*1. _Personal godliness._ Let it be your first care to set up Christ in your hearts. See that you make all your worldly interests stoop to him, that you be entirely and unreservedly devoted to him. If you deliberately and ordinarily harbour any sin, you are undone. See that you unfeignedly take the laws of Christ, as the rule of your words, thoughts and actions; and subject your whole man, faithfully to him. If you have a true respect unto all God’s commandments, you are sound at heart. O study to get the image and impress of Christ upon you within. Begin with your hearts, else you build without a foundation. Labour to get a saving change within, or else all external performances will be to no purpose. And then study to shew forth the power of godliness in your life. Let piety be your business. ’Tis the highest point of justice, to give God his due. Beware that none of you be a prayerless person: for that is a certain discovery of a Christless, and a graceless person. Suffer not your bibles to gather dust. See that you converse daily with the word. That man can never lay claim to blessedness, whose delight is not in the law of the Lord. Let meditation and self-examination be your daily exercise, else the Papists, yea the Pagans will condemn us. If ever you come to any growth in holiness, without the constant use of this practice, I am grossly deceived. And therefore I beseech, yea even charge you by the Lord, that you would daily examine yourselves.
But piety without charity is but the half of Christianity, or rather impious hypocrisy. See therefore that you do justly, and love mercy, and let equity, and charity run like an even thread, through all your dealings. Be you temperate in all things, and let chastity and sobriety be your undivided companions. Let truth and purity, seriousness and modesty, heavenliness and gravity, be the constant ornaments of your speech. Let patience and humility, simplicity and sincerity shine in all parts of your conversation. See that you forget and forgive wrongs, and requite them with kindness. Be merciful in your censures, and put the most favourable construction upon your brethren’s carriage. Be slow in promising, punctual in fulfilling. Let meekness, innocency, affableness, yieldingness, and courtesy, commend your conversation to all men. Let none of your relations want that love and loyalty, that reverence and duty, that tenderness, care, and vigilancy, which their several places and capacities call for. This is true godliness. I charge you before the most high God, that none of you be found a swearer, or a liar, a lover of evil company, or a scoffer, or malicious, or covetous, or a drunkard, or a glutton, unrighteous in his dealing, unclean in his living, or a quarreller, or a thief, or backbiter, or a railer: for I denounce unto you from the living God, that damnation is the end of all such.
2. _Family godliness._ He that hath set up Christ in his heart, will be sure to study to set him up in his house. Let every family with you be a Christian church; every house a house of prayer; every houshold a houshold of faith. Let every housholder say, with _Joshua_, _I, with my house, will serve the Lord_, and with _David_, _I will walk within my house with a perfect heart_.
_First_, Let religion be in your families, not as a matter by the by, but the standing business of the house. Let them have your prayers as duly as their meals. Is there any of your families, but have time for their taking food? *Wretched man! Canst thou find time to eat, and not time to pray?
*_Secondly_, Settle it upon your hearts, that your souls are bound up in the souls of your family. They are committed to you, and (if they be lost through your neglect) will be required at your hands: Sirs, if you do not, you shall know that the charge of souls is a heavy charge, and that the blood of souls is a heavy guilt. O man, hast thou a charge of souls to answer for, and dost thou not yet bestir thyself for them, that their blood may not be found in thy skirts? Wilt thou do no more for immortal souls, than thou wilt do for the beasts that perish? What dost thou do for thy children, and servants? Thou providest meat and drink for them, and dost thou not the same for thy beasts? Thou givest them medicines, and cherishest them when they are sick, and dost thou not so much for thy swine? More particularly.
1. Let the solemn reading of the word, _and singing of psalms, be your family exercises_. See Christ singing with his family, his disciples, _Matthew xxvi. 30._ _Luke ix. 18._
2. _Let every person in your family be duly called to an account of their profiting by the word heard or read, as they are about doing your own business._ This is a duty of consequence unspeakable, and would be a means to bring those under your charge to remember and profit by what they receive.