children all ungodly most ordinarily if a man turn with all his heart his children turn too sooner or later more or fewer of them 2. Be very careful in the due performance of Family-duties towards them that are under your charge This is the Lords great Command Deut. 6.7 and Abrahams special Commendation Gen. 18.19 the want of this the Lord punishes with rejecting such children 1 Sam. 3.15 But what are these Duties 1. Oversight of the wayes of the Family that they yield outward Obedience to God and particularly in Sanctifying the Sabbath You shall finde Religion lives and dies as men are exact or remiss in observing the Sabbath And it is observeable that the very words of the fourth Commandment doth expresly binde all Masters of Families which is not to be found in any other Commandment Thou and thy Son and thy Daughter Exod. 20.10 the Lord speaks by name to Family-governours as if it were to make them Overseers of sanctifying the Sabbath 2. To instruct them in matters of Religion that they may not onely profess it but feel the power of it in life and conversation Thus were Parents commanded of old Deut. 6.7 Prov. 22.6 2 Tim. 3.15 3. A careful Endeavour that they may profit by the Publick Ministry When Ministers work in Publick is done the Family work begins for this see Christs example Mark 4.13 4. A declaration of the admirable works of God for his people Josh 4.6 21. Psal 22.31 78.4 5. By giving them a good Example Precept without Patterns will do little good you must lead them to Christ by Examples as well as Counsel you must set your selves first and speak by Lives as well as words you must live Religion as well as talk Religion Josh 24.15 This is rather to be attended because Families are the Seminaries of Church and Common-wealth Keep the Lord with you in Families and keep him then in all Societies let him go thence and he will quickly go from the rest Here begins all Apostacy and degeneration the ruine of Churches and Country springs from thence Ruine Families and ruine all So on the other hand keep God there and keep him every-where The Generation to come will reap the fruit of Family-Education such Children as you bring up such Parents will they be when you are gone to their Children and such Children shall they have who are Parents in the next Generation You then that are Governours of Families are the very making or marring of the world Psa 144.12 Unless Posterity be polished hewn and squared by Domestical Discipline they are never fit to be stones in Gods building Are not some Parents worse then that rich Glutton who being in Hell desired concerning his fathers house that they might be forewarned and therefore desired Abraham to send Lazarus to his brethren to testifie to them that they come not to the place of torment Luke 16.27 28 But you will not admonish them you will not teach them Moses and the Prophets you will not shew them the danger hanging over their heads you will not lead a good Example before them while you live Oh! you may fear that your Children one day will curse you and wish that they had been the Children of Indians rather 3. Keep as much of God as you were wont to do in your own Hearts and Conversations Suffer not the Lord to go away in any degree or measure out of your hearts In a word keep up the life and power of godliness in your own Souls The Lord never takes away his visible presence from the succeeding Generation unless he take away his secret inward presence from former Generations The second Generation seldome or ever prove totall Apostates but the first are deep secret Heart-revolters Heart-sins in the first grow up into Life-sins in the second if you decline at all they will decline altogether The loss of the first love is enough to remove the Candlestick Rev. 2.4 5. You complain against the Pride Profaneness of young ones and alas that there is such cause Oh but who is there amongst you that cries out of the secret sins of their own hearts Those sins of a second growth of Profaneness in some Worldliness in many Deadness and Formality in all Ah! who is it that looks on the hard heartedness impenitency of this second Generation and sayes that now the Lord is punishing my hard heartedness upon my Childe he is whipping me on his back Men Brethren and Fathers You had once another Spirit had you not A right New-England Spirit Oh! should I knock at your breast and ask Is the old Zeal Love Heavenly-mindedness that was in this Heart twenty thirty years ago is it there still Are you the same men you were Are you not strangely changed Have you as much of God as you had Hath not the World got something Wife and Children something Trials and Temptations of a New Place or hard beginnings got something Oh! have you not lived to see much of your former life and godliness laid in the grave Have you the same Hearts you