This is perhaps the only instance in and speak humbly of yourselves. accept of your voluntary humility,

which you think But we will not till we have ob

tained from you an answer to a few inquiries. Is it not the want of inclination you feel, rather than of ability? Have you ever fairly made the trial? Have you done every thing in your power to gain a fitness for the duty? Would not your capacity increase by exercise? Is refinement here necessary ? Is not the most imperfect performance preferable to neglect ? Suppose you were to do nothing more than, after reading a portion of God's word, to kneel down with your household, and address our Father who is in heaven in the words which the Saviour himself taught his own disciples? Are there not helps to Family Devotion of which you may avail yourselves? We prefer in this service free prayer to forms; but preference is not exclusion. We love not the contempt with which forms have been treated by some. A Baxter, a Howe, a Watts, a Doddridge, did not ridicule them as "crutches." But, admitting the justness of the depreciating figure, yet surely crutches are a help and a blessing to the lame: and we know who hath said, "Where there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not."

The third regards Shame. "We are ashamed to begin!" What! ashamed of your glory? Ashamed of following the great? Ashamed of following a David-a King, who "returned to bless his household?" Of following a Joshua, a hero, a commander, the first man in the commonwealth of Israel, who said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" Of following Abraham, Isaac, and Ja

Follow the exam

to some of us, but

cob, who made it their first care, wherever they came, to build an altar for God? Was his late Majesty ashamed always to worship God with his household morning and evening? Is there not an increasing number of persons in our own day, of high rank and nobility, who keep up, even in their establishments, a custom so laudable and useful? The shame is that you have neglected it so long, not that you are willing to begin it now. ple of a man who was well known whose name we must suppress. He had heard the minister preach in the morning of the Sabbath on Family Worship. The very same evening, he called together his wife, and children, and servants, and apprentices; and recapitulating the arguments and motives they had heard, appealed to their reason and conscience whether they were not unanswerable and irresistible. He then said, I condemn myself for the neglect of this duty, in which I have hitherto lived: but as the best proof of repentance is practice, I will now commence it; and, by the help of God, I will omit it no more, as long as I live. Was this weakness? or moral heroism?

The fourth regards false or mistaken Orthodoxy. God forbid we should undervalue divine truth; but there is a highness in doctrine so commonly connected with lowness of conduct, that we have known not a few, whose creed has soon led to the abandonment of family worship; and it is indeed the natural tendency, not of the principles they abuse, but of their abuse of the principles.-"The Lord knoweth them. that are his. And he will call them in his own due time; and make them willing in the day of his power, without our anxiety." But we are not sure of

this. Our exertions may be the very means which he has appointed by which to accomplish the end. And when does he work without means? He gives the increase; but Paul plants, and Apollos waters— and what right have we to ask for a moral miracle, by expecting the one without the other?

"Where is the use of it? We cannot give our servants and our children grace." And why not? "If," says James, "a man err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his ways, shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins." Here it is supposed that you may save and convert. "Yes, but not meritoriously or efficiently." How then? "Why only instrumentally." We have no objection to this. Still it seems there is a sense in which you may do it. "Yes, under God." This again is right. We never wish to exclude him. But he is with us; and by prayer, we secure his assistance.

There is indeed a sense in which you cannot give grace; it is as to the success of means. But for this you are not responsible. This is the Lord's part. But what is yours? Think of another case. The husbandman cannot raise an ear of corn; but he can ma

And he knows And how rarely

nure the land, and plough, and sow. this is indispensable to a crop. does he labour in vain! If God promises to communicate his blessing in the use of means, they who refuse them have no right to complain; and they who employ them, have no reason to be discouraged.

your

ob

Another-But I will answer no more of jections. You know they are excuses. You know

they are such as

the Judge of all.

you will be ashamed to urge before You know that your consciences are not satisfied with them even now.-I will, therefore, in the

IV. Place, conclude by SOME ANIMADVERSIONS

AND ADMONITIONS.

And to whom," as says the Prophet, "shall I speak and give warning ?"

I must first address those who at present are unconnected in life. How powerfully does our subject say to such, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." This will render the performance of family religion in all cases difficult, and in many, impossible. It is lamentable enough with regard to pious individuals themselves, that while they want every kind of encouragement and assistance, they are allied to those who, instead of helping them, must oppose and injure: but it is also to be deplored, as producing partially or wholly the ruin of domestic godliness. When Peter enforces relative duties, he admits that unless we dwell "as heirs together of the grace of life," our "prayers will be hindered." How can they rule well their own house? How can they seek a godly seed, while, instead of striving together, they thus draw different ways? and, alas! the one drawing heavenward is the least likely to be successful; the opposite attractions falling in with the depravity of human nature? For evil wants only to be seen or heard; but good must be enforced with "line upon line, and precept upon precept."

But there are those who are already in family alliance, who are living in the neglect of family devotion.

And this is the case, I fear, with not a few. And yet you would be offended if you were called infidels -but according to the apostle you have no reason: "He that provideth not for his own, and especially those of his own house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Many of you attend regularly the publick services of the sanctuary, and we love to see you in the courts of the Lord, and willing to hear his words. But if you gained good in the house of God, you would carry it away, and diffuse it in your own. Yet when you are followed home, there is no more appearance of religion in your habitations, than in houses of heathens. Heathens! forgive me this wrong. We blaspheme you by the comparison. You had, not only your gods for the country, but your household gods; which you regarded as your defenders, and guardians, and comforters; and which nothing could induce you to give up or neglect.

What can I say more? He has threatened to pour out his fury upon the nations that know him not, and upon the families that call not upon his name. But I would rather work upon your ingenuousness, than upon your fears. God has revealed himself under a domestic relation, and calls himself "The God of all the families of the earth." And will you refuse him in this endearing character? Will you rob yourselves and your families of your greatest mutual honour and blessedness? An angel in his intercourse with this world, sees nothing so uninviting and dreary as a house, though rich as a mansion and splendid as a palace, devoid of the service and presence of God! But what so lovely, so attractive as the family altar, "garlanded by the social feelings," and approached morning and evening by the high-priest of the do