The Householder Exhorted to the Duty of Family-Worship
Every portion of what has preceded has tended to the single point of inducing the reader to maintain the worship of God in his house; but it is desirable to make the appeal even more closely, and as it were, personally, to the heart and conscience. Laying aside, therefore, all more ceremonious modes of approach, I would respectfully and affection-
* Psalm lxvi. 8.
ately address myself to the individual professor of religion.
You are, by Providence, set at the head of a family, to support it, instruct it, guard it, and in every way care for its temporal and eternal good. We offer to you a simple means of contributing to the greatest of these objects; and we have, at some length, dwelt upon its excellencies and fruits. Our plea is for those whom you love the best, for your own flesh and blood. No human lanoruao-e can well go beyond the importance of the domestic relation. On this point you require no prompting. When you return from the toils and distractions of the day, and sit at home, amidst the little quiet circle, you feel that you are among your chief wealth. This is your treasure. The law makes it your castle, and religion may make it your sanctuary. As your eye rests on the wife of your bosom, and the pledges of your mutual love, you silently give thanks to God, and sometimes your heart overflows in earnest washes for the good of each beloved object. Withhold not a single defence or ornament from that Christian home, which is already the source of so many virtues and enjoyments.
“Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall! Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure. Or tasting-, long enjoy thee I too infirm, Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup; Thou art the nurse of Virtue, in thine arms She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is, Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.”*
If )^ou would “preserve these sweets,” connect them with heaven. Have you no desire to honour God, in the midst of these his favours. Or do you see no seemliness in recognising the reUgion of Christ in your family capacity? Even supposing that there were no injunction of such a service as this, one might expect it to grow up spontaneously in Christian households. Prayer is a duty of natural religion. The Mohammedan, wherever he journeys, prays to God five times a day, at his stated hours. The very heathen, in their families, call on their gods, “which are yet no gods.”t Shall a Christian house be void of all tokens of its
Cowper. f Jeremiah ii. 11.
relation to God? One might claim of you, as a follower of the Redeemer, to hold forth some such sign, that as for you and your house, you fear the Lord.* If God had given no indications of his good pleasure in this ordinance, it is one of so great value and blessedness, that we might all reasonably join in asking it at his hands as a special boon. But he gives it to us freely; and yet the heavenly gift is spurned by thousands! Suppose it were revealed to us that we were ’ forbidden to worship God in our families. Though all other means should remain undiminished, it would be a fearful interdict; a portentous curfew to our domestic fires. The parent and the child could no longer press around the feet of divine mercy, clinging the more closely because the rest of the world is shut out. Yet multitudes deny themselves all this blessing, of their own free choice; and parents and children grow up and live and separate and appear in judgment, without having ever met, even once, in an act of common household supplication. It is amazing, and all but incredible, that any man who loves Christ, should be willing
* Joshua xxiv. 15.
to preside over a family in which, from year to year, there is nothing to signahze it as belonging to the Lord.
O Christian parent! “suffer the word of exhortation.” Be persuaded not to deny yourself a service which will heighten all your comforts. The principle is undoubted, that we have tenfold pleasure in that which we enjoy in company with those whom we love. That is not a father’s heart, which does not experience it every day. We realize it in our common meals, our recreations, our readings, our excursions, our visits; why should you not realize it in your religion? Family- Worship is a coming to God, not singly, but hand-in-hand with your children and family; and from this, its peculiar aspect, it has delio;hts and advantaoes which are all its own.
The family, as»such, has its wants and dangers, and sorrows, and sins, which it is, therefore, reasonable to lay before God in a special devotion. No human community stands out from the mass in such substantive and prominent individuality; the circle which bounds it is clear, and sharply marked, and has been described by the hand of
God himself. There is a comm-unity of interest: no persons on earth are so much bound together. Nothing can befall any one, without reaching the whole circle. You are invited to present your household, as a household, before the Infinite Giver of all good. Be assured he will make a difference between those who fear him, and those who fear him not. It was with a dreadful reference to this very family-tie, that God said, “Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.”^ Your habitation wU be more safe, and its inmates more prosperous, by reason of God’s answer to the petitions which you put up together.
