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?!) i a 1 1) e k 1 g 2 
 
 THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT 
 
 THE 
 
 DIVETELY APPOINTED MEANS 
 
 TO SECURE THE 
 
 PERPETUITY OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 AND THE 
 CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 / 
 
 BY JAMES H. THOMAS. 
 
 -If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heira according to 
 the promise." — Gal. iii. 29. 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 
 
 Corner of City Hall Place and Spruce Street, 
 
 1849. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18-19, by 
 
 M. W. DODD, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Southern Diitric!: 
 of New York. 
 
 E. O. JENKINS, PRINTER., 
 
 114 Nassaa street. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Nature of the Abrahamic Covenant, . . 15 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 Oneness of the Jewish and Christian Church, 49 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 
 Parental Fidelity rewarded, . . .82 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Connection of the Whole with the Conver- 
 sion OF the World, . . . . 101 
 
PREFACE 
 
 My object in giving these sermons to the 
 public is not because there is anything new- 
 er strange in them to the intelligent Chris- 
 tian, but to stir up the pure minds of the peo- 
 ple of God to more diligence and- fidelity in 
 the religious education of their children 
 according to the covenant vows of God 
 upon them. In the course of more than 
 thirty-five years in the ministry, I have seen 
 many seasons of prosperity and declension 
 in the church of God ; and I have frequently 
 inquired, with deep interest, why does the 
 church experience so many ups and downs, 
 when it is in fact based upon divine promises, 
 as firm and immutable as eternal truth? 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 Why do her friends and patrons shrink and 
 tremble lest they should be lost and perish 
 under her ruins 1 Can there be any suspi- 
 cion that our covenant-keeping God will 
 ever forget his promise, and leave that be- 
 loved Zion to perish which He loveth more 
 than all the dwellings of Jacob ? Can He 
 fail to accomplish all that He has pledged to 
 his church and people ? Has God prom- 
 ised, * Train up a child in the way he should 
 go, and when he is old he will not depart 
 from it,' and will He not make it good ? Can 
 one instance be found in the whole history 
 of the church where God has been unfaith- 
 ful to this promise ? If we have had wicked 
 and disobedient children, the fault is ours, 
 and not God's. Though we may be pious, 
 yet we have not, hke Abraham, commanded 
 our children and household after us. We 
 have been unfaithful to our covenanted 
 vows, and have reaped its bitter fruits. 
 
 There has been too much of human inven- 
 tion introduced into the administration of 
 
PREFACE. XUl 
 
 ecclesiastical affairs, and too little depend- 
 ence upon the divine promise and the 
 divinely appointed means of grace. We 
 appear to have forgotten, so far as practice 
 is concei'ned, that one grand design of the 
 gospel was to ' turn the hearts of fathers to 
 their children, and the disobedient to the 
 wisdom of the just, and to make ready a 
 people prepared for the Lord.' If the 
 church were truly faithful to their children, 
 and dealt faithfully with their baptized chil- 
 dren through their parents, and thus recog- 
 nize their relationship to the church, we 
 should see less of error, heresy, schism and 
 delusion in the church, and a far higher tone 
 of vital piety. 
 
 In all the churches with which I have 
 been associated, the declension of vital piety 
 may be traced to a neglect of parental fidel- 
 ity in the religious education of their child- 
 ren. Children are not treated as if they 
 were the most remotely related to the 
 church. And the church does not appear to 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 feel her obligation to pray with and watch 
 over the conduct of those children who have 
 the seal of the covenant upon them. When 
 the church performs all the duties of a 
 mother to her children, and when parents 
 faithfully fulfil her covenant vows, then shall 
 we see a people prepared for the Lord. 
 
 If the following discussion should be so 
 overruled by the great Head of the church 
 as to constrain the covenant people of God 
 to the faithful performance of their duty to 
 their children, then my object will be 
 attained, my prayers answered, the church 
 of Jesus Christ benefitted, and the covenant- 
 keeping God of Abraham glorified. 
 
 J. h; t. 
 
r. 
 
 THE 
 
 ABRAHAMIC COVENANT, 
 
 CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy 
 seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a 
 God to thee, and thy seed after thee." — Genesis, xvii. 7. 
 
 The history of the venerable patriarch, Abra- 
 ham, is very interesting when considered as the 
 father of the faithfuh In his family the church 
 of God was first visibly organized. This is one of 
 the most important eras in the history of the 
 church. Abraham was educated in the idolatry 
 of those times, and continued in his impenitent 
 course till commanded by his God to leave his 
 native country, his kindred, and his father's family, 
 and go to a land that would be shown to him. 
 And to encourage him to practise such great self- 
 denial, God says : ' I will make of thee a great 
 nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name 
 2 
 
16 THE NATURE OF 
 
 great ; and thou slialt be a blessing. And I will 
 bless them that bless thee, and curse him that 
 curseth thee : and in thee shall all the families of 
 the earth be blessed.' With such encouragement, 
 he leaves his friends to go and sojourn among 
 strangers. When he arrived in the land of Canaan, 
 God promised to give all the land to his posterity. 
 On account of a famine, Abraham was compelled 
 to go down to Egypt. From this place he soon 
 returned, and Lot with him, to the altar he had 
 erected at Bethel. Soon after this, Abraham and 
 Lot separate, and it was so arranged that Abra- 
 ham tarried in the borders of Canaan. Abraham, 
 in the course of his journeying, met with Mel- 
 chisedec. King of Salem, and priest of the most 
 high God, who blessed him, and to him Abraham 
 gave tithes. He received frequent assurances of 
 God's design to bless him and his posterity, till 
 we come to that period in which the words of the 
 text were uttered, when and where God established 
 his covenant with him ; and, as a confirmation of 
 that covenant, his name is changed from Abram 
 to Abraham; the first signifying a high father, 
 and the latter a father of a multitude. 
 
 I. Investigate the nature of the Abrahamic 
 
 COVENANT. 
 
 II. All his posterity are interested in this 
 
 COVENANT. 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. lY 
 
 I. Investigate the nature of the Abrahamic 
 covenant. 
 
 1st. From a careful examination of the history 
 of the Jews, it appears there were very many 
 wicked people in covenant. In the visible church, 
 many had nothing but the external form of godli- 
 ness ; they were entirely ignorant of the power of 
 religion in the heart ; and in a short time even the 
 form of godliness was laid aside, and all respect 
 for God. and his law was banished from the heart 
 and practice ; yea, their most costly sacrifices had 
 become an abomination to the Lord. Wickedness 
 and hypocrisy had increased to such a degree, 
 that the Saviour found a very small remnant who 
 were truly pious. The tradition of the ancients, 
 the superstition and bigotry of that corrupted age, 
 and the depravity and deceitfulness of the carnal 
 heart, had obliterated almost every vestige of 
 genuine piety. They had become worse than the 
 heathen around them. Notwithstanding all this 
 wickedness and presumptuous impiety, they were 
 visibly in covenant with God. They called Abra- 
 ham their father, and God their God. They were 
 esteemed the people of God by all the surround- 
 ing nations. They were the natural seed of Abra- 
 ham, to whom the promise was originally given. 
 They received the sign of circumcision, and par- 
 took of the passover ; and were visibly in covenant 
 
18 THE NATURE OF 
 
 as mucli as Abraham. To the view of the gen- 
 tiles, there was no difference in their covenant 
 relation, for they were all equally members of the 
 Jewish church. Hence we have sufficient reason 
 to conclude that many thus in covenant were 
 vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction. What 
 became of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their 
 companies ? Were they not sent to a speedy de- 
 struction ? Where shall we find large multitudes 
 of the rebelHous house of Israel ? If they mis- 
 improved their superior privileges, were they not 
 exposed to be turned into hell with all that forget 
 God, notwithstanding they were within the pale 
 of the visible church? A mere profession of 
 religion will not justify us before that God who 
 looketh at the heart. Because Nadab and Abihu 
 were in covenant, are they therefore saved from 
 the wrath of a holy and justly offended God? 
 Not at all. Can, then, the Abrahamic covenant 
 be the covenant of grace to everlasting life ? It 
 cannot ; for " they are not all Israel which are of 
 Israel." If this covenant had been the covenant 
 of grace to eternal life, then all in covenant would 
 certainly be saved ; but the inspired apostle ex- 
 pressly asserts that they are not all saved. 
 
 2d. The Abrahamic covenant is not the cove- 
 nant of works. The seal of this covenant is repre- 
 sented as a seal of the righteousness of faith. Has 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 19 
 
 faith anything to do, or can it be any way con- 
 nected, with the covenant of works ? Faith was 
 imputed to Abraham for righteousness. If the 
 Jews were under a covenant of works, would they 
 have had anything to do with' that righteousness 
 which is of faith in a Saviour ? Would they not 
 have been stranorers to such a riojhteousness, and 
 ignorant of such a way of justification ? Would 
 they not have been entirely ignorant of the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith ? But the pious 
 patriarch was not ignorant of this doctrine, neither 
 was the man after God's own heart. They were 
 both sensible of their entire depravity, of the 
 necessity of an atonement, and trusted in a Medi- 
 ator. They exercised faith in a Saviour to redeem 
 them from all iniquity, and present them without 
 spot or wrinkle before the bar of God. In all 
 their ablutions and in all their sacrifices they 
 looked forward to the great Antetype that was 
 prefigured in all these rites and ceremonies. But 
 the very words of the covenant, * I will be a God 
 unto thee, and to thy seed after thee,' imply an 
 exercise of mercy which cannot be known in a 
 covenant of works. God declares that he will be 
 gracious and merciful unto him and his posterity. 
 The only condition known in a covenant of works 
 is, do and live. If we ofi'end in one point, we 
 become transgressors, and are exposed to the 
 2* 
 
20 THE NATURE OF 
 
 penalty. There is no provision made for repent- 
 ance and reformation. It recognizes no way of 
 escape for the transgressor. It demands the 
 uttermost farthing. But do not the very words 
 of the Abrahamic covenant imply very cl6arly an 
 offer of mercy, and the possibility of salvation? 
 What could God have said more than that he 
 would be a God to Abraham and his seed? He 
 has promised no more to those who live under the 
 gospel dispensation. If men will sincerely repent 
 of their sins, and in faith receive the Saviour pro- 
 mised to Abraham, they will experience all the 
 blessings of the covenant made with Abraham. 
 Here there is some prospect of deliverance from 
 the penalty of the law ; here appears to be a door 
 of mercy opened to the seed of Abraham ; and 
 here are presented some faint glimmerings of hope 
 and mercy to despairing sinners: If this was the 
 covenant of works, we should hear no sounds of 
 mercy, and not one ray of hope would manifest 
 itself to the transgressor. But the words of this 
 covenant were calculated to kindle a hope in the 
 hearts of poor sinners, even before the appearance 
 of the Messiah. It must therefore be something 
 different from the covenant of works, for, * by the 
 deeds of the law no flesh can be justified ' in the 
 sight of God; and yet Abraham was justified 
 through the medium of the covenant God made 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 21 
 
 with him, for ' Abraham beheved God, and it was 
 counted unto him for righteousness.' 
 
 3d. The Abrahamic covenant was not a cove- 
 nant of land. It is very true that land was an 
 appendage to it ; but it was merely a temporal 
 benefit accompanying a spiritual blessing. ' Seek 
 first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, 
 and all these things shall be added unto you.' To 
 the peculiar blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, 
 God superadds the land of Canaan. This was 
 added, more to assist in the performance of the 
 duties enjoined upon them in the covenant, than 
 on any other account. God loves to confer tem- 
 poral benefits and privileges upon his penitent and 
 obedient people. Can we rationally suppose that 
 God would be at such pains to establish an ever- 
 lasting covenant with Abraham, when nothing but 
 a little piece of land was the grand object in 
 view? God certainly had a far greater object in 
 view than the mere disposal of the land of Canaan. 
 Such a supposition is derogatory to the divine 
 character. 
 
 4th. Although the Abrahamic covenant was 
 not the covenant of grace, yet it was a gracious 
 covenant. 
 
 It was a covenant made with a visible com- 
 munity. It was first visibly established in the 
 family of Abraham, and by special promise se- 
 
22 THE NATURE OF 
 
 cured to his seed in their generations. By exter- 
 nal relation, God was specially a God to the Jews, 
 or Israelites, till the advent of the Messiah, when, 
 according to the spirit of the divine word, that 
 peculiar state of things, or that special dispensa- 
 tion, was to terminate ; and yet, for some gracious 
 purposes, which still remain to be accomplished, 
 the Jews are still continued separate and distinct 
 from all other nations of the earth, in remem- 
 brance of this covenant ; for God remembers all 
 his promises made to his ancient people. 
 
 Circumcision was a token of the covenant, and 
 a seal of the promise of God to bestow blessings 
 upon all those in covenant. While the Jews were 
 in covenant, future blessings or judgments were 
 promised or predicted. Upon a careful investiga- 
 tion of the history of the Jews, it will be found 
 that God was true and faithful to every promise 
 and prediction. His conduct towards them, not- 
 withstanding their rebellion and presumptuous 
 wickedness, was marked with peculiar kindness 
 and long-sufifering mercy, God would not suffer 
 his great name to be polluted and profaned with 
 impunity; he therefore visited them in judgment, 
 but did not violate his holy covenant. That this 
 is a covenant made with a visible community, is 
 evident from the frequent references to it. Isaac 
 and Jacob are reminded of it. The Lord appeared 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 23 
 
 unto Isaac, and said : ' I am tlie God of Abraham 
 thy father ; fear not, for I am with thee, and will 
 bless thee, and multiply thy seed, for my servant 
 Abraham's sake.' The Lord also said to Jacob : 
 * I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and 
 the God of Isaac; and the land whereon thou 
 liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.' And 
 to Moses the Lord said : ' I am the God of thy 
 father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
 and the God of Jacob.' These words were ad- 
 dressed to Moses when he was called upon to go 
 to Pharoah, and plead for the liberation of the 
 children of Israel. The Lord said expressly to 
 Moses, when gi"VTLng him his commission, * I have 
 seen the affliction of my people which are in 
 Egypt.' Does not God call them his people in 
 consequence of the Abrahamic covenant ? Zacha- 
 rias, the father of John the Baptist, praised God 
 when he saw * the performance of the mercy pro- 
 mised to the fathers, and that God remembered 
 his holy covenant, and the oath which he sware to 
 our father Abraham.' Hence we conclude that it 
 was a gracious covenant, made with a visible com- 
 munity through Abraham, as their representative. 
 Again: This was a perpetual, or everlasting 
 covenant. The term everlasting qualifies this 
 covenant. It no doubt conveys the idea of end- 
 less duration. The literal meaning is always to 
 
24 THE NATURE OF 
 
 be preferred, unless it involves us in direct ab- 
 surdities and insurmountable difficulties. But the 
 very spirit and object of the covenant induce tbe 
 adoption of tbe idea of endless continuance. If 
 we attach a limited duration to this covenant, 
 Abraham would have had cause to fear, if not for 
 himself, yet certainty for his posterity. But he 
 was commanded not to fear : * Fear not, for I am 
 your shield, and exceeding great reward ;' because 
 this covenant secures a resurrection from the dead, 
 and will be recognized in heaven. This idea is 
 confirmed by the Saviour's exposition, when an- 
 swering the cavils of the Sadducees : " But, as 
 touching the resurrection from the dead, have ye 
 not read that which was spoken unto you by God, 
 saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of 
 Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? God is not the 
 God of the dead, but the living.' " Abraham 
 had reason to believe that a continuing city was 
 prepared for his reception, even an eternal in- 
 heritance. To limit the duration of this covenant, 
 is to suppose that God will cease to be the God 
 of Abraham and his seed, and that the connection 
 between Christ and his people will or may be 
 dissolved ; and that all the provisions, encourage- 
 ments, and promises of grace, secured to the seed 
 of Abraham in this covenant, will perish. What 
 can be more derogatory to the character of the 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVEXAXT. 25 
 
 God of Abraham, and inconsistent with the whole 
 tenor and spirit of the Bible ? 
 
 Again : This covenant makes provision for the 
 adoption of others, who are not the natural seed 
 of Abraham : ' In thee shall all the families of the 
 earth be blessed.' Here the blessing is extended 
 beyond the boundaries of Abraham's natural pos- 
 terity. Through the Messiah, the promised seed, 
 it extends to all the ends of the earth : * Look 
 unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the 
 earth.' By faith in the Saviour, gentiles become 
 joint heirs to this eternal inheritance : * If ye be 
 Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
 according to the promise.' Through faith and 
 patience we may inherit the promises. The door 
 of mercy and salvation is open, in the covenant 
 made with Abraham, to the world of mankind. 
 Any stranger that was not of his seed, and so- 
 journing with him, and complying with the con- 
 ditions of the covenant, mio-ht be circumcised, and 
 be made partaker of all the blessings secured to 
 those in covenant. We are divinely informed that 
 Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all that were 
 born in his house, and all that were bought with 
 his money, every male among the men of Abra- 
 ham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their 
 foreskin the self-same day, as God had said unto 
 him. Hence learn the extent of the benevolence, 
 
26 THE NATURE OF 
 
 and the divine liberality of the provisions of this 
 covenant. It is too rich to be a * land contract/ 
 It promises more than any, except a God, could 
 perform. 
 
 Again : It is a covenant, in which all the bless- 
 ings of the covenant of grace were promised and 
 secured, by the counsel and oath of God, to the 
 humble and sincere penitent who depends upon 
 Christ for justification. Abraham had the pro- 
 mise of every needed blessing, both in this life 
 and in that which is to come. Everything that 
 was necessary to his salvation was insured to him 
 by the promise of God : * God willing more abun- 
 dantly to show unto the heirs of promise the im- 
 mutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.' 
 For his consolation, and to strengthen his faith, 
 he had the oath of that God who cannot lie. The 
 means of grace were insured to him and to his 
 seed, the heirs of promise. By their covenant 
 relation, they were constituted the visible objects 
 of all the blessings of the divine promise, for * to 
 them were committed the oracles of God.' The 
 law and circumcision, of themselves, can save no 
 one from deserved condemnation; yet they are 
 the appointed means of grace. They had the 
 stated ministry of the priest : * The priest's lips 
 should keep knowledge, and they should seek the 
 law at his mouth ; for he is the messenger of the 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENAXT. 27 
 
 Lord of hosts.' They received repeated messages 
 from God by the prophets, entreating them to 
 * return unto the Lord, who would have mercy 
 upon them, and to our God, who will abundantly 
 pardon,' They enjoyed the ordinances of the 
 Temple service and the worship of God, and 
 'were instructed out of the law.' They pos- 
 sessed the ' holy Scriptures, which were able to 
 make them wise unto salvation,' through faith in 
 a promised Saviour. To the Israelites ' pertaineth 
 the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, 
 and the giving of the law, and the service of God, 
 and the promises.' Their being in the covenant 
 made them the visible objects of all the blessings 
 of divine and sovereign grace. One of the grand, 
 peculiar, and distinguished promises annexed to 
 this covenant was the promise of a Saviour to 
 come, who should redeem his people from their 
 iniquities. This was the alpha and omega of the 
 whole covenant transaction. Through the medium 
 of this covenant the Saviour was to be introduced 
 into this world, for he was to proceed from that 
 part of the posterity of Abraham which retained 
 their standing in the visible church. 
 
 Here two questions naturally suggest them- 
 selves: 
 
 1st. If the Abrahamic covenant be not the 
 3 
 
28 THE NATURE OP 
 
 covenant of grace to eternal life, then where shall 
 we find the covenant of grace ? 
 
 To this I answer, the covenant of grace is that 
 agreement which took place in the counsel of 
 eternity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
 concerning the redemption of the church. All 
 God's gracious dealings towards his creatures are 
 modifications of the same covenant, and intended 
 to accomplish the grand object contained in that 
 covenant. And as that covenant was the cove- 
 nant of grace, so the Abrahamic covenant was a 
 gracious covenant, and was peculiarly calculated 
 to accomplish the gracious purposes of God in 
 redeeming his church. The covenant of grace, 
 or redemption, was made in eternity between the 
 three persons of the adorable Trinity. The Abra- 
 hamic covenant was one of the grand means that 
 God appointed and ordained to accomplish the 
 designs of the covenant of grace. 
 
 We are in the next place led to inquire, what is 
 meant by the seal of this covenant ? 
 
 It is a token or mark of the covenant. * And 
 ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and 
 it shall be a token of the covenant between me 
 and you.' The rainbow was a sign or token that 
 God had established his covenant with Noah and 
 his posterity, and a standing memorial that God 
 would no more overflow the earth bv a flood. 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 29 
 
 ' This is tlie token of tlie covenant which I make 
 between me and you, and every living creature 
 that is with you, for perpetual generations : I do 
 set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a to- 
 ken of a covenant between me and the earth.' It 
 was the token of a covenant already in existence. 
 It was not the introduction to a covenant, but the 
 testimony of its existence. So it is with circum- 
 cision: It is the testimony, seal, or token of a 
 covenant already made. 
 
 The seal of the covenant is, a surety that every 
 thing contained in that covenant will be accom- 
 plished or performed. All parties interested in 
 that covenant do agree that they will perform 
 everything enjoined upon them as far as they are 
 able. The seal is a testimony of this agreement. 
 Circumcision is a seal of the mutual transaction, 
 between God and Abraham, and a surety that the 
 promises of God to Abraham will certainly be 
 fulfilled. By this rite, this mutual engagement is 
 sealed, and God pledges favors and blessings to 
 the obedient, and Abraham for himself and his 
 seed engages obedience, and hence God does not 
 hesitate to promise, for he says, ' I know him, that 
 he will command his children and his household 
 after him, and they shall keep the way of the 
 Lord, to do justice and judgment ; that the Lord 
 may bring upon Abraham that which he hath 
 
30 THE KATURE OF 
 
 spoken of him.' The contract is first made and 
 then sealed. 
 
 The ordinances of the chm-ch were for the most 
 part attended with the shedding of blood before 
 the gospel dispensation was introduced. Circum- 
 cision was intended to intimate or signify the en- 
 tire corruption of the human heart, which must 
 be put away. It was a painful and bloody rite. 
 The mortification of sin is painful, and the sancti- 
 fication of our nature is granted to sinners only 
 through the blood of Christ. This bloody seal 
 prefigures the blood of the atonement, and the 
 thing signified by water in our baptism alludes to 
 the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. The legiti- 
 mate inference is, that circumcision and baptism 
 do virtually seal and ratify the same thing. 
 Hence we conclude that it is a seal on the part of 
 both God and man. God promises certain things 
 to man, if he is obedient, and afi&xes a seal or 
 token to these promises. Man embraces the oflfer 
 and engages obedience, and receives this seal or 
 token, and by it binds himself the more strongly, 
 and by this pubhc act receives God as his God, 
 and the God of his seed or posterity. 
 
 From what has been said on the subject of 
 seals we are clearly taught that circumcision is 
 not properly the rite of initiation or admission into 
 the church : but it is the visible seal of our church- 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 31 
 
 membership. Can the seal or token of a cove- 
 nant be the door of admission into that covenant ? 
 It may be the visible testimony of the existence of 
 a covenant ; or it may seal or ratify a visible cov- 
 enanted relation, but it cannot be said to introduce 
 or initiate us into that covenant. It proves our 
 membership, but it is faith that constitutes us 
 members, or brings us into immediate union with 
 Christ, the great head of the church. Was it 
 circumcision or faith that brought Abraham into a 
 covenant relationship to God ? It was very man- 
 ifestly faith, and circumcision was a seal of the 
 righteousness of faith, and he had this faith while 
 he was uncircumcised. 
 
 II. 1 shall now attempt to prove that the poster- 
 ity of Abraham, or the children of believers, are 
 interested in this covenant. 
 
 They are born in covenant, or become members, 
 and are interested in it by birth. 'The uncir- 
 cumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is 
 not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his 
 people, he hath broken my covenant.' The spirit 
 of this passage recognizes children as in covenant, 
 although they may be uncu'cumcised, for how 
 else could they be cut off? How could they 
 break a covenant in which they were in no sense 
 connected At eight days old, they could not 
 cause themselves to be circumcised, for they are 
 3* 
 
32 THE NATURE OP 
 
 incapable of the necessary physical activity. 
 They could not give any evidence of saving faith, 
 and yet we have the word of God itself, that they 
 are in covenant, and that they shall be cut off be- 
 cause they had broken covenant in that they were 
 uncircumcised. It is not, however, to be supposed 
 that the child will be cut off, or actually called to 
 an account before the church, while in its infancy, 
 or its minority before it shall have arrived to the 
 years of discretion, except through its parents. 
 But could the child be said to be cut off in any 
 sense, if no covenant relation had ever existed ? 
 In order to maintain a consistency, we must admit 
 that the child was born in covenant. If circum- 
 cision be neglected in infancy through the neglect 
 of the parent, and if the child, when it arrives to 
 years of understanding, does not acknowledge 
 that covenant, and receive the seal, then that 
 child ' is to be cut off from his people ; he hath 
 broken my covenant.' And this violation of the 
 covenant is a joint act of the parent and the child. 
 Under the Jewish dispensation, the children of 
 the Jews were born in covenant, and it was the 
 indispensable duty of parents to place the seal of 
 the covenant upon them. For neglecting this 
 duty, the pious Moses was severely rebuked. 
 The same idea of membership by birth is distinctly 
 brought to view under the Christian dispensation. 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 33 
 
 * The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the 
 wife, and the unbeheving wife is sanctified by the 
 husband: else were your children unclean; but 
 now are they holy.' If one of the parents be a 
 believer, then the children are federally holy. 
 They are within the bonds of the covenant. * If 
 the root be holy, so are the branches.' In the 
 New Testament we are taught that if the parents 
 are in covenant, their children will be holy. Can 
 we then, in any possible or consistent way, shut 
 the children of believers out of the covenant ? 
 They are declared to be holy, if but one of their 
 parents is a believer. By the term holy as it is 
 used in this place, cannot be meant perfect free- 
 dom from sin ; for all are * shapen in iniquity, and 
 conceived in sin.' The children of believers and 
 unbelievers must aU, without exception, put off 
 the old man with his deeds. By being holy as it 
 is here used, must be meant that they are fede- 
 rally holy, or in covenant. We cannot consist- 
 ently affix any other meaning to the term ; and 
 must pronounce the children of those in cove- 
 nant, in some limited sense, members of the 
 church. 
 
 Again, they are members according to the 
 promise of God. ' I will be a God unto thee, and 
 to thy seed after thee.' The covenant is definitely 
 established with Abraham, and 'his seed after 
 
34 THE NATURE OF 
 
 him, in their generations for an everlasting cove- 
 nant/ "When God at different times, and to sub- 
 sequent generations, renewed this covenant, and 
 promised special favors to his people, it uniformly 
 included your children, your seed, and your little 
 ones. The covenant was established, or made 
 with the seed of Abraham, as well as with Abra- 
 ham. Who has any right to exclude one party of 
 the covenant, simply because^ they cannot speak 
 for themselves ? Or who has any right to alter 
 the conditions of the covenant, and thus exclude 
 the children ? 
 
 The Lord, when addressing Isaac, says : ' I am 
 the God of Abraham thy father ; fear not, for I 
 am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy 
 seed for my servant Abraham's sake.' When 
 Isaac blessed Jacob, his seed was included. The 
 blessing of Abraham was given to Jacob and his 
 seed with him. God further encourages Jacob : 
 * In thee, and in thy seed, shall the families of the 
 earth be blessed. The Lord shall increase you more 
 and more, you and your children. And they 
 shall dwell in the land that I have given unto 
 Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have 
 dwelt : and they shall dwell therein, even they and 
 their children, and their children's children for- 
 ever.' God, by his special promise, does recog- 
 nize children as interested in the covenant under 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COYENANT. 35 
 
 the Mosaic or Jewish dispensation. Who dare 
 disinherit them of these their privileges ? Who 
 is so presumptuous and cruel as to take from 
 children that which God hath given to them, and 
 thus deprive them of all the birthright privileges 
 resulting from their covenant relationship to their 
 believing parents ? Christ and his holy apostles 
 have not cut them off. Christ says : ' Suffer the 
 httle children, and forbid them not to come unto 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' The 
 apostles have, in substance and in spirit, repeated 
 the promises made to the Jews, as if they were 
 perfectly applicable to Christians under the gos- 
 pel dispensation, and that, too, in the immediate 
 view of the prejudices of a Jewish education. * The 
 promise is unto you and your children,' was then: 
 declaration on the day of Pentecost, when Jews 
 ■were congregated from almost every part of the 
 Roman Empire. * In thy seed shall the kindreds 
 of the earth be blessed. If ye be Christ's, then 
 are ye Abraham's seed, and heu's according to the 
 promise.' Under the gospel dispensation, those 
 ' who spake as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost,' did depend upon, and referred us all to the 
 promises made to Abraham. How then can we 
 be so cruel as to deprive them of the watch and 
 care of the church ? God has not cut them off 
 by any precept or example recorded in his word. 
 
.36 THE NATURE OF 
 
 and why should we? God in receiving ns, re- 
 ceives them, and why should we object to their 
 reception? I do not know that they are more 
 likely to bring a reproach upon the cause of re- 
 ligion than we, their parents. They are, with us, 
 parties in the covenant, and what right have we 
 to erase their names ? God notices them notwith- 
 standing their infancy and' minority, and why 
 should not we ? 
 
 Infer. I. From our subject we are taught that 
 believers or those in covenant are bound to place 
 the seal of the covenant upon their children. For 
 the neglect of this duty there is no rational or con- 
 sistent excuse. A neo-lect of it does not lessen or 
 destroy obhgation, or save us from breaking cov- 
 enant. God threatened to destroy Moses for neg- 
 lecting to circumcise his son, because his wife 
 was opposed to it. He was compelled to stop in 
 the midst of his journey and attend to it. Be- 
 lievers are solemnly bound by covenant to place 
 the seal upon their offspring ; and when they neg- 
 lect it, they only perform, one half of their vows, 
 and thus exclude their children from a participa- 
 tion of the blessings of the covenant. To urge 
 parents to the performance of this duty, God has 
 declared his intention of cutting off the uncircum- 
 cised from his people, as having broken covenant. 
 [Gen. xvii. 14.] A neglect of this duty is no 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COYENAXT. 37 
 
 doubt, one reason why there are so few young 
 members in the church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It may here be asked, whether baptized per- 
 sons may not place the seal upon their children, 
 even though they may not be in full communion 
 with the church ; for I am born a member of the 
 church, and have received the seal of the cov- 
 enant. In reply, I ask, have you liberated your 
 parents from their solemn covenant engagements 
 for you ? They are bound for you still ; for you 
 feel yourselves incapable of taking these baptismal 
 vows upon yourselves. Are you, then, fit to en- 
 gage for your children ? It is true you are mem- 
 bers of the church, and are in covenant by birth, 
 but have you ever recognized that membership by 
 your own act ? Have you ever come forward and 
 performed the duties of members ? Or have you 
 like Esau, despised this your birthright privilege ? 
 Your parents dedicated you to God under the 
 most solemn covenant vows ; but have you ever 
 dedicated yourselves to God ? Have you, by your 
 conduct, approved and sanctioned what your pa- 
 rents did for you ? If through a want of faith 
 and confidence in the divine promise, you feel un- 
 willing or incapacitated to take your baptismal 
 vows upon yourselves, and thus sweetly and joy- 
 fully relieve your parents, are you not equally in- 
 capable and unfit to enter into solemn covenant for 
 
38 THE NATUKE OF 
 
 your children ? Does it not require tlie same ex- 
 ercise of faith in the one case as in the other ? In 
 fact, you have broken covenant. The neglect of 
 the church to watch over you, may have been one 
 of the means that has led you to break covenant ; 
 but this will not excuse you for the omission of 
 duty when we appear before the judgment-seat of 
 Jesus Christ. It was your duty to profess your 
 faith in Christ, and enter publicly into covenant 
 with God long ere this day. It was the duty of 
 the church to watch over you, and entreat and 
 exhort you to immediate repentance ; and it was 
 the duty of the church to give you no peace, or 
 rest, as long as you lived in the violation of your 
 covenant ; but since the church has neglected her 
 duty, yet the word of God and his providences, 
 which you have daily seen, have been abundantly 
 sufficient to direct you to Christ as ycfur only Re- 
 deemer and Saviour. If you hope that you have 
 indeed met with a change, and have in penitence 
 and faith received Christ as your only ground of 
 justification before God, how dare you continue in 
 the violation of covenant engagements a single 
 day ? You have one of the seals of visible mem- 
 bership placed upon you, and are you afraid, that 
 in receiving the other sealing ordinance, you will 
 through the deceitfulness of your wicked heart 
 again break covenant ? So, then, you are really 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 39 
 
 afraid to trust yourselves in the hands of a cove- 
 nant-keeping God? How, then, can or dare you give 
 your children to God ? Will you put your children 
 where you dare not trust yourselves ? But look 
 at this matter in another point of view. You are 
 now living in violation of the covenant ; you are 
 solemnly and divinely called upon to make to your- 
 selves a new heart, and immediately to repent ; 
 and you are called upon to do it, that the covenant 
 may be established with your children, and that 
 the rich blessings of salvation may be entailed 
 upon your children's children. If you have brok- 
 en covenant, is there any propriety in placing the 
 seal upon your children ? Thus, in breaking cove- 
 nant yourselves, and in neglecting to liberate your 
 parents from their covenant engagements in your 
 behalf, and omitting to profess your faith in Christ, 
 you are instrumental in depriving your children of 
 the richest covenanted blessings : you break cove- 
 nant ; you keep them out of the shade of the cov- 
 enant, and you arrest the regular descent of the 
 blessing from generation to generation. The 
 church are ready and willing to receive you accord- 
 ing to the terms of the gospel, and the conditions 
 of the covenant ; they are anxiously and prayer- 
 fully waiting for it. I confess that the church, 
 except in a very few instances, have been greatly 
 to blame in not recognizing your covenant relation- 
 4 
 
40 THE NATURE OV 
 
 ship ; but I do hope and trust the time will soon 
 arrive, when she will be more faithful to her in- 
 fant members, and take better care of her young 
 and tender lambs ; and that she will in due time 
 receive all those in the covenant, by birthright or 
 otherwise, into a full communion, or cut them off 
 by a gospel or special act, after a fair and impar- 
 tial trial. Then shall we be delivered from many 
 difficulties: for we shall see our children and 
 youth uniting with their fathers and mothers in 
 Israel in commemorating the love of our dear Re- 
 deemer. A greater proportion of our members 
 would be collected from among our children and 
 youth. All our churches would thrive and flour- 
 ish more rapidly ; and \ace and in fidelity would be 
 compelled to hide their heads in confusion. If 
 the churches and if parents would be faithful to 
 the souls committed to their care, we should have 
 reason to calculate upon a continued blessing, and 
 a perpetual revival. Our children and youth 
 would not only approve and sanction what their 
 parents did for them, by professing their faith in 
 Christ, but also feel grateful that their parents, by 
 placing the seal of the covenant upon them, did 
 put them in the way to receive the blessing. 
 
 Infer. II. If baptized children are, in any sense, 
 members of the church, then how awfully defi- 
 cient are all our churches in their duty to their 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 41 
 
 children ! As baptism is a seal belonging to the 
 church of Christ, and is a seal of the righteousness 
 of faith, so it certainly implies some relationship 
 between the church and the subject to whom it is 
 applied. If they are not members by birth, nor 
 by expressed condition or promise, as parties in 
 the covenant, yet their being circumcised under 
 the Old, and baptized under the New Testament 
 dispensation, is an evidence of their membership 
 in some sense or another ; or else it is a seal that 
 seals nothing, and that evidences or confirms noth- 
 ing, and therefore is now, and always has been, 
 an useless and unmeaning ceremony. And dare 
 we indulge the thought that the great Head of the 
 church would introduce an unmeaning ceremony, 
 and then call it the seal of the righteousness of faith. 
 A great proportion of baptized children are run- 
 ning at random, and we take no more care of them 
 as related to the church than we do of any other 
 children. How many of them have been solemnly 
 and affectionately informed of their relation to the 
 church ? Yea, although they have received that 
 very seal, which is by some called the initiating 
 ordinance into the church, and by all is recognized 
 as constituting some relationship to the church, 
 yet even that relationship is not practically recog- 
 nized : we appear unwilling to own them as the 
 lambs of the flock ; we exercise no discipline over 
 
42 THE NATURE OF 
 
 them ; do not very often make them the subjects 
 of special prayer. 'No wonder there is so much 
 difficulty and division about the proper subjects of 
 baptism. Parental and ecclesiastical unfaithful- 
 ness and neglect of duty will invariably involve us 
 in this kind of trouble. The longer duty is neg- 
 lected, the more difficult will it be for us to return 
 to it. The unfaithfulness of those churches and 
 parents, who practice infant baptism, have in- 
 duced many to question the propriety of the prac- 
 tice. When they perceive such a great propor- 
 tion of those, who are some way related to the 
 church, almost entirely neglected in their religious 
 education, they are ready to conclude that bap- 
 tism is nothing ; but this conclusion is so glaringly 
 absurd and unscriptural, that they persuade them- 
 selves that infants are not the proper subjects of 
 baptism, and of course not fit subjects of promise. 
 Now if we were as a church faithful to command 
 our children and our household after us, we should 
 soon have our numbers and graces increased ; all 
 difficulties on this subject would speedily disap- 
 pear, and God would be glorified in the midst of 
 us. Our dear children and youth are too much 
 neglected in this gospel land. And I do sincerely 
 pray that Infinite Wisdom would speedily direct us 
 to a method that would remedy this awfully in- 
 creasing evil. May the Holy Spirit operate upon 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 43 
 
 all our hearts in such a manner that the church 
 and every Christian parent will be constrained so 
 to pray, so to live, and so to educate their children, 
 that there may be a thorough reformation. 
 
 Infer. III. Christian parents may experience 
 much comfort where churches are faithful in 
 the discharge of their duties to their baptized 
 children. When parents are called to bid an 
 eternal adieu to all terrestrial things, and leave 
 behind them a young family, how consoling the 
 thought that they are subject to the ,watch and 
 special care of the church of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ! Their orphan children find in the church 
 a parent, and a friend to direct their steps, when 
 their earthly parent and guide is no more. When 
 they are incapable of directing their own best 
 mode of conduct ; and when their nearest and 
 dearest earthly friends forsake them — then the 
 church appears as a very present help in trouble, 
 and takes them affectionately by the hand, and 
 leads them to the Lamb of Calvary. The pious 
 parent dies, and leaves his dear children under 
 the care of the church, well persuaded that they 
 will be carefully educated for heaven. The church 
 will adopt these orphans as their own children, 
 and teach them how to think and act for eternity. 
 As they are the children of the covenant, they 
 will be the special subjects of their prayers. And 
 4* 
 
.44 THE NATURE OF 
 
 what can be more comfortmg to a pious parent in 
 the near approach of death? It will greatly 
 mitigate the parting struggle, when he sees his 
 children provided for, as it respects their education 
 for eternity. But on the contrary, how distressing 
 and harassing the reflection to a pious parent — 
 * I am about to leave a young family, with none 
 sufficiently interested to pray for them, and to 
 direct them in the path of piety and virtue ; they 
 are to receive the first rudiments of their education 
 from the example and precepts of a wicked world 
 — none truly interested in their spiritual welfare, 
 none engaged to pray for and with them, and 
 to watch over them, and in parental love and 
 tenderness to reprove them for their follies. 
 What a heart-rending thought to an aflfectionate 
 and pious parent ! Hence we are clearly taught 
 that our unfaithfulness deprives us of much of 
 the comfort of religion which we might otherwise 
 enjoy. We attend so little to the active and 
 every-day duties of religion, that we are almost 
 strangers to near, sweet, and frequent communion 
 with God. If we are unfaithful, our children are 
 deprived of much good instruction, and the ben- 
 efits of a pious example. We are also deprived 
 of that satisfaction and peace of mind which 
 legitimately results from a faithful and conscien- 
 tious discharge of duty ; we feel the pain and 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 45 
 
 agony of soul arising from the conduct of dis- 
 obedient children ; for being destitute of the re- 
 straints of a pious education and wholesome 
 discipHne, they naturally relapse into a course of 
 conduct which causes the pious heart to bleed. 
 Faithful parental discipline, with a careful and 
 prayerful observance of the conditions of the cove- 
 nant, will insure to our children the covenant 
 blessing of the God of Abraham, and our chil- 
 dren will use it and bless our memories. 
 
 Infer. lY. If we are made the visible objects of 
 so many of the means of grace, by being in cove- 
 nant, how great are our obligations to God, and 
 how blameworthy if we misimprove them ! God 
 has withheld nothing from us that was necessary 
 for our salvation, and the eternal welfare of our 
 posterity. Our dear children are made as fit 
 subjects of promise as we are, for both are in- 
 cluded in the same covenant. The seal of the 
 covenant is placed upon them, and an invaluable 
 blessing secured to the humble penitent by the 
 express promise and oath of God. Parents may 
 carry their dear children to God, and ask his 
 covenant blessing upon them. O what a rich and 
 glorious privilege ! What an unspeakable favor ! 
 Yea, you may carry your children, even your 
 little children to Jesus, and he will not turn you 
 away empty. He will welcome you, and take 
 
46 THE NATURE OF 
 
 those cHldren in his arms, and bless them. If 
 you give them to him in covenant, he will take 
 infinitely better care of them than you can. He 
 ■will remove all their spiritual maladies, and pre- 
 pare them for a seat at his right hand in the king- 
 dom of glory. Here, then, is an opportunity for 
 every parent to secure for their children a rich 
 legacy ; a legacy that may be entailed to chil- 
 dren's children down to the Millennium. How 
 highly should we all prize such a privilege ! How 
 dihgently improve it ! Through this same covenant 
 the door of mercy is opened to all the families of 
 the earth, so that 'whosoever will may take of 
 the water of life freely.' Unfaithful and wicked 
 parents shut the door, and thus prevent their chil- 
 dren from entering into the marriage supper of 
 the Lamb. Dare we trifle with such blessings ? 
 Shall we neglect such privileges, and thus peril 
 the salvation of our own souls and that of our 
 children ? Shall we break covenant ourselves, 
 and encourage our children in the wicked and 
 rebellious course ? Remember, your children 
 are interested in all your conduct, for you are 
 their example. You can insure to them a rich 
 blessing. You may entail upon them a legacy of 
 infinite more intrinsic worth than the most splen- 
 did patrimony any child ever received from an 
 earthly parent. By complying with the con- 
 
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. 47 
 
 ditions of this covenant, you liave a grand oppor- 
 tunity to enrich your children for eternity, and 
 contribute largely towards the redemption of the 
 world. I would give more for the paternal bene- 
 diction of an Isaac and Jacob, and the covenant 
 blessing of the God of Abraham, than for all the 
 riches of the world without those covenanted 
 blessings. How infinitely great will be our guilt 
 if we neglect such an opportunity to secure the 
 richest possible blessing for our children ! 
 
 Infer. Y. We may learn from this subject that 
 a strict conformity to the conditions of the cove- 
 nant will instrumentally insure the conversion of 
 our children. God is true to his promise ; and 
 when he said he would be a God to Abraham and 
 his seed, he meant what he said, and he intends to 
 do so, and he has done what was implied in that 
 promise. * Train up a child in the way he should 
 go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.' 
 There is no exception to this rule, and there can 
 be none as long as God remains true to his word. 
 Fidelity on the part of parents will prevent a cold 
 and dull formality in religion ; for the practice of 
 penitence, candor, humility and sincerity will frown 
 upon all hypocrisy in their children. Such an ex- 
 ample will render formality and hypocrisy unfash- 
 ionable in the domestic circle. Then shall we 
 realize the fulfilment of that promise : * Out of 
 
48 THE NATURE, &C. 
 
 the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou 
 ordained strength.' Our children being under 
 the continued influence of a pious example, every 
 thing will naturally contribute to bring them to 
 the foot of the cross ; and the whole church be- 
 ing pledged to pray for them, and feeling, with 
 the parent, responsible for their religious instruc- 
 tion, there can be nothing to hinder their lisping 
 forth the praises of the dear Redeemer in their 
 youth. It ought to be the highest ambition of 
 every Christian parent to secure by every possible 
 means the early conversion of their children. It 
 gives them an extended opportunity for doing 
 good : they have a proportionably longer time to 
 be workers together with God in converting the 
 world. Besides, their early conversion will save 
 them many achings of heart, and add greatly to 
 the happiness of both parents and children. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 " And if some of the branches be broken off, and thon, being a wild 
 olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the 
 root and fatness of the olive tree ; boast not against the branches. But 
 if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee." 
 
 EoM. xu 17, 18. 
 
 In eyefy age of the world there liave always 
 existed * some of the true worshippers of God, 
 and thus a remnant according to the election hath 
 always been preserved. There have been great 
 and desolating declensions in the church, so that 
 sometimes scarcely a vestige of vital piety could 
 be discovered ; but still the continued existence 
 of the church, and the revivals of rehgion with 
 which she has been favored in eveiy age, are de- 
 cided evidences that this remnant has, at no time, 
 become entirely extinct. Vital religion had got 
 to a very low ebb at the time of our Saviour's 
 advent, even so low that men in the bosom of the 
 church were his principal persecutors, and his 
 most inveterate enemies. The Jews, to whom he 
 
■ 50 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 was specially sent, and to whom he directed his 
 particular attention, and who enjoyed the peculiar 
 benefits of his labors, and who were in fellowship 
 with him in the same church, were so filled with 
 infidehty that Christ himself marvelled at their 
 unb ehef . ^Notwithstanding this low state of re- 
 i gion, the remnant of true piety was found in this 
 very church. The Jews, as a nation, and as the 
 peculiar people of God, had become awfully cor- 
 rupt ; but they rigidly regarded the external forms 
 of their religion, although there was very little of 
 true piety among them. All that were truly pious 
 received Jesus as the Christ, and many of their 
 number were converted to the knowledge of the 
 truth as it is in Jesus, yet as a nation they were 
 •cut off on account of their unbeUef. 
 
 In the text we are explicitly informed that 
 some* of the branches were broken off. The Jews, 
 for their infidelity, were separated from the good 
 olive tree, or the true church of God, and could 
 no longer be partakers of the root and fatness of 
 the olive tree. Some belonging to the wild olive 
 tree were grafted into the good olive tree. These 
 were the believing gentiles, as you will find by 
 examining the text and context. They were graft- 
 ed into that good olive tree from which the unbe- 
 lieving Jews were broken off. Those who were 
 grafted mto this good oUve tree, in the place of 
 
JE-WISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 51 
 
 those who were broken off, do partake of the root 
 and fatness of that good olive tree ; thej partake 
 of all the promises and privileges, the graces and 
 ordinances, and the spiritual blessings and benefits 
 which belonged, by covenant, to Abraham and 
 his seed. 
 
 DocT. God has but one church in the world, 
 or the Jewish and Christian church are essentially 
 and radicallij the same under two different dispen- 
 sations. 
 
 I. This doctrine is proved from the oneness of 
 the divine character. He is the unchangeable 
 God. That which was right in itself, in the view 
 of God, in one age of the world, will be right in 
 every age, although God, as a sovereign, may 
 have different ways of communicating and exhib- 
 iting truth. God prescribed a particular way for 
 sinners to approach into his presence, and acknow- 
 ledg^e their submission to him under the Mosaic 
 dispensation. The appointment of these peculiar 
 and special rites and ceremonies was an act of 
 divine sovereignty, and was peculiarly calculated 
 for the pupilage of mankind in that age of the 
 world. It was suited to the genius and capacity 
 of men as just emerged from a state of idolatry, 
 and operated as a schoolmaster to biing them to 
 Christ, for Jesus Christ has always been the cen- 
 tre of attraction in the church. ever since its orgran- 
 
.52 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 ization, and the alpha and omega of all our hopes 
 of salvation, for he is revealed as the ' Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world.' 
 
 It is a fact that there was a church organized 
 and estabhshed in the world long before the ad- 
 vent of the Messiah. There are different opinions 
 as to the time when this church was established. 
 It is thought by many, and not without reason, 
 that the church was first organized and established 
 immediately after the fall of man. This much is 
 certain, that the covenant of grace in its spirit and 
 efficacy was revealed to man a long time previous 
 to the call of Abraham, for it would be uncharita- 
 ble to suppose that all were lost previous to that 
 time, especially as the promise of a Saviour was 
 revealed to our first parents immediately after the 
 fall. Besides, the sacrificial economy was in use 
 in the family of our first parents ; and we cannot 
 suppose that such a method of worship was intro- 
 duced without divine authority. We have there- 
 fore some reason to believe the existence of the 
 visible church in the earliest ages of the world. 
 
 The visible church embraces all in every part 
 of the world who profess to be the people of God. 
 This visible church was first publicly organized in 
 the family of Abraham. All who were included 
 in that covenant made with Abraham belong to 
 the visible church, and are entitled to all the 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 53 
 
 privileges of members as soon as they comply 
 with the stipulations contained in that covenant. 
 All the Israelites belonged to the visible church, 
 and hence it is said Moses was in the church in 
 the wilderness. Under the gospel dispensation 
 professing Christians constitute the visible church. 
 All particular churches in every country, and 
 among all denominations, who are organized ac- 
 cording to the constitution and rules of the Bible 
 in those essential doctrines which are the life and 
 support of all "vdtal piety, are parts of Christ's 
 visible church, or family on earth. If there be a 
 difference in their modes of worship, and in some 
 doctrines not essential to salvation, yet this will 
 not destroy the oneness of the church. It will 
 still continue to be one great whole, and in the 
 final day of accounts we shall all mutually feel a 
 perfect willingness and pleasure in confessing all 
 our former errors, and in embracing one common 
 Saviour as the Lord our rio-hteousness and salva- 
 tion. The Jews did pubHcly profess to be the 
 real people of God ; and it is a solemn truth God 
 did recognize them to be his pecuHar and chosen 
 people. His divine and fatherly care was con- 
 stantly exercised towards them for their protection 
 and preservation. Though He did ' visit their 
 transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with 
 stripes, yet his loving kindness he would not 
 
54 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 "Utterly take from them, nor suffer his faithfulness 
 to fail.' 
 
 Since the advent of the Saviour, Christians do 
 profess to be the real people of God. It is also 
 true that God recognizes them to be his cove- 
 nanted people. * He leads them beside the still 
 waters, and makes them to lie down in green pas- 
 tures.' He engages *to be with them always, 
 even to the end of the world ; to keep them by his 
 power through faith unto salvation ;' that * they 
 shall want no good thing ;' and that ' all things 
 shall work together for good to them that love 
 God.' Both then profess to belong to the true 
 church, and both are recognized as such by God 
 himself. Those Jews who were in reality what 
 they professed to be under the former dispensa- 
 tion were as much indebted for their salvation to 
 the efficacy of the atonement as the sincere Chris- 
 tian is under the present dispensation. And there 
 were some among them who continued truly devot- 
 ed to God until the advent and death of the 
 Saviour. But those Jews who rejected the Saviour 
 were broken off from their visible relationship to the 
 church, because of their unbelief ; whereas, those 
 Jews who professed cordially to receive the Mes- 
 siah, still continued in the visible church, and the 
 the converted and believing Gentiles were grafted 
 in among them, and thus the believing Jews and 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 55 
 
 Gentiles were united in one body. The Jews ac- 
 cording to the uniform usages of the church 
 brought their children with them, and were the 
 children of the converted Gentiles to be left be- 
 hind ? The chief difference in the church under 
 the Abrahamic or Mosaic and Christian dispensa- 
 tion, consists in external rites, forms, and modes 
 of instruction and worship arising wholly from the 
 diflferent circumstances under which they were 
 placed. God saw proper to reveal the doctrines 
 of atonement, and the mediation of a Saviour, 
 more obscurely and yet by visible objects, as being 
 more adapted to their capacity in that they had 
 just emerged from idolatry, under the ancient, 
 than under the gospel dispensation. They re- 
 ceived their instruction through the medium of 
 types and emblems which ' shadowed forth good 
 things to come.' Now these very same truths are 
 more clearly revealed in an entirely different mode, 
 and by diflferent forms of worship and instruc- 
 tion, so that there is no necessity for the continu- 
 ance of those burdensome institutions and bloody 
 rites. To suppose that the Jewish and Christian 
 church are essentially and radically diflferent is as 
 unreasonable as to suppose that a man, in his 
 maturity, is not the same person he was when a 
 child. When a child he had far less knowledge, and 
 was instructed in a different manner from what he 
 5* 
 
56 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 is in maturity, and yet it is the same person and 
 the same church, and has the same unchangeable 
 God for its author or head. The Jewish church 
 was Hke a child under tutors and governors, and 
 the Christian church like a son more matured, and 
 an heir of God nearer its inheritance through 
 Jesus Christ. The one was in her pupilage, the 
 other in her maturity. As the one only true God 
 is the author of both, so each must be the true 
 church. For we cannot suppose that God would 
 organize any thing but the true church. The 
 circumstances attending the organization or rather 
 re-organization of the church at the moment of 
 the solemn transaction, are proof of the unity of 
 the church. The passover was the most solemn 
 and significant feast under the Jewish dispensa- 
 tion. Christ was always present at that feast. 
 At the last passover that he attended, he insti- 
 tuted the gospel passover, in which he recognized 
 •himself as the atoning lamb ; for taking^ the bread 
 and breaking it, he said, *Take, eat, this is my 
 body broken for sin.' This was the very moment 
 when the church of God was re-organized ilnder 
 the Christian dispensation. They did not leave 
 the room, but while they were commemorating 
 the love of God in their emancipation from Egyp- 
 tian bondage, in eating the passover lamb, which 
 typically directed their minds to the Saviour of 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 57 
 
 sinners, how easy and natural this transition from 
 the Jewish to the Christian church ! The parts of 
 the lamb were laid aside, or all consumed, and the 
 bread, a part of the sacrificial supper, is used by 
 the Saviour as the symbol of his body, and the 
 wine, for wine was always used at the passover, 
 as the symbol of his blood. Here we see by his 
 official act, as high-priest, the Jewish passover is 
 superseded by the gospel passover, himself being 
 the paschal lamb. The Jewish church so runs 
 into the gospel church, and becomes so complete- 
 ly amalgamated with it,, that an inspired apostle 
 hath said, 'If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abra- 
 ham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.' 
 They were all members of the Jewish church when 
 they sat down to the paschal supper, and arose 
 members of the gospel or Christian church. This 
 is all the organization or re-organization of the 
 church under the gospel dispensation that is left 
 on divine record. Christ organized the church 
 before he Avas even falsely proved an impostor, 
 while he was a regular member of the church, 
 and before he or his disciples were turned out of 
 the synagogue, if they were ever turned out. 
 Here was the very organization of the Christian 
 church, and organized by regular members of the 
 Jewish church, and organized in such a way as 
 to entail all the promises upon, the church of God. 
 
