this would be more sutable for your Family than Ballads prophane and lascivious filthy Rymes which you should not suffer under your Roof SECT XI THirdly The manner how you should Worship God in your Family is chiefly to be minded for it is not any service that God will accept you may keep up a course of praying in your Family and yet live very unworthy of the great mercy of God in your wonderful preservation Therefore 1. In your Family worship God really and indeed with your heart and mind and all your strength do not seem to pray but pray indeed in your Family For this end consider 1. The God whom you serve in your Families is God indeed he is a real God therefore worship him indeed and in a real manner 2. The sins of your Families are real sins your own sins are real sins and your childrens sins are real sins and have real guilt therefore confess them really and mourn and sorrow for them really 3. The wants of your Family are real wants you do not seem to want outward mercies but except God supply you you will want them indeed 4. The supplies which God doth give you are real supplies God giveth you real health and real food and reâ—l cloathing for your Family therefore be real in your Family Worship 5. You and your Family are real in following of the World you work in good earnest and you buy and sell in good earnest And will you be real in the things of the World that concern your Family and will you not be real in your Family Worship 2. In your Family worship God Livelily not only with a true and sincere heart but with a lively heart take heed of dulness and formality take heed of sleeping at your prayers And here I would advise that Masters of Families would not put off their duties too long in the Morning till half the day be past nor too late in the Evening when the Family will be more disposed and inclined to sleep than to pray 3. In your Family worship God chearfully go not to Family Prayer as a task and burden but as a great favour and priviledge that you and your Children might call upon God 4. In your Family worship God constantly Some will pray on a Sabbath night but it may be not all the Week after Thus if you serve God in your Family it will be a great step to your walking in some measure answerably for so great preservation and then it will be a good discovery that God hath spared you in mercy to do him service in the Education of your Children and not in judgment to the encreasing of your sins only Thus far concerning the Duties of Families whom God hath spared in this time of Pestilence in general Of the several Relations in a Family next SECT XII SEcondly If you will live in some measure answerably to so great a mercy as Preservation from death in a time of great Mortalitie is then fill up the duties of your particular Relation wherein you stand Relative sins are very offensive unto God and a great scandal to Religion The fiâ—st of these Relations in a Family is First Conjugal betwixt Husband and Wife and the great duty incumbent upon them is mutuâ—l love in which many are deficient and many are excessive it being hard for such to let out their affections one to another so much as God commands and no more than God allows and both these extreams will terrisie conscience when such come to dye And this sin is more usually seen when death hath broken this Relation than while God continueth them together the Surviver then seeth he did not love his Wife and the Wife her Husband with that degree of love as that Relation called for or with a greater degree than was pleasing unto God when the love of this Relation did diminish the love they should have to God And how many breaches hath God made in this Relation to punish the sin of both extreams It may be thy love was Immoderate and therefore God hath taken thy Relation from thee Or it may be thy love was deficient and therefore God hath taken thy Relation from thee When thou wâ—st sick and thou thoughtest thou shouldest have died did not thy Conscience then accuse thee for one of these in thy Relation And yet hath God spared thee and thy Wife or thee and thy Husbâ—nd then what conscience did reproach thee for in this particular if thou wouldst answer Gods mercie in sparing of thee let this be reformed There are many this day may be lamenting not so much the loss of this Relation as that they did not walk sutablie in this Relation while they were in it this being the sting of their affliction Oh! methinks such as God hath continued in a Conjugal Relation in this time of great Mortality should look upon themselves now more engaged to perform their mutual duties with more care and conscience than before Such a one hath buried his Wife and such a one hath buried her Husband but God hath preserved you in your Relation you cannot live answerablie for this mercie but in a better discharge of your mutual duties How would you wish you had loved your Relation Wife or Husband if God had taken either away by death so do now when God continueth you both in life Because this conduceth so much to an answerable return for so great a mercie I will a little insist upon it And in the general if you would improve this mercie the direction is that your love and affection be such one to another as is the love betwixt Christ and the Church Eph. 2.25 Husbands love your Wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it And this love of the Husband must be requited with the love of the Wife for it is reciprocal Tit. 2.4 Teach the young women to be sober to love their Husbands SECT XIII BUT more particularly I shall speak to three things What manner of love is this Why they should have this Wherein they should manifest this love one to another If you will improve this mercie God hath vouchsafed you your love must have these properties 1. It must be a Superlative love that is in respect of all sublunarie things though your love to God and Christ must be more than your love one to another else it doth sinfully exceed for if any loveth Father or Mother Husband or Wife more than Christ he is not worthie of him yet in respect of all other persons and things in this world it must be more else it is sinfully deficient A man must love his Wife above all other persons above his Estate or whatsoever is dear unto him in this world and so the Wife Thus Christ loveth his Church and a believing soul above all other persons and the Church reciprocallie loves Christ above all other things in the world 2.
allure your will into a consent first not to be so severe next to indulge it then to countenance it and then to renew its acquaintance till it again become familiar to you 3. That Satan will assault you and set in with sin for its re-admission If he cannot keep you from resolving yet he will lay hard at your heart to break your resolution He will lay his snares and baits and use his stratagems in sins behalf and come to you as he did to our first Parents Gen. 3.1 He i. e. Satan said unto the woman Yea hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the Garden So Satan cometh unto thee and saith Yea hast thou said thou wilt not be kinde unto thy sin any more hast thou said thou wilt be so severe against thine Iniquity If thou reply I have said I will not keep my sin lest God be angry with me and send some soret Judgement upon me he will return to thee and say God will not surely be angry with thee to plague thee it may be thou mayst escape or if thou yield now thou mightest repent and renew thy resolution against it again do it but this once take but the other Cup play but the other game If you be not carefull to look to your Resolutions when sin Satan and your own heart do set against you you will certainly break them 4. The World will interrupt you that you may not live up to your Resolutions made to God in time of danger This is another powerful Assaultant for your heart and affections and will plead If thou didst resolve against sin that was unlawful but the things that I have saith the World are good my Riches are good and my Pleasures are not absolutely evil and my Profits are not unlawful if thou wouldest turn off thy drunkenness why should I be resolved against and if thou wilt shake off thy wicked company yet what have I done that I must not be loved Company-keeping saith the World did impoverish thee but I will enrich thee that did consume what was necessary for thy Family but I come with supplyes for them I will cloathe their backs and I will furnish their Table and I will bring in Portions for thy Children I will make thee honourable and esteemed and I will lay up in store for thee against thy old age when thy labour will be past Thus will the World come in for entertainment in your heart again that though you resolved to spend so much time in secret Prayer every day if God would suffer you to live yet this worldly business cometh to divert you and another cometh to take you off from your resolved practice If you consider what earnest suiters Satan sin and the World will be for your heart and how your heart is as ready to yield as these are to solicit your heart is as willing to have them as these are to have your heart then without diligent care it is impossible to live up unto good and holy Resolutions made in time of danger 5. The difficulty of the things you have purposed and resolved to do calls for your greatest diligence if you would live up unto them The more excellent and difficult the work is we resolve to do the more apt we are to flag and faint and come short in performance Now it will appear that these things are difficult because They are Praeter Super Contra Naturam First The things you have purposed and resolved to do are preternatural These things are that you will love God more and that you will delight and joy in God more Now those things are praeternatural which are added to another thing as an adjunct to its subject so that it doth not constitute the nature of it nor destroy it but perfect it Such a thing is Grace that you have resolved to get greater degrees of Grace and Holiness doth not constitute the Nature of man for a man without grace is a man neither doth grace and holiness destroy but perfect Nature Grace doth not destroy the affection of Love but doth correct it and place it upon its proper Object nor destroy our Joy but turns the stream of our Joy to empty it self in God or rather to fetch our Joyes from God Secondly The things you have resolved to do are supernatural above Nature it is not in the power of Nature to enable you to do what you have resolved upon You resolved in your time of fears and danger to pray to God more fervently but Nature cannot help you to do this To believe more stedfastly to love God more ardently to walk with God more holily but all these are above the power of Nature and must be wrought in you by the supernatural and almighty power of God and yet you did well to resolve to endeavour to do all these if you did remember to make your resolution in the strength of Christ to do this by whose strength we can do all things Philip. 4.13 Thirdly The things you have resolved to do are contra-natural against Nature i. e. against corrupt nature For our love to God doth not destroy the faculty or affection of Love but perfect it and Innoble it but it doth destroy our love to sin and our love to the World and the things of the World Now to do that which is against corrupt Nature is very hard you will finde it exceeding difficult it is swimming against the stream and rowing against the tide that if you do not ply your Oar you will be carryed back 6. The opposition you may meet withall from your nearest Friends will make it evident that there is need of your greatest diligence to make good your good resolutions You have purposed in your heart to spend more time for God and your soul and for the life to come if you do so as you have resolved it may be thy father the Wife of thy bosom thy fellow-servants will scorn thee and deride thee and set themselves against thee Thou hast purposed in thy heart to reprove sinners for their Oathes and Drunkenness and Prophaneness and if thou do so they will envy thee for thy pity and hate thee for thy love it may cost thee dear it may expose thee to trouble from men and from those that by bonds of Nature are nearest to thee if thou wilt indeed come up in thy practice in time of health and safety to thy Resolutions which thou didst believe was thy duty to make in time of sickness and danger 7. The necessary concurrence of many difficult duties that you may perform the purposes of your heart in living in some measure answerable to the mercy of divine protection in time of plague calls for your utmost diligence and care else you will undoubtedly fail and come short of what you did resolve upon Where many Duties are to meet and to be done as necessary Requisites to another duty that makes this duty
