any directions for private and secret worship, and mutual edification, for cherishing piety, maintaining unity, and avoiding schism and division. And ministers and ruling elders are required to make diligent search in the congregation, whether there be among them any family which neglects to perform family worship; and if such be found, the head of the family is first to be admonished privately to amend his fault; and in case of his continuance therein, he is to be gravely reproved by the session: After which reproof, if he be found still to neglect family worship, let him be suspended from the Lord's supper. 2. The head of every family is to have a care, that both themselves, and all within their charge, be daily diligent in performing of secret worship, and be given to prayer and meditation. 3. The ordinary duties of families convened for the exercise of piety are these; first, prayer and praises; next, reading of the Scriptures, with catechising in a plain way together, with godly conferences; as also admonitions and rebukes upon just reasons. 4. The master of a family, though of the best qualifications, is not to take on him to interpret the Scriptures; yet it is commendable that, by way of conference, they make some good use of what hath been read and heard. As for example, if any sin be reproved in the word read, use may be made thereof, to make all the family circumspect and watchful against the same; or, if any judgment be threatened, or mentioned to have been inflicted in that portion of Scripture which is read, use may be made, to make all the family fear, lest the same or a worse judgment befal them, unless they beware of the sins that procured it. And finally, if any duty be required, or comfort held forth in a promise, use may be made to stir up themselves to implore Christ for strength to enable them for doing commanded duty, and to apply the offered comfort. In all which the master of the family is to have the chief hand, and any member of the family may propound a question or doubt for resolu tion. 5. Persons of quality are allowed to entertain one approved by the presbytery, for performing the worship of God in their families. And in other families where the head is unfit, one constantly residing in the family, and approved by the minister and session, may be employed in that service: yet it was never the mind of the church, that persons of quality should lay their family worship entirely upon their chaplains, and never perform it in their own persons, as appears from the solemn acknowledgment of sins, where they confess, the ignorance of God and of his Son prevails exceedingly in the land; the greatest part of masters of families amongst noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, and commons, neglect to seek God in their families, and to endeavour the refor mation thereof; and albeit it hath been much pressed, yet few of our nobles and great ones ever to this day could be persuaded to perform family duties themselves, and in their own persons, which makes so necessary and useful a duty to be misregarded by others of inferior rank; nay, many of the nobility, gentry, and barons, who should have been examples of godliness and sober walking unto others, have been ringleaders of excess and rioting. 6. Considering that persons aiming at division may be ready to creep into houses, and lead captive silly and unstable souls; for preventing whereof, no idler who hath no particular calling, or vagrant person, under pretence of a calling, is to be suffered to perform worship in families. The not observing of this direction hath been of sad consequence to some families in this land in the late times. Neither are persons from divers families to be invited or admitted into family worship, unless it be these who are lodged with them or at meat, or otherwise with them upon some lawful occasion. 7. So many as can conceive prayer ought to make use of that gift of God, albeit those who are rude and weaker may begin with a set form of prayer, but so as they be not sluggish in stirring up in themselves the spirit of prayer, which is given to all the children of God in some measure. 8. Let them confess to God how unworthy they are to come in his presence, and how unfit to worship his Majesty, and therefore earnestly ask of God the spirit of prayer. They are to confess their sins, and the sins of the family, accusing, judging, and condemning themselves for them, till they bring their souls to some measure of true humiliation; they are to pour out their souls to God in the name of Christ, by the Spirit, for forgiveness of sins, for grace to repent, to believe, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly; and that they may serve God with joy and delight, walking before him; they are to give thanks to God for his many mercies to his people, and to themselves, and especially for his love in Christ, and for the light of the Gospel; they are to pray for such particular benefits, spiritual and temporal, as they stand in need of for the time: they ought to pray for the church of Christ in general, for all the reformed churches, and for this church in particular, and for all that suffer for the name of Christ, for all superiors, for the Queen's Majesty, and inferior magistrates; for the magistrates, ministers, and whole body of the congregation; and for their neighbours absent about their lawful affairs, and for these that are at home. The prayer may be closed with an earnest desire, that God may be glorified in the coming of the kingdom of his Son, and that what they have asked according to his will may be done. 9. Extraordinary duties both of humiliation and thanksgiving are to be carefully performed in families, when the Lord, by extraordinary occasions, private or public, calleth for them. 10. Persons of divers families being abroad upon their particular vocations, or any necessary occasions, are to take care that the duties of prayer and thanksgiving be performed by such as the company shall judge fittest. 11. By an act of Assembly 1697, sess. 5. such elders and deacons as obstinately refuse or neglect family worship by themselves or others appointed for that end, are to be removed from their office. TITLE III. Of Baptism. 1. Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein Christ hath ordained the washing with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be a sign and seal of ingrafting into himself, and of partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and whereby the parties baptised are solemnly admitted into the visible church, and enter into an open and professed engagement to be only and wholly the Lord's. : 2. The visible church, which is catholic or universal under the gospel, consists of all these throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children and baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the same, they being strangers to the covenant of promise, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him: but infants descending from parents, either both, or but one of them, professing faith in Christ and obedience to him, are in that respect within the covenant, and to be baptised. The Directory for worship says, that children of professing parents are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptised; for their baptism supposeth them to be church members, and doth not make or constitute them such. And therefore the practice of denying burial among Christians unto children unbaptised, is unagreeable to this doctrine, and is most unwarrantable: if we consider, that the sacraments are ordinances to be administered in the church, and to the church, they necessarily suppose the pre-existence of a church, and the child's previous right to that seal. 3. By that covenant, whereof baptism is a seal, the Lord promiseth to be our God, and we are in his promised strength to engage to be his people; which engage. ment, though Christian infants be not capable to come under of themselves formally; yet by their parents vowing in their name and stead, they do thereby become ab solutely bound to the performance thereof, because their obligation and duty to be the Lord's were supposed, and previous unto their being baptised. 4. When both parents are dead, or necessarily absent, another sponsor is to be taken; or, when they are scandalous and erroneous, and thereby give ground to think they are none of Christ's, and for which they may merit the highest censures of the church, if not prevented by evidences of their sincere repentance: in that case, to testify that it doth not appear that the children have any right unto the privilege of that sealing ordinance through their immediate parents; and that they may, notwithstanding, have a right thereto by their more remote parents, it is necessary that a sponsor present the children, and engage for them. The parent is to be required to provide some fit person, and, if it can be, one related as a parent to the child, should be sponsor. Yet it seems ignorant parents are to be admitted to present their children: for, by act of Assembly 1648, sess. 38, art. 3. of domestic remedies of the sins of the land, this is one, that persons to be married, and who have children to be bap tised, who are very rude and ignorant, be stirred up and exhorted, as at all times, so especially at that time, to at. tain some measure of Christian knowledge in the grounds of religion, that they may give to the minister, before the elder of the bounds where they live, some account of their knowledge, that so they may the better teach their family, and train up their children. 5. In case of children exposed, whose baptism, after inquiry, cannot be known, the session is to order the presenting of the child to baptism, and the session itself is to see to the Christian education of the child: as also, when scandalous parents cannot prevail with any fit person, or rather relation, to present the child in their name, or when the relations of deceased parents refuse to become their sponsors, the session then is to order as is said. The magistrate is to take care that exposed infants be maintained, by laying the expenses thereof upon the parish proportionally. By the 84th canon. con. 6. In Trullo, Canonicas patrum leges sequentes, de infan |