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some will listen unprofitably . This difficulty is so great a discouragement to the heads of families , that many who approve of family religious instruction as well as worship , are deterred from , the practice , or go through the duty with dissatisfaction .
Such persons are under prreat obligations to the writers of the discourses before us . How much and how long the want of such a volume has been felt , the heads of almost every family in our connexion well know : how far this collection is adapted to supply the deficiency so long lamented , we shall have great pleasure in expressing our conviction . No less than seventeen
writers have contributed their aid ; and by this means so great a variety of matter and of style is ensured , that it will be strange if any parent is not able to select what will be profitable to every member of his household . " In the selection of the compositions of which the volume consists , two objects have been proposed—to provide discourses fitted to benefit the beads of families in their private meditations ; and others , suited to be read aloud ia the miscellaneous assembly of the family circle . "
Of the first class are a discourse on Family Worship , and two on the Religious and Moral Education of the Young . The second class includes all the rest . The first-mentioned sermon is admirable ; and we believe that no conscientious parents can read it without being animated to reflection , if not to conviction . The practice of family worship is advocated on the grounds of love and gratitude to God , and a regard to the best interests of those whose
welfare he has given in charge to his servants . The force of the arguments is irresistible , and the energy with which they are urged will appear in the following extract : " Let family prayer be introduced into a house , the virtue of whose inmates is inconstant and fluctuating , and it will roost powerfully tend to give their virtue consistency , and strength , and durability . The cause of their inconstancy is to be found in the weakness of religious influences . The public offices of devotion impress their mind and affect their conduct ; but their
operation is short , because their influences are intermitting . The bustle , and turmoil , and pleasures of the world , dissipate its effects , and before religious impressions are renewed , the heart is again engaged on the side of sin . But agaiu comes the one day partially devoted to religion ; and again the six wholly devoted to the world ; , and though there may be the sigh of contrition , and the wavering wish , and fitful offices of piety , sin gains the mastery through the frequency and continuity of its influences . Could this be the case , if tlje
morning ' s dawn and evening ' s shade invited to family prayer ? Religious impressions would daily receive accessions of strength . The facility to attend to spiritual and unseen objects , as well as a relish of their joys , would gradually arise in the mind ; and soon would the influences of religion be enabled to countervail those of the world . The statedness of the hours allotted to
devotion would effectually secure the continuity of its operation against the interruptions of indolence , the chills of indifference , and the too frequently misnamed peremptory calls of business . The call of God would uot then , as it uowso often does , sink unheeded on the ear ; nor the solicitations of virtue be listened to only during the momentary exhaustion or partial slumber of worldly gratifications . "—P . 348 .
The sermons on the " Religious and Moral Education of the Young * ' are perhaps the most conspicuous in the volume , from the universal interest of the subject , and from the peculiar animation of the style . The subject is of such vast extent and such awful import , that it seems to require no little courage to undertake it under such restrictions as the kind of composition
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Sermons for Families . 451
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 451, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/3/
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