with them in Prayer not only in that Form there prescribed But also to that Effect as briefly as conveniently they may And if the Church Commands us to do so in Publick much more does it Allow us to do so in Private And therefore even according to the Church of England it self A Prayer of ones own Making may be lawfully used in Private Families as well as a Set-Form And therefore seeing these things are so I do First of all make this humble Request to all Dissenters Seeing the most Learned and the most Pious Authors of your Perswasion have Printed and thereby have Allowed the use of Set-Forms of Prayer for family-Family-Duties And seeing that all among you have not the Gift of Ex tempore Prayer Therefore be pleased to Pray to God by a Set-Form rather than not Pray to him at all When you cannot make a Prayer of your own be pleased to make use of one already made to your Hands Or to make use of your own Comparison Take Crutches when you cannot go without them Take the Help of others when you cannot help your selves And that this is no unreasonable Request is plain from this following Instance An Ingenious and a Pious Merchant of this City my Good Friend Lodged in his Youth in a considerable Dissenters House And after some Observation he perceived that he and his Family never went to Prayers Upon which he very fairly took his Landlord aside and asked him the reason why he had no Family-Duties in his House And his Landlord gave him this Ingenuous Answer Iown my self guilty of Sin in doing as I do and I do not know how I can possibly avoid it For I cannot Pray Ex tempore and I reckon it unlawful to Pray any other way And let all Unlearned Men of that Perswasion lay their Hands to their Hearts and see whether this be not more or less their own condition And that 's my First Request And my Second Request is to the Church of England-Men and 't is this Seeing the Church does not oblige you to use the Common-Prayer-Book in your Families Yea seeing it does rather oblige you to use some other Prayers unless you have a Priest to Officiate Yea farther Seeing its Canons do leave you at liberty to use a Set-Form or else to make a Prayer of your own to the same Effect as conveniently as you may Yea and further yet seeing it gives you this Liberty even in Publick before your Sermons Then do not you be as superstitiously for as some few others are superstitiously against Set-Forms Let not those that Pray Ex tempore Despise them that Pray by a Form And let not those that Pray by a Form Judge them that Pray Ex tempore For I do not in the least doubt but they both do it to the Lord. And I do not in the least doubt neither but the Lord hath received them both The only Misery on 't is this We both agree very well when we understand one anothers meaning But we scarce ever vouchsafe to give one another a Meeting that we may understand one another Let then the Dissenters be but pleased to Pray by a Form in Our Families and we will come and Pray Ex tempore in Theirs Or if they cannot condescend to this let them but be of the same Heart tho they cannot be of the same Mind with us Let us love one another and freely converse together without any Jealousie or Suspicion And then tho we should chance to be like Christs Coat of divers Colours and various Judgments Yet we may be like it also Seamless and all of a piece knit together in one common Bond of Charity We may hold the Faith in Vnity of Spirit in the Land of Peace and in Righteousness of Life And that this is no unreasonable Request neither is plain from this following Instance About three or four years ago I was acquainted with a Learned a Sober and a Wealthy Country-Gentleman of the Church of England And upon some Assurances that he gave me of his Friendship both by Word of Mouth and by Letter I took him to be my Friend And one Night being in his House and being desired to read Prayers I readily complyed with so good a Motion But finding the Second Lesson to be a difficult Chapter in the Epistle to the Hebrews which I my self did not well understand I exchanged it for another against the Vanity of Apparel as I thought of more Edification to some Persons who were there present But the Gentleman belike took it ill that I should offer to change the Chapter and asked me the Reason why I durst do so To which I gave these Answers First I did not well understand that Chapter my self and 't was not very likely that his Family could understand it better Secondly If I had understood it better I would not have read it notwithstanding Because another was more useful for some Persons there present who were in my Judgment but too vain and light in their Apparel Adding that where-ever I should chance to be I would always do that which would do most good to my Hearers tho it were to my great Disadvantage in this World Thirdly I had the express