Family Worship: Concluding Difficulties and Objections (2)

(3) “I have no 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 masses have no time for anything but the world. Unless men will lose their own souls and jeopardize 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. As Samuel Davies expostulates: “Were you formed for this world only, there would be some force in the objection, but how strange does such an objection sound coming from an 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 also plead 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 understanding? 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 He has commanded you to maintain His worship in your houses, that is demonstration enough 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, 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?

(4) “Our family is so small.” How many are there of you? Are there two? Then, “Wheresoever two” (see Matt. 18:19-20). 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.

(5) “‘My family is so large; there are so many servants and so many visitors, that I have not courage to begin.’ If your family be large, the obligation to begin is all the 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 believingly, and in the very attempt courage will come.” (Hamilton).

(6) “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 with kindly regard on the endeavor; 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.

(7) “I am unlearned, 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 the Scriptures with propriety and solemnity. And you can gather your thoughts, by suitable premeditation to pour out a prayer to God for those whom you 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 labor under the evil consciousness that you are living in the neglect even of secret prayer; 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 yet do not know what to ask of God? Alas! what have you been doing?”

(8) “My family is 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 favor 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.

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 (1854) and Thoughts on Preaching (1864). This article is drawn from his Thoughts on Family Worship (1847).

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen