We are expecting the time, when the Spirit of the Lord is to be poured forth more copiously, more generally, and in a greater measure, than hitherto : and what an honour will it be, that shall be put upon London, if that shall be made a luminary to so great a part of the world besides, as such a city can fall under the notice and observation of? Instead of shame, here will be glory. Do you glory, (instead of being ashamed) to bear your part in so noble a design, to revive languishing religion in our land, and in London, and in our age. If you think it fit, that Christian religion should not dwindle and go out in a snuff; oh, contribute your utmost in your several stations, that it may be more and more a spreading and vivid thing, such as may spread and recommend itself.

SERMON VI.*

WE now proceed to the Use, which may be proper to be made of all the foregoing discourses. And,

I. That which hath been said may be useful for our instruction in sundry inferences, which it will be very obvious to deduce from it.

1. That if there ought to be such a thing as family-religion; then certainly there ought to be such a thing as personal. For as families do suppose persons, and are made up of them; so family-religion must suppose personal religion. For the reason formerly mentioned, I did select out of this text for my main subject the business of family-religion, and do not design a distinct discourse concerning personal; that being the business of all our preaching and hearing all the year about. But yet, as I told you, I shall not pass over upon this subject the business of solitary or personal religion. But I reckon it very fitly comes in by way of inference and deduction from what hath been said to the former: for there cannot be a greater absurdity or solecism in all the world, than that a man should pretend to set up religion in his family, and yet know nothing what belongs to any exercises of religion alone and apart by himself.

* Preached January 21, 1693.

I know many pretend, (but I hope from what you have heard it is but a pretence,) that the obligation unto family-religion is obscure and hard to be made out. But in the mean time, as to personal religion, nothing can be more express. How distinct is the command of our great and blessed Lord, in Mat. 6. 6. "Enter into thy closet, and shut thy door, and pray to him in secret that seeth in secret, and he will reward thee openly.' Because then we have shewn, that religion is not to be shut up in a closet, is it therefore to be shut out thence, against so express a precept as this? I intend no more than only to touch upon this subject; and pursuantly unto my design in taking notice of it, it will suffice to say briefly these four things concerning it.

(1.) That there is more constant and easy opportunity for the exercise of personal and solitary religion, than there can be for any other. And a mighty privilege that is, which a good soul would be loath to forfeit or to make nothing of: "I can be with God alone at any time; I can retire myself, when I will, to the more stated exercises of personal religion. Whenever my heart is in a disposition, I can presently ejaculate a thought, a desire, and holy aspiring Godward. It is possible that men may hinder the meeting of others together for the exercises of religion; but who can come between God and me? With him I can converse in any den, in any desert, in any dungeon; and none can prevent me.'

(2.) There is more liberty and freedom of spirit in the secret exercises of religion. Then I can pour out my soul and vent myself unto God freely, when I am with him in a corner. This is one of the great privileges of friendship. It is the mutual sense of those that are entirely friends to one another, "We are theatre enough to one another," as the noted moralist speaks, Alter alteri satis amplum theatrum sumus. and my friend; there needs no witness, no spectator: it is enough for us, that we can be entirely and inwardly conversant with one another.

(3.) There is hereupon so much more of delight in it, the highest complacency. You know what the delights are of friendly commerce with one of a suitable spirit. But as there is no friendship like the divine, so there are no delights like those of divine friendship. When I retire myself with him on purpose, "My meditation of him shall be sweet," saith the Psalmist. psal. 104. 34. He forecasts thus with himself. "How precious are thy thoughts to me, O God! I can be with God, as soon as I can think a thought; and how delightful is it, when he is pleased to mingle thoughts with me, to inject thoughts!" That is the way of spirits conversing with one another; and

most of all of the paternal Spirit, the Father of spirits, that knoweth how most immediately and inwardly to influence his own off-spring.