been in sickness God hath restored thee and if it be good for thee he will do so again 2. Will not you trust in God that is All sufficient and Allmighty able to deliver you from any evil able to bestow upon you any thing that is good He can remove your feares and he can fill your desires According to your perswasions of a Mans ability to help you caeteris paribus will your trust be in him 2 Cor. 1.9 For we had the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the dead That God that can raise the dead may be trusted in any case or condition You have found him able 3. Will not you trust in God that is so willing to do you good you may acknowledge Gods all-sufficiency to be a support for your trusting in him but the doubts that you find in your Soul whether God be willing to do you good is a cause of your too frequent distrust in him You must believe that God is a God of mercy and ready to do for his People whatsoever he seeth conduceth to his glory and their good and you may know his willingness by his promises which are various according to the condition that you are or may be in You have found him willing and yet will you not trust him 4. Will not you trust in a God that is faithfull in all he saith He declares his willingness to do you good to supply your wants to preserve you in dangers by his promise for a Promise of God is a declaration of his will for the bestowing of some good thing upon his People through Christ and his will and purpose he will never change and his Promise he will not suffer to faile Will you trust a Man that is faithful to his word and not God especially after you have found him faithful in performing promise unto you 5. Will not you trust in God that is infinite in Wisdom and knowes how to order all your affaires when your condition is altogether intricate and you know not how to winde your self out of difficulties then your wise God can do it 2 Pet. 2.9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation And will you not trust a God that is able and willing and faithful and wise especially after you have experienced all these in God in the late dangers and feares of death that you have been in or shall these qualifications of power willingness faithfulness and wisdom in Men in their measure be a ground of your putting civill trust in them and shall not all these that be in God without measure be a ground of your putting Religious trust in him 6. Will not you put your trust in God since it is his due it belongs to him of right it is a part of your Spiritual Homage which you owe to God Religious trust doth so belong to God that it will be Idolatry to place it in any thing besides Psal 115.7 8 9 10 11. It doth so properly and solely belong to God that it is a Periphrasis of God to be the confidence of all the ends of the earth Psal 65.5 Give to God the things of God and give to the Creatures no more than belongs unto them You have nothing else to trust to you must not place Religious trust in men not in great Men and Nobles Psal 118.8 9. nor in Riches 1 Tim. 6.17 not in Horses and Chariots Psal 207. not in your own Righteousness and Religious duties Ezek. 33.13 7. Will not you trust in God who is so nearly related to you Men are apt to trust too much in thâ—ir eâ—rthly Friends and Relations We put civil trust and confidence in our neer Relations because of the affection that they bear unto us Thus Children trust to their Parents and Wives in their Husbands and one Friend in another God is your Father your Husband and your Friend and yet will you not put your trust in him 8. Will not you put your trust in God for smaller things since you trust him for the greatest you trust in God to deliver you from the torments of Hell and will not you trust him to deliver you from farr lesser evils you trust in him for Pardon and for eternal life and will you not trust in him for smaller matters Will you trust him wiâ—h your Soul and not with your Body for Eternal Life and not for Temporal would you trust a Man for thousands and not for Pence especially when the Providence of God extends to the smallest concernments of his children even to an hair of their heads Mat. 10.30 When must we put our trust in Goâ— In general I answer At all times Psal 62.8 Trust in him at all times ye People pour out your hearts before him God is a refuge for us In Particular trust in God 1. In time of Sickness and Affliction upon your Body Job 13.15 Though he slay me yet will I trust in him 2. In time of outward Wants in the losse of all things 1 Sam. 30.3 to 7. Hag. 3.17 3. In time of Desertion when you have not the smiles of his Face Isa 50.10 4. At the hour of death commit your Soules to him trust him with your Soul Psal 31.5 6. 5. In times of greatest inconstancy Psal 46.1 2 3. 6. In times of Evil Tidings Psal 112.7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. Thus if you trust God more because of the experience you have had in Gods keeping of you you do in this improve this Mercy DIRECTION XIII HAth God spared you in time of so great Mortality Then give thankes to God and the Praises that are due unto him for so great Preservation Every Person should be very thankful unto God that hath kept him alive and every Family should sound forth his Praises You spent time extraordinary in seeking God by Prayer in your Closet in your Family that he would preserve you and hath God done so in answer to your Prayers and will you not spend some time extraordinary in and with your own Family in thankful acknowledgments of Gods love unto you and his care over you Oh set some time apart every Family whom God hath preserved or so many that are left in every Family in solemn praisings of God for his signal preservation vouchsafed unto you In the time of your trouble you called upon God he hath delivered you and now you should glorifie him Psal 50.15 and God is glorified by you when you offer praises to him Ver. 23. In the pressing you to the practice of this Direction I shall do three things 1. How or with what must those that are preserved from death in time of Plague give thanks to God or glorifie God for this mercy 2. With what Arguments should the people of God that are spared press themselves to give praises to God 3. What course must such take