abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh And who will believe you are in earnest when your Lips are sealed up in Silence tell your Wife Children Servants at due seasons of the preciousness of Souls the necessity of grace excellency of Christ the Concernment of Eternity the near approach of Death the great account of Judgment and the importance of Watching Praying And put them upon going alone by themselves and praying as well as they can And as such Discourse will familiarize these Solemn Truth and Duties to them so it will make them willing to joyn with you in Family Worship If you will not own God before your Relations sure you will not own him before Enemies Gordius the Martyr being perswaded to keep his Heart to himself Oh! no saith he it is fit that this Mouth of mine which was made by God and for God should speak of God and for God Oh! Friends will you take your leave of God in the Morning or Evening Sacrifice and never own him till the return of that Family Service God forbid Are not the Souls of yours committed to you Must you not give an account of them And is not faithful speaking to them for God one way of discharging trust 2 Cor. 9.13 profess your Subjection to the Gospel and your example may prevail on all about you for God is much glorified thereby 10. Observe answers of Prayers and gather up Experiences As this will furnish you with matter of Prayer so it will help you in the due manner of managing it How did the Lord assist my Heart in such a Duty What quickenings What meltings What Communion with God What further degrees or strength of grace got I in such a performance What power against such a Corruption What strength against Temptation What further Ability or Incouragement in and for Gods Service Or make your remarks upon your Family what person is informed reformed conformed to the ways of God What Convictions or Impressions have I observed on the Spirit of such a Child or Servant What Miscarriages to be reproved or bewailed What evils have been prevented or removed How the Lord hath blessed or prospered your undertakings That God may have the glory your selves may have the use or profit of what you have met with in your Families David saith Ps 8 8. Ps 5.3 I will bear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his People and to his Saints In the Morning I will direct my Prayer unto thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dispâ—â—iom â—ibi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est spiculâ—â—or instâ—r speculatoris observaturus â—â— venias mihi auxilio and will look up the words are very Emphatical First his great care and exactness so to Order Direct and Compose both his Person and Prayers in such a manner as to be well pleasing to God Then will I stand as a Watchman upon my Watch-Tower to consider what answer he will give me The Altar which I have made shall be my Watch-Tower also on which I will stand to expect some blessed Answer What help the Lord will afford me By this means you may suit the condition of your Family and not shoot at Rovers But always find matter from things daily occurring to present before the Lord yea and those very occurrences will excite suitable affections of Joy and Sorrow to quicken you in Prayers or Praises This is what Solomon prescribes in Prov. 27.23 Be thou diligent to know the State of thy Flocks and look well to thy Herds Whether it refer to a literal Inspection of Shepherds in a proper Sense or Metaphorical in a Political as Magistrates Ecclesiastical as Ministers or Oeconomical as Governors of Families It 's a great Duty in all respects est praeceptum oeconomicum saith Mercer it properly and principally belongs to House-holders Else how can you accommodate your Counsels Admonitions of them or Petitions for them or your Sympathy or Compassion with them Thus I have disparcht my Instructions both Preparatory for erecting this Family Altar and also directed in the due manner of managing this Family Worship both for matter and manner And now you cannot plead Ignorance or Imbecillity I have in my weak Capacity reacht out my Hand to help you your way is lined out yea some have written down words and forms of Prayer to assist you and you have godly Ministers to whom you may repair for further direction and if still you wilfully live in the neglect of this known Duty your Blood â—e upon your own Heads yea the Blood of your Families will also be required at your Hands God Almighty make you willing and able for the Discharge of your relative Duty But if after all this you will not speak a word to God for your Poor Languishing Gasping Dying Families to keep them out of Hell I leave you to that Justice which will shortly plead with you at another rate than we poor Ministers can do and will take vengance on you for your willful neglect and Disobedience to the Calls of God Chap. 10. A Resolution of several Cases of Conscience concerning the Worship of God in Families