The Influence of Family-Worship on the Commonwealth
To the earthly politician nothing can seem more absurd than to ascribe to the devotions of private Christians, any power in regard to states and empires. Religion is an element in political changes not recognised by the wisdom of this world. Yet it cannot be a matter of indifference, even in respect to civil government and national wealth, that hundreds of thousands of families, dispersed abroad in the earth, are daily addressing themselves to God in prayer. And it may turn out to be true, that a nation in which all the families shall be thus employed, will derive from this very peculiarity a character conducive to public strength.
Before treating of the direct influence of prayer on nations, we ask attention to some particulars which are too much neglected. The indispensable material of a happy State, is a body of good citizens. It is not territory, fertile soil, mines, cities, arts, navies, armies, monuments, laws, constitutions, or even liberty, which sustain and ennoble a people: but good citizens. That which makes good citizens, tends directly to the felicity and glory of a State. This will not be denied, in an age and country of which it is the genius to flatter, and almost deify the people. Viewing the matter even from the low point of temporal things, all admit that the power and stability of government reside in the virtue of the citizens.
This grand desideratum is to be secured, not by wholesale enactment, but in detail. No general arrangements, however good, can reach the mind of the people. Legislation and polity presuppose good citizenship. National virtue is the virtue of collected indivi- ’ duals. The power to be applied, for this result, will therefore operate to most advanf tage when brought to bear on the primary and constituent portions, especially on each family and each individual.
To make good citizens we must begin early. It is too late when the adult character is attained. Hence the acknowledored importance of universal education in a free country. But this early training may be
] G4 FAMILY-AVORSHTP.
complete in respect of intellectual discipline, and may yet be inadequate. We need moral qualities in the good citizen. If we could so descend to the elements of society, as to make every family a school of sound principles and virtuous habits, we should plainly be dealing with the very factors and constituents of a prosperous State; and the method which should accomplish this would be a national blessing. Such a method is domestic religion; including, as one of its principal parts, Family- Worship. We are prepared to maintain that this institution cannot flourish in any country without directly contributing to those habits which are favourable to law, order, and peace.
It is not more true that the infant brood grows to the power of caring for themselves, in the nest, than that men are formed into the habits of life, in the family. It is the earliest, cheapest, safest, and mightiest institution for this purpose. Hence it is the especial object of assault from the gathering hordes of disorganizing reformers in our day. On every side, under the guidance of the St. Simons, Fouriers, and Owens, we hear the outcry against the domestic temple; — “Rase it, rase it, even to the foundations thereof.“* Ignorant of the true sources of pauperism and oppression, our puling pseudo-philanthropists are in perpetual agitation about the wrongs of labor, the rights of women, and the reconstruction of society. ‘’ Association,” such as they propose, would pluck away the hearth-stone, and break the marriage-ring. Forgetful of the homely sentence, that the largest house is not large enough for two families, they would take down all partitions, throw a whole community into one, cashier the natural guardians of infancy, and subject masses of youth, in phalanxes, to the regimental drill of a newly-invented education. As bubble after bubble explodes, and successive prophets of Socialism fall into deserved contempt, it is hoped that the world will become satisfied with the constitution which dates back as far as Paradise.
Every Christian household is a school of good citizenship. This might be safely rested on reasons already given. But one or two particulars merit separate consideration. Family- Worship, as we have seen, promotes habits of order. It brings a stated regulation
* Psalm cxxxvii. 7. 15 into the house, and gathers the inmates by a fixed law. It sets up a wholesome barrier against wanton irregularity, sloth, and night-wandering. It encourages early hours, thoughtfulness, and affection; and above all, it adds strength to the principle of subordination and obedience; a point which we dare not pass lightly.
Good citizens are such as abide by the law, and submit themselves to authority. The habit of so doing must be formed under the parental roof. All the duties of subjects and citizens range themselves under the fifth commandment; and he who is not a good son cannot be a good citizen. Here we may refer to a passage already cited, in which God says of Abraham: “I know him, that he will command his childreji and his household after him.”* Domestic discipline is an ordinance of God. As the family was the earliest community, so this is the earliest form of government; and, notwithstanding the dreams of Rousseau and his disciples, about a social contract, which never existed, here is the true origin of States. Observe the connexion: ‘’Abram shall surely become
* Gen. xviii. 19.
a great and mightij nation: for I know him, that he will command his children.” Here is the influence of family-religion on the commonwealth. We have already said enough to show the bearing of domestic worship on parental control and filial obedience: our present inquiry is in regard to the tendency of this to public safety and peace.
