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 gathering, 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 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 Body-that His Church, in the midst of which He covenants to be, is essentially a community, composed of several members. 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.

Ground for

But we are now in search of the Scriptural
Scriptural Ground for Family Prayer.
Considered as simply that kind
Prayer, in which several engage in the Old

Family of be found in

Prayer, to

Testament.

common, it will fall of 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. And they did not officiate simply as Heads of Families (as a layman conducting Family Prayer officiates now-adays), but in the capacity of Ministers of that Dispensation.

IV.

Why the

New Testa

ment is

silent on

Family

It must be admitted then, that, so far as its Scriptural ground is concerned, Family Prayer rests upon Old Testament precedents; and that even Prayer. 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 lively feelings of Communion with one another in CHRIST, which the primitive Christians must have entertained towards every member of their comparatively small Societies, must have rather thrown the family bond into the shade. The Gospel took no cognizance of distinctions of blood, race, or sex, The regenerate were born into a Kingdom where all natural and secular relationships were merged in the one great Spiritual Relationship subsisting between its subjects. It was not as fathers, children, husbands, wives,

masters, and dependants, that they had any standing in Christ, but simply as baptized believers. If they met for acceptable worship, they could only meet in His Name, i. e. in the character of His disciples; in no other character would GOD accept or listen to them. The only Birth then recognized, was not Birth of bloods, but Birth of God ;-the only Service, that of Christ.

Under the Old Dispensation, the Church of God had been 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 (and do 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."

Should a layman officiate at Family

V

The principles above laid down seem to throw light on some moot points Prayer, when respecting Family Prayer. It is often a clergyman asked, and differently settled, whether

is present?