to the house of public solemnities bearing the impress of communion with heaven; as the face of Moses shone with light, when he came down from conversing with God in the mount. They would carry the love of the Saviour with them into church; and hearts much enlarged by the spirit of grace and supplication, to seek and obtain all the blessings which He waits in the sanctuary to bestow. Then would the places of our solemn assemblies be indeed houses of prayer; and God, even our own God would bless us. As the case now stands, we come into the sanctuary with little feeling that God is there: because if we have sought Him at all in the closet, we have not in very many instances, it is to be feared, sought Him in our families, nor prayed there, that the Holy Ghost would attend us to church; and that God would satisfy us with the goodness of his house, even of his holy temple. Let me beseech you therefore, in the name of our families, in the name of our common Lord, in the name of his house, (which, were we praying families would be a house of supplication, and therefore a house of praise for heard and answered prayer) to consider what I say; and may God the Holy Ghost, give you a right judgment to act accordingly!

(3) I can now only glance very slightly, at The Importance of Abram's family Altar, with reference to the blessing of God, upon himself and his household, as a community of believers. His wife was a distinguished partaker of his faith in the Son of God; so were Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; and the Church of the Redeemed was embraced within the circle of his descendants for nineteen hundred years. When Sodom and Gomorrah were to be destroyed, the Lord opened his purpose to the father of the faithful; thus giving him an opportunity of pleading for those guilty cities. And why? "I know him," said Jehovah, "that he will command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him." It is well pleasing in the sight of God that masters and parents should walk in the steps of Abram ; and He delights to pour blessings upon them in rich effusion, when they thus imitate the father of the faithful. The holy education of your families will be a fitting discovery of your love

1 Gen. xviii. 19.

1

to God; and He will joy and rest in the acts of his love to you. If ye will seek the spiritual good of your households, and the glory of the God of their salvation, in bringing them instrumentally to the experience of his saving love, you and yours shall feel the emphasis of that gracious promise-" They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them." I do not mean to affirm that God doth in all instances make the dew of that Spirit to rest upon every individual within the tent where a family altar is erected. This would suppose Him tied and bound to houses, as heathens chained their idols; or as Eli's sons dared to imagine, that the God of the ark necessarily attended the ark of God. But such is the usual process of his love; and such the delightful encouragement of his promise. "The Lord will bless the house of Israel, he will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great." And surely they look abroad with little attention, who fail to see, that He does really diffuse the riches of his love, where an altar is raised to his honour:

1 Isaiah Lxv. 23.

2

Psalm cxv. 12, 13.

just as, while the ark abode in the house of Obed-edom, "the Lord blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that he had." 1

66

Every creature is good, if it be sanctified by the word of God and prayer:" and this mark put upon all our domestic plans and procedures is the mark of God, which He will never fail to acknowledge. While the Jews failed to own Him, and pay their vowed and bounden duty in the temple, all their wealth was put into a bag with holes. They went to the corn floor for twenty measures, but there came forth only ten; and to the wine press to draw out fifty vessels, and there were only twenty. But when once they began to build the ruined house of Jehovah, the promise was put into act," From this day will I bless you." It is even thus in the family. While God's house is suffered to be in the dust, and we think not of Him, his salvation, his righteous claim upon our family devotedness, nor of our dependence upon Him; while indeed He is forgotten and despised, must there not be the canker, and the caterpillar, the palmer worm, and the locust of divine displeasure, even in

11 Chron. xiii. 14.

2

Haggai ii. 19.

our temporal expectations,, as well as that leanness of soul which his curse conveys, and which starves it, in the midst of overflowing bounties and prosperities? "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." 1 Abram's tent had the altar, and therefore it was a Goshen of light and peace; while Canaan around him, whatever might be its natural fertility, as a land flowing with milk and honey, was in spiritual darkness, even darkness that might be felt; and in spiritual barrenness, that brought forth only thorns and briars of idolatrous superstition. So will it ever be in the tabernacles of the righteous and the wicked. The voice of joy and salvation will be in the one; while all that can speak true peace and happiness to the heart will be silent in the

other.

I shall not indeed be slow to grant, that misfortunes assail, not merely unbelieving households, but also those families where God in Christ is sought as a portion, listened to as a preacher, rested on as an atonement, and obeyed with holy and delightful love, as a Sovereign. I know that it is often thus. But shall I

1 Psalm cxxvii. 1.