Despite this evidence of the persistence and even thriving of family worship in the early decades of the 19th century, by the middle of the century there already were already signs of its decline. Perhaps the lack of provisions for discipline on this matter was taking its toll. However, even among families steeped in the traditions, signs of slippage were evident.
In 1847, J. W. Alexander, a Presbyterian minister and the son of Archibald Alexander of Princeton, testified to the importance of family worship in his life and the lives of other Presbyterians known to him.
"[The] richest inheritance which some of us have is the domestic rite, which has been in our houses as far back as record or tradition goes. A venerable parishoner of the author has enjoyed Family-Worship with no less than six generations, including a grandfather and great-grand children" (J. W. Alexander, Thoughts on Family Worship, p. 2).
He wrote Thoughts on Family Worship with the hope of addressing and halting the decline.
1. J. W. Alexander's Time
Alexander considered the decline of family worship to be an expression of the world making inroads into the church. While he rightly disparaged his time in comparison to the 17th century, his description of the extent of the emerging problem in his time should shame us. For example, he could scarcely believe the report that "some ruling elders and deacons... maintain no stated daily service of God in their dwellings."
"In a period when the world is every day making new inroads on the church, it has especially invaded the household. Our church cannot compare with that of the seventeenth century in this regard. Along with Sabbath observance, and the catechizing of children, Family-Worship has lost ground. There are many heads of families, communicants in our churches, and (according to a scarcely credible report) some ruling elders and deacons, who maintain no stated daily service of God in their dwellings. It is to awaken such to their duty that this volume has been prepared... " (Alexander, pp. 1-2).
2. The Beneficial Influences of Family Worship
Alexander was concerned that this inheritance of family worship might be lost. The decline of family worship was associated with times when "error and worldliness make inroads upon the church" (Alexander, p. 28). On the other hand, Alexander asserted that "the universal voice of the Church, in its best periods, has been in favor of family-worship" (Alexander, p. 29).
The primary reason for family worship is that it is "a service due to God, in regard to his bountiful and gracious relation to families" (Alexander, p. 29). God graciously brings people into families as He gathers the household of God and ordains the family as a setting for worship. However, as sinners, we also need family worship because of "the wants, temptations, dangers, and sins of the family state" (Alexander, p. 29).
In developing his defense of family worship Alexander focused on showing how family worship benefited the Christian home, church and the society at large. The following is a summary of Alexander’s list of benefits.
a. Family worship promotes the piety of the family head
In Alexander's view, "There is no member of a household whose individual piety is of such importance to all the rest, as the father or head; and there is no one whose soul is so directly influenced by the exercise of domestic worship" (Alexander, p. 28). The very exercise of the head’s leadership is a means of promoting his piety. Alexander understood this leadership to include the selection and reading of the word and "prayer, confession and praise."
b. Family worship is a daily practice
Alexander believed that half of the "defects and transgressions of our day arise from want of consideration" (Alexander, p. 35). He meant that for regenerate Christians, the simple bringing to mind of the Word of God would have an impact on practical piety. But in the business of life a whole day could pass without any external stimulus to consider God’s Word. "Hence the unspeakable value of an exercise, which twice every day calls each member of the household at least to think of God" (Alexander, p. 35).
Alexander referred to a "sacramental, sabbath, or periodical religion, a habit of mind to be put on and off, like the habit of a body. Family-worship has a direct and manifest tendency to make religion a matter of everyday interest" (Alexander, pp. 37-38). Today this phenomenon of "Sunday Christianity" is well known. However, its practitioners may well be genuine Christians whose sanctification is hindered by the absence of the daily practice of family worship in their lives.
c. Family worship activates the head's spiritual gifts
Family worship not only contributes to the sanctification of the head of the family, it also "furnishes a means of making increased graces in the head of the household available to the benefit of the members" (Alexander, p. 39). Each man brings with him various hindrances to acting as a spiritual leader.
Many men hesitate to lead in family worship because of a perception of their own shortcomings. However, the most effective means for the ordinary man to be educated in this practice is to do it. The pride which underlies this hesitancy blocks him from carrying out his God-given role and denies the consequent spiritual benefits to him and his family.
"...one of the chief means of promoting such individual graces in the head, is this his daily exercise of devotion with the members. It is more to him, than to others. It is he who presides and directs in it; who selects and delivers the precious word; and who leads the common supplication, confession, and praise" (Alexander, pp. 33-34).
d. Family worship educates the parents
Family worship educates both parents:
"In order to educate the children of a land, we must first educate the parents: and if an institution were demanded for this special purpose, it would be impossible to find one comparable to Family-Worship" (Alexander, p. 43).
The main means by which a head of the household will be able to teach is through the early instruction of his children in the Bible. Family worship also is an appropriate vehicle for the husband’s Biblically mandated spiritual nurture of his wife, "the washing of water by the word" (Eph 5:26). A man who is twice daily in worship with his family will come to know God’s Word intimately.
"The hindrances are various: lack of education; consciousness of small attainment; slowness of speech; natural diffidence; inexcusable pride or false shame; and a sense of inconsistency in life. These causes may operate to keep a father of a family in a state of inactive insulation. Nothing tends so directly to break a channel for right influences, in this respect, as the regular and faithful observance of domestic worship" (Alexander, p. 39).
