The Family in its Offices of

Instruction and Worship

by B .M. Palmer
common Father of us all. Is it possible
to overstate these advantages of his posi-
tion for giving shape and direction to
the immortal spirit which opens its
career in his hand? Hence the pro-
verbial power of these infantile impres-
sions. However they may be over-
borne, or seemingly erased, they abide
with a secret and reserved power. When
disappointments shall break the spell of
life's delusions; when sickness and
F
rom the earliest period in the voluntary movements of the muscles sorrow shall place us under arrest; or
history of the Church, the du- and limbs are brought under the control when death comes, with its fierce exe-
ty of Family instruction has of the will. The imperceptible educa- cution upon all earthly hopes--how
been emphasized as the most tion of the mental faculties begins in often they arise, to lead the soul back to
important of all agencies in perpetu- God and to peace. Eternity alone will re-
ating the knowledge of Divine truth. In veal the value of these early asso-
Deuteronomy 11:19, the command is ciations, as the silver threads which
thus laid upon Israel: "Therefore shall have bound even the worst of sinners to
ye lay up these My words in your heart a destiny of blessedness and glory in the
and in your soul, and bind them for a kingdom of heaven.
sign upon your hand, that they may be Consider, next, the instinctive a./fee-
as frontlets between your eyes; and ye tions which bring their aid, both in
shall teach them your children, speak- imparting and in receiving instruction
ing of them when thou sittest in thine Fortunately, these affections do not
house, and when thou walkest by the depend upon the will for their existence,
way, when thou liest down, and when but have their ground in nature. The
thou risest up." The same injunction is will may regulate their exericse, but
renewed in the parting address of does not determine their being. Thus
Moses, just before he ascended Mount the child, with the supreme sense of
Nebo to die: "Set your hearts unto all dependence which characterizes its first
the words which I testify among you experience, looks up to the parent with
this day; when ye shall command your a reverence that is essentially religious.
children to observe to do all the words It knows no being who is greater, or
of this law." In the new Testament, it higher. The parent stands to it as God
is only necessary to refer to Paul's com- Himself, in whom it consciously lives
mendation of Timothy, as one that and moves. The whole being of the
"from a child had known the holy Scrip- child is at first bound within that of the
tures," and in whom the immense ad- parent, who appears to it almost as
vantages of a pious descent were signal- the cradle, far beyond the point which creator. The thought is almost over-
ized, as he "called to remembrance the the memory is able to reach. The first whelming in its solemnity, that in any
unfeigned faith that dwelt first in his observation has to be made; the first human relation we should stand in such
grandmother Lois, and in his mother comparison to be instituted; the first resemblance to the Infinite God, as to
Eunice." Without pausing to collate judgment to be framed; and so onward, give being to another like ourselves.
the testimonies upon this topic, it will until, at maturity, the perfect man is No wonder the parent should be charged
serve our purpose better to indicate the developed in the furniture of all his with such a providence as that which
conspicuous advantages possessed by powers, corporeal and intellectual. watches over the fortunes of the child,
the Family for the transmission of this Just here, at the very springs of our and that he should be filled with such a
traditional knowledge and influence. being, the parent is appointed to stand. wealth of love as stumbles at no sacci-
For example, the parent is the only He watches the mind, as it first awakes flee for its good. And no wonder that,
teacher who is permitted to stand at the to conscious activity. He answers its in the child's view, a sort of "Divinity
beginnings of human life, and to shape earliest questions, when it looks forth should hedge about" the parent, and that
the first thoughts which arise in the in wonder upon the strange world into affection should be mingled with a
mind. The infant is endowed at birth which it is introduced. He seizes the species of awe. But what must be the
with certain capacities, as yet wholly first thoughts, and directs them upward influence of this in rendering the child
undeveloped. The very senses, which to God, who has "made everything docile and tractable? What weight he-
are the inlets of all knowledge, require beautiful in its time." He shapes the longs to the utterances of one whose
to be trained to their respective func- first feeling of reverence in a religious wisdom, and power, and love are to the
tions: the eye to see, the ear to hear, mould, and turns the earliest affection child the very shadow of the Divine!
the touch to discern. Gradually the in- towards the Great Being who is the (Continued on page 36)
The Counsel of Chalcedon Aug.-Sept., 1989 page 15
Instruction and Worship
Continued from page 15
What school can equal that of the Fami-
ly, where the teacher stands at the foun-
tain head of our being, armed with pre-
rogatives so sacred as these!
The complement to both these
thoughts is found in the parent's author-
ity to rmforce his teachings. Education
does- nor- cotisfsr solely -m: the com:.
munication of knowledge. Its primary
aim is discipline. The dormant faculties
need to be aroused and developed. By a
gentle and constant compulsion they
must be held to certain exercises, until
the permanent habits are formed which
make the student and the thinker. This
is, if possible, more conspic1,tously true
in the sphere of morals. Virtue must
not only be inculcated as a doctrine; it
must be practiced as a principle, and be
acquired as a habit. The precepts which
are enjoined must be reproduced in s u e ~
cessive acts, until the character itself is
cast perfectly into their mould. Here all
that has been said above applies with
pre-eminent force. Armed with despotic
authority, which distinctly reflects the
Divine supremacy, the parent enforces
his instructions upon the will. The
child is held with a firm hand to the
practice of what he learns. The indo-
lence and the rebellion of his nature are
both held under control, until the duty,
which was at. first irksome, becomes
easy by repetition. Of course, we will
not be understood as endorsing the Pela-
gi!Ql view of making men Christians
only by the power of habit But if the
Holy Spirit must renew the soul "dead
in trespasses and sins," we need not
overlook the training influence of such
an institute. as the Family, in which
men are fitted to discharge the offices of
virtue which devolve upon them in life.
To this end, the teacher. .first provided
for the young is supplied with the high
authority to enforce the practice of
knowledge as fast as it is acquired, until
the confmned habit shall establish it as
a second nature, and make it as simple
as to breathe.
All this is not accomplished at once;
but a long novitiate, covering nearly
one third part of human life, affords the
parent opportunity for repeating and
deepening these impressions. It matters
not what may occur to interrupt the con-
tinuity of the lessons .. If the Family is
p e ~ t t e to remain unbroken by death,
the pressure of parental influence is
always felt. Even the child at school is
not removed from it. He is surrounded
by it as an atmosphere; and every recol-
lection of home carries him back under
its unseen power. The length and steadi-
ness of this pressure is one of the lead-
ing featues of this beneficent discipline.
Though it is modified each year, to ac-
co:tiiiiiodate itselno the child's- expan-
sion and growth, this very change only
adds freshness to its power; which be-
comes more energetic just in proportion
as it is more relaxed in its authority,
and calls into play the voluntary virtue
of the child,
' During this long period, there is the
advantage of contiguity to those who
are under training, and the manifold
forms in which instruction. is given. As
to the former, the. parent enjoys a sort
of omnipresence. In earlier years, the
child is constantly u:nder the eye of its
guardians; and these are the years when
the foundations of character are laid.
When the growth of years removes it
from this closeness of inspection, the
influence which this has exerted carries
the presence of the parent mysteriously
along in a certain sense of its power,
even where it is not visible. It is a pro-
found truth, and as mysterious as it is
true, this diffusion of parental over-
sight, which reaches on to the years of
our manhood. Perhaps it is one of. the
features of that resemblance which
makes the parent so much the represen-
tative of God in the household. We will
not press these analogies. We will leave
them to the reader's own thought, with
only this suggestion: that in the modi-
fied creatorship of the parent, in the
power of that instinctive reverence and
affection by which he holds the child,
in the absoluteness of his authority, and
in the seeming omnipresence of his
influence, there is much that invests the
relation with awe, and which explains
the position of the fifth commandment
in the decalogue.
In what school but this does the
teacher come in contact with all the
shifting moods of the pupil--in his
seasons of elevation and gladness, and
in moments of depression and ennui--in
the hours when the bounding heart
pours out its love in all the gush of
enthusiasm, and when, coy and shy, it
retires within itself, and chews the cud
of its own reflections? In these varying
The Counsel of Chalcedon Aug.-Sept., 1989 page 36
tempers, the skillful parent drops the
seeds of religious knowledge in exact
accordance with the mood; so that in a
thousand forms it challenges convic-
tion, and the truth, resisted in one
shape, is accepted in another. Combine
all these, and the value of the Family,
as an institute for conveying religious
instruction, is seen to be paramount;
fulfillirig thus 6rie of the most ini-
portant functions of the Church, which,
therefore, subsidizes it to accomplish
her own high and gracious ends.
The Scriptures equally emphasize the
household as the altar upon which the
fue of a pure religious worship should
ever burn. They declare that God "will
pour out His fury upon the Families
that call not upon His name." The
patriarch Abraham was specially com-
mended for his observance of family
religion: "for I know him, that he will
command his children and his house-
hold after him, and they shall keep the
way of the Lord." In the New Testa-
ment, the houses are carefully noted
which gave a shelter to the infant
Church, under its new organization; and
the pious family at Bethany afforded a
constant retreat to the weary Savior,
when He sought refreshment in the toil
of His work. Wherever the ark of God
resides, it brings a blessing with it, like
that which rested upon the house of
Obededom.
The Family is peculiarly fitted in its
arrangements to preserve the worship of
God upon earth. The head of it, if
pious,_ is a personal representative of
true religion to all beneath his wing.
The influence of a godly character is
diffused through all the relations which
he sustains, and the example of his de-
votions throws a savour of worship
over the household. The spirit of cort-
secration rests upon it, constituting it a
temple, in which God delights to reveal
His presence.
Then there are distinct acts of wor-
ship in which the household is daily
led. As often as bread is broken, the
solemn blessing of God is invoked, as
"the Giver of every good and perfect
gift;" and in their daily repasts the
house is conducted in worship before
Him who opens His hand, and supplies
the wants of every living thing. When
the morning and evening sacrifice is
offered, and the pious father leads his
(Contiimed on page 38)
Christian family. Get your family thor-
oughly involved in the worship and
work of a strong church where only the
Bible and all of the Bible is believed,
practiced, preached and taught. And get
your precious children out of humanis-
tic schools into truly Christian schools.
When the families of the Christian
church- in America err- masse become
faithful to God in all these areas, then
we will see the fulfillment of the
prophecy in Zechariah 14:20-21--"In
that day there will be inscribed on the
bells of the horses, 'Holy to the
Lord.' And the cooking pots in Jerusa-
lem and in Judah will be holy to the
Lord of hosts; and all who sacrifice will
come and take of them and boil in
them. And there will no longer be a
Canaanite in the house of the Lord of
hosts in that day."
Quotes on Education by
Early American Puritans
1. Cotton Mather: "Ignorance is the
Mother of Heresy.''
2. Thomas Cobbett: " ... the greatest
love and faithfulness which parents as
covenanters can show to God, and to
their children, who in and with them-
selves, are joint covenanters with God,
is so to educate them, that what in
them lies, the conditions of the cove-
nant may be attended by their children,
and so the whole covenant fully ef-
fected, in the promised mercies of it al-
so to them, and to their children.''
3. Deodat Lawson: " ... the children
born in our families, are Born Unto
God, and a strict account will one day
be required of us.... These children,
God coJlUllits to us for education, He
puts them out to us ... being therefore
thus committed unto us, account con-
cerning them may justly, and will cer-
tainly, be required of us, in the Great
Day.''
4. Cotton Mather made it a rule "rare-
ly to let one of my children to come
near me, and never to sit any time with
them, without some explicit contri-
vance and endeavor to let fall some
sentence or other, that shall carry a
useful instruction with it."
5. Eleazar Mather: "Precept without
patterns will do little good. You must
lead them to Christ by examples as
well as counsel; you must set your-
selves first, and speak by lives as well
as words; you must live religion, as
well as talk religion." Parents might
teach their children "never so carefully,
yet if you unteach them again by your
vain conversation (behavior) before
them, it is little the better.''
Instruction and Worship
Continued from page 36
offspring in daily prayer at the throne of
grace, the Family is seen in its true
character as the Church of God. When
bereavement clothes the house in
mourning; at each recurring anniversary
of birth and death; and upon those
occasions of reunion, when the scattered
members are re-assembled around the
paternal hearth; 0! how various and
how solemn are the acts of worship, in
which the Family appears as the
Church in miniature! On each recurring
Philosophy of Education
Continued from page 35
8. Morris, Barbara, Change in the
(Ellicot City, Mo.: The Barbara
Morris Keport, 1979).
9. Blamires,., Harry\ The Christian Mind,
(London: 1963J.
10. Whitehead, John, Horne Education and
Constitutional Liberties, (Weschester, Ill.:
Crossway Books 1984).
11. Reid, Stanford, Christianity and
Scholarship, (Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press,
1966).
12'. "Chalcedon Christian School Hand-
book," Chalcedon Christian School, Atlanta,
Georgia, 1988.
13. Marshner, Connaught, Blackboard
Tyranny, (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington
House, 1978).
14. Bowen William, Globalism: Ameri-
ca's Demise, (Huntington House
1
1984).
15. Hefley, James TextbooKS on Trial,
(W!leaton, III.: Victor Books, 1976).
16. HaiP.er, Norman, Making Disciples,
Tenn.: Christian Stuaies Center,
1981).
17. Thobum, Robert, The Children Trap:
Biblical Principles for Education, (Ft. Worth,
Texas: Domiruon Press, 1986).
18. North, Ganr, ed., Foundations of
Christian Scholarship, (VIill.ecito, Cal.: Ross
House 1976).
19. Morris, Henry, Education for the Real
Worldh (San Diego, Cal., Creation-House
Publis ers 1978). _
20. Delong, Norman, Education in the
Truth, (Nutfey, N.J. Presbyterian and
Reformed Pubhshing Co. 1969J.
21. Sowell, Thomas, Education: Assf.1!11P-
tions Versus History, (Stanford, Cal. :
The Counsel of Chalcedon Aug.-Sept., 1989 page 38
6. Cotton Mather: "Better whipt,
than damn'd."
7. John Eliot: "The gentle rod of the
mother, is a very gentle thing, it will
break neither bone or skin: yet by the
blessing of God with it, and upon the
wise application of it: it would break
the bond that binds up corruption !n
the J:ieari." n
Sabbath, when the father and the
mother sit at either end of the family
pew, with their offspring between
them, does not the great congregation
appear as a collection of smaller
churches aggregated in one large as-
sembly of worshippers?
But enough. If the Family holds the
knowledge of God amongst men in the
instruction it affords, much more is it
the depository of His worship. Each
pious household is a separate fibre of
those roots by which the Church of the
living God takes hold upon the earth,
and preserves its existence in a sinful
world. n
Hoover Institution
22. Lionni and Nass, The Leipzig
Connection, (Portland, Or.: Heron BookS,
1980).
23". Bloom, Allan, The Closing of the
American Mind, (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1987).
24. Marshner
1
Connaught, ed., A Blue-
Qrint for Educatzon Reform, (Free Congress
Research and Education Founilation, 1984).
25. Garner, Eileen, ed. The New Agenda
for Education, D.C.,: The
'Heritage Foundation, 198:>J.
26. Echaniz Judith, ... When Schools
Teach Sex ... ", (Washington, D.C.: The Free
Congress Research ana Education Founda-
tion, 1982).
27. Rushdoony, R.J., The Philosophy of
the Christian Curriculum, (Vallecito, Cal.:
Ross House Books, 1981).
28. Cummings, Davia, The Purpose of a
Christian School, Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian
and Reformed Publishing Co., 1979).
29. Otis John, The Necessity for the
Christian School, Committee on Christian
Education, Westminster Presbytery, also
P!lblished in The Counsel ofChalcedon, Vol
VI, No. 10, December 1984, Atlanta,
Georgia.
30: Barnes, Rolland, The Parental
RespoffSibility for Education, Statesboro,
Georgia.
31. Rushdoony
1
R.J., "The Necessity for
Christian Schools,' Vallecito, Cal.
32. Rushdoony, R.J., "Accreditation and
Certification,'' V lillecito Ca.
33. North, Gary "Why Churches Should
Not Incorporate,'' I'nsitute of Christian Eco-
nomics Ft. Worth, Texas.
34. Rushdoony, RJ., Intellectual Schizo-
phrenia, (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Co., 1961). n