1. It condemns those that live in the total neglect of this duty of Family Prayer. And what is like to come on prayerless Families at last? Let prayerless Fathers, and prayerless Masters hear the Word of the Lord, and tremble at it. O that you would consider, how you expose ⟨p. 116⟩not only your selves but Families, to the vengeance of Heaven. How often have you been put in mind of that awful Scripture, Jer. 10. 25. Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen that know thee not. What's that to us? some one will be ready to say; we are no Heathen, we are all Christians: but mark what follows, and upon the Families that call not upon thy Name. Not only professed Heathen, but Families that live like Heathen without any prayer, the fury of the Almighty will come pouring down from Heaven upon them: Hence are temporal judgements upon Families many times. The Lord kills Children with death, because Parents do not show them an example of Religion to pray with them in the Family as well as for them in secret. Yea, the Souls of your poor Children are ruined by this sin of yours. And O how sad will it be, when God shall require the blood of the Souls of Children, at the hands of their prayerless Fathers; and the blood of the Souls of Servants at the hands of their prayerless Masters. Think with your selves what answer you will make before Jesus ⟨p. 117⟩Christ the Son of God at the last and great day. If thy Children shall be thine accusers before the Lord then; if any of them shall stand before the Lord Jesus in the day when he shall judge the World, and say, Lord, there is the man that was my Father, I never heard him pray in all my life, and that made me live in the neglect of God also; or if thy servants shall any of them say, Lord, there is the man that was my Master, I lived in his house so many months, but I never heard him praying unto God all that time, what answer wilt thou then make for thy self? you shall not be able to plead ignorance. For I will then call Heaven and Earth to record against you, that you were often told of your duty in this particular. And yet I hear some say, that there are many prayerless families in this great Town. The thing is lamentable, if it be so. What, for men that call themselves Christians, to have no prayer in their families? for men that live under the light of the Gospel, to live without Prayer in their families!
1. It condemns those that live in the total neglect of this duty of Family Prayer. And what is like to come on prayerless Families at last? Let prayerless Fathers, and prayerless Masters hear the Word of the Lord, and tremble at it. O that you would consider, how you expose ⟨p. 116⟩not only your selves but Families, to the vengeance of Heaven. How often have you been put in mind of that awful Scripture, Jer. 10. 25. Pour out thy fury upon the Heathen that know thee not. What's that to us? some one will be ready to say; we are no Heathen, we are all Christians: but mark what follows, and upon the Families that call not upon thy Name. Not only professed Heathen, but Families that live like Heathen without any prayer, the fury of the Almighty will come pouring down from Heaven upon them: Hence are temporal judgements upon Families many times. The Lord kills Children with death, because Parents do not shew them an example of Religion to pray with them in the Family as well as for them in secret. Yea, the Souls of your poor Children are ruined by this sin of yours. And O how sad will it be, when God shall require the blood of the Souls of Children, at the hands of their prayerless Fathers; and the blood of the Souls of Servants at the hands of their prayerless Masters. Think with your selves what answer you will make before Jesus ⟨p. 117⟩Christ the Son of God at the last and great day. If thy Children shall be thine accusers before the Lord then; if any of them shall stand before the Lord Jesus in the day when he shall judge the World, and say, Lord, there is the man that was my Father, I never heard him pray in all my life, and that made me live in the neglect of God also; or if thy servants shal any of them say, Lord, there is the man that was my Master, I lived in his house so many moneths, but I never heard him praying unto God all that time, what answer wilt thou then make for thy self? you shal not be able to plead ignorance. For I will then call Heaven and Earth to record against you, that you were often told of your duty in this particular. And yet I hear some say, that there are many prayerless families in this great Town. The thing is lamentable, if it be so. What, for men that call themselves Christians, to have no prayer in their families? for men that live under the light of the Gospel, to live without Prayer in their families!
