Thoughts on Family Worship

Although this is but a small book, there may be some by whom it will be thought too large for its subject. Such persons must differ in their estimate of domestic religion from the writer, who has been impelled to study the institution by a profound conviction of its value. In a period when the world is every day making new inroads on the church, it has especially invaded the household. Our church cannot compare with that of the seventeenth century in this regard. Along with Sabbath observance, and the catechizing of children. Family- Worship 1* 1

2 -rllEFACE.

has lost ground. There are many heads of families, communicants in our churches, and (according to a scarcely credible report) some rulino elders and deacons, who maintain no stated daily service of God in their dwellings. It is to awaken such to their duty that this volume has been prepared.

The richest inheritance which some of us have is the domestic rite, which has been in our houses as far back as record or tradition goes. A venerable parishioner of the author has enjoyed Family- Worship with no less than six generations, including a grandfather and orreat-crrandchildren. Let other heirlooms perish, but let us not deny to our offspring the worship of that God, who has been ‘’our dwelling-place in all generations.”

While the chapters which ensue are any thing but controversial, they have not been written on any scheme of compromise. As issued by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, they need no apology for containing Presbyterian doctrine, and a decided and aifectionate allusion to the history and usages of our Church.

Valuable extracts have been made from several books on the subject of prayer, and from none more largely than from a little tract entitled “The Church in the House,” by the Rev. James Hamilton, of London.

If it should please the adorable Head of the Church to make this book instrumental in extending the domestic worship of God’s people, and especially in arousing the children of the covenant to honour the God of their fathers, it will be to the writer an unspeakable satisfaction. With earnest desires and prayers for this, he submits it to the members of that venerable and beloved church in which his fathers were reared, and in which he would desire his children to abide.

New York, June 15, 1847,

^-•^

Family- Worship, as the name imports, is the joint worship rendered to God, by all the members of one household.

There are some duties so plain, that they are rather assumed, than commanded, in the word of God; and the number of such is greater than might be supposed on a superficial examination. This is especially true of those duties which belong to the family relation; as for example those of the mother to her babe. They are subjected to regulation, and are objects of frequent allusion; but are not incorporated into the law of commandments. We are not to wonder, therefore, if we find, even in the New Testament, no

2 9 separate and explicit injunction to worship God in the family. As little do #e find any command to pray when we preach the word, or when death has visited our dwellings. These are things which it was safe to leave wdth the pious sentiment of Christians: and yet they are not the less characteristic of good men, nor less universal in the church.

The new-born soul must pray, even as the new-born child must breathe. And wherever the grace of prayer is shed forth in the soul, it will flow out in certain acts. There is an irresistible impulse to pray for those whom we love; and not only to pray for them, but with them. There is a natural as well as a gracious prompting, to pray with those who are near to us. Prayer is a social exercise. The prayer which our Lord taught his disciples, bears this stamp on every petition. It is this principle which leads to the united devotions of church-assemblies, and which immediately manifests itself in Christian families.

If there were but two human beings upon earth, they would be drawn, if they were of sanctified hearts, to pray with one another. Here we have the fountain of domestic worship. Time was, when there were but two human bemgs upon earth; and we may feel assured, that they offered adoration in common. This was the Family- Worship of Paradise. It is, therefore, no profane fiction, but a pious endeavour to shadow forth what undoubtedly took place, when the great poet represents Adam and Eve as addressing their mornino thouofhts in concert to God:

“Soon as they forth were come to open sight Of dayspring and the sun, who, scarce uprisen With wheels yet hovering o’er the ocean brim, That parallel to the earth his dewy ray, Discovering in wide landscape all the east Of Paradise and Eden’s happy plains, Lowly they bowed adoring, and began Their orisons, each morning duly paid In various style; for neither various style Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced or sung Unmeditated, such prompt eloquence Flowed from their lips, in prose or numerous verse. More tunable than needed lute or harp To add more sweetness; and they thus began.”*

That religion should specially pertain to the domestic relation, is not at all wonderful. The family is the oldest of human societies; it is as old as the creation of the race. Men were not drawn together into families by a

* Paradise Lost, Book V. verse 138.

voluntary determination, or social compact, according to the absurd figment of infidels: they were created in families. This has been recognized in every covenant; and the gospel, so far from destroying, has bound more closely and sanctified the family. By circumcision, under the Old Testament, and by baptism, under the New, God has perpetually reminded his people of the honour set on this connexion.

It is not our purpose to make any ingenious efibrts to force into our service the history of the Old Testament, or to search for Family- Worship in every age of the world. That it has existed in every age, we do not doubt; that the Old Testament was intended to communicate this fact, is not so clear. But, without any indulgence of fancy, we cannot fail to discern the principle of Family-Worship, appearing and re-appearing, as a familiar thing, in the remotest periods.

While all the church of God was in the ark, the worship was plainly Family-Worship; and after the subsiding of the waters, when “Noah builded an altar unto the Lord,” it was a family sacrifice which he offered.* The patriarchs seem to have left

* Gen. viii. 20.

a record of their social worship at every encampment. As soon as we find Abraham in the promised land, we find him rearing an altar in the plain of Moreh.* The same thing occurs in the vale between Hai and Bethel. Isaac not only renews the fountains which his father had opened, but keeps up his devotions, building an altar at Beersheba.f Jacob’s altar at Bethel was eminently a family monument, and was signalized by his saying on the way ‘’unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you. “J The altar was named El-beth-el. This descent of religious rites, in the family line, was in correspondence with that declaration of Jehovah respecting the fam.ily religion which should prevail in Abraham’s house. The service of Job in behalf of his children was a perpetual service; he ‘’ sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; thus did Job continually;’’ or, as it is in the Hebrew, “all the days.’’ The book of Deuteronomy is full of family religion; as an ex-

Keep reading