Family Worship

Clement of Alexandria, an illustrious doctor of the church near the beginning of the third century, advised Christian husbands and wives to make it a daily practice to pray and read the Bible together in the morning and, he added, “The mother is the glory of the children and the wife is the glory of the husband.  All are the glory of the wife and God is the glory of them all.”  Tertullian, shortly before, gave this admirable description of the domestic life of a Christian couple: “What a union is that which exists between two believers who have, in common, the same hope, the same desire, the same mode of living, the same service of the Lord.  Like brother and sister, united both in Spirit and in flesh, they kneel down together.  They pray and fast together.  They teach, exhort, and support each other with gentleness.  They go together to the house of God, to the table of the Lord.  They share one another’s troubles, persecutions, and pleasures.  They conceal nothing from each other.  They do not avoid one another.  They visit the sick and succor the needy.  The singing of psalms and hymns is heard among them.  They rival each other in singing, with the heart, to their God.  Christ is pleased to see and hear these things.  He sends down His peace upon them.  Where two or three are thus met, He is with them.  And where He is, the Evil One cannot come.”

From: “Family Worship” by J. H. Merle d’Aubigne, in The Banner of Truth, Issue 582 (March 2012), p. 16.  The sermon was originally published in Paris in 1827.

J. H. Merle d’Aubigne (1794-1874) was a Swiss pastor, theologian, historian, and educator.  He wrote two massive multi-volume sets of the history of the Reformation in Europe.

 

Martin Luther

In translating the holy Scriptures, Luther found that consolation and strength of which he stood so much in need.  Solitary, in ill health, and saddened by the exertions of his enemies and the extravagances of some of his followers – seeing his life wearing away in the gloom of that old castle, he had, occasionally, to endure terrible struggles. 

In those times, men were inclined to carry into the visible world the conflicts that the soul sustains with its spiritual enemies.  Luther’s lively imagination easily embodied the emotions of his heart, and the superstitions of the Middle Ages had, still, some hold upon his mind, so that we might say of him, as it has been said of Calvin with regard to the punishment inflicted on heretics, there was, yet, a remnant of popery in him.  Satan was not, in Luther’s view, simply an invisible, though real, being.  He thought that this adversary of God appeared to men as he had appeared to Jesus Christ. 

Although the authenticity of many of the stories on this subject contained in the Table Talk and elsewhere is more than doubtful, history must still record this failing in the Reformer.  Never was he more assailed by these gloomy ideas than in the solitude of the Wartburg.  In the days of his strength, he had braved the devil in Worms.  But now, all the Reformer’s powers seemed broken and his glory tarnished.  He was thrown aside.  Satan was victorious, in his turn and, in the anguish of his soul, Luther imagined he saw his giant form standing before him, lifting his finger in threatening attitude, exulting with a bitter and hellish sneer and gnashing his teeth in fearful rage.  One day, especially, it is said, as Luther was engaged on his translation of the New Testament, he fancied he beheld Satan, filled with horror at his work, tormenting him and prowling round him like a lion about to spring upon his prey.  Luther, alarmed and incensed, snatched up his inkstand and flung it at the head of his enemy.  The figure disappeared, and the missile was dashed in pieces against the wall.

From: History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century by J. H. Merle D’Aubigne; translated from the French by H. White; 5 volumes (New York: American Tract Society, 1835-1858), 3:52-53.

 

Latimer’s Reply

The church was crowded when Buckingham, with the hood of St. Francis on his shoulders and with a vainglorious air, took his place, solemnly, in front of the preacher.  Latimer began by recapitulating the least weak of his adversary’s arguments.  Then, taking them up one by one, he turned them over and over and pointed out all their absurdity with so much wit that the poor prior was buried in his own nonsense.  Then, turning towards the listening crowd, he exclaimed, with warmth, “This is how your skilfull guides abuse your understanding.  They look upon you as children that must be forever kept in leading-strings.  Now, the hour of your majority has arrived.  Boldly examine the Scriptures, and you will easily discover the absurdity of the teaching of your doctors.”  And then, desirous, as Solomon has it, of “answering a fool according to his folly,” he added, “As for the comparison drawn from the plough, the leaven, and the eye – of which the reverend prior has made so singular a use – is it necessary to justify these passages of Scripture?  Must I tell you what plough, what leaven, what eye is, here, meant?  Is not our Lord’s teaching distinguished by those expressions which, under a popular form, conceal a spiritual and profound meaning?  Do not we know that, in all languages and in all speeches, it is not on the image that we must fix our eyes, but on the thing which the image represents?…For instance,” he continued, and, as he said these words, he cast a piercing glance on the prior, “if we see a fox painted preaching in a friar’s hood, nobody imagines that a fox is meant, but that craft and hypocrisy are described which are, so often, found disguised in that garb.” 

At these words, the poor prior, on whom the eyes of all the congregation were turned, rose and left the church hastily and ran off to his convent to hide his rage and confusion among his brethren.  The monks and their creatures uttered loud cries against Latimer.  It was unpardonable, they said, to have been thus wanting in respect to the cowl of St. Francis.  But his friends replied, “Do we not whip children?  And, he who treats Scripture worse than a child, does he not deserve to be well-flogged?”

The Romish party did not consider themselves beaten…

From: History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century by J. H. Merle D’Aubigne; translated from the French by H. White; 5 volumes; reprint (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 5.274-275.