not your conduct tend to a great apoftacy from God? To do the greatest injury not caly to yourselves and families, but to the churches of Chrift, and to the community at large. This addrefs has been written, as far as may be,by the bleffing of God, to prevent your continuing in thefe ways of mifery, danger and death, and your bringing upon yourselves and families the most aggravated guilt and condemnation; to pluck you as brands from the burning, and to bring you to a participation in the pleafures of religion, and the bleffings of eternal life. It has been written with many prayers, that it might be accompanied with thefe happy effects. It will doubtless come to you accompanied with the prayers of many good people, who will put it into your hands, in one place and another, with the most difinterested and benevolent defigns.. And will ye fruftrate all thefe labors of love, the defign of all these prayers, and disappoint every pleafing hope concerning you? Will ye continue in fin until ye fill up the measure of it, and bring wrath upon yourselves to the uttermoft? Be intreated by all the labors, concern and prayers of the minifters of Chrift, and of pious people for you, by the love of your own fouls, the mercies of God and all your hopes of heaven, not to act a part fo defperate.

By no means excufe yourselves from thefe duties. The commands of God admit of no excufe. They fuppofe all men every where to be capable of prayer, and of relig- . iously educating their children, and that there is nothing to prevent their doing them, but their own criminal backwardness and oppofition to duty. The divine threatnings denounced against all who neglect them imply that they are wholly inexcufeable..

Do not excuse yourselves from family prayer on this ground, that it is no where exprefsly commanded. This is by no means neceffary to bind us to duty. If the will of God be made known, by reason, by general commands, examples, or any other way, it binds us to do it, though it be not exprefsly commanded. There is no exprefscommand in the bible, that parents fhall learn their children to read, or that children shall learn to read the bible, that wives fhould love their husbands, or that women fhould commemorate their Savior's death, in the facra.

mental fupper, yet all agree that they are indifpenfably, bound to do thefe duties, no lefs than if they had been, ever fo exprefsly commanded. And an appeal is made to the reafon and confcience of every reader of this address, whether it hath not been clearly fhown from reafon, the general commands of God, the example of ancient faints, and of your bleffed Savior, that family prayer is an indifpenfable duty? Dare any man after reading this addrefs go to the tribunal of his Savior, and plead that he never knew that God required him to pray in his family? If you dare not make this plea before the judgment seat of Chrift, do not deceive and quiet yourselves with it now.

Plead not, that ye never have been accustomed to pray ;. that ye know not how; and that ye have no confidence to pray. This is to plead your pat neglect and fin, as a reafon why you should fill continue in fin. Can any thing be more unreafonable? Would you dare to lift up your faces and plead thefe before the judgment feat of Chrift? Certainly you would not. Therefore do not excufe yourselves on thefe accounts now. Has not God given his word to teach you to pray? Does it not acquaint you with the manner in which good men have prayed in all ages? May ye not obtain the most excellent books to inftruct you in the duty of prayer? Have ye notlearned many other things much more difficult, than to learn to pray had your mind been fo disposed? Cannot the hungry child afk for bread? Cannot the beggar, who feels his wants, plead with importunity for alms? And the criminal for his life? Only know your wants, and your dangers, and you will be able to pray and nothing will prevent it. Only realize the importance of the duty, and it will give you confidence to pray. Repent and turn to God, and he will pour out his fpirit unto you, enabling you to cry, Abba, Father. Young people, and even children, who have fought the Lord, have been enabled to pray remarkably. No longer therefore excufe yourselves on these grounds.

Neither plead that it will hinder and injure you, in-yourworldly interests. That in the morning your affairs are fo urgent, that ye cannot spend time to read and pray; and that in the evening ye are fo weary and drowfy that ye cannot pray. Be intreated thofe of you, who make, hefe excufes, feriously to confider whether ye are not full

6

of covetoufnefs and that love of the world, which God: hath exprefsly forbidden? It is his command, Labor not for the meat that perifbeth, but for the meat which endureth unto everlafting life. [John vi. 27.] Love not the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [1 John ii. 15.] He commands you, To feek firft the kingdom of God and his righteoufnefs. [Matth. vi. 31.] To ftrive to enter in at the ftraight gate, and to fubordinate all worldly interefts to the infinitely greater concerns of your fouls. Ought you not to confider how uncertain your opportunities are, and of what little fervice all your worldly pursuits and enjoyments will be to you? That this night your fouls may be required of you, and whofe all thofe things will then be, for which you have been fo anxiously and exceffively laboring? Can you be willing to go to judgment with your hearts full of the world, and of that covetousness which is idolatry? Before you have made fupplication to God for yourfelves and families? What shall it profit you if ye fhall gain the whole world and lofe your own fouls? Or what will ye give in exchange for your fouls? [Mark viii. 36, 37.] Should not confiderations like these filence all fuch excufes ? Besides, cannot God give you much more in health and fruitful feafons, in bleffings on your labors, fouls and bodies, than all you can gain by neglecting your duty? Are not blessings upon the head of the juft? [Prov. x. 6.] And shall not the tabernacle of the upright flourish? [Chap. xiv. 11.]