Order of the Church for what I did For the Admonition to all Ministers Ecclesiastical Printed before the Homilies has these Words Where it may so chance some one or other Chapter of the Old Testament to fall in order to be read upon the Sundays or Holydays which were better to be changed for some other of the New Testament of more Edification it shall be well done to spend your Time to consider well of such Chapters before-hand whereby your Prudence and Diligence in your Office may appear so that your People may have cause to glorify God for you and be the readier to embrace your Labors to your better Commendation to the Discharge of your Consciences and their own And yet for all this and a great deal more to the same purpose that I then said to him he so stifly and so obstinately stuck to the Kalendar that He wholly disregarded the Edification of his Family the Breach of Friendship and the excellent Order of the Church From both which Instances not to give you any more I humbly conceive that both my Requests are not at all unreasonable or unseasonable And God of his infinit Mercy grant that they may be both Duly weighed and Conscientiously Practiced And God grant also that the Rigid and High-flown Men of both sides may be Disallowed and Discountenanced And that the Moderate and Sober Men of both sides may be only approved and encouraged That so Our Moderation may be known unto all Men and that our Jerusalem may be a City that is at Peace and Unity with its self And Oh how willingly would I go and meet them half way Yea How willingly would I go and meet them to their own Houses And God grant all Men may be of
him nothing but what he knows he hath a perfect Antipathy against and what he hates in his Heart and what will make him Swoon away at the very sight of it No Man is so ill-bred as to serve his Friend thus And I believe that no Man is so ill-bred as to invite a Friend to a Place where he can neither see nor hear nor speak to any but what are his Mortal Enemies and what have Murdered his best and his only Friend and what would Murder him also if ever they meet him No Man certainly is so ill-bred as this comes to And yet we all know there is scarce a wicked Man upon Earth but what Prays in his House at some time or other or at least sends for the Minister to Pray with him at the point of Death Then at least once in his Life-time the Minister That Diminitive Creature he so often Laugh'd at and Libell'd in all Places the Minister is thought sit for his Company when he himself is fit for no Bodies else And what is it for a Man to pray to God in his House Is it any thing else but to desire God to come into and to Bless his House and to enter under his Roof and to Dwell in the Temple of his Body and to Sup with him and to translate him from Death to Life and from Earth to Heaven Is a Family-Prayer any thing else And yet shall that Wicked Man Invite God to come into that place that place of Sin that Dunghil of Filth his own House which he knows that God hates and loaths and abhors Shall that Wicked Man invite God to come into the Company of those wicked Servants of his who have Crucified his only begotten Son and trampled upon the Lord of Life and counted his Blood an unholy thing and done despite to his Spirit of Grace Shall that wicked Man invite a Jealous God to come into the Company of Whoremongers and Adulterers whom he himself will judge to Eternal Scorchings in Hell Fire Shall that Wicked Man invite God to come into that place where he shall hear himself Cursed and Sworn against and his Name Blasphemed to his Face Where he shall see a Swinish Lust preferr'd before him and a Drunken Cup preferr'd before the Cup of Blessing and a PAINTED Jezabel preferr'd before the Charms of the Immaculate Jesus that has neither SPOT nor Wrinkle Would any Man that has either Good Manners or good Breeding or any common Civility left him would any Man at all serve a Friend at such a rate such a barbarous rate as this What send for a Friend to abuse and affront him in his own House and to buffet and to spit upon him and to turn him out of Doors assoon as he comes wounded mangled bleeding gasping dead dead with the death of the Cross And yet at this and a far worse rate does every Man serve God who invites him to come into his House where he can neither see nor hear any thing but what Wounds and Stabs him to the Heart and pierces his Bleeding Sides and Crucifies him afresh and puts him again to an open shame And now canst thou possibly find in thy Heart to serve God thus What has God done that he should deserve this at thy Hands The very Abjects of the People that came about and the Drunkards that made Songs and Jested upon Holy David did not serve him so ill as thou dost God Nay and ev'n Balaam himself did not serve his very Ass so ill as thou dost God He presently saw his