A Counsel for Personal and Family Godliness — Alleine, A Counsel for Personal and Family Godliness

A

COUNSEL

FOR

PERSONAL AND FAMILY GODLINESS.

BELOVED, I despair of ever bringing you to salvation, without sanctification; or possessing you of happiness, without persuading you to holiness. GOD knows I have not the least hope of ever seeing one of your faces in heaven, except you he converted, and sanctified, and exercise yourselves unto Godliness. I beseech you to study Personal Godliness, and Family Godliness.

I. Personal Godliness. Let it be your first care to set up CHRIST in your hearts: see that you make all your worldly interests to stoop to him, and that you be entirely and unreservedly devoted unto him. If you harbour any sin, you are undone. See that you unfeignedly take the law of CHRIST as the rule of your words, thoughts, and actions; and subject your whole man, members, and mind, faithfully unto him. If you have not a true respect to all GOD's commandments, you are unsound at heart. O study to get the image and impress of CHRIST upon you within. Begin with your hearts, else you build without foundation. Labor to get a saving change within, or all external performances will be to no purpose and then study to show forth the power of Godliness in your life. Let piety be your first and great business. It is the highest justice to give GOD his due. Beware that none of you be a prayerless person; for that is a most certain discovery of a CHRISTless and a graceless person. Suffer not your Bibles to gather dust: see that you converse daily with the word. That man can never lay claim to blessedness, whose delight is not in the law of the LORD. Let meditation and self-examination be your daily exercise.

But piety without charity is but half of Christianity, or rather impious hypocrisy. We may not divide the tables: see therefore that you do justly, and love mercy; and let equity and charity run like an even thread throughout all your dealings. Be you temperate in all things; and let chastity and sobriety be your undivided companions. Let truth and purity, seriousness and modesty, be the constant ornament of your speech. Let patience and humility, simplicity and sincerity, shine in all the parts of your conversation. See that you forgive wrongs, and requite them with kindness, as you would be found children of the Most High. Be merciful in your censures; and put the most favorable construction upon your brethren's carriage, which their actions will reasonably bear. Bc slow in promising, punctual in fulfilling. Let meekness, innocency, affability, yieldingness, and courtesy, commend your conversations to all men. Let none of your relations want that love and loyalty, that reverence and duty, that tenderness, care, and vigilancy, which their several places and capacities call for. I charge you, before the 1 iost High GOD, that none of you be found a swearer, or a liar, a lover of evil company, or a scoffer, or malicious, or covetous, or a drunkard, or a glutton, unrighteous in his dealing, unclean in his living, or a quarreller, or a thief, or a backbiter, or a railer: for I denounce unto you, from the living GOD, that destruction and damnation are the end of all such.

II. Family Godliness. He that has set un CHRIST in his heart, will be sure to set him up in his house. Let every family with you be a Christian church, every house a house of prayer. Let every householder say, with JOSHUA, " I and my house will serve the LORD;" and resolve, with DAVID, " I will walk within my house with perfect heart." Let me press upon you a few duties in general. First, Let religion be in your families, not as a matter by the bye, (to be minded at leisure, when the world will give you leave,) but the standing business of the house: let them have your prayers as daily as their meals. Is there any of your families but have time to take food Wretched man! Can you not find time to pray in

Secondly, Settle it upon your hearts, that your souls are bound up in the souls of your families. They are committed unto you, and if they be lost through your neglect, will be required at your hands. Sirs, if you do not, you shall know that the charge of souls, if neglected, exposes you to a heavy guilt. O man, have you a charge of souls to answer for, and dost you not yet bestir thyself for them, that their blood be not found in thy skirts Wilt you do no more for immortal souls than for thy beasts that perish What dost you for thy children and servants You providest meat and drink for them, and (lost you not the same for thy beasts You givest them medicines, and cherishest them, when they are sick; and dost you not as much for thy swine More particularly,

1. Let the solemn reading of the word, and singing of psalms, be your family exercises.

2. Let every person in your families he duly called to an account of their profiting by the word heard or read, as they are about doing your own business. This is a duty of consequence unspeakable, and would be a means of bringing those under your charge to remember and profit by what they receive.

3. Often take an account of the souls under your care, concerning their spiritual states. Make inquiry into their (ondi'ions; and insist much upon the sinfulness and misery of their natural state, and upon the necessity of conversion in order to their salvation. Admonish them gravely of their sins, and encourage their good beginnings. Follow them earnestly, and let them have no quiet from you, till you see in them a saving change. This is a duty of high consequence, but (I am afraid) fearfully neglected. Does not conscience say, "You art the man

4. Look to the strict sanctification of the Sabbath by all your household. Many poor families have little time else. O improve but your Sabbath-days as diligently in doing your Master's work, as you do the other days in doing your own work, and I doubt not but you may cone to some proficiency.

5. Let the morning and evening sacrifice of solemn prayer be daily offered up in all your families. O miser-able families, without GOD in the world, that are without family-prayer! What! have you so many family-sins, family-wants, family-mercies, and yet no family-prayers How do you pray with all prayer and supplication, if you do not use family-prayer Say not, "I have no time." What, have you not all thy time on purpose to serve GOD, and save thy soul And yet is this the business for which you can find no time Find but a heart, and [ will find time. Pinch out of your meals, and sleep, rather than want time for prayer. Say not, " My business will not give leave." This is the greatest business, to save thyself, and the souls committed to thee. In a word, the blessing of all is to be got by prayer. Helps are to be had, till you art better able: but if there be no other remedy, you must join with thy abler neighbor. GOD has special regard to joint prayer; and therefore you must improve family advantages for the performance of it.

6. Put every one in your families upon private prayer. Observe whether they perform it. Get them the help of a form, if they need it, till they are able to do without it. Direct them how to pray, by reminding them of their sins, wants, and mercies, the materials of prayer.

7. Set up Catechising in your families, at least once in every week. Have you no reverence for the Almighty's charge, that you should "teach these things diligently unto your children, and talk of them as you sit in your houses;" and " train them up in the way wherein they should go" has GOD so commended ABRAHAM, because he would " teach his children and household," and given such a promise to him thereupon; and will not you put in for a share, either in the praise or the promise has CHRIST honored Catechising with his presence, and will you not own it in your practice You will call them up, and force them to do your work; and should you not'be as zealous in putting them upon GOD'S work Say not, they are dull, and are not capable. If they be dull, GOD requires of you the more pains and patience. But dull as they are, you will make them learn how to work; and can they not learn as well how to live Are they capable of the mysteries of your trade, and are they not capable of the plain principles of religion

Would you answer the calls of Divine Providence Would you plant nurseries for the Church of GOD Would you that GOD should build your houses, and bless your substance Would you that your children should bless you O then set up piety in your families, as ever you would be blessed, or be made a blessing. Let your hearts and your houses be the temples of the living GOD, in which his worship may be constantly and reverently performed. O be wise in time, that you be not miserable to eternity!