The Influence of Family Worship on Posterity (2)

It is by the salvation of the children of the church, more than from all other means, that we hope for the salvation of the world. It is by this very method, as we observe in history, that the word of grace has been carried abroad from land to land, and brought down to us. Amidst many seeming failures, the holy seed is kept up. Take the darkest view, there is scarcely a Christian family in a thousand, of those who daily worship God, in which one member does not maintain the succession, while there are thousands, of which every member is a visible believer. The stream often runs under ground. The descendants of the first converts are possibly on earth now. Within a very few years the descendants of Luther, whose life was thought extinct, have been picked up in Germany, poor and squalid, to be embraced by Christian charity. There are clergymen now in the Scottish church, who have descended from an unbroken line, not only of believers, but of ministers; and there is a blessed instance in our own communion, of six living preachers of the gospel, all “sons of one man,” himself a servant of the sanctuary. He who preserves the seed of Abraham, though sifted among all nations, will find it easy to preserve his spiritual seed. When the terms of this covenant are, by divine power, made to take effect by means of Christian education, holy example,and family prayer, the increase is often manifold, in that astonishing, redoubling proportion, which is a law of human growth. Thus the tree spreads its boughs, and scatters its fruit; the original blessing does not die in the hands of those who receive it, but is widely communicated….

Posterity reaps harvests from seed sown in the tears of former ages. We are, perhaps, this day receiving blessings in answers to the prayers of our forefathers, offered in the glens and moors of the old world. There is encouragement to extend as widely as possible the daily supplications of Christian families.

No pious heart can fail to be transported at the prospect of a whole nation of praying houses. It is possible with God. It is a consummation worth striving for, and worth a more distinct, energetic, and united effort, than the church has yet put forth. Every approximation towards it should be hailed with delight. Every church court, every pastor, missionary, ruling elder, and Sunday school teacher, out of love for the generation to come, should make the establishment of family worship an object of separate and earnest endeavor. Every father of a family should consider himself as charged with the souls of those whom he hopes to leave behind him, and as contributing to the future propagation of the truth, by every act of devotion performed in his house. Wherever he has a tent, God should have an altar. Every professing Christian, who has hitherto lived in neglect of this great duty of a householder, should repent, and humble himself, and establish God’s service at his fireside, before he sleeps another night in a prayerless dwelling. Such resolutions, efforts, and devotions, will do more for happiness than all the accumulations of family wealth, all the internal improvements, all legislation, and all the schemes of general education.

We cannot close our eyes to the dangers which threaten our country, from an augmentation of the people, without a corresponding growth of piety. The church must lose its vital warmth and power, unless some new impulse be given from within, and among the means for enkindling this central fire, we reckon family worship to be not the least. In the conflict of our hopes and fears, we think we descry a ray of brightness in the expectation that Christ’s people will awake to consider the power of an instrumentality which is within their very doors, which operates directly on the objects of their most tender love, which will be carried down the stream of time by their increasing progeny, which will bless the race which is unborn, and which will still subsist in its triumphant vigor when the Lord shall come.

The treasure in our hands has been conveyed to us from those who were our fathers according to the flesh. It was coeval with the Reformation. It was held dear by our suffering ancestors. It was delivered over by confessors and martyrs to their children. It is in its very nature fit for transmission; it must not perish in our charge. No! with the help of the Lord, we will convey His testimonies, and the record of His mighty deeds, to our offspring. “We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments”(Ps. 78:4,6,7).

Every father of a family should consider himself as charged with the souls of those whom he hopes to leave behind him.

A new dignity shines around the simple daily worship of the lowliest Christian cottage, when we regard it as one of the most direct means for perpetuating the love and service of God, through our descendants, to the whole land, and the universal race of man. Afflicted and tempest-tossed Zion has this word of reviving promise: “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children” (lsa.54:13).

Dr. James W. Alexander (1804-1859), eldest son of the renowned Archibald Alexander, wrote many volumes on practical Christian themes, including Plain Words to a Young Communicant (1864) and Thoughts on Preaching (1864). This article is drawn from his Thoughts on Family Worship (1847).

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