thoughts to bind every one to Noting so neither is it my mind and sense that any should be taken off from hearing with the best advantage I say with the best advantage all things considered for I look upon Hearing as a necessary duty and a special part of our obedience but upon Repeating as an Auxiliary Exercise and a part of our beneficial assistance Besides that divers cannot write and all that can write are not so able and apr for writing of Sermons Nor doth this prejudice and take off the present business which is Repetition for a diligent hearer may if he please and be so provident write what he hears immediately after he hath heard it and so repeat it or if he write not at all yet being able to retain it in his memory he may communicate it in Repetition by that ability as the words which the man of God had spoken to Jeroboam against his Altar were told and we may say repeated by the sons of the old Prophet unto their Father 1 King 13.11 But here I shall offer to prevent the neglect of so great an Help as Writing is these Considerations and Advertisements 1. Let every man deal truly for the heart is deceitful above all things and whilest one pretends or perhaps intends a better hearing yet he may through the secret workings of corruption forbear noting because he is loth to take the pains which noting requires yea it 's possible because he is not willing to be noted to be a Sermon-noter that being a thing which some will look upon as too low for higher and more considerable Persons 2. Repetition is here spoken of in special as it is a Family-edifying exercise which if it be left to memory useth to be as defective as the memory is slippery or where there is less Zeal and Piety is less pleasing to be altogether omitted and that by the omission of writing which would both furnish the hearer for Repetition and make it minded and make it easie and so make it more willingly undertaken 3. Writing shews an estimation of what we hear and a resolution to preserve the remembrance of it As when Hezekiah would shew how he prized his cure and that it was in his heart to preserve the memory of it there was the writing of Hezekiah 4. As hearing without noting may more stir up affection so noting with hearing more prevents distractions which Satan by the variety of objects more easily raiseth and multiplyeth when the mind is not kept to the matter by the intention of the writer 5. Though by hearing without writing the heart may be more moved yet writing so imprints there that which is heard as that it is not so soon removed for writing hath with it a multiplyed thinking of and running over and over again in the inward thoughts that which is preached and heard till it be written down and so it sinks more deeply and leaves in the heart a more lasting impression 6. We are to hear for the time to come Now hearing alone is for present use but accompanyed with writing for after-use The Sermon written may be read and reveiwed a month or twelve months after yea it may remain for the use of others many years after we are dead Hence the Scripture when it would express the continuance of things and the way of that continuance saith This shall be written for the Generation to come Psal. 102.18 I do not say it will be thus if Book after Book be fill'd with Notes which few or none can read but the writer himself but thus it will be if what is written for present hastily be after written out legibly which because leisure will not permit many to do if we speak of copying out whole Sermons therefore I would advise Christians to an easier and shorter course and that is when they have noted largely to observe the whole and then cull out and write out fair the choisest passages which may be done more fully or more briefly as time will give leave and as the Sermons and Christians condition give cause and occasion By this means Posterity when they are in Heaven may reap the benefit of that which they heard delivered and were so careful to lay up yea by writing out briefly profitable and acceptable words of all sorts the surviving godly Reader will be a great gainer by things so useful and be much refresh'd alâ—o with the variety of them If it be objected That the case here was a special casâ— because Jeremy was shut up and could not go to the House of the Lord and therefore is not to be drawn to common use To this I answer two things 1. That the case may quickly be such at any time as that which is described here For 1. No man knows how soon Ministers may be shut up as Jeremy here was that they cannot speak to their ordinary hearers And 2. Hearers know not how soon they may be shut up either by sickness or restraint that they cannot come to Ministers and therefore it 's wisdom to make use of the present liberty in writing down and laying up present Instructions that so though intercourse with Ministers be interrupted or removed yet their Sermons being as they say in black and white their former intercourse with them and hearing of them may in this way make some comfortable amends and serve for a profitable supply whereas if old Sermons be forgotten and new Sermons cannot be gotten Christians are like to be at a sad loss yea though there be printed Sermons to be had for howsoever they may be very profitable yet they may not be so sutable to the times and their state as those which they have heard and which perhaps were prepared at first with respect to their condition 2. I answer That in the course taken here to write from the mouth of Jeremy what was to be read by Baruch we are not only to consider the occaâ—ion but the end and use which was that by reading the words written in the Ears of all Judah they might thereby be moved to such Humiliation and Reformation as that the evil they heard pronounced might not come upon them Now Albeit that occasion was a more special occasion yet this end is a common end which whilest it lets us see that the writing and reading of Sermons preached is a good means yea Gods means to work the heart to goodness it doth thereby perswade us to imitation and 〈◊〉 attaining the same end to take the same course which if it be done more solemnly in a day of Humiliation as then it was it is probable it will prevail the more Thus far I have spoken by occasion of this Scripture with special respect to the Writing of Sermons and now I shall briefly add that here is recommended 2. The Repeating of them Because for that reason it was that the words spoken by the mouth of Jeremy must
profitable to you by being more acceptable more helpful by being more grateful and by your looking upon it with an Eye of Love Having mentioned the time of my abode among you It shall not be tedious to me nor wil it I hope be grievous to you to review and run over in a generality what hath passed in it And therein will be found something to be observed and marked something to be humbled for and something to praise God for That which I invite you to take notice of may be reduced to two heads First The Lords casting my lot amongst you and calling me to you by a more then ordinary providence for it was by the free and as far as I know unsollicited naming of me to it by a Person of Honour in whose gift it was and the news of it was sent unto me then when being a Student in Oxford neither this nor any other Ministerial charge was by me either sought or thought of which I mention and mind you of the rather because though I have had divers earnest invitations to remove to other places of more publike imployment yet Gods more then usual Call to this Place hath ever made me to fear to forsake it and I have still found much inward satisfaction in forsaking all other and cleaving to this For God is the wisest disposer of his Servants and He knows best in what part of his Vineyard to place his Labourers Yet I condemn not all removals if they be not self-removals but set a mark upon special disposals Secondly You may not pass over without serious observation another remarkable Providence which is that whensoever I have been forced from you God hath provided otherwise for you Twice you remember I have been taken off 1. By suspension for three years space because I could not be resolved to read the Book of Liberty for Sports on the Lords-day 2. By the distractions of the late sad times of Civil War about so many years more Yet in both these separations from you God ordered it so that such were present with you in all the time of my absence and restraint by whom you were diligently and profitably instructed which as it is to be marked on the one side to shew how God provides supplyes in the necessitated absence of Pastors so on the other side it concerns you unto whom this benefit hath been vouchsafed to take notice that though you have not still had the same Husbandman yet God hath not suffered you to want that spiritual husbandry which if it be lacking but for a time Bryars and Thorns grow up and the envious man suddenly sows his Tares Remember how much you are bound to that God that hath not left you without a teaching Minister and without Law how much you are bound to be thankful who have had the heavenly Manna in the Wilderness of this World forty years and upwards how much you are bound to be fruitful who have had dressers of the Lords Vineyards so many years to dig and dung and by all means to seek for fruit and lastly how inexcusable you will be if the door of your hearts be not opened at which Christ hath still stood knocking four and forty years together In the next place I must not dissemble that there is matter of humiliation for us on both parts for as on my own part I willingly acknowledge much weakness and want of bestirring my self among you with that care courage compassion diligence and resolution that belongs to a Pastor so you on the other part have cause to take to heart that unteachableness whereby though there hath been precept upon precept line upon line yet so little is learned Not but that I think and hope that for the generality it will be found that there is more acquaintance with Religion in this then in divers other Congregations that consist of poor and unlearned people but yet it is to be lamented that divers know so little in comparison of what they should and might have known and have much need of milk still because of their unskilfulness in the Word of Righteousness But besides this want of knowledge I may say My God hath humbled me among you and given cause of bewailing the great want of the power and practise of godliness I confess you have comforted me with a conformity to the Ordinances and the Exercises of Religion The matter of grief is that there hath not been in some that sobriety in company in others that diligence and laboriousness in their Callings and in many that Christian patience that there ought to have been but in stead thereof many angry and unbrotherly contentions which is observed to be the disease and is indeed the great sin and dishonour of this place albeit I grant there have been of late more occasions then ordinary of it And it 's true also that the