VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
Joseph Sewall, "God's People Must Enquire of Him to Bestow the Blessings Promised in His Word," in Richard Owen Roberts, ed., Sanctify the Congregation: A Call to the Solemn Assembly and to Corporate Repentance, pp. 257-258:
IMPROVEMENT FOUR. Let heads of families be exhorted to encourage the work of God by their prayers, example, and authority in their houses. Surely you know that the God who sets the lonely in families and builds the house, has committed this important trust to you with a solemn charge to bring up your children and all under your care, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You must therefore take up Joshua's resolution, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15). When God promises to pour out the Spirit of grace and supplication upon the house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem, it is said that they should look to Him whom they had pierced and mourn; yea, that the land should mourn, every family apart (Zechariah 12:10-14). And then follows the more gracious promise of God's opening a fountain in the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem to wash away their sins (chapter 13).
Let heads of families, then, call upon the name of the Lord in their houses, that He may pour out His Spirit on them and so bless them in Christ Jesus, in whom all the families of the earth are blessed. Imitate King David, who after he had worshippped God with his people, returned to bless his household (2 Samuel 6:20). Let our family prayer in the morning be set before God as incense and the offering up of our hands as the evening sacrifice, lest that dreadful curse fall upon us and our houses, "Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen that know Thee not, and upon the families that call not on Thy name" (Jeremiah 10:25). Let us all walk before God in our houses with a perfect heart and in a perfect way, saying with the Psalmist, "Oh, when wilt Thou come unto me?" Then call upon all under your roofs to seek and serve the Lord. Travail in birth again with your children until they are born of the Spirit and so have Christ formed in them. Use your best endeavors that your servants may become the children of God and heirs according to the promise, by faith in Jesus Christ. Let your children and servants have leave to attend the means of grace as there may be opportunity and the business of your families will allow it. In a special manner remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy in all your dwellings, for the Lord has blessed this day and hallowed it to be a day of communicating spiritual blessings to His people.
Oh, wait upon God with your houses on the Lord's day, and labor for the meat which endures to everlasting life! On other days abide with God in a diligent attendance upon your particular calling. Do your own business, and let there be no just occasion for that complaint, "We hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy bodies" (2 Thessalonians 3:11). The great evil of neglecting our own affairs and meddling with those things which do not belong to us is both the parent and nurse of many shameful vices that have a tendency to dishonor God and grieve His Holy Spirit.
