FAMILY WORSHIP | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 8, 1856

FAMILY WORSHIP.

"For I know Abraham that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment."—GENESIS XVIII, 19.

The most superficial reader of the word of God cannot fail to be struck with the numerous instances of Family Worship which are there recorded. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob furnish conspicuous examples of this pious duty; for, uniformly, when their arrival at any new place in the course of their wanderings is mentioned, it is said of each of them, "There builded he an altar and called upon the name of the Lord." Joshua also, we are informed, was not content to serve God himself, but his language, well worthy the imitation of every Christian, was, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And Job, the suffering yet patient Job, how careful was he in the exercise of the same solemn duty! He offered sacrifice and made supplication to God not merely in the company of his assembled children, but on those occasions also when they were met together in festivity by themselves, and when, as he reasonably apprehended, they might forget God in their mirth.

Instances, too, of the sad and fatal consequences of the neglect of family religion, are not wanting in scripture. The misery and ruin of Lot's family we have good reason to ascribe to this neglect. There is not a single act of social worship mentioned of him in the sacred narrative. We never read there of his building an altar and calling upon God; and from the subsequent conduct of his family we cannot but entertain the fear that their religious instruction had been utterly neglected.

We, again, behold in the family of Eli a lamentable instance of the danger of relaxing parental authority, and of failing to enforce religious discipline in the household. Although himself a pious man, he did not faithfully impress the same sentiments upon his wayward sons; and when "they made themselves vile in Israel, he restrained them not." The unhappy consequence was that the blessing of God never attended his family: his sons Hophni and Phinehas were slain in battle; his daughter-in-law died prematurely in her travail: and the aged Eli himself, broken-hearted with his complicated afflictions, "fell from his seat backward, and his neck brake and he died."

These are examples which the Scriptures furnish of the value and necessity of household religious instruction; but they contain precepts also enforcing the same duty. Thus speaks the Jewish legislator, "The commandments of the Lord which I teach thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."—Here then is inculcated a most diffusive piety;—an every day religion,—a subject which is to be suited to all occasions, so that our children and dependents may feel continually that this is the one grand object which is to fill the heart and govern the life.

And would God it were a subject which received the attention that is proportioned to its importance? Very different in that case would be the order and habits of society. Far less cause would there be to lament, what there is often so much reason to lament, the degeneracy of the times, the recklessness of principle and aversion to religious restraint, which, charitably as we may be inclined to judge, are too generally to be observed.

There may often be an affectation in referring to the comparative purity of former times, and declaiming against the degeneracy of the present day; but if we are to depend upon the accuracy of traditional and historic statements, we must confess, mortifying as the confession may prove, that there is some truth in the contrast. "Our fathers and they of the old time before us," have borne satisfactory testimony to the strictness of religious discipline in their days; and lead us to believe that the exception then was as uncommon as the rule is now, to be exact and faithful in the solemn and important duty of Family Worship.

But how is the neglect of a duty so reasonable in itself, so strictly enjoined, and so essentially Christian, to be reconciled with the privileges or hopes of the Gospel?—or to speak more plainly, though not less correctly, in what is a Christian distinct from an unbeliever, if he does not manifest in his heart, in his house, in his community, that the love of God and the dissemination of his truth and kingdom is the principle which governs and animates his life?

Well may we ask, and wonder while we ask, what is the reason of this neglect? Can it be that any are not fully persuaded of the importance of the duty? Surely with the word of God in their hands, with the precepts which are given and which cannot be misinterpreted, as most strictly enjoining this duty, with the examples too which are furnished of the value of adhering to this ancient and excellent custom, and the deplorable instances which it records as the consequences of its neglect, none can any longer seriously cherish the opinion that it is not a useful, an important, a divinely-ordered duty.

