their ungodliness As it will never serve to excuse the excess of intemperate and immodest men and women that God hath not told them how much they shall eat or what clothes they shall put on so neither will it serve to excuse their defects in Prayer or any other Christian duty that God hath not spoken particullarly and punctually of it for they ought to reverence the General Rules and as neer as may be to mould their carriage according to the mind of God and herein be like the Angels who do not only obey the precise Precepts of their glorious Lord and God but delight to fulfill all his pleasure and what they conceive by any hint they have from Him to be acceptable to Him Beneplaciti nomine laetum hilare obsequium exprimit ac si dixisset Angelos non solum Dei Praeceptis obsequentes esse sed libentèr cum summa oblectatione accipere ejus nutus ut ejus bene placitis obtemperent Calv. in Psal 103. 21. Thus for the grounds of Scripture whereon Family-Prayer is founded I come now to some Reasons agreeable unto Scripture which may further perswade to this duty I shall insist upon three only First God requires homage and service not only from single Persons but from Societies and Companies of men As 1. From a Land and Nation as appears from the Lords calling of his People the Jews to the three solomn Feasts ordinarily besides the New-Moons wherein Families used to joyn together in Sacrificing And to the duty of Fasting both yearly and on extraordinary occasions Joel 2. 15 16. 2. From particular Churches in the New-Testament which according to the will God were to joyn in spiritual worship and in the duty of Prayer 1 Tim. 2 1 2. 1 Cor. 11. 4. with 1 Cor. 14. 14 15 16. 3. From particular Companies partaking in the same favour If ten Lepers be cured and but one return to give thanks Christ saith Where are the other nine being not content that less then ten should joyn together in thanksgiving for the mercy that ten receive Experience tells us how agreeable this Society-service is to right reason for a King coming to the Vniversity looks for Vniversity and a kind of Universal entertainment And coming to a Town-corporate expects not only significations of love and loyalty from single persons but humble addresses also from the Corporation Since therefore every Family is an united Body that Body and Society should own and acknowledge God in the performance of united Service else the Lord may say This and that person served me but I had no service from the Family Secondly This reason and this duty is the rather to be urged from a further reason which is this wheresoever there are common concernments or common causes of seeking to God there should be a common and joynt feeking and therefore in Families for there are there sins wants mercies and afflictions wherein the whole Family in concern'd 1. Sins which though committed by some or by one only yet endanger the whole Houshold as we know Achan's sin did and therefore for the glorifying of God and the preventing of their general suffering it behooves all of them with one consent to acknowledge the sin committed by any of them in which way they may hope for reconciliation such as Abigail found with David when being not guilty her self she confessed the folly of her guilty Husband 1 Sam. 25 25 34 35. It 's wisdom for the Father of a Family to be like Aaron that is to take a course for an atonement for himself and his Houshold which will be best done in Job's way that is by calling the Family together sanctifying them offering the sacrifice of a broken heart and flying to the Sacrifice of a broken Christ Job 1. 5. 2. Wants Family-wants there are and ever will be as want of health of strength of ease perhaps of bread Here all should joyn together to beg of God what is wanting because there will be a common comfort in the enjoying of it and by their common Prayer they are the more like to obtain it as hath been shewed before 3. Mercies As peace protection health plenty wherein the whole Family partaking the Governour thereof hath great reason to say to all that are under his roof O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his Name together God loves to hear the voyce of Rejoycing not only in the Closets and Chambers but in the Tabernacles of the righteous And therefore gave this command to his people of old Thou shalt rejoyce in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee and unto thine house Deut. 26. 11. 