Devil is very busie to make them worst that are taught most Hence it is that it is not to be wondered at neither is Religion or the Profession thereof to be worse thought of for it if here or otherwhere where the Gospel is preached there be breakings forth not only into anger and bitterness which yet is very bad and a giving a place to the Devil who plays his pranks and works his will very much in a passionate heart but also into far fouler evils as swearing cursing drunkenness uncleanness going to Witches and Wisards which is a going to Hell for help when people be under the hand of Heaven These more hainous offences I only name to you because I believe divers that have been guilty of some of them have truly repented and am willing to hope that others that are yet faulty in any of them being convinced in their Consciences of the evil and danger of things so horrible and forbearing them more then heretofore will not only leave them altogether but abhor them and themselves for them Which I desire the Lord to give them grace to do before it be too late I am weary of this sad work and therefore shall add only this It had been a happy thing my Brethren both to you and to me if divers aged persons had as I perswade my self some have become young Christians and grown so wise as not only to live soberly and righteously which makes them good Neighbours but not good Christians but also to live godly that is to live according to the Word of God and to aim in all things at the glory of God O how little is there of this in many that are going into their grave Nay in stead of this comfort in older people I have often with much grief observed that by sundry of the younger sort who have given some good hopes in the beginning of their time of their doing well by their appearing in Catechising Hearing and Noting Sermons and Reading something of Scripture at home as they have been call'd to it yet
moment upon Ecclesiastical constitution I wonder what company of men may or will assume so much to themselves as to appoint a day in their own devised distance and impose it to be observed on the whole Community of Christians And if there be not in all the Christian world the same set day how will the honour of God be diminished which by the meeting of all the people of God together to do homage to him at one and the same time is so remarkably heightened 3. If there must be a weekly day of Gods own Institution whether there be any other day of the week that can lay so good a claim to that sacred Institution and that hath such a divine Character put upon it as the first day of the week on which our Saviour rested from all his work and compleated the Redemption of Man-kind in his glorious Resurrection on which our great Lord hath set his own Name and that recorded in Scripture wherein also the holy Observation thereof is presented in Christian meetings and such acts and exercises as suit with the solemn time of Christians assembling themselves together And which is generally confest to be an Apostolical Ptescription and so amounts to a divine Institution 4. This day being divinely instituted whether God will not be that day better served and the spiritual profit of Christians better provided for by making it an intire day of Rest holy to the Lord and to spiritual uses or by mixing our work with Gods and Play with Piety Such things as these and more weighty communications of better Writers being seriously considered will I doubt not work on those who desire to walk with God willingly and thankfully to sequester themselves from all other things to enjoy a blessed communion with their Lord every Lords-day and one day in seaven to be as it were in Heaven Thus of the first part of this little Tractate and of the Christian duties therein contained The Second part treateth of Family-duties I begin with Family-Catechising an exercise exceeding needful useful that they that are young may be acquainted with God betimes and thereby if they die sooner may be fitter for his Kingdom and fitter for his service if they live longer God would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth but as blind Pastors and People so blind Housholders and Housholds fill hell And mean-while make the World much worse then else it would be For Families are the original of all other greater Societies and want of Religious Education there is the cause why there are so few good servants for how shal an ignorant Son or Daughter that hath no knowledge or conscience be a good Servant And why there are so few good Wives and Husbands for how shall they be good together that were never bred up to be good asunder Yea is it not from hence that there are so many less sound or less godly Ministers namely because they have not been so trained up as young Timothy was who from a child had known the holy Scriptures It s true that sometimes Religion is in the house and yet not in the heart at least of most in the House but if it be in the heart I am sure it will be in the house Yea as there shall be occasion in every house for the grace that is in a sincere and right heart is like the oyntment of ones right hand which bewrayeth it self being ever un-satisfied unless it disperse and send abroad the sweet savour of the knowledge of Christ in every place especially the Vicinity but most of all the Family I proceed from this to the thing I principally aimed at and indeed only intended when I first set upon this work namely to set forward the Duty of Family-Prayer For though God will do much for the house