But some, perhaps, are deterred from the strict performance of this religious practice by the fear of singularity, of bringing down upon themselves the epithets of sanctimonious, righteous-over-much, or even hypocritical!—It is, indeed, a serious misfortune that there should ever be a singularity in worshiping God according to his own commands, and in conformity with the example of holy men of old; and it is a yet greater misfortune that any should be found in the ranks of Christianity of an attachment so wavering and doubtful to the "Captain of their salvation," as to be repelled from what they acknowledge to be their duty by either scoffs, sneers, or ridicule. There are many in the world who glory in a singularity affecting the habits and fashions of mere worldly life, who can bear with sarcasm, and put up with ridicule, when it is merely the customs of every day life which are assailed, but their sensibility is too keenly awakened, and their moral courage fails, when their singularity in conscientiously serving God chances to be the subject of animadversion. But O, how criminal to stand aloof from a manifest duty because the thoughtless, the worldly-minded, or the profane, may affect to scorn the Christian's pious principles, and sneer at his devout example! Hear how the Son of God expresses himself in regard to these weak-hearted adherents of his cause: "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angels."

But do any plead that they have no time for these household exercises of religion? Is it that business, that pleasure, that the world, in short, has too strong a hold upon their affections to permit the needful attention to this important duty? Is it that engagements in the morning, and diversions in the evening will not allow the requisite time for this solemn, this religious, this necessary exercise? Surely there are none who could, in moments of thoughtfulness, venture to trifle, in that manner, with Almighty God;—none so indifferent to his favor, so regardless of his blessings, so insensible to their own everlasting welfare as to rank the service of the great Benefactor of the world amongst considerations comparatively so unimportant as these? Upon those who persist in such a course of thinking and acting, our Saviour himself pronounces the condemnation, "Verily ye have your reward:" like the rich man in the parable, they have "in their life time received their good things;" and as the wages of God's neglected service, and of the Gospel's derided duties, their portion in the life that is to come will be with unbelievers "in outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth."

We hear in the world, and witness around us, lamentable complaints of wayward and rebellious children, who, having no fear of God before their eyes, are "bringing down the gray hairs of their parents in sorrow to the grave." But let us ask ourselves, would these things so generally, or so grievously, happen, if the conduct of Abraham, as commended in the text, were the subject of universal imitation?—"I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment!" It is perfectly natural that it should happen—it would be extraordinary indeed if it did not happen,—that children and domestics who are brought up without any attention to religious principle; who never hear a prayer and perhaps never say a prayer; who are allowed to follow their own unchecked inclinations as to whether they will worship God or not; it is natural that they should turn out to be wayward, self-willed, and disobedient, unthankful children and discreditable members of society. If no check be imposed upon the natural evil propensities of the heart; if wholesome discipline be never interposed nor the vast extent of moral and religious responsibility be sedulously taught; innate depravity will so far master the affections and control the conduct as to lead to the subversion of all order and decorum and virtue.

This injunction, then, ought well to be studied and understood, Abraham "commanded his children and his household after him;" authority must be added to precept, where there is no spontaneous compliance. Those who are of years too tender to be fit judges of what is most conducive to their real welfare, it is the duty of parents sedulously to instruct and anxiously to guide.

We observe mankind to be generally careful enough about the instruction of their children in those things which merely concern their progress through life; they are, in general, anxiously taught those habits of business which will qualify them for securing to themselves independence and comfort in the world; and often those light and elegant accomplishments are added which serve to impart a further qualification for successful progress through the mazes of this mortal journey. Of these things I do not speak in terms of censure; but O how much greater pains, how much deeper anxiety should we bestow upon that portion of their education which is to qualify them for another world, which is to fit them for a heavenly society, which is to prepare them for answering in the presence of God this awful demand, "Give an account of thy stewardship!"

Trouble and trial are the lot of us all, and none are exempt from worldly adversity and from domestic afflictions. Happy those who have "brought up their children in the fear and nurture of the Lord!" When those beloved ones are snatched from them, they can be comforted by a remembrance that they "died in the Lord:" should they be called upon to leave their offspring fatherless in the world, they have left them, in a religious education, an inheritance "better than thousands of gold and silver."—Selected.