It is true, some men may think they have done enough when they give unto their servants food and raiment, and say, “Did not I bargain with thee for so much a year?” But if they give them no other reward than this, what do they less for their very beasts? But are not servants better than they? Doubtless they are: and however masters may put off their convictions for the present, they will find a time will come, when they shall know they ought to have given them some spiritual as well as temporal wages; and the cry of those that have mowed down their fields, will enter into the ears of ♦the LORD of Sabaoth.
♦ duplicate word “the” removed
4. But _Fourthly_, If neither gratitude to GOD, pity to children, nor a principle of common justice to servants, are sufficient to balance all objections; yet let that darling, that prevailing motive of _self-interest_ turn the scale, and engage you with your respective housholds to serve the LORD.
This weighs greatly with you in other matters: be then persuaded to let it have a due and full influence on you in this: and if it has, if you have but faith as a grain of mustard-seed, how can you avoid believing, that promoting family-religion, will be the best means to promote your own temporal, as well as eternal welfare? For “Godliness has the promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is to come.”
Besides, you all, doubtless, wish for honest servants, and pious children: and to have them prove otherwise, would be as great a grief to you, as it was to _Elisha_ to have a treacherous _Gehazi_, or _David_ to be troubled with a rebellious _Absalom_. But how can it be expected they should learn their duty, except those set over them, take care to teach it to them? Is it not as reasonable to expect you should reap where you had not sown, or gather where you had not strawed?
Did christianity, indeed, give any countenance to children and servants to disregard their parents and masters according to the flesh, or represent their duty to them, as inconsistent with their entire obedience to their father and master who is in heaven, there might then be some pretence to neglect instructing them in the principles of such a religion. But since the precepts of this pure and undefiled religion, are all of them holy, just, and good; and the more they are taught their duty to GOD, the better they will perform their duties to you; methinks, to neglect the improvement of their souls, out of a dread of spending too much time in religious duties, is acting quite contrary to your own interest as well as duty.
5. _Fifthly_ and _Lastly_, If neither gratitude to GOD, love to your children, common justice to your servants, nor even that most prevailing motive self-interest, will excite; yet let a consideration of the _terrors of the_ LORD persuade you to put in practice the pious resolution in the text. Remember, the time will come, and that perhaps very shortly, when we must all appear before the judgment-seat of CHRIST; where we must give a solemn and strict account how we have had our conversation, in our respective families in this world. How will you endure to see your children and servants (who ought to be your joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of our LORD JESUS CHRIST) coming out as so many swift witnesses against you; cursing the father that begot them, the womb that bare them, the paps which they have sucked, and the day they ever entered into your houses? Think you not, the damnation which men must endure for their own sins, will be sufficient, that they need load themselves with the additional guilt of being accessary to the damnation of others also? O consider this, all ye that forget to serve the LORD with your respective housholds, “lest he pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you!”
But GOD forbid, brethren, that any such evil should befal you: no, rather will I hope, that you have been in some measure convinced by what has been said of the great importance of _family-religion_; and therefore are ready to cry out in the words immediately following the text, “GOD forbid that we should forsake the LORD;” and again, verse 21, “Nay, but we will (with our several housholds) serve the LORD.”