of Israel and for every house in Israel yet his Will is to be sought that he may do it for them Heaven is a rich storehouse and we have a Joseph there that is willing to nourish us lest we and our houshold and all that we have come to poverty yet it s necessary for us to go thither with our suits and supplications as the sons of Jacob went into Egypt with their sacks that so opening our mouths wide the Lord Jesus may fill them Ther 's treasure enough in God's House for us and for our houses but when God hath put a Key into our hand that is Prayer to open the door we must either turn the Key or not expect the Treasure men lust and have not labour and have not fight and scramble for the world and yet they have not or have not in mercy Hos. 13.11 because they ask not Now because some weak Christians may say with Jeremy Behold I cannot speak I cannot pray for I am a child therefore I thought it would be profitable for their help and education as it were to the duty of Prayer to put some Prayers into their hands though it be God only that must put a spirit of Prayer into their hearts This is a course that heretofore hath found acceptance but now it needs an Apology considering that in late times Forms have been so much out of request that God's external Ordinances and holy Institutions of one kind and another have passed and suffered reproach and that with divers of better report heretofore but None but God knows who are his under the contemptible name of Forms of Religion too low for Christians of the upper Form Now if any yet there be that count themselves above Ordinances I must leave them as far above my persuasions But as for modest Christians who howsoever they may be somewhat doubtful about the use of Forms of Prayer yet are teachable and capable of satisfaction I shall endevour to give it them And therefore I willingly acknowledg and would have both those of my own Charge and other Christians to know that such Forms are not so properly intended for grown and exercised Christians albeit they being humble will know they may receive help and improvement from them but they are composed for young Beginners and for them also not to tie them up but to train them up as they use to do little Children to go first by a Form that leaving the form which was a great help at first they may go at length on their own legs without leaning on such Supports Blessed Bradford that high and humble Martyr when he was in Prison wrote a prayer for his Mother that she might learn how to pray for him and desired her to get it by heart and to say it dayly and he wrote another for all her house to make use of in their Evening Prayer Unto which I add that although poor and low yea the lowest Christians may and should take more liberty in private between God and themselves and not be
of better parts then hearts ensnare novices in by abusing their own Reason and Gods Word but also that they be throughly furnished for every good work belonging to them as they are men of God for which though they may be competently enabled and so as to make a good shift by searching the Scripture as they have occasion for their business yet they will never be so compleatly habituated for it unless the ordinary reading and study of Scripture be made their business Ministers therefore are in special bound to give themselves to reading and meditating Scripture that their profiting may appear to all yea that 's in a manner their whole work But this will not excuse People for not reading Scripture unless their mind be that Ministers should be wise to Salvation and not themselves Men that are every day abroad in the world and still receive wounds have more need of medicines laid up in the Soul-healing Scriptures Answ. 3. Now for that part of the Objection wherein living in the world is spoken of all Christians are to be admonished to take heed that they cloke not their negligence and listlesness to the reading of the Word by the pretence of necessity nor shut out Piety by the argument or rather the imagination of Poverty All such things are answered in our Saviours counsel and direction for the best way of thriving in the world which is this Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you They that say Give us this day our dayly bread before they say Thy Kingdom câ—me may thank themselves if they want the comfort both of that Bread and that Kingdom neither of them being sought in their due place Object 3. But what shall we do that are altogether unlearned and cannot read Answ. 1. If you might have learned to read when you were little and would not account it your sin and repent of it and pray God to supply that want otherwise but if you had no means to enable you to read look upon that as your affliction which affliction those careless Parents provide for their children who will not learn them to read in their childhood when they may so easily do it Answ. 2. Many there are that being grown up and desirous to read have learned and do learn to read that blessed Book of God If it be more hard for them to learn then for children as indeed it is yet desire and pains prayer may and do overcome the difficulty Say with tears Lord though I be not worthy to open and to read the Book neither to look thereon yet let free grace help and by weeping and praying out of ardent desire to see with thine own eyes the wonders of Gods Word thou mayst well hope God will satisfie thine hungry and thirsty Soul Mat. 5.6 Answ. 3. If thou canst not attain to read thy self yet hear those that can yea strive