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

6. You should pray in your Families daily, ^(6.)because all in your Families are liable to daily hazards, casualties and afflictions; and prayer might prevent them, or obtain strength to bear them, and prepare you for ⟨p. 330⟩them. Do you know what affliction might befall your Family in a days time, or in a nights time? either in regard of sickness, death, or outward losses in your estate? Might not you hear of one man's breaking in your debt, and gone away with so much, and another gone away with so much: and are you indeed so weaned from the World, that this shall not put you into a passion, and cause you to sin against God, or that you can bear it without murmuring and discontent, that you need not pray for a composed frame of heart, if such things befall you? Do you know if you go abroad your self, or send a Son or Servant, that you or they may return alive again? though you go out alive, you may be brought back again dead: had you not then need to pray to God in the morning that he would keep you in your goings forth and comings in? and bless him together in the evening, if he do? How many evils is man exposed to, whether he be at home or abroad? Anacreon lost his life by the kernel of a Raisin going wrong down his throat. ²Fabius a Senator of Rome, in a draught of Milk swallowing a small hair, was strangled. Plin. not. hist. Do not your daily sins cry aloud for daily punishments, and should you not in daily Prayer cry as loud that God in mercy would prevent them, or if they come upon you to sanctify them for your good, or remove them, or if they remain, to support you under them? Know indeed that you are no where safe without God's protection, night or day; If your houses were built upon foundations of stone, and the Walls were made of brass or adamant, and the doors of Iron, yet you would be no longer safe than God protects you from all dangers: Pray then.