4. Afflictions If but one person in a Family being under the hand especially an heavier hand of God the whole Family susters The more reason therefore there is to joyn together that by the joynt petition of all that may be removed which is grievous to all Even Nature will teach that coming with one accord is the most likely way to remove high displeasure This may in part shew that to omit Family-Prayer is not only an ungodly thing but an unreasonable and a great disadvantage as well as a defect Thirdly I reason further for this duty from the persons that neglect calling upon God with their housholds and from the reason of that neglect 1. The persons neglecting this Duty are usually men less fearing God less acquainted with Religinn and cold in the profession and practice of it For as for gracious and grown Christians there is we may say a common instinct of piety and holy impulsion of heart that puts them upon this duty Insomuch that the looking up of Housholders with their houshold unto God seems not so much to require Reason to inforce it as a vigorous Religion which will certainly infer it 2. As to the causes of the neglect they are the more considerable because the truth is that this question Whether Housholders ought to perform the duty of Prayer with those belonging unto them will be most plainly answered by another Question which is this What good reason can any man give why he doth not especially why he will not pray in his Family Now the causes of the neglect will as I conceive be found such as these 1. In lower and poorer people ignorance and unacquaintedness with Religion They are loth to be persuaded to do what they find it will be hard to do and which they see in themselves little ability to perform And yet this will not excuse them because there are so many helps for Prayer as will prove their fault to be want of hearts to that duty That therefore which such are to do is to follow on to know the Lord and then they shall know and get such ability from that which God speaks to them as to be able
vile and vain thoughts when we are alone from idle words when we are in company and from an empty carriage and unprofitable expence of time whether we be alone or in company And since thou hast appointed man to labour and the day to labour in Keep us we pray thee from idleness and neglect of our Callings from infidelity and depending on our labour and industry from discontent if we live hardly by it and from intemperance state-pride covetousness and worldly confidence if we thrive and prosper in it Let all our dealings through thy grace O God that art the God of all grace be just and equal without over-reaching and as there shall be occasion let us be charitable according to our ability without grudging And be pleased to set and keep our hearts in so good a frame that notwithstanding our worldly occasions We may be watchful to do and ready to receive any spiritual good and let our desire be to be in that company that will give occasion of both with the shunning not only of wicked but unprofitable Society Enable us we humbly pray thee to adorn our Profession by providing for honest things not only in the sight of the Lord but in the sight of men Let thy fear O God who art great and terrible be upon our hearts and before our eyes all the day long that so we may presume to do nothing which it will or should grieve us to think upon at night Let there be cause rather to bless thee in the Evening as for thy goodness toward us so for some goodness in us and that the day hath not passed without using our Talents so as to bring in some advantage to our great Lord mean-while being here before thee to confess how good thou art every way unto us we would not go out of thy presence without praising thee our most merciful God for ordaining such peace for us as that we may with safety both abide at home and go abroad about all our occasions It is of thy great goodness that we are not forced to go in by-ways for fear of violent men but the high-wayes are freely occupyed and we have cause to rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord towards the Inhabitants of his Villages who now dwell without fear in such undefenced places In special we bless thee our gracious God for that Government whereby we enjoy this peace and liberty humbly beseeching thee to settle still amongst us and ever to preserve over us a religious and righteous and rightful Magistracy for our present tranquillity and felicity And ever to establish amongst us an able and faithful Ministry for the saving of our souls and our everlasting happiness in the day of the Lord Jesus for whom we bless thee in whom we enjoy and joy in thee and to whom with thee O Father and the Holy Spirit we acknowledged to be due and desire from our souls to give all Glory Majesty Dominion and Power now and evermore Amen A Family-Prayer for the Evening O Most holy and most glorious Lord God we poor and polluted creatures acknowledge our selves altogether unworthy to be admitted into thy presence so much as to confess our sins yet since thou art pleased to offer thy self unto us in Jesus Christ under the name of a Father assuring us that If we confess our sins thou art faithful and just to forgive us our sins we are therefore bold in him to come before thee confessing O Father that whereas at first we were made very good and very like God Now through our own fault and fall every one of us is shapen in Iniquity and in sin did our mother conceive us And besides this corruption of nature enough of it self to condemn us Against Thee Against thee only for there is but one Law-giver have we sinned in the whole course of our lives Justly O Lord mayest thou draw up an heavy charge against us for our sins of omission upon which our Saviour will pass his last Sentence for we cannot but acknowledge that we have left made light