had Are your worst dayes now as good as your best then so it is with growing Saints that live much with God Or rather is not the contrary true that you are grown old and grown cold cold indeed cold at heart Aged in years and decayed in power of godliness But why do I complain Let me perswade Oh recover recover strength for your own Souls sake and for the sake of the Generation that is to come after you How can you hope that you should ever finde much of the Lords Presence if you that once had it lose it and see it no more If in your time Profession and Lukewarmness go hand in hand together then in those that come after you Profession and Profaneness shall go hand in hand together If you keep your Religion and Forms with their buts they that succeed will be Professors with their buts You are Christians Ay! but old but dead but lifeless They shall be Professors but vicious but jeering but scoffing but drinking Companions What hopes that the next Generation will ever enjoy much of the Presence of Gods grace and power of godliness if you see it dead and buried before you go to your graves I remember what the Prophet Elijah said to Elisha if he could see when he was taken up in the fiery Chariot it should be so but if not it should not be so 2 Kings 2.10 I allude to it thus If the Rising Generation could see you going to Heaven with a great measure of Zeal Life Spiritualness then there might be some hopes that they that are left behinde might enjoy a double portion of your Spirit but if they see your Life lost Love cooled Godliness decayed how can it be 4. Lay out Faith and Prayer for them to the utmost There is no help in Earth but there is help in Heaven Plead with God and plead hard Believe and believe strongly Pray more
and speed better the Lord will suffer himself to be Commanded in this case Isa 45.11 you have very good hold of God in the Word Deut. 30.6 and when you pray you must pray feelingly i. e. with a heart sensible of their sins Let the sins of the Rising Generation be the burthen of the first Generation their Unbelief the matter of their Complaint before the Lord. Many complain their Children have not such Priviledges as they ought I pray God grant that they may all have what the Lord hath appointed for them But alas where is the man that complains that his Childe wants saving knowledge of Jesus Christ Oh where is the Parent that sayes in bitterness of Soul My Childe hath a hard Heart and a proud Will an unteachable Spirit Civil he is but alas that 's all the Religion I can see Oh that there were more of those Complaints in secret before the Lord I verily believe the Lord will awaken a Spirit of Prayer before he gives us any sure pledges of his abiding with us in all sorts of men amongst us See how David prayes for Solomon 1 Chron. 29.19 and this will fetch blessings Win it in Heaven and wear it in Earth Monica Austin's Mother after she had cried and wept to a godly Minister for her then ungodly Son was answered by that good man Fieri nequit ut filius tantarum lachrymarum pereat It cannot be that a Childe of so many Prayers and Tears should perish And it is observeable That before the Lord give out any special Generation-mercy he humbles he prepares his people for that mercy by deep humiliation he usually layes them exceeding low as in first Conversion with respect to personal mercies so with respect to Generation-mercy The continuance of the Lords Presence Generation after Generation is a very signal mercy and God the Lord will humble his people in order to this mercy and this humiliation will cause you to sanctifie Gods Name though he should take away his Presence Ezek. 3.12 Secondly He brings a sentence of death on the mercy that to the eye of Sense and Reason there is no likelihood that ever it should come to pass nay it grows more unlikely every day then other as with Israel in Egypt Exod. 5. Isaac must be bound laid on the Altar the knife at his throat that so Faith might receive him as it were from the dead Truly this makes me hope that the Lords Presence may yet continue with his people in our Generations because that mercy seems to be a dead mercy There is no likelihood that it should be so the knife is at Isaac's throat Faith can fetch Isaac from the Altar Isa 26.19 When Churches are dead and the Members of Churches are dead yet then the Covenant lives the Promise lives Oh look to the Lord in that word Isa 65.22 to the end and 62.9 5. If you would have God to be with you and yours after you then see that you each one in your respective places are with and for the Lord You have the duty and encouragement laid before you 2 Chron. 