In family worship the spiritual outworking for the husband’s headship is revealed in the manner most likely to encourage the wife in her Scriptural injunction to submit to her husband. Through the husband’s leadership of family worship a wife learns of its benefits for the entire family and the importance of neither usurping nor undermining him in his God-ordained role.
e. Family worship preserves the spiritual leadership of the head
In Alexander’s view the headship of the husband as inalienable. The husband and father can be a good or bad spiritual leader, but he is by divine mandate the leader.
"The maintenance of domestic religion in every house is primarily entrusted to the head of the family... "(Alexander, p. 43.).
His actions unfailingly leave their mark on his family. Indeed, his actions affect himself as well: "The father who, year after year, presides in the sacred domestic assembly, submits himself to an influence which is incalculably strong on his own parental character" (Alexander, pp. 45-46).
"No man can approach the duty of leading his household in an act of devotion, without solemn reflection on the place which he occupies in regard to them. He is their head. He is such by divine and unalterable constitution. These are duties and prerogatives which he cannot alienate. There is something more than mere precedence in age, knowledge, or substance. He is the father and master. No act of his, and nothing in his character, can fail to leave a mark on those around him "(Alexander, p. 44).
Alexander viewed the husband as the spiritual guardian of his wife and considered the reversal of that relationship to be "unnatural" (Alexander, p. 46). Family worship is a means for exercising this spiritual guardianship. No one else can exercise this role with his wife. Moreover, a head who does not act as a spiritual leader of his children cannot be replaced by his wife.
"Although both parents have recourse to Scripture in their daily relations with their children, formal instruction entails an exercise of spiritual authority which belongs to the head of the family. It is very unlikely that a man can truly be a spiritual leader in his family without some form of family worship.
f. Family worship makes the head able to teach
Alexander included instruction in the Bible as an element of family worship. The family is his flock, and he is its "teacher and undershepherd" (Alexander, p. 48). The natural standing of the father is enhanced when He reads the Word of God. Whatever his shortcomings as a teacher, the words he reads come from the One who teaches us all things.
"The hour of domestic prayer and praise is also the hour of scriptural instruction. The father has opened God’s word, in the presence of his little flock. He thus admits himself to be its teacher and undershepherd. Perhaps he is but a plain man, living by his labour, unused to schools or libraries, and like Moses, 'slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.' Nevertheless, he stands by the open well of wisdom, and like the same Moses, may draw water from it and water the flock" (Alexander, p. 48).
g. Family worship is a means of the head's sanctification
Leading in family worship will constantly bring to the mind of the head his inadequacy and sin before God. The Christian man will respond to this experience by seeking God’s grace to make him conform more to the image of His Son. In this way, family worship will be a daily means of the head’s spiritual growth.
Alexander believed that some men are deterred from this exercise of spiritual leadership of their families by "the consciousness of a discrepancy between their life and any acts of devotion."
"The Christian householder will feel himself constrained to say: I am leading my family in solemn addresses to God; what manner of man should I be! This undoubtedly has been, in cases innumerable, the direct operation of Family-Worship on the father. As we know that worldly men, and inconsistent professors, are deterred from performing this duty by the consciousness of a discrepance between their life and any acts of devotion, so humble Christians are led by the same comparison to be more circumspect, and to order their ways in such a manner as may edify their dependents" (Alexander, p. 49).
The very action of leading in family worship could reveal a sharp contrast between the head’s behavior at that time and in the rest of the day. The reading of God’s Word undoubtedly will become at times a spotlight on the one reading it.
This experience, so dreaded by "worldly men, and inconsistent professors [of faith]," actually is a vital means of the sanctification of the head of the household. It corrects him and makes him more fit to aid in the edification of his family.
h. Family worship makes the head a better father and husband
Family worship brings a sense of "parental responsibility... on the head of a household" (Alexander, p. 51). Alexander was well aware of how the pressure of work, "even in the pulpit," could cause a man to forget his responsibilities as a father and a husband. However, God's view of the head’s role as a father and husband is brought immediately and repeatedly before him in family worship.
i. Family worship counters worldliness and materialism
Family worship in this light is a vital means of resisting worldly pressures to provide economic security by devoting too much time to work. Men who are under these pressures above all need family worship. In the day when a man spent most of his day with his family on a farm or in a trade, family worship still was perceived as necessary. But from Alexander’s time, when industrialization was fully begun, to our day, with its fragmented family life, family worship is more vital than ever, especially for the head of the family, who may not otherwise even be recognized as the head:
"In the shop, the market, the field, the highway, the office, the exchange, and even in the pulpit, the father may forget that he is a father: he cannot forget it when the curtain has dropped, when the circle draws more closely around the hearth, when the wife of his youth welcomes him to prayer, and when the eyes of his little ones are fixed on him as the minister of God to their souls. I no longer marvel that Christianity becomes a dying, empty thing, in the houses of those professors (alas, that there should be such!) where there is no joint worship of God.