and take a course to hear them like that pooâ— blind woman in the Book of Martyrs that being uncapable of learning to read her self because she was blind gave a peny or two pence to one another telling them aforehand how much they should read to her upon a price whereby she so profited that she was able to recite many Chapters of the New Testament and to plead for that true Religion for which she was at last a blessed sufferer in those Popish flames They that cannot attain to read have this comfort that it is said not only Blessed is he that readeth but it is added also And blessed are they that hear the words of this Prophesie Hear therefore diligently and write yea desire God to write what thou hearest in thy heart and when it is there read it over and over again by serious meditation Psal. 62.11 Object 4. Though I do read yet I cannot understand What profit is there in it then Answ. So the â—unuch might say and did say How can I understand without a Guide But first this is an argument to thee against hearing it read as well as against reading thy self and so thou will shut out both Secondly Many things in Scripture thou mayest and doest understand Thirdly There are two reasons of reading the one is because thou doest understand the other that thou maist understand know therefore that reading what thou doest not understand with a desire to understand is a good way to have a Philip sent unto thee or to move the Lord to move thee to go to a Philip that so thou mayest understand yea Ministers are every where sent to help thee and cause thee by giving the sense to understand the reading And Fourthly If Christ know thou art desirous to know he will help thee to learn and that so as thou shalt see cause to say at last Lord now speakest thâ—u plainly to me in thy Word and speakest no proverb John 16.17 27. Object 5. But I come weary home with work Will you put me to reading then Answ. First Our Saviour shews us that a Servant that comes weary from work is call'd to wait upon his Master before he eat and drink himself Luk. 17.7 8. and that may teach us that we may not neglect the service of our great Lord though we come from the field weary Secondly Reading some part of Scripture is a work of another kind and may be accounted a recreation in regard of hard bodily labour Thirdly There is also a time after labour of refreshing in the use of the creatures by which nature may be so recovered as to be fitted for reading Fourthly He works very hard that will not read a Letter from his Friend from his Prince before he takes his rest If any say The case is not alike for such Letters as come to our hand day by day we have not seen before and therefore we read them without delay but having once perused them we do not still read them Now the Bible we read sometimes our selves and we hear it read often no need therefore to be ever reading it To this I answer that they that read the Book of God well and they that read it most will never make this objection for they know by good experience that the holy Scripture is so full and fathomless that every new reading of it with reverence and lifting up their hearts to God that he would open their eyes to see wonders out of his Word I say every such new reading of it brings a new light into the understanding a new heat into the heart and affections and puts a new life into an holy life As for those who know not this let them betake themselves to the diligent and dutiful reading of Scripture that they may at length know it And they that look upon reading as the receiving of their food will be ready to read often as they receive
godly meditations which is more easily done that night because of the help we have had for better thoughts the day before Yea I shall not fear to say further that in them that have observed the day as they ought there will be such an holy habit and frame of heart left behind as that though they sleep and take their rest yet even the dreams of that night I do not say alwayes will but divers times will be like to relish of the holiness of the day which though some are willing to make sport with and to count worthy of derision yet herein they call in question not only their Piety but their Reason for Nature it self and common Experience teacheth that things acted and most affected in the day leave such impressions as that they are ordinarily represented by the phansie in the dreams of the night I have thus far enlarged in describing the Sabbath out of a desire to establish the holy observation of the Lords day which will best be discerned by that respect reverence and observance that is due to the weekly Sabbath according to the fourth Commandement Now when we know what is meant by Sabbath and by the observation of it it 's easie to know what is meant by the profanation thereof mentioned before which is the applying of it to common use as we do the other six dayes when God hath set it a part for holy and heavenly imployments see Act. 10.15 This profanation must needs be as I have said an evil thing because it is a transgression of the moral Law of God which Law though it be short yet the Precept concerning the Sabbath is full and large If that law be holy and just and good then the profanation opposite to it must needs be evil Hence the Lord himself said of old when that which was commanded on the Sabbath was not obeyed How long refuse ye to keep my Commandements and my Laws Exod. 16.28 Ezek. 22.18 Thou hast profaned my Sabbath is in the catalogue of their sins But because there are