- That general command for prayerwill bring this of family prayer within the compass of our duty: ‘I will therefore that men pray every where,’ I Tim. 2:8. If ‘everywhere,’ then surely, saith Mr. Perkins upon this place, in our families, where God hath set us in so near relation to one another. Paul salutes the church in Aquila and Priscilla’s house, Rom. 16:5. And were they not a strange church who should live together without praying together?—had they deserved so high and honourable a name if they had thus shut God out of doors? This were to call them a church, as a grove is called lucus, à non lucendo—from not giving light. The Jews, when they built any of them a new house to dwell in, they were to dedicate it, Deut. 20:5; and the manner of dedicating their new-built houses was with prayer, as you may see by the title of Ps. 30, penned on this occasion: ‘A Psalm and Song at the dedication of David ‘s house.’ This they did—
(1.) To express their thankfulness to God, who had given them a habitation. Indeed, it is no small mercy to have a settled place for our abode—a convenient house for ourselves and relations peaceably to dwell in; it is more than those precious saints had ‘who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth,’ Heb. 11:38; yea, than Christ himself had: ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. Matt. 8:20.
(2.) By this they were admonished to acknowledge themselves tenants to God, and that they held their houses of him, their great landlord, upon condition of doing him homage, by making their houses as so many sanctuaries for his worship while they lived in them. So Mollerus upon the place.
- The trust which governors of families are charged withwill evince it is their duty to set up prayer in their families. Every master of a family hath curam animarum—he hath the care of souls upon him as well as the minister. He is prophet, king, and priest in his own house, and from every one of these will appear this his duty.
(1.) He is a prophet, to teach and instruct his family. Wives are bid to learn at home of their husbands, I Cor. 14:34, 35. Then sure they are to teach them at home. Parents are commanded to instruct their children, ‘Ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house,’ Deut. 11:19. And, ‘To bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,’ Eph. 6:4. Now, there is a teaching and admonition by prayer to God and praising of God, as well as in catechising of them: ‘Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns,’ Col. 3:16. The master’s praying with his family will teach them how to pray when by themselves. The confessions he makes, petitions he puts up, and mercies he acknowledgeth in his family duty, are an excellent means to furnish them with matter for their devotions. How comes it to pass that many servants and children, when they come to be themselves heads of families, are unable to be their relations’ mouth to God in prayer—but because they have, in their minority, lived in prayerless families, and were kept in ignorance of this duty, whereby they have neither head nor heart, knowledge or affections, suitable for such a work?
(2.) He is a king in his house, to rule his family in the fear of God. As the political magistrate’s duty is to set up the true worship of God in his kingdom, so he is to do it in his house. He is to say with Joshua, ‘I and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ Were it a sin in a prince, though he served God himself in his palace, yet if he did not set up the public worship of God in his kingdom? Surely then it is a sin the governor of a family not to set it up in his house, though he prays himself in his closet.
(3.) He is a priest in his own house, and where there is a priest there must be a sacrifice; and what sacrifice among Christians but the spiritual sacrifices of prayer and thanksgiving? Thus David, we find, went from public ordinances to private duty with his family, ‘Then David returned to bless his household,’ II Sam. 6:20; that is, saith one upon the place, he returned to worship God in private with them, and to crave a blessing from God upon them. And this hints a third particular.
- The practice of saints in all ageshath been to have a religious care of their families. Good Joshua promised for himself and his house that they would serve the Lord. If he meant the inward worship of God, he promised more than he was able to perform in regard of his family, for he could not thrust grace into their hearts. We must therefore understand him that it should not be his fault if they did not, for he would use all means in his power to make them do so. He would set them a holy copy in his own example, and he would take care that they should not live without the worship of God in his family. We find Elisha praying with his servant, II Kings 4:33, master and man together—queen Esther and her maids keeping private fast in her family, Est. 4:16. Now it were uncharitable to think that she was a stranger to the ordinary exercise of this duty, who was so forward to perform the extraordinary, and put others also upon it. Surely this gracious woman did not begin her acquaintance with this duty now, and take it up only at a dead lift in her present strait. That were a gluttonous fast, indeed, that should devour the worship of God in her family for all the year after. Cornelius’ family religion is upon record, ‘A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway,’ Acts 10:2. Mark, he was ‘a devout man, and feared God with all his house.’ Fear is oft put for the worship of God. God is called ‘the Fear of Isaac,’ Gen. 31:53; that is, the God whom Isaac worshipped. ‘Him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship;...neither shall ye fear other gods,’ II Kings 17:36, 37; that is, ye shall not worship or pray unto them. Thus we may conceive Cornelius was a devout man, and feared God with his house. Surely he that was merciful to the poor at his door, to refresh his pinched bowels with his alms, could not be so cruel to his relations’ souls within his house as to lock up his religion in a closet from them.