"In the rage for amassing wealth, which threatens the church among us, and especially in our great commercial cities, there is an estranging process going on which we fear is too little observed. Such is the insane precipitation with which the man of business rushes to his morning task, and such the length of his absence from home, often extending till the hours of darkness, that he gradually loses some of that parental tenderness which providence keeps alive by the presence of those whom we love. The long continuance of such habits cannot fail to affect the character. Of all persons in the world, he should be most willing to take time for family-devotion, who is by his very employment shut out from his home most of the day" (Alexander, pp. 53-5).
j. Family worship best teaches children the Bible
Alexander would agree with Richard Baxter that family instruction is the best setting for teaching the Bible to children. Family instruction is daily and can be reinforced throughout the day. It is much more difficult for a child to ignore a lesson taught in family worship, where distraction is easily noticed and can be acted against directly:
"The daily reading of God’s holy word, by a parent before his children, is one of the most powerful agencies of a Christian life. We are prone to under value this cause. It is a constant dropping, but it wears its mark into the rock. A family thus trained cannot be ignorant of the Word. The whole Scriptures come repeatedly before the mind... No part of juvenile education is more important" (Alexander, pp. 62-63).
Another strength of family instruction is that the natural affection of a child for the father reinforces the teaching. In turn, "filial affections are moulded by Family-Worship" (Alexander, p. 63).
k. Family worship promotes intellectual improvement
Alexander was intimately aware of a fact which too many Christian parents do not understand: the educational value of Bible reading. Children well imbued in Biblical knowledge are well prepared for less important fields of study.
l. Family worship strengthens the family
Family worship enhances all of the strengths of families in times of distress, as a bulwark against social pressures, as a witness to the community, in the maintenance of domestic harmony and in the expression of love.
Alexander wrote at a time when many advocates of social reform viewed the family as an obstacle to their objectives. Early exponents of socialism such as Godwin, Fourier, and Owen advocated changes which "tear the household elements asunder. Christianity compacts the structure, and strengthens every wall. It adds a new cement, and makes the father more a father -- the husband more a husband -- the son more a son; so that there is not a social tie which does not become more strong and endearing by means of grace" (Alexander, p. 103).
As opposed to these early socialists, Alexander recognized that strong families are the best means of correcting social problems:
"On every side... we hear the outcry against the domestic temple... Ignorant of the true sources of pauperism and oppression, our ruling pseudo-philanthropists are in perpetual agitation about the wrongs of labor, the rights of women, and the reconstruction of society. 'Association,' such as they propose, would pluck away the hearth-stone, and break the marriage-ring. ...cashier the natural guardians of infancy, and subject masses of youth, in phalanxes, to the regimental drill of a newly-invented education" (Alexander, pp. 164-165).
This observation is entirely confirmed today by an examination of the correlation between crime and poverty and single parent households, whether they be caused by divorce or childbearing outside of marriage.
A properly functioning family creates a respect for legitimate authority and self-discipline which is the very foundation for liberty in a fallen world:
"Every Christian household is a school of good citizenship. .. Family-Worship... promotes habits of order. It brings a stated regulation into the house, and gathers the inmates by a fixed law. It sets up a wholesome barrier against wanton irregularity, sloth, and night-wandering. It encourages early hours, thoughtfulness, and affection; and above all it adds strength to the principle of subordination and obedience; a point which we dare not pass lightly. Good citizens are such as abide by the law, and submit themselves to authority. The habit of so doing must be formed under the parental roof" (Alexander, pp. 165-166).
The maintenance of these standards by Christian households exerts considerable influence even on the households of non-Christians, although those who are not regenerated by the Holy Spirit can at best only imitate the external features of the Christian family.
m. Family worship promotes sound doctrine
Alexander was an "Old School" Presbyterian, committed to the sufficiency of Scripture in the worship, government and mission of the church. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that he firmly believed that:
"Where the Scriptures are fully and statedly read in a household day by day, there is the greatest possible safeguard against error. We desire no other orthodoxy than that which is contained in this Rule of Faith. We leave it to Rome, to be afraid of the volume. Our venerated formulas of faith were drawn up by men, who, though for the most part educated under other influences, derived their tenets from the naked word. By this we are ready to abide; and we maintain with earnestness, that the best of all methods for preventing latitudinarian declension, is a perpetual inculcation of the Scriptures, such as is continually taking place in Family-Worship" (Alexander, pp. 142-143).
The strength of the Westminster Standards is rooted in the fact that they were composed by men thoroughly immersed in Scripture due to the extensive practice of family worship in their generation. Alexander considered family worship as the best method for resisting doctrinal decline. Indeed, family worship and Biblical orthodoxy declined together in the century after Alexander wrote his book.
n. Family worship changes the world
"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, 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" (Alexander, pp. 180-181).
In Alexander's day Christians who had rejected the Biblical doctrine of election held that all people could be saved and thus create the foundation of a "Kingdom of God" on earth brought about through political and social action.
The duty of the Church is to proclaim the gospel and gather God’s elect and teach them to obey Christ’s commands (Mt 28:19-20). This action does confer benefits on the societies in which Christians live, but the limited number of the elect limits also the range of social change.
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