dead letter, and mockery of the living reality. Now, as we partake the common lot of a fallen humanity, so we are not exempted from the common delusion. Its very extent and peril, are however reasons, why the spiritual watchmen of our Zion, as they take their rounds over her battlements, and ascend their towers of affectionately jealous observation, to examine where the enemy of the city of God makes his most fierce or most subtle onsets, should put the inhabitants upon their guard, awaken the slumberers to watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation; and bid those who have a name to live, while they are dead, arise and call their God for mercy. upon It must not therefore suffice, to have shewn something generally of the momentous character of that awfully neglected duty of family worship; and there to break off, as though the bare mention of it were enough. Some persons may admit the truth of the preceding remarks. There may be a voice awakened within some heart to say concerning what has been already stated, “ The word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." And yet such an individual may be turning round

1 1 Kings xvii. 24.

upon that secret pleader, and adding, as some fancied hindrance presents itself to his mind, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." I proceed then to notice,

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF A FAMILY ALTAR TO THOSE WITHIN THE TENT.

Amidst the many considerations that press upon the mind, as soon as the all-important subject is brought before it, our difficulty must be, not to embrace the overpowering whole; but to select a very few of the most simple and obvious, lay them before you, and pray that God's Almighty Spirit may write them in power upon your hearts. It may therefore be observed,

(1.) That the duty of family worship is a necessary deduction from the very first obligations of personal religion. So long as a man is contented to live, as though there were no reward for the righteous, no God that judgeth in the earth; so long as he loves darkness rather than light, unbelief than the faith that brings salvation, with its glorious author to the heart: so long as a man is both supplicant and idol,

1 Acts xxiv. 25.

worshipper and deity to himself, it would be a mere and absolute contradiction to expect, that his mind should open to the claims of family religion. Such an interest would involve as great a moral contradiction, as it would be a contradiction of natural laws, that a stone thrown into the water, should make the remote circles strong and well-defined, while there was no vibration of the surface in immediate contact with itself. But when the Holy Ghost hath touched the man,-when he has learned the misery of sin, and the preciousness of a Saviour, when salvation in Christ hath been revealed to him, and he knows that he is not his own, but bought with a price, and must therefore glorify God in his body, and in his spirit which are God's, the obligations of relative as well as personal religion must be bound strongly and abidingly around his heart. Then he can hardly remain ignorant that he is concerned with God, concerned with his Redeemer, concerned with the Holy Ghost, in every circumstance and duty of life, social as well as personal: and that the word of God, which he has taken for the lamp to his feet, and the lantern to his paths, instead of the miserable and conventional code of the world's

morality, has rules for every relation, and connects him, with all his family associations, to the awful responsibilities of eternal judgment, on their behalf, as well as on his own.

If indeed it were possible that men should live in a state of the most absolute independence, one of another, like the beasts of the field and forest, then each individual, having no sympathies with those around him, would owe them no observance of duty and love. But as the God of providence hath united his creatures together in families, every member of a household is the link, as it were, of an electric chain and the subtle current of godliness or ungodliness that flows along it, must have an influence upon all. "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." How then is it possible, that when the Most High is revealed within the heart, as a God of grace, speaking peace to it by the blood of Christ, and shewing, by the Spirit's operation, the necessity of each individual working out his salvation with fear and trembling, it should not be considered a sacred duty, to teach the same gracious necessity to others, bound to that

converted soul, by the dearest and strongest of all human obligations and sympathies? When Moses had steadfastly set his face towards Canaan, he said to his father in law Hobab, "We are journeying towards the place, of which the Lord hath said, I will give it you; Come thou with us, and we will do thee good." When Jacob was commanded to go unto Bethel, and build there an altar unto God, who had appeared unto him, he said unto his household, and to all that were with him, "Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments; and let us arise and go to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress; and was with me in the way which I went." When the Holy Ghost overruled the heart of Andrew to follow his Lord, as a true disciple, he first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, "We have found the Christ." This also did Philip, when he had been called of Jesus, act towards Nathanael. A personal reception of the truth of God unto salvation, and a heart so insensible to the claims of family obligation, as to neglect

1 Numb. x. 29.

2 Gen. xxxv. 2, 3.

3 John i. 41.