Small offers towards the service of the tabernacle in the wilderness. Four discourses, accommodated…

III. To propound some Incentives unto family Prayer.

And there are chiefly Two Considerations which I have to set before you.

And there are cheefly Two Considerations which I have to set before you.

Consider, first, the Direful & grievous Curses which prayerless Families are exposed unto. Such Families, they are the very Suburbs of He it self. A Prison. A Dungeon, is to be chosen before a Living in them. There is a Word, an awful Word, which a Prophet of God has written in a certain place; Methinks, that Word falls like a Thunderbolt of Death upon the Families, in which God is not prayed unto: tis Written in Jer. 10. 25. O Lord,—pour our thy fury on the beathen, which know thee not; on the Families which call not on thy name. Strikes it not cold unto the heart of the Reader? Man, These are the Ireful and the direful words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself: He counts thy Prayerless Family no better than a Pagan Family. And now, he speaks not as an Advocate for thy poor Family; He says not, Lord, vouchsafe thy Pity, and thy pardon to that Family; But He says, Lord, Pour out thy fury upon that family, because it calls not on thy Name. Alas, have you no more Kindness for your Families, than to lay them open to the Fury of a great and a terrible GOD? cruel people, that you are. We ⟨p. 41⟩read in Zech. 5. begin about a Flying Roll Twenty Cubits long, Ten Cubits broad, entering into these and those Houses, to consume them. I am to tell you. That Prayerless Houses are to feel the force of this Flying Roll. An huge Roll of Curses belongs to that House in which Prayer is not upheld. The Curse of God is the Sauce in every Dish, the Curse of God is the Cover to every Bed, in that lamentable Family. Houses molested with Devils, are not more miserable that Houses destitute of Prayers. I have seen it in an house, where the Devils have had Possession of a Child, that when Family-Prayer began, the Devils would make hideous Roarings and Noises in the Room, as being under a Vexation thereat, which was intolerable to them. Truly The Devils have no Disturbance in Houses where Family-prayer is not maintained; prayerless houses are haunted houses, and the Fiends of Darkness feign, and ramp, there without Control. Indeed, Prayerless Families, are not only the Cages, but also the Causes of all Impiety. They bring an Irresistible Deluge of Disorder upon all the Town and Land; and cause all the Country to swarm with the workers of iniquity who call not upon the Lord. And as the Prayerless Householder is now cursed by God, so he will one day be cursed by all his House;