Error but thou goest on still in thine and wilt not see it Tell me seriously wherein has God offended thee so much that thou dost thus use him Is not God thy Creator thy Preserver thy Redeemer thy Saviour thy All If yet thou hast any share at all in him And which of all these unspeakable Mercies makes thee so much his Enemy 'T is greatly to be feared that thou hast not the least Interest in God Thou hast not the least Interest in that House which thou thy self dost wilfully set on Fire Thou hast not the least interest in that Ship which thou thy self dost help to Sink Thou art not the Right Owner of that Child which thou thy self dost cause to be divided and killed in it's Mother's Presence And if it be against all Good Manners to invite God to come into your Houses that you may affront him to his Face Then No Man that pretends to love God may presume to keep Company with bad Men where God is daily affronted without forfeiting all Claims to good Breeding For can I possibly go into that Company and can I take any Pleasure in that Society which abuses and kills my Friend that I love as my own Soul Yea Is it not far worse for me to take pleasure in bad Men's Company than it is for me to be a bad Man my self Is it not worse for me to love a Fornicator than it is for me to be a Fornicator Yea verily For says St. Paul speaking of Fornicators and the Haters of God They knowing the Judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of Death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1. 32. From whence it is plain That to take pleasure in those Men's Company that do bad things is far worse than for a Man to be bad himself And therefore for the future take special care what Men and Women's Company you take Delight in and become One Flesh with Do not find fault with those Men that bear their Testimony against these things And do not reckon those Men proud who are resolved by God's Grace to live and die according to these Rules and to avoid all Familiarity with all God's Enemies as far as they know them For how canst thou possibly pretend to be the Spouse of Christ and yet take her for thy Wife or him for thy Husband who takes the Members of Christ and makes them the Members of an Harlot From all which it is plain That tho thou pretendest to no great share of Religion Yet thou pretendest to Good Manners and Good Breeding and Common Civility and these very Motives if there were none besides oblige thee to bring up thy Family in the Service of God And yet alas these very Men that pretend most to Good Breeding and good Manners do treat God the most unmannerly and the most rudely of all others For their Houses have the least Devotion in them There it is that Reading the Scripture and Praying and Singing of Psalms and Repeating of Sermons and Examining and Instructing of Families are the least observed The richer those Men are the more careless they are in family-Family-Duties That is in plain English The more kind God is to them the more unkind and the more ungrateful they are to him Those very Blessings that should oblige them to bring God's Service into their Families are used as Arguments to
banish it out of all their Dwellings Their very Greatness Their Honour which should oblige them to honour God most for having honoured them so much above their Fellows makes them to think it below them to condescend so far as to instruct their own Children and much less their Servants They did not think it below them to beget their Children in Sin and consequently to serve the Devil and yet they think it below them to bring up their Children in the Service of the Living God They did not think it beneath them to make their Children the Firebrands of Hell and the Children of Wrath and yet they think it beneath them to make their Children the Children of Light and the Heirs of Heaven And here now I know very well that these Gentile-Men as they think themselves do charge us with Ill-Breeding for telling them of theirs so Publickly But whatever they Think of it we know otherwise We know whom we have believed We know our selves guilty of as great a Fault in not telling them of their Faults as they are in committing them And therefore we are forc'd to tell them further That this is not all the Rudeness and Incivility that these Civil Men these Men of Good Manners and Good Breeding are guilty of For it is not enough for them to think it below them-themselves to bring Religion into their Families but they would have all others think it so too They would have all others to run into the same excess of Riot with themselves They neither go to Heaven themselves nor suffer others to go thither by their Good Will But if their Cups their Roaring their Revelling and Clamorous Balling and Quarrelling do perhaps permit them at sometime to over-hear their Godly Neighbours either a Praying or a Singing of Psalms or a doing any other Christian Duty in their Families the least they say is That they are disturbed by them and that they can have no quiet in their Houses for their silly whining and in plain Terms that they are a Company of rank Hypocrites and Fanaticks But Oh good God what Times are we now fall'n into when Sobriety Gravity and Family-Duties shall be enough to Un-Church a Man What Times are we now fall'n into when Men are counted Sinners for following the Example of the Blessed Jesus who expounded All those things to his Family in Private which he had taught them in Publick Mark 4. 