a season of familiar visits, wherein they wore away another hour or two in discourse of secular affairs, in trifling subjects, as now-a-days over a tea-table, or in the more gustful and modish language of scandal and defamation; if they made no account of any other part of the day besides that which was actually spent in public devotion, but turned it into hours of diversion and entertainment, we have been wont generally to conclude, and with good reason too, surely these persons can never be nonconformists, for their education never would have permitted them to pay so slight a regard to the Lord's-day. Well, my friends, how stands the case now amongst you? What do you more than others? Does the same distinction still remain between you and your neighbours? Or is it lost and vanished away? I am well assured there are some members of the national church, that pay a most religious regard to the day of Christ and his resurrection; but there are multitudes that make but little account of it, especially when divine service is ended. Are you careful, my friends, to distinguish yourselves from these your looser neighbours in this matter? Or do you give yourselves up to vain amusements and impertinences on the Lord's-day, or to trifling and formal visits; and thus deprive two families at once of the serious improvement of what you and they have heard in public worship? Are you careful to spend as much time as you can in the worship of God through Jesus Christ, and in the concerns of your eternal welfare, either in the closet and retirement, or with some pious companions? Or do you lavish away the evening in familiar forms of complaisance and ceremony, entertainment and diversion, without a word of God and religion, or recollecting the sermons of the day for your mutual increase of knowledge and grace?

I shall not detain you here to enter into a debate about the morality of the sabbath, or the abolition of it among other jewish ceremonies, or the changes of it from the seventh to the first day of the week: I shall not stay to enquire what degree of holiness belongs to each part of that day, or to the seventh part of time; but these three things, I think, I may lay down for certain truths:

1. If there had not been sufficient commission given by the authority of Christ for appointing the first day of the week, which was the day of his resurrection, to be the constant season of solemn assemblies for christian worship, I am persuaded the apostles would not so frequently have chosen out and fixed that day for the public ordinances of preaching, and praying, and breaking of bread? Now it is evident from the New Testament they practised this, and appointed it in the churches which were converted to the christian faith: I add further, nor would it have been so universal and distinguishing a mark of a christian in those primitive times to be an observer of the Lord's-day; nor would it have been so early and so universally practised by all the christian world after the example of the apostles, which is sufficiently manifest in the ancient histories of the church: It is certain therefore that this was the day appointed to the primitive church for their religious assemblies by apostolic practice and direction, and it is most reasonably inferred they had the authority of Christ for it.

2. If there had not been such a season as one day in seven maintained and continued for a day of public devotion through the christian nations, considering the opposition of rulers, the vicious course of the world, and the negligence of christians, it is pretty certain that the cares and labours or pleasures of life, that secular businesses or idle amusements would have long ago thrust christianity almost out of the world, and have

gone near to banish true religion and godliness from the face of the earth: and where the Lord's-day is most neglected, serious religion is almost lost and gone.

3. If after we have heard sermons on the Lord's-day, and waited on God in public prayers and praises, we should make a custom of devoting all the rest of the day to our own purposes in the labours or diversions of life, it would be a most effectual way to lose and abolish all the pious thoughts and the devout affections which might be raised in the heart by any part of the public worship in which we have been engaged: Thus the very design of the seasons of worship would be lost, and all the pious sentiments and dispositions drowned and buried in business or pleasure. It is the reviewing of the truths and duties which we have heard in the ministry of the gospel, it is the meditation of them in our retirements, the conference upon them in our families or in friendly discourse, the turning them into matter of secret or family prayer, in confession, petition or praise, and converse about them between God and our own souls, and the carrying on of the same spiritual designs by reading books of piety and holy conversation, that is the only sure way to render public worship effectual to fit us for heaven, and to answer the religious purposes of the Lord's-day. If therefore any persons in this nation resolve to give themselves a loose in this point, and take no care to improve the hours of this day to the grand designs of religion and salvation; if they will waste them away in trifles, in useless visits or amusements, let it never be said that a protestant dissenter is amongst them, or gives any encouragement or countenance to such a practise.

III. I am naturally led, in the next place, to mention religious discourse and conference upon themes of virtue and practical godliness, as another thing whereby dissenters heretofore where used to distinguish themselves: They exhorted and comforted one another under their sorrows by holy conversation. If a person with never so much prudence and seriousness should introduce a discourse of holy things into a friendly or familiar visit, and especially if he should give a rebuke to any profane speeches, some of the company would have been ready to say, surely this man was some dissenter, some precise puritian: and this honour was done us by those who designed contempt and reproach.

Well, how stands the case now? Are not the dissenters as backward as others to begin religious discourse, to put in a word for God or virtue, or to introduce any thing of heaven into their conversation? Are we not as shy, and as much ashamed as our neighbours of bearing the face of religion in the world?. Do we keep upon our tongues the language of piety, and attribute the prosperous or afflicting changes of life to God and providence, or only to good luck and misfortune? Is our communication such as may administer grace to the hearers, and maintain a savour of godliness upon all proper occasions? Do we banish entirely from our visits all loose and profane discourse, and the more notorious crime of scandal, and introduce in the room of it the language of the children of God? They that feared the Lord, in the days of Malachi the prophet, spake often one to another, for their mutual support and assistance in the things of religion; and they shall be mine saith the Lord, when I make up my jewels. The apostle Paul bids the Thessalonians converse freely with each other upon the future happiness of saints, the appearance of Christ in his glory, his descending to raise the dead, to judge the world, and to carry up his friends to everlasting joy; 1 Thess. iv. 18. and v. 11. This practice would the apostle fain introduce as a custom or fashion among his converts to christianity, who should distinguish themselves from the world. Let us enquire what is our custom

in this case, and what do we more than others? Or have we duly maintained the pious custom, the practice and honour of our ancestors?

IV. Another thing wherein our ancestors distinguished themselves, from many of their neighbours in the towns and villages where they lived, was in keeping more regular hours for the various duties to God and man, in abstaining from vain company and much wine, in preserving better order in families, and in a more religious concern in governing their households, in maintaining the daily worship of God there, by reading the word and prayer with an uninterrupted constancy, and in training up their children and their servants to the knowledge and fear of God, and in the faith of Jesus Christ, with utmost solicitude and holy watchfulness. It is true these pious practices were more common in the whole nation three or fourscore years ago than they are now: But if there be any degeneracy in that respect among our neighbours, is there not as great or greater degeneracy in proportion reigning and visible amongst us?

Shall I address myself with freedom to the parents and governors of families? Are you as solicitous to keep up the seasons of worship in your households as your fathers were? Do you not suffer every little pretence now-a-days to break in upon the appointed times of family religion, and oftentimes to prevent it entirely? Nay, are there not too many among you who scarce ever call upon God in their families at all, unless it be perhaps on a Lord's-day evening? Are you so careful to keep regular hours for the various parts of the business of the day, or have you learned to change the course of nature, to turn night into day, and day into night, and to confound the order of things? Can the seasons of family worship be well maintained, or can the master perform it with a clear head and a pious heart in the evening, if he indulges his amusements in public drinking houses till near eleven o'clock at night, or till the hour of midnight approaches? Is not evening worship very often utterly neglected by this means? Is there any such thing as devotion paid to God in the morning, even in those families whose affairs and circumstances would admit of it, if there were a sincere desire in the masters to maintain it?

I grant there are some employments, conditions, and cases of life, where it is hardly possible for the household to meet together in the morning; but I am well assured, there are many families wherein this piece of religion is neglected, who can make no sufficient apology or just excuse for it. It is with pleasure that I remember that elegant reproof given to a degenerate age, in a sermon preached, but I think never published, by the late Bishop Burnet. In the days of our fathers, said he, when a person came early to the door of his neighbour, and desired to speak with the master of the house, it was as common a thing for the servant to tell him with freedom, my master is at prayers, as to answer now, that he is not stirring. This eminently refers to the days of the puritans, or the time before the restoration. In which words there was a short, a gentle, and a comprehensive rebuke given to three or four vices at once, viz. to the waste of daylight in sleep, to disorderly hours, to the neglect of family devotion, and to the being ashamed even of the domestic forms of religion and godliness; all which now prevail so much amongst us. But if this neglect has so much overspread the families of the established church, have not the dissenters lost their religion also in a sad proportion? ou

Will you complain that our fathers did not always maintain the decency in their expressions in family worship, which becomes persons addressing the great God, and that you are not capable of expressing yourselves with a due degree of propriety and

decency in addressing God while others are present, and therefore you entirely omit the duty: But give me leave to ask, Is it not better to honour God in your household, by daily acknowledgment of his mercies, and committing yourselves daily to his care and blessing, though you cannot do it with such accuracy as you desire, than to forget God entirely, and never acknowledge him at all? Besides, as you have often heard from me, and I repeat it again, the worship of God in various forms of prayer, precomposed and fitted to the common circumstances of morning and evening, is infinitely preferable to the neglect of family religion, and the taking no notice of God in your house. Now there are many such books for daily devotion written by some of the divines of the established church, where the sense and expressions are proper and pious: I wish some of our brethren among the dissenters would not only encourage, but assist their flocks to offer up such morning and evening sacrifices in those families where now there is no prayer. Those who find not in themselves sufficient courage or ability to pray without these helps, may obtain excellent assistance by the prudent use of them. Where any peculiar circumstances occur in families, which may occasion the omission or change of a few words or sentences, or the inserting some new petitions, it will be found no difficult matter to those to practise this with decency and honour, who set about the work in good earnest, and seek for the assistance of the Spirit of God, who is called a Spirit of Supplication.