15.2 A professing People they alwayes break with God first before he breaks with them 'T is the very end of the Lords works and dispensations to you that so you might be for him Isa 43.21 Quest But you will say What is this to be with the Lord How shall we be so with or for the Lord as that we may be sure he will still be with and for us Ans Work and work for God in your several capacities Parents Husbands Wives if you do not work for him you are not with him Mark 13.34 He gave to every man his work and therefore it is that their working with God is said to be a being with God Hos 9.8 The watchmen of Ephraim was with my God i.e. they did the work of God and so walking with God as you may see by that of David 1 Kings 4. and of Hezekiah 2 King 18.6 7. 2. Be for the special interest of God Mat. 12.30 He that is not with me is against me Zech. 9.7 He that remaineth shall be for our God i.e. for his Glory for his Christ for his Cause Labour therefore for a Publick Spirit let all your own interest give way to his Oh let nothing be dear in comparison of Christ and his interest Acts 20.24 To be of a private Spirit is not to be for God 3. In a special manner see that you are for his Institutions This is called the Kingdome of God Acts 1.3 If for Christ then for his Kingdome That man is not for God or Christ that is not for Ordinances These are called the Name of Christ Acts 15.14 16. He that is not for building Gods Tabernacle would not indeed that God should have a Name amongst men Remember what you said when you came into the Church Isa 44.5 I am the Lords especially see that you be for those Institutions and Ordinances that are ordained by Christ to bring the Rising Generation into a professed subjection unto the Gospel of Christ Oh take heed how we turn them out of Gods Inheritance lest you bring a curse upon your Souls and their Souls after you 1 Sam. 28.19 When God takes them into his Covenant he saith he will be a God to them Gen. 17. Take heed how you deny them any part in the Lord lest thereby they turn to serve other gods Josh 22.24 25. Where the Lord will enlarge Covenant-mercy Oh tremble to straighten it or bound it to the Precepts of men we and our poor Children after us have need enough of all the grace of the Covenant let us not despise it or cast them out our selves from it If that be the Lords word that the children of his servants shall continue and their seed be established before him Psal 102.28 Labour not to make that Promise of no effect Most certain it is that the Lords Presence is to be sought and enjoyed in Gods Wayes and in them only Will the Lord abide with a Generation that have nothing to do with a Church-state Ordinances Ministry and the visible outward Administrations of the things of his House I know he may for a while But will he long No verily if they must have nothing to do with these God will have nothing to do with them 6. Maintain a Spirit of Love towards God and towards one another If you love he will not leave you Be not like Ephesus that lost their first love but repent and do your first works Rev. 2.3 Love is a uniting grace and will not let the person beloved go This keeps God in Heaven because nothing but love is there for where that is he will be 1 Joh. 4.18 Joh. 14.23 If ever the Lord leave you or yours after you it will be because he is not loved and if it be asked why did the Lord so soon forsake his people after that he had done so much for them the Lord will
of Baal out of a factious Spirit and thence measured all Religion according to his own factious Spirit 2 Kings 10.15 16. And thus it was in Christs time there was a division touching matters of Religion some for one way and some for another and thus contending about Circumstances they lost the Substance In a word when men become most irreligious in their Religion I cannot speak it nor you hear it with grief of heart enough Religion is the occasion of our Contentions and breach of Peace 5. When the Lord withholds the essicacious and victorious operations of his Spirit from his own Ordinances that though men have them plentifully dispensed yet they are but as a dead letter they are the words and breath of men onely without life to their Souls for as on the contrary no surer pledge of the Lords presence with a people then when the Spirit accompanies the Ordinances and makes them effectual for the good of Souls when the Lord is at the heels of the Messenger and striketh home to the heart of poor creatures that see God himself in Ordinances 1 Cor. 14.25 this is a sign the Lord is with them so when they are continued to men but the Spirit is not in them they have them but no God in them when the Lord absents himself from those set meetings for people to meet him in now its undeniable the Lord is leaving such a people But when is this you will say that the essicacy and overcoming power of the Spirit is withheld from Ordinances Answ This is matter of great weight and therefore I shall a little stay upon it and shew you when it is in these specialties 