Family Worship as a Means of Intellectual Improvement (1)

Some there are to whom it will appear far-fetched to argue for this observance on the ground of intellectual improvement. Such, however, can have paid little attention to one of the great effects of grace. The influence of family worship on mental culture is only a part of the general influence of religion on the mind. True piety improves the understanding. The worship of God is a means of disciplining the faculties. The domestic worship of God is a means of family cultivation, in respect to the intellectual powers.

When we consider that all sanctification is by means of truth, this is no longer wonderful. “The entrance of Thy words giveth light: it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Ps. 119:130). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7). No man becomes a true Christian without becoming more instructed and more wise.

It has been held by some that the depravity of man, by reason of the fall, does not extend to the intellectual powers: but this is an error, against which genuine Reformed theology has firmly protested. The change in regen-eration is a change of the whole man. There is no aspect under which this renovation is more frequently set forth in Scripture than that of an illumination of the mind (2 Cor. 4:4,6; Eph. 1:18; 5:14; Col. 1:9; Heb. 10:32; 1 Pet. 2:9; 1 John 5:20). Unless we err, this point has been too much neglected. The very acts and exercises of a Christian life conduct directly to mental improvement, and are in themselves an intellectual discipline. And among these, family worship has a prominent share.

Family worship includes the reading of the Scriptures; and this in itself is one of the most valuable instruments of cultivating the powers. It is a world of knowledge in itself. The truths which it presents are the greatest and the most awakening which can be subjected to human attention. It is the voice of God. He is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all; the original, uncreated, eternal, causative Light; the only source of all knowledge in creatures. He is primeval and essential Truth. Hence the subjects treated in the Bible are eminently fitted to stimulate and impress the soul. It treats of those things, concerning many of which we could not even frame an imagination, or venture a guess; the things of eternity before creation, and the things of eternity after judgment; the fall, the redemption, and the destiny of man. Surely we need not prove to Christians that the perusal of the Scriptures is good for the understanding.

By means of family reading, the Bible becomes in a manner the sole manual of the house. The ancients used to say, “Take heed of a man of one book”; meaning that such a man, by perpetual repetition and meditation of the same topics, and perpetual whetting of his mind on the same arguments, must needs become one whom for acumen, and use of his powers, it were dangerous to encounter in argument. Family worship includes in a sort the daily study of one volume, which thus becomes the domestic text-book.

The history of Reformed Christianity would furnish abundant instances of the discipline and information which may be attained by means of the Bible alone, especially where proper pains are taken to compare Scripture with Scripture. Here we gladly avail ourselves of the judgment of a learned prelate of the Anglican church. “It is incredible,” says the late Bishop Horsely, “to any one who has not made the experiment, what a proficiency may be made in that knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation, by studying the Scriptures in this manner, without any other commentary, or exposition, than what the different parts of the sacred volume mutually furnish for each other. Let the most illiterate Christian study them in this manner, and let him never cease to pray for the illumination of that Spirit by which these books were dictated, and the whole compass of abstruse philosophy, and recondite history, shall furnish no argument with which the perverse will of man shall be able to shake this learned Christian’s faith.”

There have been Scottish mechanics, husbandmen and shepherds, who have known no book but the Word of God, and who have nevertheless become able theologians, and instructed men. Indeed it may be considered whether the characteristic and proverbial quickness of the Scottish peasantry may not in a great measure be ascribed to this very source. As a triumphant example of the formative influence of the simple Scriptures on even an unlettered mind, we need only mention the immortal name of John Bunyan.

Let it not be thought, because the Bible is simply heard, by the majority of a household, that it falls without effect. Hearing is study, and of the most ancient kind. Before copies of the Word of God were multiplied, as in our day, it was by the ear, and not by the eye, that its contents were mostly received. When the manner of reading is good, it is still the most impressive method, for the ignorant and the young. By such means the family worship becomes a household school, and the tuition goes on for a life-time. All this holds good, even when there is not a syllable of comment. But, where there are even moderate gifts, there will sometimes be thrown in a word of remark, the ex-planation of a hard phrase, the refer-ence to a parallel place, the summons to special attention, the seasonable advice, or the warm entreaty. Sometimes, where time is more at command, parts of a useful commentary will be read in connection with the Word. Sometimes portions of evangelical works will be added, and sometimes the catechetical exercise, according to a venerable Presbyterian custom, will find its place by the side of the domestic worship of the Lord’s day.

In a word, we cannot think it possible for any family to enjoy, twice every day for all their lives, the privilege of hearing the Scriptures read at domestic worship, without, by that very means, rising perceptibly and greatly in knowledge and intellectual force.

Dr. lames W. Alexander (1804–1859), was the eldest son of the renowned Archibald Alexander.

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