two things about the Christian Sabbath much disputed one the divine institution and appointment of a Sabbath day in every week for all ages by vertue of the fourth Commandement the other the divine constitution or Gods ordaining of that weekly day for a Sabbath which we now observe that is the first day of the week commonly called the Lords day I shall therefore endeavour as I am able to speak something in way of resolution to these two proposals that so Sabbath-doubts may not hinder Sabbath-duties For the former of these I propound this question Quest. How doth it appear that the Law of the Sabbath contained in the fourth Commandement continueth and is in force in Gospel times for the observing of one day in seven as a Sabbath or day of holy rest Answ. If it be not of any force then we have not now a Decalogue that is there are not now in the time of the Gospel Ten Commandements but nine only If it be said That doth not follow because something of that Commandement remains and is in force for ever to wit that some time should be set a part for the publike worship of God To this I answer That it is manifest to him that reads the fourth Commandement that the thing required in it is not a time at large which the second Commandement that prescribeth the Worship of God supposeth because nothing can be done unless there be a time set apart for the doing of it but that which is enjoyned is a day Nor is it a day at large but a day in every week for it is opposed to six working dayes Nor is it a day in a week at large but such a day as may challenge this title The Sabbath of the Lord thy God that is it must be a day of Gods appointment When a Master saith to his servant wait on me every week in the day I appoint you and lay before him great reason for it If the servant should say My Master looks for no more but that I should wait on him one time or other it would be but a poor account 2. If any of the ten Commandements be taken away it must be taken away by Christ that is by his order or by some declaration from him But he saith he came not to take away but to fulfil the Law And to prove that he instanceth in divers Precepts of the Moral Law which he presseth in the greatest height of spiritual observation Why should the fourth Commandement be taken away any more then the fifth which yet the Apostle urgeth strongly upon children and that from the moral and perpetual reason thereof which though it be delivered in a Jewish phrase relating to the land of Canaan yet for the substance of it it concerns all men that live on the earth Ephes. 6.1 2 3. Object There is this difference between the fourth and fifth Commandement That Nature teacheth men to obey their Parents but to observe a Sabbath one day in seven it teacheth not Answ. In regard of a day of holy Rest in general Nature is not silent for it granteth a God and that that God is to be worshipped and therefore that a time must of necessity be set a part for it and that a convenient time and in such a distance that we may neither neglect our God nor our affairs And taking it for granted that the Creation is known that is that God did make the world in six dayes and rest the seventh Nature hath a fair copy to write by and a glorious example before it to work upon and to take a light from to work and to rest in such a proportion of time I say to rest for Nature speaks out this fully that the time consecrated to God must be a time of rest because we cannot serve God in holiness and be about profane and common imployment both at once 2. If we take in to the light and principles of Nature the assistance of divine Revelation then Nature will say all that needs to be said for a Sabbath to wit that it is fit God should appoint his own time for his own service and therefore he in his Word having appointed a weekly time such a time ought to be observed 3. Setting aside all the natural morality that may be pleaded for a weekly Sabbath it sufficeth that the spending of one day in seven in holy Rest is enjoyned by the positive Law of God for why shall not the Law of the God of Nature revealed from Gods mouth or written in the Word bind as well and as much as the Law of Nature written in the heart especially considering that what is spoken or written by God especially by his own finger as the Ten Commandements were is pure and incorrupt as that is not which is written in mans heart though it were so when it was first written
be written by Baruch to wit that they might be read and repeated to those to whom they were first delivered by the mouth of Baruch And the remainder of the Chapter sheweth also that they were again read and repeated before the Nobles and the King And this declareth the use of Noting Sermons which is not to lay them up in Books and there leave them but to repeat and communicate them to others Indeed it 's true that what was done here was done by the Lords direction and what was read here was read in the Lords House But there being no just cause to appropriate this course for the substance of it to any time or people we have reason to say that this Divine direction at this time casts an honour and an approbation upon the same course in the generallity at all times and Gods end in this Reading and Repeating in His House justly mindes us of the benefit that may be had from it in our own houses I mean according as the matter is which is preached written and repeated for it is not always of that kind that these words here were but whatever sort of matter it be this Writing and Repeating is