MY last work is the Answering of Sundry Cases of Conscience some whereof have been propounded to me others are ordinarily incident in this point concerning this Family-Altar and Sacrifices in Families 1. Query Whether may an House-Holder take upon him to Preach expound Scripture dispense the Seals of the Covenant as Baptism and the Lords Supper to the Members of his Family seeing he is a Priest Answ 1. Ministerial Authoritative teaching by vertue of others is one thing and charitative subservient teaching is another A Master of a Family Deut. 11.18 19 20 21. Heb. 5.4 must teach all under his Charge as a Master yet not usurp the Office of a Minister without a just due Call His teaching must not be in opposition but in subordination to Ministerial Instruction As Families are Subordinate to Churches 2. Masters of Families must not take upon them that they are not fit for or presume beyond their Capacity incurring the guilt of proud self-conceitedness or vain ostentation as to undertake to interpret the Original or give the Sense of dark Prophecy or obscure Scriptures or determine knotty Controversies Yet may declare when it lies in their way what they have read or heard from Learned Pious Men or got in publick Preaching 3. Yet it is safest ordinarily to pass by those abstruse and difficult points and insist upon plain practical fundamental catechistical Truths or take occasion from the Chapter read in the Family to infer such a seasonable word suppose of admonition as I have heard a godly Father say this is for you look to 't this aims at you in such a case and with serious Exhortations press it home upon Conscience Or inform the ignorant in such or such a point requiring them to remember it 4. But as for administring Baptism and the Lords Supper they may not
24. If thou bring thy gift to the Altar i. e. to God in a religious action Yea the whole Gospel-Worship is thus denominated Rev. 11.1 Rise measure the Temple of God and the Altar and them that worship therein i. e. look that Gospel-service be regualar according to God's Word cleansed from Antichristian pollutions This is prophesied Isa 19.19 In that day shall there be an Altar to the Lord in the midst of the Land of Egypt i. e. God's Worship shall be settled in all places in Gospel-times not a Levetical but Evangeligal Altar Nothing is more common in Old and New Testament than to speak of Gospel-worship in the phrase of the Law The like may be said of Sacrifices spiritual Sacrifices in a Gospel sense so offering up to God our selves Rom. 12.1 prayer and praise Heb. 13.15 Acts of Charity v. 16. a broken heart Psal 51.17 Martyrdom Phil. 2.17 As for a false Altar constituted in the Romish Church upon which they would offer Christ daily as a Sacrifice for quick and dead Protestants renounce it as a crucifying the Son of God again and inconsistent with Scripture and Reason Heb. 9.25 nor yet that he should offer himself often v. 26.28 Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many Heb. 10.14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified It cannot be denied that the Antients have called the Lord's Supper an unbloody Sacrifice the Table an Altar Ministers Priests the whole action an Oblation but not in the sense the Papists do but by way of allusion as it is a Memorial of Christ's Sacrifice or as spiritual prayers praises alms are attended therewith as our Divines have abundantly proved and disproved the propriety of speech as applied to that Ordinance Well then we renounce Popish Altar Quid opus est Altari ubi nec ignis ardâ—at nec viâ—imâ— caedantur Pet. Martyr cont Gard. Sacrifices Priests yet acknowledge in a spiritual sense that Christ by his Blood hath made all Believers Kings and Priests unto God and his Father Rev. 1.6 And that we are built up a spiritual House an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 9. The words being thus opened I shall raise this important Doct. That Governours of Families must as Priests erect Family-Altars for God's Worship It well becomes Housholders or Governours of Families to set up and maintain Family-Altars for worshiping of God in and with the Members of their Families As holy Jacob the famous Patriarch was a Prophet to instruct his Family in the true Religion and a King to Govern them for God so a Priest to set up an Altar offer Sacrifices and perform Religious Worship for and with his Family Yea the poorest man that hath a Family is to be Prophet Priest and King in his own House God commands Jacob to build an Altar at Bethel Jacob resolves upon it and gives all his Family orders how to behave themselves in managing this important affair and when they did their duty God secured them they journeyed and passed on safely Let none say that this setting up an Altar by Jacob was but ordered upon this particular occasion of his paying his Vows formerly made at Bethel and so doth not oblige us I Answer 1. It 's true this circumstance of the