By a faithful observance of Family- Worship, you will be employing a daily means towards the eternal salvation of your household. It is scarcely possible to think of this without some impression. The everlasting damnation of your own offspring is a catastrophe so awful, that no single instrumentality, which promises to avert it, should be omitted. No prayers, indeed, considered as so much work wrought, will effectually save
* 1 Samuel ii. 80.
these souls; but we know no means which tend more directly to this end, than domestic worship, and the duties to which it leads. Are yoti willing to hazard so great a neglect? Dare you live any longer, withholding yourself from an agency which adds even a hair’s weight of probability to the eventual rescue of these beloved, perishing souls? There are other means, indeed, but they are seldom used by the neglecters of family-prayer. Think how hard you already find the performance of these duties; how your mouth is closed, in regard to the personal admonition of your children and servants; how little you have spoken to them of their sin and danger, and of the way of salvation by Christ; how defective your example is; how few tokens you give them of such a power and loveliness in religion as may draw them to it. You assuredly are not so rich in spiritual agency on your little flock as to be able to d6 without this. If humbly attempted, and devoutly pursued, there is good reason to believe that it will result in their eternal good; and we put it to your conscience, in the sight of God, whether you can despise it without exceeding guilt.
You need the aid of Family- Worship in the rearing of your children: this has been discussed at large. Your duty is now to act upon the truth. At present, while your children, perhaps, are small, you find government an easy task. They reverently hear your words, and pray by your side, and weep at the name of Jesus; you are sometimes tempted to think their hearts renewed. But a few years will make a strange difference. Let them enter upon adolescence, and all your cords will prove like the spider’s web, unless you shall have maintained your influence upon them by the daily-growing bond of family-religion. Look around you, among families professing faith in Christ, and observe the difference between those which worship God and those wdiich worship him not; and then, as you love your offspring, and as you would save them from the rebellion of Hophni and Phinehas, set up the worship of God in your house.
Family-Worship has been shown to be a happy instrument for the promotion of piety in a household. A true Christian will desire that his children and dependents should be not merely safe, but eminently holy. Are you conscious of any such desires? In the absence of them can you persuade yourself that you are a child of God? Or, feeling them, can you possibly endure a life without so much as one common prayer as a family? Have you no call for domestic thanksgiving? no daily mercies? no special deliverances? no long-continued exemptions from evil? It is monstrous, that a Christian household should, on these points, be absolutely dumb: we scarcely know how it can be so. Some tribute of gratitude will surely burst forth, unawares, and ascend to heaven from a sanctified dwelling. “The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous.”*
God has, we will suppose, given you a number of children. They are “an heritage of the Lord;” and “the fruit of the womb is his reward.” “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth; happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”t But that you may enjoy such blessings, it is indispensable that you should be
* Psalm cxviii. 15. f Psalm cxxvii. 3, 4, 5.
living in the performance of parental duty, and especially that you should be engaged in prayer with your little ones. In a prayerless dwelling, children seem to stretch out their little hands to the professing father for this needful protection and benediction, as really as the helpless brood regards the parent-bird for natural supplies.
It is dreadful to consider the neglect of Family-Worship, as connected with the engagements implied in infant baptism. In that sacrament, the parents solemnly dedicate their little one to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and do as solemnly incur an obligation to use all methods for the accomplishment of that which is set forth in the rite. The officiating minister is directed to exhort parents to the careful performance of their duty, requiring of them that they instruct their child, “that they jyray with mid for it; that they set an example of piety and godliness before it; and endeavour, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring up their child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”^ It is matter of very general usage, though not expressly
* Directory for Worship, chap. vii. § 4.
enjoined by our church, to exact from parents a solemn vow in regard to this particular duty. We must remain in wonder, by what means so many professing parents absolve themselves from this affecting obligation.
