all full of snares; this was not considered and taken to heart, and God hath let such a blast befal me or mine upon this account."

you

Or would you omit the evening exercise of religion in your family, of one sort and another? How can you think of that? Do need none to watch over you this night? Doth not your house need a better keeper than you can be, especially when you are asleep; the Keeper of Israel, who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth? when we dwell in the midst of continual dangers, as we have so frequent experience; when some, that went to bed possessed of comfortable habitations, are unhoused and outed of all by the morning? It is not pretended, that family-prayer or family-religion will be a certain protection of your habitations from such disasters; as experience hath from time to time shewn: but I would appeal to you concerning the difference; suppose such a calamity to befal z religious family, and suppose it to befal an impious ungodly family. On the one hand, "My family hath been the seat of religion; I have desired, that God might be served and honoured there of this I have been studious to the uttermost ;" How free and easy is the way of access to God, when such a person is not affrighted by guilt, and the horrors of an amazed conscience! But on the other side, to be forced to say; "I can look for no relief from God in this case, for I have neglected him, I have forsaken him and banished him my house and habitation; he had no abode or dwelling with me, no acknowledgment or worship from me and mine:" What will this issue in? But if there be no such bar in the way between God and us; "Now my habitation is consumed, and turned into flames and ashes, I have no dwelling; but thanks be to God, the secret of the divine presence lieth open to me; I can go to him and say, Lord, thou hast been thy people's habitation through all generations. I shall never be destitute of a dwelling, as long as I have such a God to go to, and may solace myself in his love." For he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. How unsolicitous will that heart be, that finds itself possessed of a dwelling in the divine love! That love will carry through all the straits and difficulties of time, and provide richly for us in an immense eternity that shall ensue. This makes a vast difference betwixt one that serveth the Lord and one that serveth him not.

Farther; How are we directed by the course of nature itself? Do you think that those diurnal alterations of day and night carry no signification with them to an intelligent sort of creatures? When it is so inculcated to us in Scripture, what sa

ered things those ordinances of day and night are, and the statedness of their succession to one another; what can this intend, but to give us a measure as to the exercises of religion? Why else should this be so much insisted on, and we be called to fix our eye and take more special notice of those two great luminaries in this world of ours, "the sun that rules by day, and the moon that rules by night?" We are taught by nature itself to shape our other affairs accordingly. "Thou makest darkness, and it is night :-The sun ariseth ;-Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour, until the evening." Psalm 104. 20, 22, 23. May he indeed do so, and shall he not take God along with him? And when the return of night calls him back from his affairs; ought he not then to be put in mind, who must be his keeper while he slumbers and sleeps, even that Keeper that never slumbers nor sleeps?

That it might be more expressly signified unto us, how nature may and should be a measure unto us of religion, as to this thing; do but take notice of that passage in Amos 5. S. Seek him, (though these words, "seek him," are not in the Hebrew text in this verse, yet they are in the words but a little before, in several verses, and it is plain ought to be repeated or understood here, as the sense itself dictateth: "Seek ye me, and ye shall live; Seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba; Seek the Lord and ye shall live; seek him, that made the seven stars and orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night," &c. Seek him that doth so and so ; what is the meaning of that? Seek him, because he doth so and so; seek him under that notion, as it is he that maketh the day dark with night, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. What stupid, insensible creatures shall we be, if so wonderful a change doth not instruct us! If such a change were not common, it would be a subject of the greatest wonder to us. But that is the infirmity of our minds, that great things are little regarded, because they are common. That there should be that steady course kept in nature, as to make so vast a change in the world within the space of twentyfour hours, as the vicissitudes of day and night, of light and darkness; that we should have the brightness of an orient sun illustrating our hemisphere, and that within so many hours it is gone, and the shadow of death covers it; certainly this should set all religious minds upon adoring that Author of nature, that doth this in so steady a course, and in a way so unspeakably above all human conception, and which makes so many indeterminable controversies and disputes among the

wisest philosophers, that are never like to be decided as long as this world lasts; particularly, whether it be the earth that successively moves to the sun, or whether it be the sun that is whirled about the earth. The latter of these is so unapprehensible a thing, that the sun should run so vast a circle in so little a space of time, that it hath made many very considering men more to incline to the other opinion. But that we should be compassed about daily, once in twenty-four hours, with the strange vicissitudes of day and night, and not be disposed thereupon to adoration, is a most unaccountable thing; and will speak the inhabitants of this earth to be as stupid, as the earth on which they dwell.

But the idolatry of pagans will be a testimony against christians, if it should be so. What tempted them to that idolatrous notion of worshipping the sun and moon, but that they thought them to be a sort of deities, from whom they received such a continual course of favours, that they thought they did owe continual adoration to them thereupon? If they falsely thought so, how truly and justly should we do what they have thought, if we reckon that the God of heaven and earth, of sun and moon, and of the whole creation, doth in such wisdom and in such kindness and benignity to us provide, that there should be so necessary an alteration, as this of light and darkness in so continued a course?

What then doth this require and call for from us? To seek the Lord upon this account, the Lord that maketh the day dark with night, and that turneth the shadow of death into the morning. He doth even impose upon us those daily acknowledgments and acts of worship morning and evening, by the very course and current of nature itself, as he is the Author and God of nature. And wonder not, that the light and law of nature is so often appealed unto in this case. It is what we find the apostle does in a matter of far less import, than this that is now before us; when he speaks about the business of hair. 1 Cor. 11. 14. Surely we are to act according to the unerring plain dictates of nature, in so great and important a matter as this is, much more.

I might farther add upon all this that general precept, Phil. 4. 8. "Whatsoever things are honest, comely, whatsoever things are lovely, of good report, think on these things.' What a lovely thing is a praying, orderly family! a family, where religion is kept up in a stated course, so as that that course is as constant as the course of day and night! It is not left to us as a mere arbitrary thing, whether we will do things lovely, comely, honest and of good report, yea or no; but as a necessary

thing, founded upon necessary reasons. And therefore to be unconcerned and indifferent, whether those of our family (if we have families,) do things so necessary, or not, is a contradiction in terms; for it is to say, that which is necessary is not necessary; or, it is an indifferent thing, whether that which is necessary be done or not done.

SERMON V*.

HAVING endeavoured to evince to you, that there ought to be such a thing as family-religion; and then to show you, what we were to conceive and practice, as to the frequency of the exercises of it, or when and at what times it ought to be performed; I would farther speak to a question or two relating to this matter, and answer one or two objections, and so shut up all with some Use.

There are some questions that occur, which may require some consideration.

Question 1. Some have desired to be informed, "Whether in case of the absence or sickness of a husband from or in the family, it be incumbent on the wife to keep up family-duty in such a case?" And the case is the same as to widows, or others of that sex, who are sole governesses of families.

Answer. It must be said in general to this, that one rule cannot be suited to all cases. There may be very great variety, as circumstances differ. But,

1. Nothing is plainer, than that while the conjugal relatives remain, the female relation hath a real part in the government of the family. That is plainly enough asserted in 1 Tim. 5. 14. that it is the woman's part to "guide the house." The word IxodesTOTE, to have a despotical power in the family, a go

Preached January 14th. 1693.