place occasion and this solemnity are personal and particular but the duty is general moral and prepetual as I shall prove it 2. Jacob doubtless worshipt God with his Family in all places where he had come as he took the fear of God with him in his heart so he left not the external practice of Religion behind him But set up Gods Worship which was equivalent to an Altar in all places where he came as his Father Isaac and his Grand-father Abraham had done 3. And may not we have the like occasion as he had to rear an Altar Have we had no mercies from God Do we lie under no Vows or at least Obligations to the Lord And do not these presidents and general rules bind us to the like practice except we have a particular command by a voice from Heaven or in an extraordinary way I shall evince the contrary 4. Because Jacob was left alone and wrestled with the Angel and prevailed upon an extraordinary occasion Gen 32.24 i. e. the fear he had of his Brother Esau Shall we think that Jacob never prayed alone but when he was in the like hazard No doubtless he was well acquainted with God and much accustomed to this trade of conversing with God So because we find God prompting him to this Family-work here can this be thought to exclude his ordinary course of Family-doctrine No certainly It rather implies and includes this In prosecuting this Point I shall use this Method 1. Open what I mean by Altars in Families 2. Prove it to be Housholders Duty to set them up 3. Answer Objections against this Practice 4. Make some Deductions and Applications Chap. II. Shewing what is meant by Family-Altars and what 's required of Housholders BY Altar I mean by a Synechdoche all the Worship of God to be performed in Families To an Altar in old time literally and in Gospel-times Mystically or Metaphorically there are four things requisite 1. The Institution or Consecration none can appoint an Altar to be Erected but God Exod. 20.24 An Altar of Earth shalt thou make None hath Power to order Gods Worship but himself alone Men may not add or diminish at their pleasure Mat. 28.20 Mininisters must teach Christians must observe all things whatsoever our Lord commandeth us Numb 7.10 Men may Dedicate an Altar It is God alone that properly Consecrates or Sanctifies it yet men are said to Consecrate themselves to the Lord 2 Chron. 29.31 33. yea and other things in a secondary way and instrumentally But as God appoints so himself only doth Authoritatively efficiently actually Consecrate Persons and things Let us see we have a warrant from God for what we do in his Worship 2. An Altar requires a Priest Before Moses Law the First-born of the Family was Priest to offer on the Altar but afterwards Good took the Tribe of Levi instead of the First-born in remembrance of the Lords smiting the First-born in Egypt Num. 3.12.13 Num. 17.9 Aaron and his Family were the blossoming rod whom God had chose in a peculiar manner to Minister before him But our Lord Jesus is our New Testament Aaron yet above him even after the Order of Melchizedeck Heb. 6.20 an higher Order than that of Aaron Upon whose account all Gods Saints be Kings and Priests Joh. 17.17 For as Christs Divinity sanctified his Humanity for our Lord as God sanctified himself as man so he also sanctifies all his Saints Heb. 10.14 By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified for this end that they may be an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual
Answ 1. God loseth not his Authority to Command because man hath lost his Capacity to Obey it is his Duty still though he cannot perform it in such a due manner as God requires He is bound to Pray as a Creature though he cannot do it as a Child Better do it as men can than not do it at all Prayer is a natural duty Jonah 3.8 The Ninevites must cry aloud and mightily to God and it was not in vain Act. 8.22 Simon Peter bids Simon Magus Pray though in the Gall of bitterness 2. We must distinguish betwixt a resolved and a returning Sinner We bid not a Thief pray that he may meet with a Booty that 's abominable Psal 66.18 Isa 55.6 7. or men Regarding Iniquity in their hearts But in a complex sense we bid them Turn from their evil ways and so Pray Prayer must be joyned with Repentance as Prayer is Medium Cultus so it is Medium Gratiae as means of carrying the heart to God in Worship so it is a mean to obtain Grace Prayer is the Souls motion God-ward desire is the Soul of Prayer and who dare say to the wicked desire not God Christ Faith By Praying men may learn to Pray right Luk. 11.13 For God gives his Holy Spirit to them that ask him Oject 4. There 's wicked Children or Servants in the Family how dare we joyn with them For whose sake God may justly reject us Answ 1. If the Praying Governour be Godly and pray right he need not fear non-acceptance Christ was heard in his Prayer though Judas was present What think you of poor Ministers Prayers in mixt Congregations Act 27.35 Certainly the