especially let him remember to frequent them constantly and intirely By constancy of attendance upon publick worship I mean that he should not only apply himself to it on the Sundays or Lords Days but every Day of the Week if there be opportunity and by intireness of Gods Service I understand it to be his duty both to go at the beginning and to join in it both Morning and Evening that by all together he may not only sure himself and his own Conscience of his heartiness and sincerity but demonstrate to all about him the great sense he hath of the moment of Religion and that he looks upon the serving of God as of greater consequence than all other interests whatsoever As for the first of these viz. the frequenting the publick Prayers every day where they are to be had it is observable in the character of Cornelius Acts 10. 2. that amongst other instances of devotion it is said of him that he prayed to God always which cannot well be understood of any thing else but his daily frequenting the publick Prayers because his private Prayers could not be so well known as to make his Character But most expresly it is said of all that believed Acts 2. 46. that they continued daily with one accord in the temple which must needs principally have reference to this duty of publick Prayer and it is very hard if any man be so put to it that he cannot spare one hour in a Day to do publick honour to the Divine Majesty or rather it is a great sign of unbelief in his providence as well as want of love to him if a man cannot trust God so far as to hope that such a time spent in his service shall be recompensed by his blessing upon the residue of the Day or however a good Christian will be well contented and gladly sacrifice so much of his secular interests as this comes to to the Divine Majesty As for the second point viz. going at the beginning of Prayers it is a shameful neglect which several persons are guilty of who will not altogether be absent from the Church but yet will come commonly so late that they not only lose part of the Prayers but enter very abruptly and irreverently upon that which they partake of It is possible a man may sometimes be surprized by the time or diverted from his intention by some emergency but to be frequently tardy is an argument that he loves something better than God and his worship For doubtless a good Christian would ordinarily choose rather to stay for the Minister than that the publick office should stay for him and thinks it fitter to spend a little time in preparing and disposing his heart for the duties of Religion than either to enter into the divine presence rudely or to serve him only by halves And as for the third branch of this instance of Devotion viz. the resorting both to Morning and Evening Service it is observable Acts 3. 1. that the Apostles were at the temple at the hour of Prayer being the ninth hour which is both a proof of their frequenting the Evening Service as well as that of the Morning and also an example of observing the just and stated times of publick worship and surely it will become every good Christian to be lead by such a precedent especially seeing the Gospel worship which we resort to is so much more excellent and comfortable than the Jewish was which those holy men thus carefully frequented as we shall see by and by 5. In the next place it is to be minded that in all these publick approaches to Gods House we are to express a great reverence towards the Divine Majesty by which I do not only mean that we ought in our hearts to think worthily of him and prostrate all the inward powers of our Souls to him but that in our outward man in our carriage and bodily deportment we express an awful regard to him by all such gestures and signs as according to the common opinion of men are taken to betoken the highest reverence and observance such as standing kneeling bowing and prostrations of our selves before him For though the heart be that which God principally looks at yet forasmuch as he made our bodies as well as our Souls and we hope he will save both he therefore expects we should glorify him both with our souls and with our bodies which are his and which he hath bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 20. And indeed there is such a nearness and sympathy between our bodies and spirits that they ordinarily move by consent and draw one another into compliance Insomuch that he who truly bows his Soul to God can scarcely forbear at the same time to bow his knees to him also and he on the other side that bows his knee to him is by that very motion of his body in some measure put in mind to entertain reverential thoughts and affections towards him And this care of bodily worship is the more important in publick service and especially in Gods House because as I noted before then and there his honour and grandeur is concerned and any indecent carriage in such a case is an affront to him and exposes him to contempt in the eyes of men and therefore that carriage which in secret worship might admit of excuse will in publick be intolerable profaneness Wherefore let not the pious man be affrighted by any one out of the expressions of bodily reverence under the notion of superstition which is become a Bugbear by which weak men are made afraid of every instance of a decorous or generous Devotion There can be no culpable superstition in our worship so long as we have the true object for it and whilest we use not such expressions of our Devotion as he hath forbidden but this of bodily reverence is so far from being forbidden that it is expresly required in the holy Scripture and hath been constantly practised by all holy men Nor let the phancy of a spiritual worship required under the Gospel beguile any man into a contempt or neglect of bodily reverence for it is plain that although the Christian Religion raises mens inward Devotion higher yet it abates nothing of outward adoration but rather when it requires the former should be more intense and affectionate it supposes the other should be answerable because it is natural so to be for this being the accessory cannot but follow the principal It is true there is a possibility that more stress may be laid upon the shadow than the substance and some men may hope to complement God Almighty out of his right to their hearts by the addresses of their bodies but the fault in this case is not that there is too much of the latter but too little of the former and the good Christian therefore will be sure to join both together and as he will come to Gods House with the most elevated affections so he will
