“In 1677, the members of a Puritan church in colonial Massachusetts covenanted together ‘to maintain the worship of God’ in their families. Their commitment reflects the longing of believers in all ages to raise their children in the way of the Lord so that God’s covenantal purposes will be fulfilled (Gen. 18:19). These studies are full of encouragement and instruction for fathers and mothers so that, by God’s grace, they can lead their families to serve the Lord (Josh. 24:15) and future generations will hope in God (Ps. 78:4–8).”

“If we want to bring up a godly family, who shall be a seed to serve God when are heads are under the clods of the valley, let us seek to train them up in the fear of God by meeting together as a family for worship”

“When you thoroughly search into the Scripture grounds and reasons for family worship, you will find them to be as strong and prevalent to establish daily worship as the worship itself. For you may observe that our blessed Savior, giving directions about prayer, prescribed this petition: ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Here it is evident that daily bread must be daily asked for. It is not then sufficient that we pray for bread once a month, once a week, or every three or two days, but this must be done every day. And I doubt not but every serious person believes daily grace to be as valuable and necessary as daily bread, and that our souls want supplies as well as our bodies. I am willing to hope that family worship (of which prayer is an essential part) will be sufficiently asserted in the discourse to follow, and, if so by our Savior’s determination, there must be daily family prayer.”

“Those families wherein this service of God [family worship] is performed, are (as it were) little churches, yea, even a kind of Paradise upon earth.”