctification and removal of. Hereby your children will be more effectually possessed with a belief of, and regard to, the Divine Providence, than by all the instructions you can give them; which will look best in their eye, when thus reduced to practice by your daily acknowledging God in all your

ways.

You desire that God will give wisdom and grace to your children, you travail in birth again till you see Christ formed in them, you pray for them; it is well, but it is not enough; you must pray with them; let them hear you pray to God for a blessing upon the good instructions and counsels you give them; it may perhaps put them upon praying for themselves, and increase their esteem both of you, and of the good lessons you teach them. You would have your servants diligent and faithful, and this perhaps would help to make them so. Masters do not give to their servants that which is just and equal, if they do not continue in prayer with them. They are put together, Col. iv. 1, 2.

prayers to the grace of God, and your family that are joined with you in the alliances should join with you in those prayers. Evil tidings perhaps are received from relations at a distance, which are the grief of the family; God must then be sought unto by the family for succour and deliverance. Some of the branches of the family are, perhaps, in distant countries, and in dangerous circumstances, and you are solicitous about them; it will be a comfort to yourselves, and perhaps of advantage to them, to make mention of them daily in your family prayers. The benefit of prayer will reach far, because he who hears prayer can extend his hand of power and mercy to the utmost corners of the earth, and to them that are afar off upon the sea.

In the public peace likewise we and our families have peace; and therefore, if we forget thee, O Jerusalem, we are unworthy ever to stand in thy courts, or dwell within thy walls. Our families should be witnesses for us that we pray daily for the land of our nativity, and the prosperity of all its interests; that praying every where we make supplication for the Queen, and all in authority, 1 Tim. ii. 2, 8. That we bear upon our hearts the concerns of God's church abroad, especially the suffering parts of it. Thus keeping up a spiritual communion with all the families that in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus.

In a word, let us go by this rule in our family devotions; whatever is the matter of our care, let it be There are some temptations which families, as the matter of our prayer; and let us allow no care such, lie open to. Busy families are in temptation which we cannot in faith spread before God. And to worldliness, and neglect of religious duties; mix-whatever is the matter of our rejoicing, let it be the ed families are in temptation to discord, and mutual matter of our thanksgiving; and let us withhold our jealousies; decaying families are in temptation to hearts from all those joys which do not dispose us distrust, discontent, and indirect courses to help for the duty of praise. themselves; they should therefore not only watch, but pray together, that they be not overcome by the temptations they are exposed to.

There are family blessings which God has promised, and for which he will be sought unto, such as those on the house of Obed-edom for the ark's sake; or the mercy which St. Paul begs for the house of Onesiphorus, 2 Tim. i. 16. These joint blessings must be sued out by joint prayers. There is a special blessing which God commands upon families that dwell together in unity, (Ps. cxxxiii. 1, 3.) which they must seek for by prayer, and come together to seek for it, in token of that unity which qualifies for Where God commands the blessing, we must

it.

Under this head of family worship, I must not omit to recommend to you the singing of psalms in your families, as a part of daily worship, especially sabbath worship. This is a part of religious worship, which participates both of the word and prayer; for therein we are not only to give glory to God, but to teach and admonish one another; it is, therefore, very proper to make it a transition from the one to the other. It will warm and quicken you, refresh and comfort you; and, perhaps, if you have little children in your houses, they will sooner take notice of it than of any other part of your family devotion; and some good impressions may thereby be fastened upon them insensibly.