ingenious persons consider of that passage of the Gospel Luke 11. 1. where in the first place we find our Saviour was at Prayers and that it was not secret Prayer but with his Disciples is more than probable since they were present at them and accordingly when he had concluded one of them asks him to instruct them how to pray Now if this be acknowledged then here is our Saviours Example for what we are discoursing of forasmuch as the Disciples with whom he was at Prayer were his Family But that which I observe further is they ask him to teach them to pray as John taught his Disciples that is to prescribe them a form wherein they who were his Family might join together as the Family or Disciples of John did or not only to pray severally or secretly but in Conjunction and Society and this our Saviour gratifies them in by prescribing to them the well-known and admirable form in which these two things are further remarkable to this purpose first that the Prayer is in the plural number which renders it far more probable that it was intended for a social office For though some other account may be given of his using that number yet nothing is so natural as this reason which I have intimated Secondly The very petitions themselves if they be considered will incline a man to think that though the Prayer was contrived with infinite wisdom to fit other purposes yet it was primarily intended for the use of a Family or Society especially such an one as this of our Saviours Disciples was but so much for that 2. The next instance of Family Duty is the sanctification of the Lords Day and other days and times set apart for his service As for the Lords Day though it be undoubtedly true that as the Jewish Sabbath which is our Saturday is not obliging to Christians at all so neither are we bound to observe any day with that Sabbatical nicety and strictness which for special reasons was required of that people yet that the first day of the Week or the Lords Day be observed piously and devoutly is recommended to us by the constant practice of the Christian Church And the sanctification of it principally consists in this that we make it a day peculiar for the offices of Piety and Devotion as other days are for common and secular affairs for though the business of Religion must be carried on every day of our lives and that be a profane day indeed in which God hath not some share allowed for his service yet as God hath not required that it be the whole work of those days but after a little of the time be consecrated to him the residue be applied to the common affairs of Life so on the Lords Day we are allowed to consult our infirmity to provide for necessity and to do works of humanity or mercy but the proper business of the day is Religion and to that the main of it must be applied And there is great reason for this namely by this interruption of the course of Worldly affairs in some measure to take our hearts off from them for we should hardly avoid sinking absolutely into the cares and business of this life if we went on in a continual course and were not obliged at certain intervals of time to retreat from them and betake our selves to things of another nature by which means also we begin to practise an Heavenly Sabbatism and inure our selves by degrees to those spiritual imployments which we are to enter upon and be everlastingly performing in another World Let therefore the pious man thus sanctify the Lords Day by applying it to holy uses that is besides publick worship to reading Meditation singing of Psalms and grave Discourses of Religion and let him according as he hath Warrant from the fourth Commandment oblige all those within his Gates to do so too and not only restrain his Family from common labours but from lightness and folly tipling and gossipping idle visits and impertinent talking of News and use his indeavour to ingage them to be as much in earnest about the service of God and their Souls on that day as they are about their business or pleasure on other days As for other holy days set apart by the appointment of the Church there is very good use to be made of them too for besides that the great Festivals are the ignorant mans Gospel and bring to his mind all the great passages of our Saviour and his Apostles it is certain also that God hath not so strictly tasked us to the labour of six days as that he will not be better pleased if we now and then apply some of them to his honour and make a sally towards Heaven but then the observation of these days is not to be made merely a relaxation from servile work nor much less a dispensation for looseness and profaneness but God must be served on them with greater diligence than can be ordinarily expected on other days And this is another branch of the pious mans duty in his Family 3. There is another thing I would mention in the third place amongst Family exercises which I do not call a necessary duty but would offer it to consideration whether it be not adviseable in some cases for the promotion of Family Piety that in every Family where it can be done some persons should be incouraged to take notes of the Sermons which are preached in the Church and repeat them at home forasmuch as this course would not only afford a very seasonable and excellent entertainment for the Family in the intervals of publick worship on the Lords Day but would also be very advantagious both to Minister and People For the Minister it would incourage him to study and to deliver weighty things when he saw his words were not likely to perish in the hearing and be lost in the air but be reviewed and considered of by which means one Sermon would be as good as two and might serve accordingly For the People it would put the most ordinary sort of them upon considering and indeavouring to remember and make something of that which is delivered to them when they observe that some of the ablest of the Congregation think it worth their pains to take so exact notice of it as to write it down at least they would be ashamed to snore and yawn when others are so intent and serious And as for the Family in which the repetition is made they would have further occasion to observe with what clearness and evidence the doctrine was inferred from the Text opportunity to weigh the arguments used to inforce it and be put upon making application of all to their own Consciences But I foresee several objections such as they are will be made against this it will be said this course is unfashionable and puritanical that experience hath discovered that writing after Sermons hath taught men to be conceited and captious and
