And that the obligation of families to honour and worship God, may yet appear more evidently, consider that God's right of propriety and rule is twofold, yet each title plenary alone. 1. He is our Owner and Ruler upon his title of creation. 2. So he is by his right of redemption. By both these he is not only Lord and Ruler of persons, but families; all societies being his; and the regimen of persons being chiefly exercised over them in societies. "All power in heaven and earth is given unto Christ," Matt. xviii. 18; "and all judgment committed unto him," John v. 22; "and all things delivered into his hands," John xiii. 3; "and therefore to him shall every knee bow, both of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;" (either with a bowing of worship, or of forced acknowledgment;) and "every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father," Phil. ii. 10. Bowing to and confessing Christ voluntarily to God's glory, is true worship; all must do this according to their several capacities; and therefore families according to theirs.
A third consideration, which I thought to have added but for illustration, may well stand as an argument itself; and it is this:
_Arg._ III. If besides all the forementioned opportunities and obligations, families do live in the presence of God, and ought by faith to apprehend that presence, then is it God's will that families as such should solemnly worship him. But the former is true, therefore the latter.
The consequence of the major, which alone requires proof, I prove by an argument _a fortiori_, from the honour due to all earthly governors. Though when a king, a father, a master are absent, such actual honour, to be presented to them, is not due, because they are not capable of receiving it (further than _mediante aliqua persona, vel re_, which beareth some representation of the superior, or relation to him); yet when they stand by, it is a contemptuous subject, a disobedient child, that will not perform actual honour or human worship to them. Now God is ever present, not only with each person as such, but also with every family as such. As he is said to walk among the golden candlesticks in his churches, so doth he in the families of all by his common presence, and of his servants by his gracious presence. This they easily find by his directing them, and blessing the affairs of their families. If any say, We see not God, else we would daily worship him in our families. _Answ._ Faith seeth him who to sense is invisible. If one of you had a son that were blind and could not see his own father, would you think him therefore excusable, if he would not honour his father, when he knew him to be present? We know God to be present, though flesh be blind and cannot see him.
_Arg._ IV. If christian families (besides all the forementioned advantages and obligations) are also societies sanctified to God, then is it God's will that families, as such, should solemnly worship him; but christian families are societies sanctified to God; therefore, &c.
The reason of the consequence is, because things sanctified must in the most eminent sort, that they are capable, be used for God. To sanctify a person or thing, is to set it apart, and separate it from a common or unclean use, and to devote it to God, to be employed in his service. To alienate this from God, or not to use it for God, when it is dedicated to him, or sanctified by his own election and separation of it from common use, is sacrilege. God hath a double right (of creation and redemption) to all persons. But a treble right to the sanctified. Ananias his fearful judgment was a sad example of God's wrath, on those that withhold from him what was devoted to him. If christian families as such be sanctified to God, they must as such worship him in their best capacity.