(3.) Keep up family discipline, that so you may | wards, and take the first opportunity to let them have a complete church in your house, though in know you observe it, and are well pleased with it, little. Reason teaches us that every man should and do not despise the day of small things. This bear rule in his own house, Esth. i. 22. And since will quicken them to continue and abound in that that as well as other power is of God, it ought to be which is good, it will hearten them against the difemployed for God; and they who so rule must be ficulties they see in their way; and, perhaps, may just, ruling in his fear. Joshua looked further than turn the wavering, trembling scale the right way, the acts of religious worship, when he made that and effectually determine their resolutions to cleave pious resolution, As for me and my house we will to the Lord. When you see them forward to come serve the Lord, Josh. xxiv. 16. For we do not serve to family worship, attentive to the word, devout in him in sincerity and truth, (which is the service he prayer, industrious to get knowledge, afraid of sin, there speaks of, v. 14.) if we and ours serve him only and careful to do their duty, let them have the praise on our knees, and do not take care to serve him in of it, for you have the comfort of it, and God must all the instances of a religious conversation. Those have all the glory. Draw them with the cords of a only who have clean hands, and a pure heart, are man, hold them with the bands of love; so shall accounted the generation of them that seek God, your rebukes, when they are necessary, be the more Ps. xxiv. 4, 6. And without this those who pre- acceptable and effectual. The great Shepherd tend to seek God daily, do but mock him, Isa. gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in Iviii. 2. his bosom, and gently leads them; and so should you.

The authority God has given you over your children and servants is principally designed for this end, that you may thereby engage them for God and godliness. If you use it only to oblige them to do your will, and so to serve your pride; and to do your business, and so to serve your worldliness; you do not answer the great end of your being invested with it; you must use it for God's honour, by it to engage them, as far as you can, to do the will of God, and mind the business of religion. Holy David not only blessed his household, but took care to keep good order in it, as appears by that plan of his family discipline, which we have in the 101st Psalm, a psalm which Mr. Fox tells us that blessed martyr | Bishop Ridley often read to his family, as the rule by which he resolved to govern it.

You are made keepers of the vineyard, be faithful to your trust, and carefully watch over those who are under your charge, knowing you must give account.

[1.] Countenance every thing that is good and praise-worthy in your children and servants. It is as much your duty to commend and encourage those in your family who do well, as to reprove and admonish those who do amiss; and if you take delight only in blaming that which is culpable, and are backward to praise that which is laudable, you give occasion to suspect something of an ill nature, not becoming a good man, much less a good Christian. | It should be a trouble to us when we have a reproof to give, but a pleasure to us to say, with the apostle, (1 Cor. xi. 2.) Now I praise you.

Most people will be easier led than driven, and we all love to be spoken fair to: when you see any thing that is hopeful and promising in your inferiors, any thing of a towardly and tractable disposition, much more any thing of a pious affection to the things of God, you should contrive to encourage it. Smile upon them when you see them set their faces heaven

[2.] Discountenance every thing that is evil in your children and servants. Use your authority for the preventing of sin, and the suppressing of every root of bitterness, lest it spring up, and trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Frown upon every thing that brings sin into your families, and introduces any ill words, or ill practices. Pride and passion, strife and contention, idleness and intemperance, lying and slandering, these are sins which you must not connive at, nor suffer to go without a rebuke. If you return to the Almighty, this among other things is required of you, that you put away iniquity, all iniquity, these and other the like iniquities, far from your tabernacle, Job xxii. 23. Make it to appear, that in the government of your families you are more jealous for God's honour, than for your own authority and interest; and show yourselves more displeased at that which is an offence to God, than at that which is only an affront or damage to yourselves.

You must indeed be careful not to provoke your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged; and as to your servants, it is your duty to "forbear, or moderate, threatening :" yet you must also, with holy zeal and resolution, and the meekness of wisdom, keep good order in your families, and set no wicked thing before their eyes, but witness against it. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Be afraid of having wicked servants in your houses, lest your children learn their way, and get a snare to their souls. Drive away with an angry countenance all that evil communication which corrupt good manners, that your houses may be habitations of righte ousness, and sin may never find shelter in them.

I come now, II. To offer some motives to persuade you thus to turn your families into little churches. And O that I could find out acceptable words, with which to reason with you, so as to prevail! Suffer

|

will rule there. I know where thou dwellest, (says | houses be houses of the Lord, we shall for that

Christ to the angel of the church of Pergamos, Rev. ii. 13.) even where Satan's seat is; that was his affliction: but there are many whose sin it is; by their irreligion and immorality they allow Satan a seat in their houses, and that seat a throne. They are very willing that the strong man armed should keep his palace there, and that his goods should be at peace; and the surest way to prevent this, is by setting up a church in the house. It is commonly said, that where God has a church, the devil will have his chapel: but it may more truly be said in this case, where God has not a church, the devil will have his chapel. If the unclean spirit find the house in this sense empty, empty of good, though it be swept and garnished, he taketh to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there.