You are, it may be, the head of a family comprising numerous domestics and other dependents, whose souls are entrusted to your care. Here is a means of daily appearing before them in a religious character, and daily drawing their thoughts to divine things. Little as it may have burdened your conscience, it will enter into that judgment which awaits you. And unless you have arrived at some better way of inculcating truth, and promoting piety, and unless you are in the active observance of this better method, you cannot, without sin, neglect the domestic worship of God.
With particular and affectionate earnestness, would we commend this subject to young householders, who are just entering on domestic life for themselves. The marriage-bond is too often contracted with a predominance of worldly and dissipating thoughts, if not with great levity. But there 21* are serious associations, to a reflecting mind, hovering around the union of two young persons for life. And here, as in other things, first steps are momentous. Begin aright, and you escape some of the most formidable difficulties in the way of this observance. Sanctify the union of your hearts by the institution of God’s service. Resolve that as soon as you have a house, you will have your Lord acknowledged under its roof. This will sweeten every solace of your days. The time is near when you shall feel your need of it. It will give a colour to your whole life. Especially in days of affliction, (and they will come,) you will have at hand a spring of divine comforts. Honour God in the beginning of your course, and when you approach its close, you will bless his holy name, that he ever put the thought into your heart.
You are, perhaps, a new professor, but just admitted to the table of the Lord. Ypu are at the best juncture, for amending what is evil in your life. Let no delays prevent your immediate enjoyment of this ordinance. Break through every restraint, and let the time of your public avouching of God as your God, be marked by your solemn and deliberate establishment of God’s worship in your dwelling. Such is your obvious duty, if you have failed up to the time of a profession of faith. But let not these remarks be interpreted as if the duty of family-prayer were dependent on the sacramental communion. So far from it, that even if you have never united yourself in the full enjoyment of church-fellow ship, you are no less bound to honour God in your own house, this very day. But he who, after struggles of mind, in regard to other duties, can deliberately approach the Lord’s table, and then go home and resume a course of heathenish forgetfulness of domestic worship, must be regarded as diseased in conscience, if not altogether misled as to his personal acceptance.
It is a delicate question, which is often proposed to ministers of the gospel, whether those who make no public profession of their faith should be encouraged in the maintenance of Family- Worship. In replying to it, we desire to speak with modesty and yet with decision. The two duties are not dependent on one another. Family-prayer is a duty of every householder, binding on him every day of his life. The believing remembrance of Christ at his table is another duty. “Where a man who is grave and sober, and who has been trained in the ways of God, is prompted to honour his Creator and Benefactor in his dwelling, we dare not forbid him, any more than we would forbid him to pray in his closet. We would employ the occasion to urge upon him the grand, paramount duty of faith in the Lord Jesus, and the duty of publicly professing such faith; but we would likewise rejoice to see him, without delay, assembling his household for the worship of the Lord. Let him be warned of the danger of resting in such means, or in any means; let him not hope by such performance to propitiate that Divine favour which comes only on the believing; let him not delay an instant to fly to the mercy of God in Jesus Christ; but let him, nevertheless, conduct his children and servants 4:o that throne of grace where sovereign grace may vouchsafe to him an undeserved benefit. Nay, while we would sedulously avoid seeming to compound for a greater duty by the performance of a lesser, we hesitate not to say, that, where more cannot be secured, it is an act of Christian mercy to households,, to prevail on their head even to read a chapter in the Bible, morning and evening.
Thus far, it may be said to some, you have pursued the tenor of your way, in the utter neglect of Family- Worship. To you, the message is simple — fly at once, with your household, to the throne of grace! Cease to consider it as a matter of indifference, or an affair of variable custom. The neglect is most serious. It is your loss, and the loss of your offspring. It is your sin. It calls for repentance, and for reformation, which is the criterion of repentance. Instead of a lingering meditation on the expediency of the work, you should begin now. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”*
* James iv. 17.