If it be objected, that all this ceased, when the office of the priest was instituted, and so deny the latter part of my antecedent, I reply, 1. Though some make a doubt of it, whether the office of the priesthood was instituted before Aaron's time, I think there is no great doubt to be made of it; seeing we find a priesthood then among other nations, who had it either by the light of nature, or by tradition from the church; and Melchizedec's priesthood (who was a type of Christ) is expressly mentioned. So that though family worship was then the most usual, yet some more public worship there was. 2. After the institution of Aaron's priesthood family-worship continued, as I have proved before; yea, the two sacraments of circumcision and the passover, were celebrated in families by the master of the house; therefore prayer was certainly continued in families. 3. If that part of worship that was afterward performed in synagogues and public assemblies was appropriated to them, that no whit proveth, that the part which agreed to families as such, was transferred to those assemblies. Nay, it is a certain proof that part was left to families still, because we find that the public assemblies never undertook it. We find among them no prayer but church prayer; and not that which was fitted to families as such at all. Nor is there a word of Scripture that speaketh of God's reversing of his command or order for family prayer, or other proper family worship. Therefore it is proved to continue obligatory still.
Had I not been too long already, I should have urged to this end the example of Job, in sacrificing daily for his sons; and of Esther's keeping a fast with her maids, Esth. iv. 16. And Jer. x. 25, "Pour out thy fury on the heathen that know thee not, and on the families that call not on thy name." It is true that by "families" here is meant tribes of people, and by "calling on his name," is meant their worshipping the true God. But yet this is spoken of all tribes without exception, great and small: and tribes in the beginning (as Abraham's, Isaac's, Jacob's, &c.) were confined to families. And the argument holdeth from parity of reason to a proper family: and that calling on God's name is put for his worship, doth more confirm us, because it proveth it to be the most eminent part of worship, or else the whole would not be signified by it; at least no reason can imagine it excluded. So much for the proof of the fourth proposition.
_Objections answered._
_Object._ I. Had it been a duty under the gospel to pray in families, we should certainly have found it more expressly required in the Scripture.
_Answ._ 1. I have already showed you, that it is plainly required in the Scripture: but men must not teach God how to speak, nor oblige him to make all plain to blind, perverted minds. 2. Those things which were plainly revealed in the Old Testament, and the church then held without any contradiction, even from the persecutors of Christ themselves, might well be passed over in the gospel, and taken as supposed, acknowledged things. 3. The general precepts (to "pray alway,--with all prayer,--in all places," &c.) being expressed in the gospel, and the light of nature making particular application of them to families, what need there any more? 4. This reason is apparent why Scripture speaketh of it no more expressly. Before Christ's time the worship of God was less spiritual, and more ceremonial, than afterward it was; and therefore you find ofter mention of circumcision and sacrificing, than of prayer; and yet prayer was still supposed to concur. And after Christ's time on earth, most christian families were disturbed by persecution, and christians sold up all and lived in community: and also the Scripture history was to describe to us the state of the churches, rather than of particular families.
_Object._ II. Christ himself did not use to pray with his family; as appeareth by the disciples asking him to teach them to pray, and by the silence of the Scripture in this point: therefore it is no duty to us.