Terrible stories have been told of houses haunted by the devil, and of the fear people have had of dwelling in such houses; verily those houses in which rioting and drunkenness reign, in which swearing and cursing are the language of the house, or in which the more spiritual wickednesses of pride, malice, covetousness, and deceit have the ascendancy, may truly be said to be haunted by the devil, and they are most uncomfortable houses for any man to live in; they are holds of foul spirits, and cages of unclean and hateful birds, even as Babylon the great will be when it is fallen, Rev. xviii. 2.

Now the way to keep sin out of the house, is to keep up religion in the house, which will be the most effectual antidote against Satan's poison. When Abraham thought concerning Abimelech's house, Surely the fear of God is not in this place, he concluded no less but they will slay me for my wife's sake, Gen. xx. 11. Where no fear of God is, no reading, no praying, no devotion, what can one expect but all that is bad? Where there is impiety there will be immorality; they who restrain prayer, cast off fear, Job xv. 4. But if religious worship have its place in the house, it may be hoped that vice will not have a place there. There is much of truth in that saying of good Mr. Dod, "Either praying will make a man give over sinning, or sinning will make a man give over praying." There remains some hope concerning those who are otherwise bad, as long as they keep up prayer. Though there be a struggle between Christ and Belial in your houses, and the insults of sin and Satan are daring and threatening, yet as long as religion keeps the field, and the weapons of its warfare are made use of, we may hope the enemy will lose ground.

4. A church in the house will make it very comfortable to yourselves. Nothing more agreeable to a gracious soul than constant communion with a gracious God; it is the one thing it desires, to dwell in the house of the Lord; here it is as in its element, it is its rest for ever. If, therefore, our

reason love home, reckoning our daily devotion the sweetest of our daily delights, and our family worship the most valuable of our family comforts. This will sanctify to us all the conveniences of our houses, and reconcile us to the inconveniences of it. What are Solomon's gardens, and orchards, and pools of water, and other delights of the sons of men, (Eccl. ii. 5, 6, 8.) in comparison with these delights of the children of God?

Family religion will help to make our family relations comfortable to us, by promoting love, preventing quarrels, and extinguishing heats that may at any time happen. A family living in the fear of God, and joining daily in religious worship, truly enjoys itself; Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren thus to dwell together; it is not only like ointment and perfume which rejoice the heart, but like the holy ointment, the holy perfume, wherewith Aaron the saint of the Lord was consecrated; not only like the common dew to the grass, but like the dew which descends upon the mountains of Sion, the holy mountains, Ps. cxxxiii. 1-3. The communion of saints in that which is the work of saints, is without doubt the most pleasant communion here on earth, and the liveliest representation, and surest pledge, of those everlasting joys which are the happiness of the spirits of just men made perfect, and the hopes of holy souls in this imperfect state.

Family religion will make the affairs of the family successful; and though they may not in every thing issue to our mind, yet we may by faith foresee that they will at last issue to our good. If this beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and our families, it will prosper the work of our hands unto us, yea, the work of our hands it will establish; or however, it will establish our hearts in that comfort which makes every thing that occurs easy, Ps. xc. 17; cxii. 8.

We cannot suppose our mountain to stand so strong but that it will be moved; trouble in the flesh we must expect, and affliction in that from which we promise ourselves most comfort; and when the Divine Providence makes our houses houses of mourning, then it will be comfortable to have them houses of prayer, and to have had them so before. When sickness, and sorrow, and death come into our families, (and sooner or later they will come,) it is good that they should find the wheels of prayer going, and the family accustomed to seek God; for if we are then to begin this good work when distress forces us to it, we shall drive heavily in it. They who pray constantly when they are well, may pray comfortably when they are sick.

