TO make serious reply to this deceitful, deceptive and empty pretence, is a little hard to do. To see a person who can not go three squares to the house of God on foot, especially if it should be a little unpleasant, who can dance till midnight, “for amusement,” speaking of its being healthful, is ridiculous in the extreme. It may be, for anything we know, that for any person who has become so useless as to sit, day after day, and not move enough to circulate their blood, dancing would prove healthful. But there are a thousand things better for them. A visit to the sick, to the poor and the distressed, with something for their necessities, would be vastly better for both soul and body. Almost any kind of useful labor would be more healthful, and leave vastly less remorse of conscience. But if a person has such an aversion to labor to visiting the sick, the poor and needy, or doing anything useful, they deserve no health, and the world will only be the better off when they are out of it. More health, permanent happiness and real enjoyment are found in an industrious and useful life than all the seekers of pleasure ever knew. The man of useful life has no time for pleasure and amusement. His time is taken up, wholly taken up, and he is so happy in it, that it appears short, in constant acts of usefulness. But pleasure-seekers are constantly devising how to while away time, to pass it off or murder it. Time appears the greatest burthen they have, through their whole life, and, at death, the trouble is, that they have not more time. The good man appears pressed through life to do the good he desires to do, but when death comes, his work is done, well done, and he dies in hope of hearing the Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joys of thy Lord.”
[PRAYER.]
THERE is nothing in Scripture called “family worship,” and yet what we mean by that expression, is the oldest worship in the world. Holy men in every age worshipped God in the family. But the time and manner of conducting it, is left to the sense of propriety, and discretion of the head of the family. Paul says: “I will therefore, that men pray everywhere.” 1 Tim. ii. 8. He also speaks of remembering the brethren in his prayers, night and day. He could not do this, without praying “night and day.” The Lord went out into a mountain and continued in prayer all night. Luke vi. 12. The first disciples “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication.” Acts i. 14. Cornelius said, “at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house.” Acts x. 30. This, we presume he got from pious Jews, as it was before his conversion to the christian faith. “When they prayed the place was shaken where they were.” Acts iv. 31. These are but meager specimens of what the Scriptures say about prayer. The history of the first Christians is full of prayer. If you wish to know where they prayed you only need find where they were, for they were “instant in prayer”—“prayed night and day”—“prayed always”—“prayed everywhere”—“prayed without ceasing.” They prayed “on the house-tops,” “in the house,” by the “sea-shore,” “in the prison,” and “in the assembly.” They prayed wherever they were. We should do the same.
They spent much more time upon their knees, than the professors of religion in our day. The sin that we fear is not that brethren do not pray in their families, but that they do not pray any place half as much as they should. Now if the first Christians prayed wherever they were, even when confined in a prison, why should any man who wishes to do the will of God hesitate to pray in his family? Can any man show a better place, ordinarily, for reading the Scriptures and prayer? Can there be any objection to this place? Are not christians required to pray everywhere? Will not God hear a christian in his family? No one doubts that it is as suitable and appropriate as any place on earth. “Why then, is it not commanded?” Because there are thousands of christians who have neither houses or families, and the Lord has left the way open so that they can worship God just as acceptably in whatever place they may be, as the man who has an orderly family and home. The Lord has left the head of the family free to determine the appropriate place to worship. But woe to that christian who objects to the family circle, as a suitable place, and then does not worship any place. But we never saw a good reason and do not believe there is any, against the orderly custom of reading a portion of Scripture and praying in the family, and we believe that those fathers and mothers whose children never heard them pray, will most solemnly lament it when they see the Lord Jesus at his coming. “Pray without ceasing, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks.”
[WE HAVE A PERFECT GOSPEL
TO PREACH.]
WE claim that the religion of Jesus Christ is a complete, perfect and divine system, in itself; distinct from, superior to, and as high above every thing else as heaven is above this earth; and that all who desire to do so, can determine what it is, practice it and be christians. We claim that the gospel is complete, perfect and divine; distinct from, and independent of, everything else, and that he who desires it, may know precisely what it is, believe it with all the heart, obey it and be saved by it; otherwise the Lord could not be just and good in condemning the man who does not believe it, or does not obey it. The matter, therefore, with us now is not to determine what the truth is, or the gospel; this we have long since settled. We, as a people, know the truth, the saving truth, the only saving truth, as a whole, or in its embodiment, or concentrated form, though many may not understand it in detail, and the great matter now is to practice it, enjoy it and advocate it. God intends or purposes it for all mankind, as much as he did for us. It is now our duty to make it known among all mankind; or, as Paul expresses it, “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which, from the beginning of the world, hath been hid in God, who hath created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to his eternal purpose.”