Thomas Boston, Works, 2:147:
How men pick and choose the institutions of God! Some wait on public ordinances, but make no conscience of private ordinances. Some, again, go about the private exercises of religion, but slight public ordinances. Some hear the word ordinarily, but they are habitual neglecters of the sacrament. Some pray in secret, but they pray not in their families; some in their families, but they have nothing to say to God, but what they can say before all their family; their family-prayers justle out their secret prayers. Is this to keep God’s worship and ordinances entire? How can men answer to God for this way of it?
How men pick and choose the institutions of God! Some wait on public ordinances, but make no conscience of private ordinances. Some, again, go about the private exercises of religion, but slight public ordinances. Some hear the word ordinarily, but they are habitual neglecters of the sacrament. Some pray in secret, but they pray not in their families; some in their families, but they have nothing to say to God, but what they can say before all their family; their family-prayers justle out their secret prayers. Is this to keep God’s worship and ordinances entire? How can men answer to God for this way of it?