5. A church in the house will be a good legacy, nay, it will be a good inheritance, to be left to your children after you. Reason directs us to consult the welfare of posterity, and to lay up in store a good

foundation for those who shall come after us to build upon; and we cannot do this better than by keeping up religion in our houses. A family altar will be the best entail; your children will for this rise up, and call you blessed, and it may be hoped they will be praising God for you, and praising God like you, here on earth, when you are praising him in heaven. You will hereby leave your children the benefit of many prayers put up to heaven for them, which will be kept (as it were) upon the file there, to be answered to their comfort, when you are silent in the dust. It is true of prayer, what we say of winter, "It never rots in the skies." The seed of Jacob know they do not seek in vain, though perhaps they live not to see their prayers answered. Some good Christians, who have made conscience of praying daily with and for their children, have been encouraged to hope that the children of so many prayers should not miscarry at last: and thus encouraged, Joseph's dying word has been the language of many a dying Christian's faith, I die, but God will surely visit you, Gen. 1. 24. I have heard of a hopeful son, who said he valued his interest in his pious father's prayer far more than his interest in his estate, though a considerable one.

Family religion, if that prevail, will put a face of | religion upon the land, and very much advance the beauty and peace of our English Jerusalem. This is that which I hope we are all hearty well-wishers to; setting aside the consideration of parties, and separate interests, and burying all names of distinction in the grave of Christian charity, we earnestly desire to see true catholic Christianity, and serious godliness in the power of it, prevailing and flourishing in our land; to see knowledge filling the land, as the waters cover the sea; to see holiness and love giving law, and triumphing over sin and strife: we would see cause to call your city, A city of righteousness, a faithful city, its walls salvation, and its gates praise. Now all this would be effected, if family religion were generally set up and kept up. When the wall was to be built about Jerusalem, it was presently done by this expedient, every one undertook to repair over against his own house. See Neh. iii. 10, &c. And if ever the decayed walls of the gospel Jerusalem be built up, it must be by the same method. Every one must sweep before his own door, and then the street will be clean. If there were a church in every house, there would be such a church in our land as would make it a praise throughout the whole earth. We cannot better serve our country than by keeping up religion in our families.

Let families be well catechised, and then the public preaching of the word will be the more profitable, and the more successful. For want of this, when we speak ever so plainly of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, to the most we do but speak parables. The book of the Lord is delivered to them who are not catechised, saying, Read this, and they say, We are not learned; learned enough in other things, but not in the one thing needful, Isa. xxix. 12. But our work is easy with those who from their childhood have known the Holy Scriptures.

You will likewise hereby leave your children a good example, which you may hope they will follow when they come into houses of their own. The usage and practice of your families is commonly transmitted from one generation to another; bad customs are many times thus entailed. They who burnt incense to the queen of heaven, learnt it of their fathers, Jer. xliv. 17. And a vain conversation was thus received by tradition, 1 Pet. i. 18. And why may not good customs be in like manner handed down to posterity? Thus we should make known the ways of God to our children, that they may arise and declare them to their children, (Ps. lxxviii. 6.) and religion may become an heir-loom in our families. Let your children be able to say, when they are tempted to sit loose to religion, That it was the way of their family, the good old way, in which their fathers walked, and in which they themselves were educated and trained up; and with this they may answer him who reproaches them. Let family worship, besides all its other pleas for itself, be able in your houses to plead prescription. And though to the acceptableness of the service, it is requisite that it be done from a higher and better principle than Religious families are blessings to the neighbourpurely to keep up the custom of the family, yet bet-hood they live in, at least by their prayers. A good ter so than not at all: and the form of godliness may by the grace of God at length prove the happy vehicle of its power; and dry bones, whilst unburied, may be made to live. Thus a good man leaves an inheritance to his children; and the generation of the upright shall be blessed.

6. A church in the house will contribute very much to the prosperity of the church of God in the nation.

If every family were a praying family, public prayers would be the better joined in, more intelligently, and more affectionately; for the more we are used to prayer, the more expert we shall be in that holy and divine art of "entering into the holiest "in that duty. And public reproofs and admonitions would be as a nail in a sure place, if masters of families would second them with their family discipline, and so clench those nails.

man thus becomes a public good, and it is his ambition to be so. Though he see his children's children, he has small joy of that if he do not see peace upon Israel, Ps. cxxviii. 5, 6. And therefore postponing all his own interests, and satisfactions, he sets himself to seek the good of Jerusalem all the days of his life. Happy were we if we had many such. That which now remains, is to address myself