1. When mens hearts are not stirred and quickned and warmed by them when the Word is lodged onely in the Porch and never cometh into the House Men get something to talk of and hold up a Profession in the world and bear up the Name of Religion withall but their Hearts are not wrought upon There are not suitable Impressions upon mens Hearts to the Notions that men have in their Heads for the Word comes in power when it passes through all outsides and enters into the heart Psal 45.5 Heb. 4.12 A discerner of thoughts and intents of the heart makes the heart naked so è contra when the Word is without power and virtue on the Souls of men when God is not in it when the Word is light without heat or life as the Sun under a Cloud it warms not the Earth Saints are wont to say of the Word By that I have been quickened Psal 119. But when the Word is like a cold fire that men sit by and finde no warmth surely the Spirit of God is not there for the Spirit quickeneth 1 Cor. 3.6 Joh. 6.63 If Christ speak then there 's life 2. When Ordinances are onely occasions and means of disquiet and of disrest unto men but have no surther efficacy upon them but to cause them to go with galled and condemned Consciences some have not so much as this live and die in Security having not one awakened thought all their dayes But not many that live under the dispensation of the Gospel but the Word is to them at sometimes as Rev. 11.9 a Word that did torment them that dwell on the Earth Though they live under means of grace and the Eternal Spirit is wrestling with them yet they are so shut up under unbelief and so in league and love with lust that the Word doth but torment them There is a generation of Christless sinners that fret with indignation and vexation that they cannot enjoy pleasures and follow lusts with quiet and peace and if they would speak out what is in their heart they would say to Christ as the Devils Mat. 8.29 Art thou come to torment us or as it was with those that heard Steven they were cut to the heart and gnashed on him with their teeth Acts 7.54 Men that are in love with lusts they cannot endure that God should come near them they are not able to bear the strokes whereby he would break their stiff Spirit but grudge against the Lord himself and fall out with the Word that would convince them Rom. 2.8 Hence in the secret of their hearts they could be glad to hear no more such Awakening Heart-searching Soul-rowsing Truths They say to God Depart from us Job 21.14 They pronounce that Sentence upon themselves which the Lord will pronounce at the last day A sad thing when a poor creature is Damned above-ground 3. When the Word of God doth blinde and harden men in their sins and vain hopes but not convert and save them from their sins Then God is with his Word when he doth not suffer poor creatures to escape from him when he will not let them alone but plucks them by the hair of the head as it were out of the fire when he makes the Devil deliver many sinful redeemed Souls then the Lord is with them indeed but when it is otherwise the Lord is not in his Word Mat. 13.15 Men come into the world and know not wherefore and go out and know not whither though they have many Advantages yet they stand it out to the very last they have been put into sad plunges in their own Spiâ—its but have got over them and so go to Hell insensibly When God is in his Ordinances then it shall be said This and that man was born there Psal 87.5 but When few newbarn Christians this is a symptome God is not in his Word As when the Seed is sown and rots under the clods but never springs up there is no blessing but a secret curse on it Oh consider of this Are Conversions frequent amongst us Is God pulling men out of this rueful state If the Lord deny this to his Ordinances it s because he is not in them Oh fearful wrath to have them and be hardened by them and the abuse of them to answer for another day To have them and yet to be plagued more then Sodom and Gomorrah that never heard of them in that day of Eternal Judgement 4. When Ordinances are unprofitable and empty things void of Spiritual advantage when men use them but as bad bargains they lose rather then gain by them as it was with them of old Mal. 3.14 What profit c. Hence take up that quarrelling Complaint Isa 58.3 Wherefore have we fasted and thou seest not c. When God is in them then they bring on to more fellowship with God and Christ Jesus then those that live under them are growing up in the fear of the Lord as David Zech. 12.8 as the Angel of the Lord before them vigorous and active Christians as it was with the Thessalonians 2 Thess 1.3 When the Sun ariseth with healing under his wings then they grow up as Calves in the stall Mal. 4.2 As a watered garden Isa 58.11 And this will be proportionable in root as well as branches not all head