presence of unworthy Persons prejudiceth not the entertainment of sincere Worshipers 2. Prayer is Gods institution to make bad good some have been much wrought upon by the Prayers of others God heard Stephen for Paul in time if it advantaged not at present Mr. Weems said of Mr Bruce he knockt down the Holy Ghost upon us all Deny them not this means of Conversion Object 5. This setting up a Family-Altar for so constant Prayer savours of Forms and will fill the Country with Formalists and Hypocrites Answ 1. Forms are not simply condemned but Forms only wanting the power of Godliness 2 Tim. 3 5. Our business is not to make Hypocrites but Converts By Form is meant a Mask Vizor or Appearance opposed to Substance and Reality But we persuade and direct to sincerity as to Priciple Manner and End of Religious Exercises 2. But a Form of Goliness is better than none at all Men cannot have the Power of Godliness without the Form no more than you can have the Kernell without the Shell He that Prays doth something towards Duty but he that refuseth to Worship God at all bids open defiance to God's Commanding Authority and saith I scorn to bow so much as a Knee to God in Prayer This is a presumptuous Sin Psal 10.4 The wicked through the pride of his heart will not seek after God Let him answer it as he dare The Text saith 1 Tim. 4 8. Bodily Exercise profiteth little 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a little 1 King 21.27 i. e. for a little time or for a little i. e. in some outward respects as in Ahabs fasting though it reach not so far as the Eternal Salvation of the immortal Soul However this is better than a total neglect Object 6. But such kind of Praying Morning and Evening is a stinting the Spirit a limiting God to mans time when the Spirit moves not to it Answ 1. Christ and his Apostles had set times for Prayer Jesus oft times resorted into the Garden Judas knew his stated hour and place John 18.2 And the Apostles had an hour of Prayer Acts 3.1 Was this stinting the Spirit Indeed this Objection is levelled against Preaching Singing Supper and all stated Ordinances how do men know that the Spirit will move at such a season 2. It 's one thing to stint another to lie in the walk of the Spirit Men are bound to wait at the posts of Wisdoms Doors and are blessed Prov. 8.34 and in the road of further blessing for the wind of the Spirit bloweth where and when it listeth Joh. 3.8 And no body will say he limits the wind that waits in the Heaven for a fair gale to wast him over Besides Isa 64.7 God expects that men should stir up themselves to take hold on God Self-excitation is God's appointment to get the heart into frame How often doth David begin low and end high 2 Tim. 1.6 We must stir up the gift of God in our hearts A Dead Dull Senseless Heart is no supersedeas from Duty Omission upon indisposition doth but harden the heart and indispose for Duty and gratifie Satan yea and displease God Object 7. This Family-Prayer is but a singular invention of brain-sick novellists not used of old and is more adoe than needs Answ 1. In Scripture-times it was used and in the purest Primitive-timess Basil saith Mane orto die in precationes properare that Christians made haste to Prayers by day-brake in the Morning Chrysostom saith we go not a mensa ad lectum from Table to bed but to Prayers lest we be more bruitish than bruits It were easie to produce instances from Cyprian Augustin c. of Primitive Christians frequency in Prayers You will say butt these were Church prayers Answer Churches were mostly then in Houses yet some instances prove also daily Family-Prayers And Godly Persons in all Ages have used it 2. Can men be too Devout Doth not our Lord say Luk. 18 4◠Mat. 6.33 Mat. 22.37 one thing is needful Seek first the Kingdom of God Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart Mind Strength Can you do too much for God Can you be too oft with God Eccl. 7.16 Alas you cannot be over-much righteous in the internals of Religion no nor in the externals as long as you keep to commanded duties and one duty cross not another Nay when we have done all that 's commanded Luk. 17.10 yet still we are unprofitable Servants we have but done our duty Joh. 12.3.4 It was Judas that said Wherefore is this wasted Godly Souls still complain of defects Whom did you hear complain on their death-bed that they had served God too much or been too religious Object 8. They are no better than others that pray in their families they can lye cheat be covetous proud passionate censorious hard-hearted Ans 1. Take heed what you say act not the Devil's part to be false-accusers taking up a false report or without proof It 's well known that now a-days if persons be strict and serious in Religious duties many pick quarrels with them take advantage against them aggravate their faults these mens Motes are Beams Act. 28.22 yea Mountains this Sect is every where spoken against there needs no further