of and like leaking vessels let slip many Sermons Our fruits after much seed sowen have been so few that we deserve our stripes should be many unto which this other evil is added that we have often sleighted the Lords Supper either by not caring to receive it or by neglecting to prepare for it We have idled away also or profaned many Sabbaths at least we have gone heavily under the service of that day which we should call a delight And whereas heart-searching is exceeding needful for the well-ordering of our hearts and lives we confess that many examinations of our hearts and wayes for which thou hast hearkened we have neglected yea though this duty of Prayer by our selves and in our Families be so needful so beneficial and such an al-sanctifying service yet for a long time either we have been very careless and mindless of it or else careless and heartless in it But besides all these omissions and neglects of duty we do further confess that we have committed much evil and been guilty of much Rebellion against thy Majesty yielding ordinarily unto Satans temptations who never ceaseth to put fair colours upon the forbidden fruit rushing often into evil company and partaking with them in the unfruitful works of darkness and when we have been alone sadly and securely satisfying the lusts of our evil and distempered hearts especially in the evils more pleasing and sutable to our sinful natures In regard of all which and all other our many and great transgressions we deserve O most just God to be deprived of all thy blessings and to be laden with thy judgements as we have laden thee with our sins But whilest we are displeased with our selves for them and it is in our hearts desire not only to confess them but forsake them and turn to thee from them We beseech thee O Father of Mercies in the Name and for the merits of Jesus Christ to be merciful to us sinners laying every one of our sins for we are not able our selves to bear the least of them upon that Lamb of God on whom the Lord hath laid the Iniquity of us all freeing us also of thy free grace from all those evils which are either on us or due unto us for the same And that we may be hereof assured Give us we pray thee that most excellent grace of Faith without which the Word of Promise and of Pardon cannot profit that thereby receiving the forgiveness of our sins our spirits may rejoyce in God our Saviour which since we cannot do but in the Publicans way who said God be merciful to me a sinner that is in a way of repentance therefore do thou O Lord work and if any thing of godly sorrow be already wrought do thou more and more work so
and will arise from despising and persecuting a faithful Ministery of which therefore let all beware that love the common peace Psal 122. 6. 4. As it shall be easier for Tyre and Sidon and Sodom at the last day then for Gospel-contemners so they that receive and reverence it shall find mercy at that day when Christ shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe and mark why because our testimony the testimony of Labourers among them was beleived In that day shall we rejoyce in Christians and to they in us if we have not run in vain nor laboured in vain Phil. 2. 16. To conclude this let it be your care dearly beloved Christians now God hath wrought such wonders for our peace and settlement to make some amends for that shameful contempt that hath been poured on the Ministers of Christ of late by your double honour And as for those many that have departed we are more willing to say have been carryed from us and against us by the distemper of the times what shall we say but as the holy Prophet sometimes did though with some alteration Lord God of Abraham Isaac and of Israel Let it be known that we are thy servants and that thou hast brought the heart of this people back again 1 King 18. 36 37. CHAP. IV. Of the Observation of the Lords-day or the Christian Sabbath THe Christian Sabbath as our Church calleth it that is the Lords-day being a matter of so great importance both in respect of Christians and of Christianity as that the name of the Lord of Glory is imprinted upon i And the Primitive Christians accounted it their glorious character And the Catholick Church hath still owned it and in the best of times most acknowledged it to be a day wholly dedicated to the remembrance and service of God our Saviour I shall therefore after what hath been already spoken concerning other parts of godliness endeavour according to my ability to add something briefly and summarily concerning this great day and the duties thereof and that so as to stir up Christians to the due observation of that day and performance of those duties For this purpose I shall make choice of a portion of Scripture that fully declares the danger of profaning the Lords Holy-day It is that which is written Neh. 13. 