Lives to recommend yourfelves to him; you would in the next Place, take care to keep up that Senfe by a conftant and daily Worship of him.

For God's fake, and for your own Soul's fake, do not neglect your Prayers. You must never think that God will blefs you, if you do not make a Confcience of daily paying him your Tribute of Honour and Worship.

Be fure therefore, you be conftant in your private Devotions. As you every Day receive the renewed Pledges of God's Love and Goodnefs towards you in a Thousand Inftances; fo let every Day your Affection and Gratitude be expreffed to him, by hearty Prayer and Thanksgiving. This is abfolutely neceffary to be done, as I have often told you, if you mean to preserve any hearty Senfe of Religion in your Minds.

But befides this, I have another Thing to recommend to all thofe that have Families: They are Heads and Governors of a Society. For, indeed, the firft Notion of Society is that of a Family. Every Family is a little Kingdom; and every Kingdom is, or ought to be, a great Family. Now is it natural, is it decent, that there should be any Society upon Earth, wherein God fhould not be owned and worfhipped? And yet, Woe be to us, how many Thousands of Families are there in this Kingdom, nay, I am afraid, even in and about this City, wherein God is not fo much as named in publick, unless, perhaps, by the way of Affront, by the way of Curfing or Swearing!

We deservedly complain of the great Loofenefs and Profanenefs and Irreligion that hath overfpread the Face of this Nation. O! I doubt a great deal of the Blame of it lies upon the Houfholders, the Mafters of Families among us. If they would take better Care of their Children and Servants, and let them know what it is to worship God, Things would not be fo bad among us. But how can we expect better, when there is no Religion either taught or practised in our Houses. We give our Domefticks Opportunities enough, of learning all our bad Qualities; but we give them none of learning our good ones, if we have any.

They fee us offending God by many rash Words and finful Actions; but they do not fee us repenting and asking God's Pardon by our folemn Prayers and Applications to the 'Throne of Grace. Let us therefore seriously lay this Point to Heart.

I am fure we have juft Cause to do it. Let us bring Religion ino our Families, and not be contented, that once a Week, fome of our People in their Turns fhould hear fomething of it. Let us every Day call our Family together, and pay our common Tribute of Prayer and Praise for the Mercies we do daily receive in common.

Methinks our Saviour feemed to have a Refpect to this very Duty, and to charge it mightily upon us, when he made us that gracious Promife, that even where Two or Three were gathered together in his Name, there would he be in the midst of them. Sure, his Words

have most naturally a Refpect to the Worship of God that is performed in Families; as hath likewife the very Contrivance of the Lord's Prayer: All the Petitions thereof being fo framed, as to be moft proper to be faid by more than one, and yet too when we have fhut our Doors for that purpofe. But,

Thirdly, As you ought to take Care about the Worship of God in your Closets, and in your Families; let me add, that it equally concerns you to frequent the more publick Worship of God in his own House. It is a bad Sign of fome very ill Principle or other, for any Man to be much a Stranger there. Even to have the Liberty and Opportunity of Worfhipping God in publick, is one of the greatest Bleffings and Privileges that we can have in this World; and hath by good Men always been fo accounted. Now fure, if we have this Notion of it, we shall think ourselves mightily concerned to take all Opportunities that come in our way, not only on Sundays, but on other Days, of reforting to the publick Affemblies, and joining with them in the folemn Sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving; and thinking it a good Day to us, wherein we have thus employed ourselves.

The Sacrifices of this kind that we offer to God with an honest and devout Mind, we cannot doubt will always find Acceptance, and produce their Effects; nay, perhaps, when our Clofet-Prayers will not. For there are certainly more Promises to publick. Prayers, than to private ones. Though yet both are very

good,

good, nay, both are abfolutely neceffary. But to proceed,

Fourthly, Being upon this Argument of the Means and Inftruments of Religion, you may be fure I cannot omit the mentioning of another Thing, as one of thofe Points that I would most seriously recommend to you; and that is, the folemn Obfervation of the Lord's Day.

I am not for laying ftrefs upon the keeping of this Day, or any other, more than the Nature of the Thing requires. I am fenfible that the Doctrine about the Obfervation of the Sabbath, as it is delivered by fome Men, is fuperftitious enough, and oftentimes, where it is believed, proves rather a Snare to Mens Confciences, than of Ufe, to make them more Religious. Far therefore am I from defiring you to be nice and fcrupulous about the PunElilio's of the Lord's-Day Service. The Laws both of God and Man have, in that Matter, left a great deal to your own Difcretion, and the Circumftances you are in. But however, thus much is neceffary, that every Man who profeffeth himself a Chriftian, fhould bear a conftant Religious Regard to the Lord's-Day, by devoting it to Spiritual Ufes, more efpecially the Publick Worship of God.

I do not much doubt of the Truth of the Obfervation, which fome good Men have made, viz. That a Man fhall profper much better, both in his Spiritual and Temporal Affairs, all the Week after, for his careful Obfervance of the Lord's-Day. And I am

likewife

likewife of Opinion, that thofe Men have little or no Senfe of Religion, that make no Confcience of fanctifying that Day, or that put -no Difference between it and other Days. Sure I am, were there nothing of a Divine Command for the fetting apart this Day to Religious Ufes, (which yet I believe there is;) yet it is one of the moft prudent and ufeful Conftitutions that ever was made. So that even upon that Account, all Men that have any Honour for God, or Zeal for the publick Good, fhould think themselves obliged to obferve it.

The Benefits of it are indeed unspeakable. Not to mention the Civil or Temporal Conveniencies of it, in Truth, to the keeping up the Religion of this Day, we owe in a great meafure, that the very Face of Chriftianity hath hitherto been preferved among And were it not for this, for any thing I know, moft of us, in a very few Years, would become little better than Heathens and Barbarians. And fo great an Influence towards the making Men better, or at least, keeping them from growing worse, hath this Practice always had; that you may observe the moft profligate Men among us, who for their Wickedness, come to an untimely End, do generally impute their falling into thofe Sins which caused their Death, to their breaking their Sabbath, as they commonly exprefs it. But,

4

Fifthly, Let me, upon this Occafion, put you in mind of another Thing, which by many

of