(4.) There is the fullest expression of sincerity in secret and closet-religion. It is in opposition to the practice of hypocrites, that our Saviour gives that injunction which I mentioned in Mat. 6. 5. 6. "When ye pray, be not as the hypocrites, they would fain appear to men to pray; they love to pray in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men." All their religion is street-religion, synagogue-religion; they know no other. "But do thou enter into thy closet, and shut the door," &c. There is nothing of design in this, but to meet with God, to pay him the homage I owe to him, and to seek from him the vital communications which I need. Here is nothing of pomp, nothing of ostentation. When our Saviour saith, hypocrites do so and so; you may easily by other places in the gospel know whom he means by that character, namely, the scribes and pharisees, mentioned in the foregoing chapter and elsewhere. They are often mentioned in conjunction with that other title, in Mat. 23. "Woe unto you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites." Of all religions in the world, I would never make a pharisee the measure of my religion; to have but a pharisaical religion, a religion with others or in the sight of others, but none to myself. How many please themselves, if they think they have a more excellent gift in this kind, to make ostentation of it to others; but towards God alone they are dumb and silent! They seem to be all religion with others; but alone they are nothing in it, their hearts are all earth and stone.

2. If there ought to be family-religion set up and kept up by governors of families; then-they in families, who are under government, are obliged to comply thereunto.*-Any duty, that is incumbent upon one relative as such, doth manifestly imply the duty of the correlative or of the correlate. If governors of families must set up and keep up religion in their families; then they that are under government must comply. The same authority, that binds the one, binds the other too. So that they, who refuse to comply, are not only rebels against the governors of the family; but rebels against the Lord of heaven and earth, with whose authority such governors are invested for there is no power but from him.

And though it he true indeed, that a human governor can see no farther than to an external conformity; he from whom the obligation principally comes, seeth farther, seeth into the

* See Page 389.

heart and soul with the strictest and most prying inspection. And therefore with reference to him, such as are under government in families are obliged to concur in heart and spirit, and not to afford an external and bodily presence only. For your business lies with the God of the spirits of all flesh; who takes notice, whether you come with an inclined heart or a disinclined, with aversion or with desire; or whether you attend upon such duties with complacency or without delight. There is no deceiving of him. The same law, that obliges you to pray, obliges you to "pray in the Holy Ghost;" and implieth, that if you desire his communications and assisting influences, as "a Spirit of grace and supplication," they will ordinarily be afforded; and that you will not be destitute of those assistances but by slighting them, by despising and resisting and vexing that Spirit, who is ready to assist you, and to engage your hearts and to do them good by such a duty.

And let me tell you, that as it is a eulogy, a character of praise and commendation, in any one to be good in a bad family; so it must proportionably be a horrid brand upon any one to be bad in a good family. It was thought fit to be put upon record concerning Abijah the son of Jeroboam, (1 Kings 14. 13.) that "there was some good thing found in him towards the Lord his God, even in the house of Jeroboam;" good desires, good inclinations, even in so wicked a family as Jeroboam's was. It is proportionably a horrid mark upon that person, who continueth ungodly in a godly family: that is, a prayerless wretch in a praying family; whose heart at least never prayeth, hath no desires after God; no contrition, no sense in the confession of sin; no love, no gratitude in the acknowledgment of mercy. For one to continue ungodly in a godly family, or to go out ungodly from a godly family, what a horrid thing will this be! How much of terror and amazement will it carry in it at least, when the case comes to open itself to view, and to be looked upon and considered in its proper and native aspect! And even as it now is; to think with one's self, "That such or such children or fellow-servants in a family, where I may have lived a considerable time, may have had their hearts melted in hearing the word read and opened and applied, but mine was always hard: they have had their souls humbled in the acknowledgment of sin, but mine was unhumbled: they have had desires enlarged in seeking for mercy, but I had no desire after spiritual good." To live so in a good family, and to go out such from a good family; oh, the horror of this case, and the reflection it will cause in the close of time! or, if not so, in an eternity of misery, that will never end!

3. We may farther collect hence, that if family-governors