17 18 Then I contended with the Nobles of Judah and said unto them What evil thing is this that yee do and profane the Sabbath day Did not your Fathers do thus and did not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon this City yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath It is easie here before I go any further to foresee this Objection That a Text in the Old Testament speaking of the Jews Sabbath is improper for the establishing of the observation of the New Testament Sabbath Unto which I answer 1. More generall That whatsoever things were written afore time they were written for our learning and examples of divine Justice such as this Scripture declareth to be inflicted for profaning that which was Gods holy day then are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come to terrifie all men from offending in the like kind as here from abusing and applying to common use his consecrated time and solemn day 2. More particularly The fourth Commandement being as a remarkable part of the Moral and Eternal Law of God still in force for the holy observation of a Sabbath every week of Gods appointment unto the end of the world it will from thence follow that any thing spoken in the Old Testament concerning the Weekly Sabbath in use then if it be not proper to the Jewish people nor to the Jews Sabbath day but be prescribed in the fourth Commandement as common to each weekly Sabbath of Gods institution doth still remain in its full strength to bind the people of God in all Ages briefly What belonged to the Jews Sabbath as a Sabbath and not as that Sabbath is still in force for every Sabbath I mean for any weekly day which God appoints for his day of rest and holiness Hence it followeth also that what we find in the Old Testament about the Sabbath approved that 's for our imitation what we find reproved and punished that 's for our restraint and warning This morality of the fourth Commandement and its common aspect both on the Old and New Testaments weekly day being purposely and strongly proved by others I shall not here speak further of it but hasten to a brief opening of the Scripture before recited wherein it appeareth that amongst other gross abuses mentioned in the former and latter part of this Chapter the Sabbath also was very provokingly profaned and that in Jerusalem it self the Lords City wherein the Temple was the Lords House and wherein God himself s resided that they hid their eyes from the Sabbath in his eye-sight and by the profanation thereof he was profaned among them Ezek. 22. 26. If any ask How all this came to pass Nehemiah himself gives an account of it when he saith All this while was not I at Jerusalem v. 6. The presence of a good Governour prevents impiety And Nehemiah being once come Sabbath profanation is non-pluss'd and overcome They came no more on the Sabbath v. 21. But as when Moses was absent the Calf was made so Nehemiah going after his first coming to Jerusalem and the building of the walls thereof into Persia again there were in that his absence from Jerusalem many profanations crept in which he when he returneth most zealously reformeth In particular when he saw in Judah the violation of the Sabbath and that it was made a very Market-day v. 15. his eyes affected his heart and his zeal discovers it self 1. In vehement speaking for he testified and contended against the profaners of that day v. 15. and with the Nobles that should have prevented and obviated such profananation v. 17. 18. 2. In resolute acting taking order 1. For the shutting and guarding of the Gates of Jerusalem against buyers and sellers within the City v. 19. 2. For restraining them that lodged about the wall who might continue buying and selling in the Suburbs v. 20. 21. 3. He gave charge to the Levites also to keep the Gates to wit of the Temple Nehemiah's own servants being appointed to keep the City-gates that so nothing might be wanting on their part to keep the day and house of God from profanation v. 22. The result and conclusion of all which is an humble applying of himself to the mercy of God for the remembring of him as he by the grace of God was zealous in remembring the Lords holy day where his confidence is also implyed and this contained that The Lord will mercifullly remember them who remember dutifully the Lords day In
Wisdom In special we thank thee for any well-grounded hopes we have of a better life and that Inheritance which is incoruâ—â—ible undefiled and that fadeth not away reâ—…ed in Heaven for us and for which also we are preserved O Loâ—… of tiâ—e are less then the least of all thy mercies and if thou lay upon us the heavyest of thy judgements we have no right to complain being men of death and such as have deserved everlasting condemnation For we brought into the world with us a corrupt nature wherein is the seed of all sin and by reason whereof in the whole course of our lives we have neglected or done negligently what thou requirest and have moreover too too carelesly rusht into those evils both in thought word and deed which thou forbiddest But since thou art a God that delightest in mercy and that hast been pleas'd out of thine infinite love to mankind to lay upon thine only Son the iniquity of us all We that are the sheep that have gone so far astray come boldly unto the Throne of Grace in his Name intreating thy Majesty that by that Lamb of God that hath taken away the sins of the World our many and