34. What an Age is this that we now live in When Men are counted Sinners for doing as the Primitive Christians did for making their Houses to be the Houses of God and for turning them into so many little Churches and Assemblies of the Saints of God Rom. 16. 5. 1 Cor. 16. 19. Col. 4. 15. Philem. 2. And you do not know but that in one of these Little Hutts your Lot the Pawn of your Peace the Pledge of your Safety and the Hostage of your Security your Lot may dwell Once more What an Age is this that we now live in When Men shall be counted Hypocrites for doing those Family-Duties and making such a necessary Provision for the Souls of their Children and their Servants which if they do not make St. Paul tells them expresly They deny the Faith and are worse than Infidels And if Men are grown to such an extravagant and such a monstrous Height of Impiety as to reckon that to be no Breach of Duty but rather a commendable Action which makes them Denyers of their Faith yea and makes them worse than the very worst Infidels Good God! What will the end of these things be And thus I have done But do not you think that you also have done with what you have now heard Your Work does but Begin when mine is Ended Your Work is to Do and Practise what I have deliver'd according to God's Word and not to Judge and to Censure it For if thou judge the Law thou art not a Doer of the Law but a Judge Jam. 4. 11. Your Work is to Do and not Only to Hear Do you therefore make a Solemn Vow unto the Lord But make it Now Make it before you stir from hence Joshua gives you and the thing it self requires no longer time to consider of it For says he Chuse you this day whom you will serve If you will chuse at all you must chuse out of hand you must chuse to day even Now. Now therefore do you All make a Solemn Vow unto the Lord That if you have neglected Family-Duties hitherto you will never neglect them for the time to come But whatever others may do in their Families As for Vs as for All Vs that are here present we and our Families will serve the Lord yea we will serve him against all Opposition to the contrary And let all the People say Amen Lord Jesu Amen and Amen Postscript THIS Discourse was Made Preached and Printed for the benefit of all Men whether they Dissent from or Conform to the Excellent Order of the Church of England Which End that it may the better obtain I am to acquaint you with a Question proposed to me since I Preached it and the Answer that I gave my Friend that proposed it The Question was this How I would have Family-Duties performed by the Common-Prayer-Book or by a Prayer of ones own making or any ones else And The Answer was this The Church of England had not decided either way and consequently had left it indifferent and accordingly I had done so too And therefore so it were but gravely devoutly and affectionately performed it was not very material whether the one way or the other And the Reasons of this Answer are these First of all There is no Learned and Sober Dissenter that I can hear of who reckons the Common-Prayer-Book or any other Set-Form of Prayer of itself simply unlawful so the Matter of it be good and the Expressions plain full and significant For otherwise so many Learned and Pious Men among them had never Printed any Family-Prayers nor had the Directory been ever made And therefore even according to the Dissenters themselves A Set-Form is lawful as well as a Prayer of ones own making Secondly The Authors of the Common-Prayer-Book did never design it for the use of Private Families For otherwise A Form of Prayer to be used in Private Houses every Morning and Evening had never been Printed with our Bibles after the Singing Psalms And Bishop Patrick is express in the Preface to his Devout Christian That the Reverence due to the Common-Prayer-Book will be best preserved by imploying it only in the Publick Divine Service or in the Private where there is a Priest to Officiate And therefore even according to the Church of England it self A Prayer of any ones making may be as well if not better used in Private Families than even the Common-Prayer-Book it self Thirdly The 55 Canon does command all Ministers before their Sermons to move the People to joyne