will permit, and improve it into good conference, if you are in company. Not, however, so to talk of nothing else, as to turn all into weariness, or affected formality; but at seasonable times, and in a serious manner. Crave God's blessing on your food; and return him thanks for it. Receive it, not chiefly to please your appetite, but to strengthen you for your duty and the service of God. And make your health and reason, and not your appetite, the me sure both of eating and drinking. Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts or desires thereof. At evening return to your food, and to God's worship in your family. And at night, before your private devotion, reflect how you have spent your day; and cherish in your heart a special thankfulness for special mercies; and a special repentance for any great or aggravated sins that you may have committed; that, by a free confession, repentance, and faith, you may rise where you have fallen. And betake yourself to rest, with a holy confidence in God's protection, and delightful meditation of him. Directions for Family Worship. P. You tell me of family-worship twice a day; I pray you tell me how I must perform it. M. Having all your family together that can come, read a portion of the holy Scripture, and particularly some psalm of praise; then in some well devised form of prayer call on God through Jesus Christ, and do the same at evening. Read the Scriptures with a believing, reve rential, and spiritual mind, as the word of the living God, by which you must be ruled now, and judged hereafter, and which you must fully resolve to obey; as an humble learner of heavenly mysteries from the holy Spirit of God, and not as a proud and arrogant caviller or judge ; nor as expecting philosophy or curious words, instead of the laws of God for our salvation. Read particularly the New Testament, and the most easy and practical parts of Scripture. Expound the darker passages by the plain and obvious ones. Read some commentary or annotations as you go, if you can, and consult your pastor on that which will be of the greatest use to you. P. Have you, Sir, any more counsel for me, for the good order of my family? M. At this time I will add no more but these: Watch against your worldly business, that it destroy not the life and seriousness of holy duties. Alas! in most families this world is all that they have any sense of; not but that your calling must be diligently followed, but in a due subordination to your spiritual and heavenly concerns. If you have better comfort than you have here, and this world useth you hardly, the more careful should you be to make sure of a better world. Poor men as well as the rich, have souls to save, and a heaven to win, and a hell to escape, and Christ to believe in, and God to love and serve. Do all that you can to keep up in yourself and family the joy of believing, and a delight in God and his service. And, therefore, let your daily duty have much in it of thanksgiving and praise. You that are a farmer, and sit by your servants in the long winter nights, get a good book, and read to them while they are with you. Few husbandmen can listen so profitably and so closely as to instructions extracted out of a good book; but herein you must be careful to make a prudent choice, and consult those who are able and willing to direct your judgment. DAILY PRAYERS FOR FAMILIES.* (From the Liturgy of the Church.) These prayers, and all the other prayers of the Liturgy, may be fitted to the use of particular persons, by merely changing the plural into the singular number. Morning Prayer for a Family. Read a chapter, or a portion of a chapter, from the Old or New Testament. O Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God; have mercy upon us, miserable sinners. Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take thou vengeance of our sins; Spare us, good Lord; spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for ever. We sinners do beseech thee, O Lord God, to give us true repentance, to forgive us all our sins, negligencies and ignorances, and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to thy holy Word. Son of God, we beseech thee to hear us. These prayers are set forth in nearly the same order in Harrison's Scriptural Exposition of the Church Catechism. Lord, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us. O Lord, we beseech thee, mercifully hear our prayers, and spare all those who confess their sins unto thee, that they whose consciences by sin are accused, by thy merciful pardon may be absolved, through Christ our Lord. Amen. O Almighty Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, and sanctify, and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments, that through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. O God, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee; mercifully accept our prayers: and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping thy commandments, we may please thee, both in will and deed, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. O God, the Protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; increase and multiply upon us, thy mercy, that thou being our Ruler and Guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen |