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conversation, from trifling, or even from your sleep, as may be sufficient for family religion? May you not order your family devotion so as that your domestics may attend upon it, either before they go out to their work, or when they come to their meals?

2d Objection. "I have not ability to pray; I am too ignorant."

If you had a proper sense of your wants, this plea would not hinder you. Did you ever hear a beggar, however ignorant, make this objection? A sense of his necessities is an unfailing fountain of his eloquence.

Further, how strange does this objection sound from you! What! have you enjoyed preaching, Bibles, and good books so long, and yet do not know what to ask of God? Alas! what have you been doing?

Again, Is neglecting prayer the way to improve in knowledge, and qualify you to perform it?

Finally, May you not easily furnish yourselves with forms of prayer, which you may use as persons weak in their limbs do their crutches, till you can lay them aside? It is bigotry only that will say that you should neglect the substance of the duty, if you cannot perform every circumstance of it in the best manner.

3d Objection. "I am ashamed."

But is this shame well grounded? Is it really a shame to worship the God of heaven, and share in the employment of angels?

Are sinners ashamed to serve their Master?

A little practice will easily free you from all this difficulty.

4th Objection. "But, alas! I know not how to begin it."

Here, indeed, the difficulty lies; but why will you not own that you were hitherto mistaken, and that you would

VOL. II.-13

98 NECESSITY AND EXCELLENCE OF FAMILY RELIGION.

rather reform than persist obstinately in the omission of an evident duty?

5th Objection. "But my family will not join with me." How do you know? Have you tried? Are you not master of your own family? Exert that authority in this which you claim in other cases.

at."

6th Objection. "But I shall be ridiculed and laughed

Are you then more afraid of a laugh or a jeer than the displeasure of God? Would you rather please men than him?

Will you never become religious till you can obtain the applause of the wicked for being so? Then you will never be religious at all.

Think how you will bear the contempt of the whole universe at last for the neglect of this duty!

Therefore, wherever you have your habitation, there let Jehovah, may I so speak, have an altar, and there let morning and evening prayers and praises be presented, till you are called to worship him in his temple above, where your prayers shall be swallowed up in everlasting praise. Amen.

SERMON XXX.

THE RULE OF EQUITY.

MATT. VII. 12.-Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

CHRISTIANITY is not a fragment, but a complete system of religion; and it is intended and adapted to make us good entirely and throughout: it teaches us a proper conduct and temper towards every being with whom we have any connection, particularly towards God and our fellow men. A Christian is a complete, uniform, finished character; a character in which there is the most amiable -. symmetry and proportion; it is all of a piece, without chasms and inconsistencies. A Christian is a penitent, a believer, a lover of God, conscientious in devotion, and diligent in attendance upon every ordinance of religious worship; he begins his religion with a supreme regard to God, the Supreme of beings, sensible that unless he begins here, he inverts the order of things, and that all his religion and virtue must be preposterous and vain. To love the Lord his God with all his heart, and to serve him from that exalted principle, is the first and great commandment with him; and he observes it as such. Religion, virtue, morality, and every thing that bears a specious name among mankind, is a poor, maimed thing, monstrously defective, if a proper regard to God be left out of the system. It is shocking and unnatural for the creatures of

God to be punctual in observing the duties they owe to one another, and yet entirely negligent of those radical fundamental duties they owe to him, their common Parent, the highest excellence, and the original of all authority and obligation.

But though Christianity begins with, and chiefly consists in our duty to God, yet it extends farther; it also includes a proper conduct and temper towards men. A good Christian is not only devout, but moral and virtuous: he is not only a dutiful servant of God in matters purely religious, but he is a useful member of every society to which he belongs, and makes conscience of justice, charity, and all the good offices due to his fellow-creatures. He is a good ruler or a good subject, a good neighbour, a good father or child, a good master or servant; in short, he endeavours to have a "conscience void of offence towards God and towards men." I have made it the great object of my ministry among you to bring you to pay a proper regard to God, as he has revealed himself in the gospel of his Son; and for this purpose have inculcated the important doctrines of faith, repentance, love, and those other graces which are essential to every good man. But I must not forget another part of my office, which is, to teach you the second great command, or summary of the divine law, namely, "That you should love your neighbour as yourselves," and inculcate upon you those important duties which you owe to mankind; and it is very extravagant for persons to disgust these, through a pretended relish for the gospel and the doctrines of grace, since these are no inconsiderable parts of the gospel, and the lessons of morality run through the whole New Testa

ment.

When I would discourse upon the duties of social life, I cannot choose a text more pertinent or copious than that

I have read to you, which is a fundamental and most comprehensive rule of morality; "all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets."

In the illustration and improvement of this subject, I shall,

I. Offer a few things for the right understanding of this divine rule of social duty.

II. Consider the reason of it.

III. Open its excellency.

IV. Mention some important instances of particular cases to which it should be applied. And,

Lastly, show the necessity and advantage of observing it. I. I am to offer a few things for the right understanding of this divine rule.

It is proper, then, to observe, that as there is a great diversity in the stations and characters of men, there is a proportionable diversity in the duties which they owe one to another; and self-love may make a man very extravagant in his expectations and desires about the conduct of another towards him. On these accounts it is necessary that we should understand this precept with these two cautions or limitations.

1. That we should do that to others which we would expect and wish from them upon a change of condition, or if they were in our circumstances and we in theirs. Every man should be treated according to his character and station; and therefore that conduct which may be proper towards me in my station, may not be proper towards another in a different station: but let me suppose myself in his place and he in mine, and then that behaviour which I would expect from him, the same I should observe towards him. Thus, for example, a magistrate is bound to protect his subjects, and to behave towards

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