A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

Reason 4.

4. You should pray in your Families DAILY, because of your Families daily employments and labours. ⁽⁴⁾Every one that puts his hand to work, his head to contrive, should set his heart to pray: for will not your trading be in vain, and your labouring and working, your carking and projecting for the world, be to no purpose without the blessing of God? Will you be convinced if God himself doth tell you? Then read Psal. 127.1. Except the Lord build the house, ²they labour in vain that build it —v. 2. It is in vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows — Bread of sorrows! What bread is that? Bread gotten with much care and labour and toil, is bread of sorrows. Without God you labour to get bread for your selves and Families in vain; you might miss of it after all your labours: and without God's blessing, if you eat it when you have got it with much toil and care, you eat it in vain; for without him it cannot nourish your Bodies: And yet is it not necessary to pray to God to prosper and succeed you in your Callings? Prayer and labour should both promote what you aim at: To pray and not to do the works of your Callings would be to expect supplies wh le you are negligent; to labour and trade and not to pray, would be to hope for increase and provision without God. Religion, that puts you upon holy duties, doth not teach you to neglect your Callings, nor yet to trust to your own endeavours without praying unto God; but both are to keep their place and have a share of your time. Prayer is a middle thing betwixt God's giving and our getting. How can you receive if God do not give? And why do you expect that God will give, if you do not ask? Jam. 4. Ye have not because ye ask not. What ye work for, pray f•r, and what ye pray for, work and labour for; and this is the true conjunction of labour and prayer. Or will you be like to them the Apostle speaks to,