Difficulties and Objections; Conclusion
The fact that an observance so important and fruitful should be widely disregarded, even in Protestant churches, may well give rise to serious inquiry into the causes of such neglect. Misapprehensions, objections, and difficulties, must certainly exist, or we should find it as universal as Sabbathworship.
Laying aside all flattering words, we may say plainly, that we regard the neglect of Family- Worship as springing from lukewarmness and worldliness in religion, and as a portentous evil of our day. Where piety is ardent and operative, it cannot but diffuse itself through the domestic structure. Where a man has the spirit of prayer, he will naturally be led to give vent to his devotion in fellowship with those whom he loves most of all on earth. We are ready to make allowance for the force of long habit, and the religious usages of particular countries, and will not hastily condemn those, who, in the midst of popery and neology, are governed by the customs of their vicinity. But even there, we have already observed, that as vital godliness advances, this service, or something equivalent, comes in, by a natural suggestion, or rather by a suggestion of grace. And where the custom of Protestant churches abroad, in any region, authorizes the disuse of domestic prayer, we scruple not to refer the origin of this disuse to the decay of piety in a former age. We have good reason to believe that all the Reformation churches were acquainted with family-prayer.
A great accession to the piety of a Christian house will manifest itself in nothingr more speedily, than in the necessity under which they will feel themselves laid, to come together in acts of worship. There may be persons who know not what it is. For one large class, however, no such apology can be made. They are sons of the church, introduced within its guardian care by baptism, and familiarized to the daily sanctuary, of which they can even now scarcely hear, or think, without recalling the image of a sainted father, whose voice in their early years conducted them to the praise of God. When such persons, so instructed, establish households of their own, with a daily memento of their youthful privilege, and their present neglect, in every hour at which God was wont to be worshipped under the paternal roof, and still deny the faith of their childhood, they not only sin, but sin knowingly and inexcusably. Nothing but the absence of devout affections can account for such a life.
So great is our desire, however, to meet the neglecters of this service on any ground, that we will yield a ready attention to all their doubts, scruples, and objections; and for this purpose no better way suggests itself than that of supposing the replies which may be made to our preceding urgent beseeching, that the reader would enter upon Family - Worship forthwith. What arguments can we imagine, from his lips? ‘’ The service, as I have seen it, is a dull formality; and my house is as well without it.” Then you have seen it under great neglect or perversion. Like all religious services, it may be so conducted as to be both dull and formal. But no Christian observance, known among men, admits of more life, and none is connected with more sources of tender affection. Very ignorant, very stupid, or very irreligious people, may transform it into a tedious and burdensome routine, but this is no fault of the ordinance: they do the like with every sacred thing that they touch. We do not invite you to such a service, or to any dead formality, but to that which, under the influence of elevated emotion, may be made, and is daily made, a delightful and animating means of grace. True, it is simple, and lacks all the paraphernalia, and posture, and grimace of anti-christian rites, but in the households of the righteous it shines with a pure and hallowed attraction; and we appeal to those who have enjoyed it from their infancy, whether they do not regard it in retrospect with every feeling rather than that of weariness. Nay, the very reason why we would introduce the means under every roof, is that it possesses in so remarkable a degree the quality of inspiring the liveliest emotion.
‘’ Family-Worship may be well enough in itself, but it does not fall in with the customs of my house and my guests.” This is with some a valid argument, and it must be admitted that there are customs of households and of society, with which Family- Worship will assuredly interfere. Such is the custom of late and irregular rising, agreeably to which the yawning inmates of a house straggle down to a breakfast-table, which stands for hours, awaiting the successive approaches of the solitary and moody participant; and that other custom, of passing a long evening, as it is called by the courtesy of fashion, at the theatre, the card-party, the ball, or the not less unseasonable supper, or assembly. It is not the least of the advantages of domestic prayer, that it stands in open daily protest against these growing observances of the mode.
‘’I have not time for Family-Worship.” In the hurry of our great cities, it is painful to observe the preference given to Mammon over God. Look at the living tide which rolls every morning down such a thoroughfare as Broadway! A stranger might be forgiven if he supposed that the life of each breathless banker, merchant, or clerk, depended on his reaching the commercial latitudes within a certain minute. But how many of these have prayed with their families? Some, we rejoice to believe; but the mass have no time for any thing but the world. Unless men will lose their own souls, and jeopard the souls of their children, they must take time for God. And the more busy, exhausting, and absorbing, any man’s days are, the more does he need the deliberate abstraction of a quiet devotional hour, such as that of Family-Worship. ‘’ Were you formed for this world only, there would be some force in the objection, but how strange does such an objection sound in the heir of an eternity! Pray, what is your time given to you for? Is it not principally that you may prepare for eternity? And have you no time for what is the great business of your lives? Again, why do you not plead too, that you have no time for your daily meals? Is food more necessary to your bodies, than religion to your souls? If you think so, what is become of your understandings? Further, what employment do you follow? Is it lawful or unlawful? If unlawful, then renounce it immediately; if lawful, then it will admit of the exercise of family-religion, for God cannot command contradictions, and since lie has commanded you to maintain his worship in your- houses, that is demonstration that every calling which he allows you to follow will afford time for it. Finally, may you not redeem as much time from idle conversation, from trifling, [from the morning papers,] or even from your sleep, as may be sufficient for family-religion? May you not order your family devotion so that your domestics may attend upon it, either before they go out to their -work, or when they come to their meals?”*
^’ Our family is so small.” How many are there of you? Are there two? Then, *’ Wheresoever two,’^ (see Matt, xviii. 19, 20.) John Howard and his valet, as they journeyed from place to place, used to have Family-Worship by themselves, if they could get no one else to join them. “Wherever I have a tent,” he would say, “■ there God shall have an altar.” If there be two of you, though it be but a Ruth and a Naomi, a mother and her daughter, your family is large enough to worship God, and to get the blessing of those who worship him.
“‘My family is so large; there are so many servants, and so many visiters, that I have not courage to begin.’ If your family be large, the obligation to begin is all the
* Davies’s Sermons, Sermon xxix.
greater. Many suffer by your neglect. And if your congregation be numerous, the likelihood that some good will be done is the greater, for there are more to share the benefit. And why want courage? Should not the very fact that you are acknowledging God encourage you? “Them that honour me, I will honour.’ Begin it belie vingly, and in the very attempt courage will come.”*
“There are persons present in my house, whose superior age or intelligence deters me from the duty.” To this it must be replied, that if such persons are sober, wise, and generous, they will look not only with allowance, but wdth kindly regard on the endeavour; and if they are otherwise, it is too much to demand of an independent and a Christian man, that he should for an instant be governed by their caprices or their censure. The head of a family should assert his authority in his own house.
“I am imlearned, and destitute of gifts.” Either misapprehension or pride suggests this objection. It is not a service which demands genius, erudition, or eloquence. You have education enough to read a portion of
* Hamilton’s “Church in the House.”
22* the Scriptures with propriety and solemnity. And yon can so far gather your thoughts, by suitable premeditation, as to pour out a prayer to God for those whom yon love, which will be all the better for its simplicity of expression. The families are few, in which the father need to tremble before his own dependents. Then consider that the gift of prayer is from above, and that He who aids in the closet, will aid in the family group. Unless, indeed, you labour under the evil consciousness that you are living in the neglect even of secret prayer, and then, as you have an additional sin to repent of, so you have an additional duty to perform. “What,” says President Davies, “have you enjoyed preaching, Bibles, and good books so long, and vet do not know what to ask of God? Alas! what have you been doing?”
“My family are unwilling to unite in the service.” This is one of the worst things which can be testified of a family. Graceless, indeed, must those sons or daughters be, who could for an instant hesitate to accompany their father to the throne of grace, or who could throw any obstacle in the way of such an observance. You have strangely neglected the maintenance of parental authority, if any such temper really exists. The objection speaks loudly in favour of an early institution of family-prayer, that children may be accustomed to it from their earliest years, and not need to be reconciled to the holy custom after a long career of wayward folly. But granting that the mortifying case is as you have alleged, it is only a new proof that you should vindicate your claim, as a Christian householder, to rule in your own house.