great sins our day-sins and our night-sins may be so taken away that if they be sought they may not be found being removed from us as far as the East is from the West that so in all the sorrows of this world we may joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement Make us able we pray thee by thy grace to prove that our sins are forgiven because they are forsaken s and that we have right to the promises of the Tree of Life because we do thy Commandements and walk sincerely in the duties of Christianity and of our particular Callings that thereby though we cannot procure yet we may assure our happiness and in that way of thine may come to be possessed of it That we may the better perform the duties belonging to us in our several places Help us we beseech thee to take heed both of Idleness and ill Company that are Enemies to Imployment And if we do labour diligently let us shew the power of godliness in not aiming at our own advantage and self-ends Set our hearts O God in so good a frame as that we may follow our business day by day in obedience to thy Word with respect to thy glory and to the doing of good to those that we live amongst and ought to be helpful unto For these ends and purposes we beg of thee as of a God Al-sufficient to preserve us from danger by thy Providence to enable us for what we are to do by thy power and to make all we do to thrive and prosper by thy blessing without which it is in vain to rise up early to sit up late and to eat the bread of sorrows Have a gracious respect we humbly pray thee unto all thine and ours according to all thy wisdom and goodness and according to all their need and occasions Be pleas'd to look with special favour upon the Churches of the Saints in all places especially in this and the neighbour-Nations Herein Pour forth thy choysest blessings on the head and thy choisest graces into the heart of the Kings Majesty with the rest of the Royal Family Furnish those with ability and fidelity that are in Authority in the State and that watch over the souls of thy people in the Church As for our selves and all that are under authority make us ever ready to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods Let thy fear O Lord be upon our hearts all the day long that walking conscionably as in thy presence we may present our selves comfortably before thee in the Evening with the sense and feeling of thy grace in us and goodness towards us in Jesus Christ through whom we glory in thee and to whom with thee O Father and the Eternal Spirit we acknowledge to be due and desire to give all honour and glory now and evermore Amen A shorter Prayer for the Evening MOst glorious God and in Jesus Christ our most loving Father It is of thy great mercy that we have been preserved and followed with many fatherly favours this day and that we are in so good a condition before thee to offer up this Evening Sacrifice unto thee We must needs confess and we come unto thee to confess that thy gracious dealing with us is altogether undeserved and that any evil that is or shall come upon us in this world is far less then we deserve For if we look to our beginnings we that at first were made good and like our God have by our sin in our first Parents forfeited and lost that holiness in which and that happiness unto which we were created so that thou mayest justly call us transgressors from the womb we having procured this unto our selves that we are every one of us shapen in iniquity and in sin did our mother conceive us And this corruption that over-spreads our natures so declareth and disperseth it self also in our whole carriage that as there is no day of our life wherein we do not many wayes partake in thy mercy so no day passeth over our heads wherein we do not in many things provoke thy justice In regard whereof we do not more need our daily bread for our bodies and being then a daily pardon of sin for our souls and for our well-being And blessed be thy Name O gracious God who art so far from leaving us without hope of a pardon that thou callest us unto thee and teachest us to seek it from thee as from our heavenly Father Unto thee therefore we come acknowledging O Father that we have sinned against Heaven and against Thee so that we are not worthy to be called thy children But though we forget to be towardly children yet do not thou forget to be a compassionate Father but be pleased to come forth and meet us and kiss us with the kisses of thy love Declare thy self in Jesus Christ a God reconciled unto us and that our sins and iniquities thou wilt remember no more So shall we remember thy Loves more then Wine and thou shalt put gladness into our hearts more then can possibly be had from all worldly enjoyments Nor do thou kiss us only but clothe us Take away our filthy garments which by our prodigality we have brought our selves unto and clothe us with change of rayment for as our great desire is that the righteousness of Christ which is the righteousness of God may be put upon us to shelter us from thy justice so we beg also for the clothing of the new Man that we may be meet to partake in thy mercy and may walk worthy of