A word to those heads of families who do have the worship of God in their houses 1/2

           Use Fourth.  To you that have set up this duty in your families, a few words of counsel for the more holy management thereof.

1. Think it not enoughto prove thee a saint that thou prayest in thy family; you may set up the wor­ship of God in your house and not enthrone God in your hearts.  God forbid that you should bless your­selves in this, and dub yourselves saints because of this.  Alas! you are not as yet got so far as some hypo­crites have gone.  The duty is good, but the outward performance of it doth not demonstrate any to be so. There are many turning to hell nearer heaven than this.  From the act therefore, look to the end thou proposest to thyself in it.  He is a foolish archer that shoots his arrow before he hath taken his aim aright. The question God asks is, ‘Dost thou at all pray to me, even to me?’  Thou mayest possibly affect others with thy praying, yea, be instrumental to break their hearts by thy confessions, and refresh their spirits by the sweet expressions that flow from thee, thyself playing the hypocrite all the while.  It behooves thee therefore to consider what is the weight and spring which sets this duty agoing in thy family.  Is it not to gain an opinion of being religious in others’ thoughts? If so, thou playest at small game.  Indeed, religion were a sorry thing if this were all to be got by it. When thou hast obtained this end it will not ease thee of one stitch of conscience, nor quench one spark of hell’s tormenting fire for thee.  But if this be it thou huntest after, it is a question whether thou believest there be such a place or no.  these few principles well girded by faith about the loins of thy mind—that there is a God, and he is a rewarder of those that dili­gently seek him; that heaven is prepared for the sin­cere, and hell gapes for the hypocrite—would be enough to set thy heart right in the duty.  Though the traveller minds not much his way where he appre­hends no danger, yet, when he comes to pass over a narrow bridge, where a wry step may hard his life by falling into a deep river that runs on each hand, he will surely watch his eye that is to guide his foot.  This is thy case.  Prayer is a solemn work as any thou canst go about in thy whole lifetime.  A by‑end in this may hazard thy soul as much as a wry look thy body in the other.  We need do no more to lose our souls than to seek ourselves.
2. Take heed thou blottest not thy holy duties with an unholy life.  If thou meanest to foul thy hands with sin’s black work in the day, why dost thou wash them in the morning with prayer?  It is to no purpose to begin with God and to keep the devil com­pany all the day after.  Religious orders in thy house and a disordered conversation ill agree.  O! do not render the worship of God base to the thoughts of thy servants and family.  Those that like the wine will yet nauseate it when brought in a cup that is nasty and unclean.  The duties of God’s worship command a reverence even from those that are carnal, but if per­formed by those that are loose and scandalous they grow fulsome.  Eli’s sons made the people loathe the Lord’s sacrifices.  By thy religious duties thou settest a fair copy.  O do not write it in sinking paper.  It is but a while thou art seen upon thy knees; and a little seeming zeal at thy devotion will not gild over a whole day's sinful miscarriage spent in passion, idleness, riot, or any other unholy course.  It is said Christ preached with power and ‘authority, not as the scribes,’ Matt. 7:29.  Not but that they had authority to preach, for they sat in Moses’ chair; but because they lost that reverence, by not walking suitably to their doctrine, which their place and work would have giv­en them in the consciences of their hearers.  ‘They said and did not,’ and thereby rendered their doctrine ineffectual.  If thou wouldst pray with authority and power, enforce thy duties with purity of life.
3. Preserve peace and unity in thy family.  A brawling family cannot be a praying family.  The apostle exhorteth husband and wife to love and unity, lest their prayers be ‘hindered,’ I Peter 3:7.  Conten­tions in a family, they both hinder the spirit of prayer, and also the answer to our prayers.

           (1.) They hinder the spirit of prayer.  The Spirit of God is a Spirit of peace and love, and therefore delights not to breathe in a troubled air.  The ready way to send him going is to brawl and chide.  ‘Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,’ saith the apostle, Eph. 4:30.  And that we may not, hear what is his counsel: ‘Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.’  When these are gone, then (and not before) look for his sweet company.  You may as well dwell comfortably together with your house on fire, as pray so together when you in the house are on fire.

           (2.) Contentions hinder the answer to our prayers.  If we pray in anger, God cannot be pleased. ‘The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.’  A loud wind beats down the smoke.  Our prayers are compared to incense, but they will never ascend to heaven till this storm be laid.  Go to pray in this plight, and God will bid you come when you are better agreed.  The Spirit will not help in such prayers; and if the Spirit hath no hand in the inditing, Christ will have no hand in presenting the prayer.  And if Christ present it not, to be sure the Father will not receive it, for ‘through him we have an access by one Spirit unto the Father,’ Eph. 2:18.