ABSTRACT
During the eighteenth century, the concept of a family could include a house-hold unit comprised of a nuclear family and co-habitant dependents such as servants and apprentices. While this household family was bound not only by ties of blood and marriage, but also by co-residence, both types of families were also organized under some form of authority. The ecclesio-political description of paternal monarchy indicated that during the eighteenth century there was little divide between religious writing and political polemic. David Muir was the minister of the Wapping Presbyterian Church for forty years, and the dissenting church was known as Mr Muir’s Meeting House. He used this ecclesio-political perception of kingship to characterize the influence of the father upon household family devotion in his sermon, An Humble Attempt Toward the Revival of Family-Religion among Christians.