Further, do not plead that the prayers of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord, and that ye do not believe it to be the duty of unregenerate men to pray For this is only pleading fin for an excufe to continue in it. This is implicitly maintaining the abfurd doctrine, that an a unwillingness to do your duty discharges you from all obligation to do it. This principle would discharge finners at once from all obligation to duty. Upon this principle they ought not to plough, nor plant, nor pay an honeft debt for to do thefe in unregeneracy, without love to God or man is equally an abomination to the Lord. But fhall not men plough, nor plant, nor pay their juft dues, nor perform the external part of any commanded duty, because they will not do it in love and obedience to their

:

A a 2...

Creator? Would ye not have your neighbors pay your: your juft dues, nor vifit you in ficknefs and want, until they are difpofed to do it in love and obedience to God, and in evangelical good will to you? Does the abomination of the wicked in praying and ploughing confift in the external actions, or in doing these with an heart destitute of all love and obedience to God, or with an heart opposed to him? The latter is certainly the cafe. And fo long as they have fuch an heart, the abomination will remain whether they pray or not. Ought ye not therefore to be deeply impreffed with these thoughts, that if you really are in fuch a condition, that your prayers would be an abomination to the Lord, that all you have ever done fince ye were capable of moral action has been an abomination to him. Your thoughts, your words, and actions, from your youth, have been evil, only evil continually: that your obftinate neglect to repent and pray in fecret and in the family, are all abominations in the fight of the Lord; and that, while you continue in this state, will still all be abominable. That you may foon die; even while you are faying peace and fafety, fudden deftruction may come upon you, and you may be brought into judgment with all this countless number of abominations, this incalculable load of guilt, and pollution. And is it not high time to repent, and with the publican to fmite on your breaft, and cry, God be merciful unto us finners? Do not by any means deceive yourselves, with thefe or any other vain excufes. Confider how they will vanish, and appear lighter than vanity, before the tribunal of your eternal judge. Ye are by no means exhorted to fin, but immediately to put away your fins, and to arife and call upon the name of the Lord, that ye perish not.

This addrefs may find its way into the hands even of profeffors of religion, who have fworn allegiance to the king of Zion, and covenanted with him and their brethren, to walk in all his ftatutes and ordinances blameless, who, notwithstanding, are guilty of neglecting prayer and family religion. This is indeed a moft lamentable cafe, for men to profefs to know God, and yet in works to deny him. Ye ought moft ferioufly to confider, what a near refemblance ye bear to the hypocritic al Ifraelites, who,

flattered their Maker mith their mouth, and lied unto him with their tongues, and whofe heart was not right with him, neither were they ftedfaft in his covenant. [Pfal. lxxviii. 36.] Will ye not confider whether your spot can be the spot of God's children? Whether your mark is not that of the hypo crite, who will not delight himself in the Almighty, nor always call upon God? [Job xxvii. 10.] Can ye be of the feed of Jacob, while the fpirit of adoption is not fent forth into your hearts, crying Abba, Father? Have ye not great reafon to fear that ye will be found among the foolish virgins, who have no oil in their lamps? Unto whom your Lord fhall fay, verily I know you not. [Matth. xxv. 12.] Will ye violate your most folemn vows, betray and wound your Savior in the house of his friends? Will ye not confider, that it is better not to vow, than that ye fhould vow and not pay? Should it be poffible that ye are chriftians and have thus fallen? Will not God vifit your tranf greffion with the rod, and your iniquity with fripes? Is there not danger that he will foon fend his judgments upon you, and take you away from his altar? Is there not great reafon to fear, that, for your neglect to inftruct your children, which you have devoted to him, and for the impious examples you fet them, teaching them, by your daily conduct not to pray, he will take them from you, and cover them with duft and worms. Will ye not be afraid of his judgments in this world, and of his more intolerable vengeance in the world to come? Is it not a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God? Do ye conceive it to be a light thing to be cut afunder, and to have your portion affigned you with hypocrites? If it be not, awake, awake, O ye fleepers! Arise and trim your lamps, and call upon God, left fudden deftruction come : upon you.

Should this little tract fall into the hands of those who were onee seriously impreffed, and prayed in fecret and in their families; but have fince left thofe impreffions, and become prayerlefs, they are moft earnestly defired to reflect how they are grieving and quenching the fpirit:: That, no man having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God: [Luke ix. 62.] That he hath faid, If any man draw back my foul fhall have no pleasure in