God’s service is the defense of families. A house that hath not religious duties in it, is as an house that hath no locks or bolts about it, no doors are bars unto it, but so open, as night and day in danger of incursion of all calamities; Like the frogs that filled the Egyptian houses, and got up into their bed chambers.

When it is neglected, what evil crowds in? As Nathan said to David, “The sword shall never depart from thy house”, so God’s curse may never depart from that house where sin is instead of his service. That’s a terrible text, Zachariah 5:4, “The curse shall enter into the house of everyone that sinneth, sweareth, stealeth, and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stone thereof.” God’s judgment shall break in and abide upon sinful families, so as to bring all to an utter ruin.

And though the whole bodies of families are found under this sin, yet upon the heads of families most immediately is this sin settled. Husbands, Fathers, Masters, and such superior persons are the principal in this sin concerned.

They that are the chief in the service, where the sin is not contradicted, are the chief in the sin, when the service is neglected. And the greater the person that sinneth is, the greater is the sin of the person.