The popular evils which threaten our country, arise in great measure from a spirit of insubordination; and this is caused by neglect of parental authority. He who has never learned to obey and honour his father and his mother, will never yield himself to magistracy and law. The evil is bold and increasing. Children become men with a frightful precocity. Travellers from abroad complain that there are no boys among us, but only infants and men: the period of subordination is overleaped. In our cities the streets are filled with hordes of urchins, who appear to acknowledge no loyalty to any household. These are the materials for mobs and insurrections, the candidates for gaols and gibbets, and alms-houses, and vessels of piracy. It is needless to say, that the houses from which such youth proceed, enjoy no worship of God; but we conceive it to be important to add, that the conscientious observance of family-devotion will go far to prevent such enormities. A nation of families worshipping God will ever be a nation of law and order.
No municipal police can make up for the absence of domestic authority. The weakening of this principle over a whole land, is nothing but the rupture of each several link in the chain. As the evil advances, we lose the very material of magistracy, and the capacity for firm and gentle command. The scriptural maxim is, that he who cannot rule at home, cannot rule abroad. The bishop, or minister, must be ‘’ one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?”^ The principle admits of an equal application to civil government. The discipline of the family cannot be invaded without a corresponding disorganization of society. And the great end is to be attained, not by adding strength to government, or stringency to laws, or terror to
* 1 Tim. iii. 5.
punishments, but by training in every house in the land a group of Christian citizens, habituated to manly obedience.
We have still to consider the great and crowning favour which Family- Worship confers on the commonwealth: it brings down heavenly blessings from the prayer-hearing God,
Take out of a nation its praying souls, and you leave it defenceless and accursed. Cities and kingdoms have been spared for the sake of Christ’s people who were in them. Jehovah would have withheld his destroying vengeance from Sodom and the cities of the plain, ‘’for ten’s sake.“* The cries of the poor, who fear God, “■ enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”t Politicians attribute no potency to the prayers of believers, but they are heard in heaven. They have, before now, averted great evils, and procured great deliverances. Israel was about to be litterly consumed at Taberah, but “when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched.” J The agonizing prayer of Daniel for his people, was mighty before God.^
* Gen. xviii. 32. t James v. 4.
Numb. xi. 2. Dan. x. 14.
When the Most High is about to return to a guilty people, he does it in answer to prayer, and summons those who fear him to humiliation: ‘’ Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet: let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord.”* The angel who stands with a drawn sword over a country, is no doubt often recalled by reason of those prayers which are forgotten by sinful rulers and a profane people.
True Christians feel it to be their bounden duty to pray for the government. Though we have no prescribed liturgical form for this, in our public service, We hold it to be an important part of intercession. We have known ministers to be charged with partizanship in politics, because they publicly prayed for the chief magistrate. No patriot and no Christian can consistently refuse so to pray, with fulness and earnestness. It would be dreadful, indeed, if the devotions of God’s house were to take their direction from the gusts of political opinion. It is no human rubric, but an inspired oracle, which enjoins
* Joel ii. 16, 17.
that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty.”* Such prayers go up from the devout household also, and the more they are multiplied, the more reason is there to hope for national prosperity-Men who love their country will delight to take their households with them to the throne of grace, in beseeching God’s favour in any great national emergency. When questions of vast moment are in suspense, when divisions are threatened, especially when the country is at war, the prayers of Christian families in every church throughout the land, are exerting an unseen agency, outweighing, perhaps, the deliberations of senates, and cabinets, and councils of war. And the youth who are. trained to such prayers, are growing up in the best school of patriotism. No man will be less likely to love his country, for having been taught to pray for it every day.
A land covered by praying families may be well called a Christian land. That it
* 1 Timothy ii. 1, 2.
would be happy in proportion, even in civil affairs, can be denied only by those who reject all religion. Were every town in America, in this respect, what Kidderminster was, in the days of Baxter, we should, indeed, be the glory of all lands. It is all that we need for our exaltation, and the method by which it is to be sought is not remote or recondite, not the method of association or agitation, or waiting for others to concur; it is simply for every man in his place to set up the worship of God. The true way to bring health to a diseased nation, is to carry the cure to every house. The aggregate energy of a multitude of zealous families, united in prayer for the country, is beyond all computation: it is this which “exalteth a nation.” Patriotism could confer nothing better on the land she loves, than to kindle this fire on every hearth. The voice of thanksgiving and joy would burst over the domestic and national walls, and reach the most distant lands. Who will not pray for such a consummation? “Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.”*