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Family Worship

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Family Worship

8 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

Christian Reader,

I cannot suppose thee to be such a stranger in the land as to be ignorant of the general complaint concerning the decay of the power of godliness, and more especially of the great corruption of youth. Wherever thou goest, thou wilt hear men crying out of bad children and bad servants, whereas indeed the source of the mischief must be sought a little higher. It is bad parents and bad masters that make bad children and bad servants, and we cannot blame so much their untowardness, as our own negligence in their education.


“The children of Thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before Thee.”


The devil hath a great spite at the kingdom of Christ, and he knoweth no such compendious way to crush it in the egg as by the perversion of youth and supplanting of family duties. He striketh at all those duties which are public in the assemblies of the saints, but these are too well guarded by the solemn injunctions and dying charge of Jesus Christ, as that he should ever hope totally to subvert and undermine them. But at family duties he striketh with the more success, because the institution is not so solemn and the practice not so seriously and conscientiously regarded as it should be, and the omission is not so liable to notice and public censure. Religion was first hatched in families, and there the devil seeketh to crush it. The families of the patriarchs were all the churches God had in the world for the time; and therefore, (I suppose,) when Cain went out from Adam’s family, he is said to go out from the presence of the Lord (Genesis 4:16). Now the devil knoweth that this is a blow at the root and a ready way to prevent the succession of churches. If he can subvert families, other societies and communities will not long flourish and subsist with any power and vigor, for there is the stock from whence they are supplied both for the present and future.

For the present, a family is the seminary of church and state. If children be not well principled there, all miscarrieth; a fault in the first concoction is not mended in the second. If youth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill in church and commonwealth. There is the first making or marring, and the presage of their future lies to be thence taken (Proverbs 20:11). By family discipline, officers are trained up for the church. “One that ruleth well his own house,” etc. (1 Timothy 3:4), and there are men bred up in subjection and obedience. It is noted in Acts 21:5 that the disciples brought Paul on his way with their wives and children. Their children probably are mentioned to intimate that their parents would, by their own example and affectionate farewell to Paul, breed them up in a way of reverence and respect to the pastors of the church.

For the future, it is comfortable, certainly, to see a thriving nursery of young plants, and to have hopes that God shall have a people to serve Him when we are dead and gone. The people of God comforted themselves in that: “The children of Thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before Thee” (Psalm 102:28).

Upon all these considerations, how careful should ministers and parents be to train up young ones while they are yet pliable, and, like wax, capable of any form and impression, in the knowledge and fear of God, and betimes to instill the principles of our most holy faith, as they are drawn into a short sum in catechisms, and so altogether laid in the view of conscience! Surely these seeds of truth planted in the field of memory, if they work nothing else, will at least be a great check and bridle to them, and, as the casting in of cold water doth stay the boiling of the pot, somewhat allay the fervors of youthful lusts and passions.

I had, upon entreaty, resolved to recommend to thee with the greatest earnestness the work of catechizing, but meeting with a private letter of a very learned and godly divine wherein that work is excellently done to my hand, I shall make bold to transcribe a part of it and offer it to public view.

The author having bewailed the great distractions, corruptions, and divisions that are in the church, he thus represents the cause and cure: “Among others, a principal cause of these mischiefs is the great and common neglect of the governors of families in the discharge of that duty which they owe to God for the souls that are under their charge, especially in teaching them the doctrine of Christianity. Families are societies that must be sanctified to God as well as churches, and the governors of them have as truly a charge of the souls that are therein as pastors have of the churches.

“But, alas, how little is this considered or regarded! But while negligent ministers are (deservedly) cast out of their places, the negligent masters of families take themselves to be almost blameless. They offer their children to God in baptism, and there they promise to teach them the doctrine of the gospel and to bring them up in the nurture of the Lord. But they easily promise, and easily break it, and educate their children for the world and the flesh, although they have renounced these and dedicated them to God. This covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the souls of their children to the devil, must lie heavy on them here or hereafter. They beget children and keep families merely for the world and the flesh, but little consider what a charge is committed to them and what it is to bring up a child for God and govern a family as a sanctified society.

“Oh, how sweetly and successfully would the work of God go on if we would but all join together in our several places to promote it! Men need not then run without sending to be preachers, but they might find that part of the work that belongeth to them to be enough for them and to be the best that they can be employed in. Especially women should be careful of this duty, because, as they are most about their children and have early and frequent opportunities to instruct them, so this is the principal service they can do to God in this world, being restrained from more public work. And doubtless many an excellent magistrate hath been sent into the commonwealth, and many an excellent pastor into the church, and many a precious saint to heaven, through the happy preparations of a holy education, perhaps by a woman that thought herself useless and unserviceable to the church. Would parents but begin betimes and labor to affect the hearts of their children with the great matters of everlasting life, and to acquaint them with the substance of the doctrine of Christ....

“It is for want of this laying the foundation well at first that professors themselves are so ignorant as most are, and that so many, especially of the younger sort, do swallow down almost any error that is offered them and follow any sect of dividers that will entice them, so it be but done with earnestness and plausibility. For, alas! though by the grace of God their hearts may be changed in an hour (whenever they understand but the essentials of the faith), yet their understandings must have time and diligence to furnish them with such knowledge as must stablish them and fortify them against deceits. Upon these, and many like considerations, we should entreat all Christian families to take more pains in this necessary work, and to get better acquainted with the substance of Christianity.”

— Rev. Thomas Manton
(1620-1677)


Joseph

Joseph was the darling son,
Jacob’s heart was set on him;
Yet loved by a higher One,
Mercy’s door closed Joseph in.
And this mercy sweetly ran,
Through his life from first to last,
Childhood, youth, and up to man,
When in prison he was cast.

Joseph hated, nearly slain,
(See what hardened brethren do!)
Mercy interfered again,
Yet they stripped and sold him too.
Poor old Jacob’s heart was rent,
Comfort he refused to share,
But with Joseph mercy went,
See God’s wondrous timely care.

Joseph tempted, God was nigh,
Him he feared, and loved Him too,
Mercy prompted him to fly;
Sin against his God? Ah, no!
Pharaoh dreamed, and Joseph told
’Twas the Lord gave him the light,
Grace, sweet grace, made Joseph bold,
He found all God’s ways were right.

Ah! poor Jacob, what sayest thou?
Great indeed’s Jehovah’s care;
When thou didst with sorrow bow,
Was not mercy blended there?
For a time the boy was lost,
Borne on wings of favor still;
For a time thy way is crossed,
Mercy comes thy cup to fill.

Joseph dying, favored been,
Ends a life of grace below;
Just a hundred years and ten,
Joseph does to glory go.
(O to be thus greatly blessed!)
Guarded through a world of sin,
And by saving love caressed,
Heaven, his home, he enters in.

— Young People’s Hymnal

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van maandag 1 mei 1995

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

Family Worship

Bekijk de hele uitgave van maandag 1 mei 1995

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's