thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, "pray to thy Father which is in secret."

The promise annexed to the performance of this duty is one appropriate to the method, in which we are recommended to perform it. The prayer has been offered privately; but it shall be recognized and recompensed publicly. "Thy

Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee "openly."

Agreement among the petitioners is the counsel given for the common prayer of more than one. "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching

any thing that they shall ask." The worshippers shall come to a common understanding as to the subject of their petitions. This might be done by conference before the prayer upon what should be the matter of it, the form being left to the suggestions of the mind at the moment of engaging in it. Or it might be done (as it is in our own Church) by a Form of Common Prayer, which should be in the hands of all, and which all should agree to employ in common on certain occasions.

Not only is a promise of success made to this kind of Prayer,-("it shall be done for "them of my Father which is in Heaven")— but a present blessing is assured to the gather

́ing, however small. There may seem to be only two or three present, but there shall be really a Fourth, invisible to the eye of sense. The Fourth Personage, whom Nebuchadnezzar saw in the furnace, and "whose form was like the Son of God," shall be mystically present, to procure acceptance for the prayer by His Mediation and Intercession. "For where two or three are

66

gathered together in my name, there am I in "the midst of them." It is observable that Christ's Presence is not covenanted to the single, but to the united petitioners. Not but that It would be enjoyed by a single petitioner, approaching GOD in real penitence and faith. But the Lord would have us comprehend that in Him we cannot stand alone--that we are one Bodythat His Church, in the midst of which He covenants to be, is essentially a community, composed of several, not of one member. And for this reason, in delivering to us a Form of Prayer, He couched it in the plural; "When ye pray, say, "Our Father," &c.

III.

But we are now in search of the Scriptural Scriptural Ground for Family Prayer.

Considered as simply that kind of Prayer, in

which several engage in common, it will fall of

Ground of

Family Pra.

yer, to be

found in

the Old

Testament.

course (equally with congregational Prayer)— under the last head.

But we feel that in Family Prayer there is something which the mere idea of Common Prayer does not exhaust. Family Prayer is not simply prayer offered by several Christians in common, but by several who are united by the ties of relationship and dependence. And from the existence of these ties among the petitioners, it takes its peculiar complexion.

Under this aspect, we shall find no special reference to it in the New Testament.

For the precedent of this holy practice, we must refer to the Patriarchal times, when Noah or Abraham builded altars unto the Lord, and assembled their families round those altars. (See Gen. viii. 20.-xii. 7.-xiii. 4.) They no doubt combined with this Family Worship, Family Instruction; officiating not only as Priests, but as Teachers also: "I know him" (says God of 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; "that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that "which he hath spoken of him."

It should be observed here, however, that in those days Family and Congregational Prayer

coincided. The household of Abraham and Noah

was the Church of their day.

officiate simply as Heads of

And they did not

Families (as a lay

man conducting Family Prayer officiates now-adays), but in the capacity of Ministers of that Dispensation.

IV.

Why the New Testa

ment is si

It must be admitted then that, so far as its Scriptural ground is concerned, Family Prayer rests upon Old Testament precedents, and that lent on Fa even in these precedents, the Congregational or Ecclesiastical aspect of this kind of worship is not merged in its domestic aspect.

The silence of the New Testament on Family Prayer, considered as the worship of a Family, may be accounted for without difficulty. The Gospel takes no cognizance of distinctions of blood, race, or sex. The regenerate are born into a Kingdom, where all natural and secular relationships are merged in the one great Spiritual Relationship subsisting between its subjects, and thrown into the background. It is not as fathers, children, husbands, wives, masters and dependents, that we have any standing in Christ, but simply as baptised believers. If we meet for acceptable worship, we can only meet in His

mily Prayer

Should a layman of ficiate at

Family Pra

yer when a

Name, i. e. in the character of His disciples-in no other character does GOD accept or listen to us. The only Birth then recognized, is not Birth of Bloods, but Birth of God;-the only Service, that of Christ.

Under the Old Dispensation, the Church of God was limited to a particular line or family. Membership in it was hereditary. It was transmitted in the line of Seth, and in the family of Abraham. Hence it is in this part of God's Word that we should expect to find the Family appearing, as a Family, in Divine Worship, and social relations recognized in precepts bearing upon that point. Thus, religious rest on the Sabbath is prescribed not merely to the Israelite himself, but "to thy son, and thy daughter, thy "manservant and thy maidservant, thy cattle and "the stranger that is within thy gates."

V.

The principles above laid down seem to throw light on some moot points respecting Family Prayer. It is often asked, and difclergyman ferently settled, whether or not a Clergyman being present (and not the head of the family) should conduct family worship? Without arbitrarily deciding such a question, or refusing to

is present?