“The truth is, I am ashamed to begin. ‘^ We seriously believe that this single reason operates with more force than all the others put together; and it is one with which we are constrained to deal honestly and solemnly. Men who have allowed their households to increase around them without any visible service of God, awake to some sense of their duty, and would attempt the performance of it, but for a secret dread of the sneer, even of a child or a servant. Religion frequently brings men to such a dilemma, and it is a test of sincerity. If the scorn of the world is to decide our conduct, we might as well abandon all service of God at once; but we know the lot of those who are ashamed of Christ. We choose to place the question on this ground, because true piety will lead a man to serve God, in spite of shame. But, in reality, the danger is, for the most part, one of the imagination. No such ridicule will commonly ensue, but rather inward approval and increased respect. And that feeling of strangeness, which accompanies the entrance on an unaccustomed work, will wear off, perhaps after the very first trial.
Among these and similar objections which might be stated, we have not found one which really goes against the duty itself, or which contravenes the reasons heretofore given in this book. We are, therefore, bound to press the immediate performance of the duty, upon every sincere reader, in the assurance that so doing he will bless God for having enabled him to enter upon so delightful a service. The days of life are few. Children are rapidly growing into their habits for life. Some of them wdll soon be beyond your reach. Death wdll, before long, work strange separations. The night cometh. In prospect of that judgment which is nearly impending, be persuaded to lay aside all frivolous excuses, to take up the cross, and to be ill your family, as well as elsewhere, a devout and unflinching servant of Christ.
Before removing our hand from these humble labours, we must be allowed to add, that there are duties to be performed by those also who- have never neglected the outward observance. To be what we have represented, Family-Worship must be something more than a form of recurring service, however grave, punctual, or decorous. It may degenerate into a rite as empty as the sprinkling of holy water, the recounting of beads, or the putting on of phylacteries. Under the agency of Infinite Grace, it is a mighty instrument for good; but we must concentrate every power, to bring out all its strength. No care can be too great, which shall make this daily service more seemly, more solemn, more instructive, more interesting, and more affectionate. We should prepare for it by preparing the heart. We should earnestly, and every day, make a deliberate and distinct effort to free ourselves from that apathy and that formality, which attach themselves to a customary service. We should come to it with eagerness and love, and should endeavour, by God’s help, so to conduct it as to show to all in the house, that it is a delight, and that our heart’s desire is, that all may find it a delight. We should regard it as a daily avenue to the very feet of our God and Saviour, and in this light as a privilege be- yond all price. Like the kindred observance of the Sabbath, (with which it commonly stands or falls,) Family-Worship is observed to be most delightful to those who bestow the most pains upon it.
We are too much disposed to rest satisfied with our avoiding the sin of those who altogether neglect domestic prayer. But how do we render it? Are we in earnest? Are we full of faith? Do our affections flow forth in it? Do we shun all undue haste? Is our deportment such, when engaged in this service, that all around us may bear testimony that it is a sincere tribute of our affections to God? Questions such as these may carry a rebuke to many householders. Perhaps one great cause of that declension of piety which we so generally lament in our country, is connected with the non-performance, or the ill performance, of this household duty. While we content ourselves with vag-ue complaints, and wait for some revif ing measures from abroad, here is a home-measure, which is at every man’s door. So long as every family spies out the sins of every other, and bewails the coldness of the body at large, the evil only grows; but if each family, in reliance on God, were to awake to the duties of domestic piety, household discipline and instruction, and daily prayer, we should behold a gracious revival in all our churches. By the former method, no one house is benefited; by the latter, every house would become a Bethel. When shall we see among us that deeply-pervading national interest in divine things, which animated all classes in Scotland, at the second Reformation? Mingled, as it doubtless was, with much misapprehension in regard to the connexion of Christ’s kingdom with the civil polity, it was, nevertheless, a genuine fire, infinitely to be preferred to the tepid languors of our American condition in divine things. Nor can we hope for a restitution of this, until religion, and the service of God, be made the great business of every house. “Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? “Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us
AGAIN, THAT THY PEOPLE MAY REJOICE IN THEE?”*
* Psalm lxxxv. 4, 5. 6.
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