I might enquire further under this head, Are you so diligent and solicitous that your children and servants should know and love God, as your ancestors have been? Does it appear in their improvement in the knowledge and practice of christianity above their neighbours, that they belong to the family of a protestant dissenter, whose character in a former age was famous for education in all the strictest courses of piety and virtue? Or are your households as ill-instructed and as ignorant as any of your neighbours round about you? What have you done in this matter more than others?

But masters of families are not the only persons that fall under this head of admonition: I fear there are others in our age who continue from their early education to worship in general amongst protestant dissenters, and yet neglect the good customs of their ancestors: Who spend too many hours of life in public houses, who sometimes raising their spirits a degree above cheerfulness, protract their mirth beyond the midnight hour, and pacify their consciences with this pretence, that they have no family which wants or requires their presence at home? But do not their closets miss them? Do not their Bibles want their perusal? Doth not Solomon wait for them with a word of reproof to those who tarry long at the wine? Prov. xxii. 29, 30. Do not the families where they dwell feel the inconveniences of such late watches? Will not their own health of soul and body find the mischievous effects of it? Will not their character suffer as the offspring of protestant dissenters, and the profession which they still make of nonconformity? Will they continue nonconformists to the church, and be so very conformable to the sinful world? Is this to abstain from all appearance of evil? You will find many more pertinent enquiries on this subject in a "Serious Address to those who unnecessarily frequent the Tavern," printed lately in New England.

In the fifth place, may I mention frugality in expences and industry in their particular callings, as a remarkable pair of virtues among our predecessors, the puritans and the protestant dissenters, our fathers? I mean particularly in this respect, that the want of those virtues scarce ever appeared in the ruin of families, and a bankrupt was almost an unknown name amongst them: Such a man would have borne a long and heavy load of

infamy, and have been excommunicated at once, and cast out of the church with abhorrence, in our fathers days, unless he could with the greatest evidence have made it appear, that some sudden overwhelming distress, some ruinous providence, or some surprising loss, had been the occasion of it.

But how stands the case now? Is not bankruptcy reckoned too small a crime amongst the dissenters, as well as amongst their neighbours? And that where there can be found no other reason for it but that they have lived too fast, they have affected the luxuries of life in their dress and furniture, food, equipage and attendance, and would vie with their neighbours in splendour, grandeur, and expence, where the circumstances of their estate or trade have not been able to afford it? Or perhaps they have frequented taverns early and late, they have habituated themselves to a morning whet, to prepare for some luxurious dish at noon; they have indulged their pleasures, and neglected their shop; they have trifled away their time in idle company, and left the business of the proper hour undone; or it may be they have sought to grow rich at once by plunging themselves into trade and debt beyond all proportion of their own estate, or possibility of payment, if they should meet with any disappointing accident; and they have too often assumed the character of the wicked, who borrows when he knows not how to pay again, and run on borrowing without end and without measure, so long as they could find any artifice to support credit; they have supplied their shops with goods, their table with costly provisions, their houses with rich furniture, and their family with shining apparel, out of the purse of their credulous neighbour, and perhaps made him pay their heavy scores in the tavern also. A man who should have been found in the practice of half these vices, would never have been called a dissenter in the days of our fathers; and it is a heavy shame, and an insupportable disgrace, that there should be any such characters in our day that should wear the name of a nonconformist: But it is well there is purity of discipline enough in our churches to refuse them at the table of the Lord.

I proceed now to the sixth and last thing wherein the protestant dissenters were wont eminently to distinguish themselves, and that is in their abstaining from those gayer vanities and dangerous diversions of their age, which border so near upon vice and irreligion, that sometimes it is pretty hard to separate them; such are many of our midnight assemblies, midnight balls, lewd and profane comedies, masquerades, public gaming tables, and deep play, and such like places and methods of modern diversion, where temptations abound and surprise the unwary, where virtue and religion are in extremest hazard, and sometimes receive a sore and lasting wound. In this respect shall I put the question, what do you more than others? It is granted, there are some persons of the established church that have avoided these things as well as our fathers, the puritans, and in some few families, even of figure and condition, these perilous amusements may be disallowed, or seldom frequented: But it was a constant and known mark of a protestant dissenter in former days, to refuse attendance upon any of these kind of diversions, and boldly to deny his company when he was never so much importuned. I hope we have not utterly lost those pieces of puritanism amongst us.

I grant that our present age having run so much greater lengths in liberty than the age of our ancestors, there may be some degrees of allowance, or at least some excuses drawn from the too general custom of others in those things which cannot be certainly proved to be sinful, though they may possibly have a dangerous appearance and ten