a way to make it more familiar to us and fruitful in us Thus of this Scripture The second Scripture that I shall mention is Col. 4.16 where the Apostle ordereth first that the Episâ—le written to the Colossians should be read among them And then that they should cause it to be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans for it was not written as one saith to Colossians as Colossians for the substance of it but to the Colossians as Christians and so it was for the use of Christians generally albeit there was it's like a special respect in it to other Churches in the same Countrey and namely that of Laodicea which it is conceived laboured under the same spiritual diseases that the Colossians did and sure were in danger of being taken with those Errours that are mentioned in the second Chapter of that Epistle Now as this Scripture makes much for the reading of Scripture and for the communicating of holy Instructions by one Church to another so by the like reason and for the same ends it recommendeth also the imparting of the things of God once delivered by Ministers as this Epistle was by Paul by one Christian to another and that especially where their Interest Opportunity and Charge lies most which we know to be in their respective Families Unto the two former Scriptures I shall add one General Sentence more which though I intend not to insist upon yet Ingenuity and Piety will make it helpful to this holy Exercise The words are these God hath spoken once twice I have heard this which howsoever it may be understood of our hearing twice because God speaks to us twice yet it is also a good Interpretation and very suitable to the words as they are rendred in our Translation which Caâ—vin writing upon those words reciteth to wit that though God speak but once yet we should hear it twice that is revolve it ponder it and make our selves to hear it again and again which will be aptly applyed to the matter in hand if we say that when God speaks once that is by his Minister in Preaching then we are to hear twice that is as by Meditation in our hearts so also by Repetition wherein there is apparently a second hearing in our houses Hitherto of Scripture-Grounds for Family-Repetition I proceed now to the Reasons that may be given of this labour of Love and whereby the minds of godly persons may be confirmed in this practise of Piety In the first place I shall lay down a General reason drawn from the manifold profit that ariseth from Sermon-Repetition For thereby 1. The Sermon is better understood by a second skanning 2. Better remembered by a new recalling 3. Better digested and nourishing better by chewing the cud that is by fetching up that spiritual food again which is already received but not sufficiently prepared and therefore it must be gone over again that being well concocted the Soul may prove the better by it 4. Better laid up in the heart by harrowing after the first sowing unto which Meditation and Repetition may be compared whereby any thing harder is broken and the seed sown is covered and kept safe Writing without reciting lays the Sermon up in the Book and there leaves it but Repetition houseth it in the heart which is the proper place where it ought to dwell 5. Better expressed in the life by those fresher and stronger impressions in the heart which the calling of that we have heard to mind and to a new consideration leaves behind it Now the better impressions there be within and the more the Word is wrought into the heart the better expressions and the more holy fruit there will be without for Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Matth. 12.34 And so the hand worketh the foot walketh and the whole man acteth Thus in general In the next place I shall make use of some more particular Reasons of Repetition and that both in regard of our selves and others In regard of our selves There are three things considerable 1. That this Reviewing of Sermons and spending more of our time and thoughts upon them is an effectual means of growing up in a right knowledge of Religion for the abilities and studies of Ministers especially their Scripture-studies are much sum'd up in their Sermons which therefore being first attentively heard which writing ties the hearer unto and afterward more deliberately considered of in the Repetition do thereby possess the hearer in a good degree with the Ministers sufficiency besides that he freeth himself also from that sad imputation of being ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Hence it is that the Beroeans were so careful of and are so much commended for not only an hearing with all readiness of mind but also a taking up of what they had heard into their thoughts afterward Searching the Scriptures whether those things were so yea Hence also Ministers themselves do write and preach the same things again and again because whatsoever tediousness there be in it in it self and to themselves yet they are sure it is safe for their people and a great Preservative against the Infection of Errour which is so much against Christians safety and salvation 1 Cor. 15.1 2. 2. It is to be carefully considered and weighed that faithful Ministers and provident Pastors speak to the diseases of their people as Paul did to the disease of the Romans which was a backwardness in receiving the Faith and so the Apostle James to the disease of those to whom he wrote which was though they received and professed the Faith yet to be careless of a godly life and those good works wherein Faith if it