conclusion whereas plain-heartedness hath no rubs nor difficulties in its way nor no after-game to play for every man believes and trusts such a man as plays upon the square and such a conversation is pleasant and acceptable Moreover cunning is always lookt upon as an argument of a little mind and of a cowardly temper for what should tempt a man to dissemble and work under-ground but mistrust of his own abilities or consciousness of evil designs and this is so far from affording a man any security that it provokes other men first to pry the more curiously into him and then to countermine him and at last to expose him To all which add that if this reservedness we speak of proceeds from insincerity and design it betrays great unbelief of God and of Providence for the clear apprehensions of those great points will incourage a man to be open and plain and confident but if it proceed from temper and constitution only yet even then it doth far more harm than good and particularly as I said before it makes life and conversation very uncomfortable and good Neighbourhood plainly impossible and therefore it is well worthy of the care and indeavours of a good man to reduce and recover the antient sincerity and simplicity instead of that hollow complemental hypocrisy which hath of late supplanted and excluded it 4. But yet care is to be taken withal that this plainness and simplicity degenerate not into rudeness or frothy and foolish conversation and therefore it is the fourth office of a virtuous man amongst his Neighbours to indeavour to render conversation favoury and manly and profitable as well as sincere that is that it be neither trifled away with flat inspid and gossiping impertinence nor misimployed in light and idle drollery nor turned into an occasion of tipling and sensuality much less debauched by profaneness and malapert reflections on things sacred but that it be applied to the furtherance of real business to the bettering of mens understandings to virtuous purposes and especially to the advantage of Religion These last things are useful to the World and worthy of men but the other are a mis-expence of time a degrading of our selves a reproach to our reason and the bane of conversation With a peculiar respect to such things as these it is that Christians are called the salt of the earth as I observed before because they are not only to prevent the rottenness and putrefaction but also the flatness and insipidity of conversation And as for that which I intimated in the last place namely the consulting the advantage of Religion I must now say further that although it be true that that is not the only subject of good Discourse forasmuch as God allows us both the refreshment of our spirits and a moderate concern about the affairs of this life and therefore consequently the affair of another World ought not to be importunely thrust in upon all occasions to the exclusion of other entertainments yet most certainly it ought to have its place and share in our friendly communications as being the most weighty and important subject and if it be dexterously managed the most gentile and obliging Neither will it be so very difficult as is commonly imagined to turn the stream of Neighbourly Discourse this way if men would be perswaded to try and apply themselves seriously to it and surely he that hopes to attain the joys of Heaven himself cannot but wish his Neighbours in the way thither also nor can he whose heart is throughly affected with the apprehensions of it omit now and then to let fall something or other that way tending at least every good man owes so much to God and Religion as to interpose a good word sometimes in their behalf which besides that it gives some countenance to Piety for the present may by the blessing of God make a greater impression than we are aware of and redound to his own comfortable account another day But 5. It is unquestionably the duty of every Christian to labour to the utmost of his power to make and preserve peace amongst his Neighbours To this purpose it is very observable that our Saviour Mark 9. 50. joins these two things together have salt in your selves and have peace one with another as if he had said Though you are the salt of the Earth yet you must take care you be not too sharp and acrimonious You must indeed preserve the World from corruption but yet you must not exasperate it into passion and disorder for you must compose men to peace and quietness and quench their combustions as well as inflame their Zeal and Devotion And indeed the latter of these can never successfully be undertaken unless at the same time the former be provided for for Religion never takes place in mens hearts nor brings forth fruits in their lives when the spirits of men are imbroiled with heats and animosities Men are not fit to consider of the counsels of the Gospel nor to estimate the reason and importance of them when their minds are in a flame and their thoughts in an hurry Nor if they were already perswaded of them could they be in a temper to comply with them or to make any fit expression of love and service towards God whilst they are at variance with their Brethren and therefore the Apostle tells us the fruits of righteousness are sowen in peace James 3. 18. And as peace is very advantagious to Gods service so the making and procuring it is very honourable and comfortable to them that are imployed about it They are under one of our Saviours Beatitudes and he intitles them the Children of God in a peculiar manner Mat. 5. 9. viz. as being those who especially imitate and resemble him And one instance of the blessedness of such men is this that they which make peace commonly reap the fruits of it both in the benign and kindly chearfulness of their own spirits and in the fair and courteous usage they generally meet with from other men as well as in the repose and quiet they enjoy when all the World is peaceable and still round about them whereas Makebates and Incendiaries torment themselves first before they torture other men and besides bring the fire home to their own Houses when they have inflamed other mens The Good Christian therefore is not only peaceable himself but a Peacemaker in his Parish to which end he will in the first place discountenance all Whisperers Eves-Droppers and Tale-Bearers as the pest of Society for these are the Bellows that blow up a spark into a flame He will indeavour to prevent and take up Law-Suits which commonly begin in passion and end in malice for the decision of them rather immortalizes the quarrel than finishes the dispute and he that overcomes very often like the Bee destroys himself whilst he fastens his sting upon another He sets a mark upon them that single themselves from the rest of their