58 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 We never learn that the apostles, after this mem- 
 orable night, ever met with the Jews at their pass- 
 over feast. They let go of the shadow for the 
 reality ; they let go the type that they might re- 
 ceive and enjoy the antetype. May not the divine 
 hand be distinctly recognized in all this solemn 
 and deeply interesting transaction ? Here we see 
 how wonderfully and mysteriously the Jewish 
 church is swallowed up in the Christian, or how 
 they both become, in the estimation of the truly 
 pious, and according to the providential dealings 
 of God towards each, amalgamated or united into 
 one. They must therefore be one, for there is but 
 one God, and one way of salvation, and that is 
 through the mediation and intefcession of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 To suppose the Jewish and Christian church 
 essentially and radically different, or to be two 
 distinct churches, is highly derogatory to the di- 
 vine character. It supposes God to be change- 
 able and imperfect, and limited in his calculations. 
 It implies a censure on his conduct towards the 
 Jews, for He gave them to understand that they 
 were the true church. It also implies that the 
 groundwork of the sinner's justification before 
 God is so altered that it is now an essentially and 
 radically different thing from what it was origin- 
 ally. But what is there essentially different in 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 59 
 
 spirit, whether we look forward to a Saviour 
 through types, shadows, or figures, or back to a 
 Saviour through the ordinances and institutions of 
 the gospel ? Is not the principle the same ? Do 
 not all look to the same source for salvation, and 
 depend on the same blood of atonement ? Are 
 not the same graces of the Spirit, and similar ex- 
 ercises of soul required of all, whether under the 
 dispensation of the Mosaic economy, or the Chris- 
 tian dispensation ? Are not repentance and faith 
 just as necessary under the divine administration, 
 in one age of the world as another? Hence I 
 conclude there cannot, in the very nature of the 
 case, be more than one true church of God in the 
 world. 
 
 II. That the Jewish and Christian church are 
 essentially one and the same, may be proved from 
 the fact that they are both founded on the cove- 
 nant of grace, or redemption. 
 
 A cQvenant is an agreement between different 
 parties on certain and specified conditions, or it is 
 a conditional proposition made by one party to 
 another; an assent to this proposition by the 
 other party constitutes it a covenant ; or it is a 
 ratification of the proposition. Grace is a favor 
 bestowed upon the unworthy ; or it is an exercise 
 of mercy and goodness to the ill- deserving. In 
 a covenant of works there is no exercise of mercy. 
 
60 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 Every act is measured by strict and impartial 
 justice. Do and live, are its only conditions. By 
 the covenant of grace, in its practical results, 
 we understand God's offer of favor and eternal 
 life to guilty rebels through Jesus Christ. That 
 which is required of man in this covenant is faith 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ as the great atoning 
 sacrifice for sin, and a godly sorrow for sin work- 
 ing repentance unto salvation : the sincerity and 
 genuineness of these must be proved by cordial 
 love to God, and cheerful obedience to all the 
 Divine commands. God, on his part, pledges 
 eternal life to all who comply with the conditions 
 of the covenant. When, therefore, any individual 
 exercises faith in Christ, and repentance for his 
 sin, he cordially assents to the covenant, and is 
 thereby initiated into it. The covenant of grace 
 was, in spirit, and in its practical efficacy, revealed 
 in some good degree to Adam, Enoch, Noah, and 
 other patriarchs who lived previous to Abraham ; 
 and their cordial compliances with its terms se- 
 cured their salvation. It was more clearly and 
 fully revealed to Abraham in that covenant made 
 with him, of which circumcision was a seal or 
 token. Here the church was organized in a more 
 visible manner ; and Abraham complied with this 
 visible organization by applying the seal of circum- 
 cision to himself and family. 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAif CHURCH. 61 
 
 If it can be made to appear that this covenant, 
 made with Abraham, required faith, or real re- 
 hgion of the heart as its condition, and a promise 
 of eternal life to a compliance with its conditions, 
 it will be abundantly manifest that it was based 
 upon the covenant of grace, and essentially and 
 radically the same with the requirements of the 
 gospel. 
 
 That faith and true religion was the condition 
 of the Abrahamic covenant is manifest from the 
 very words of the covenant : ' I am the Almighty 
 God ; walk before me and be thou perfect ; and I 
 will make my covenant between me and thee.' 
 Here God requires of Abraham that he should 
 walk before God, and be perfect and upright. 
 Does not this require the existence of true religion 
 in the heart and practice ? Is anything more 
 required of Christians imder the gospel economy ? 
 It is certain that circumcision was a seal or token 
 of the Abrahamic covenant ; for it is explicitly 
 said : ' Ye shall circumcise the flesh of your fore- 
 skin, and it shall be a token of the covenant be- 
 tween me and you.' But an inspired apostle hath 
 said, that ' Abraham received the sign of circum- 
 cision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which 
 he had, yet being uncircumcised.' While circum- 
 cision was a token of the covenant, it was also 
 'a seal of the righteousness of faith.' Now, what 
 
62 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 are we to understand by the righteousness of 
 faith, if it does not mean justification by faith in 
 Jesus Christ ? If this be its meaning, then it em- 
 braces the whole true rehgion. But if it does not 
 mean this, then where is the propriety of the 
 apostles calling it a seal of that faith, which was 
 accounted to Abraham for righteousness, and thus 
 made him the father of all them that believe ? If 
 true religion was not required by the Abrahamic 
 covenant, then what authority have we to believe 
 that there was any true religion previous to the 
 advent of the Saviour ? 
 
 Unbelief debarred from a participation of the 
 benefits of that covenant. This is expressly as- 
 serted by an inspired apostle, where he repre- 
 sents unbelief as the chief barrier against the 
 Israelites' entrance into the promised land. It is 
 admitted by all that the Abrahamic covenant is 
 the foundation of the Jewish church. But the 
 Jews were broken off from this very church, or 
 olive tree, because of their unbelief, which cer- 
 tainly shows that faith was a condition of the 
 covenant. It must, therefore, be essentially such 
 a gracious covenant as to secure the salvation of 
 those who, from the heart, were in that covenant. 
 
 God promises to, Abraham, ' that he will be a 
 God to him, and to his seed after him.' What 
 more could God have promised ? Has he pro- 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHUECH. 63 
 
 mised any more to Christians under the gospel 
 dispensation ? He gave himself to Abraham and 
 his seed after him, if he would keep his covenant. 
 God uses the same kind of language to Christians 
 under the gospel economy : ' I will be unto them 
 a God, and they shall be unto me a people.' God 
 did all he consistently could do for the Jews, and 
 has he done any more for Christians ? ' He that 
 overcometh shall inherit all things ; and I will be 
 his God.' Could the Jews, or can we ask, any- 
 thing more ? 
 
 Again, it is written, ' If ye be Christ's, then 
 are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the 
 promise.' Those who are truly converted and be- 
 lona: to Christ are Abraham's, and belong to the 
 covenant. Is not this very clearly recognizing 
 them as possessing the same spirit, and sustaining 
 the same relationship to God ? This exhibits the 
 oneness of the two churches, and that that faith, 
 love and repentance which constitutes us the dis- 
 ciples of Christ does also constitute us the seed 
 of Abraham, which very clearly shows, that if 
 true religion were required under the Christian 
 dispensation, it was also equally obhgatory under 
 the Abrahamic covenant. Hence we are taught 
 that both churches are founded upon the same 
 gracious covenant ; but upon the same promises ; 
 dependent upon the same blood of atonement, and 
 6 
 
6'4 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 must all look to the same covenant-keeping God 
 for protection, and for its perpetuity. Is not 
 then the Christian church the continuance, and 
 enlargement, in its privileges, of the church^that 
 was first visibly organized in the family of Abra- 
 ham, or that church which God hath recognized 
 as his dwelling-place in every age, and whose 
 gates he loves more than all the dwellings of 
 Jacob ? 
 
 III. The qualifications for membership are 
 the same under both dispensations. 
 
 Under the gospel dispensation holiness of heart 
 as well as a holy and circumspect walk and de- 
 portment is required of every disciple of Christ. 
 It is regeneration and its fruits that constitute the 
 radical difference between saints and sinners. 
 Under the former economy God said, * Circum- 
 cise the foreskin of your hearts, and be no man 
 stiff-necked.' Are we not here explicitly taught 
 that newness of life and hohness of heart were 
 indispensably necessary to constitute any one a 
 member of the Jewish church ? There is very 
 great emphasis placed on the circumcision of the 
 heart, for Paul, under inspiration, said, and cer- 
 tainly he knew what a Jew ought to be, ' He is 
 not a Jew which is one outwardly ; neither is that 
 circumcision which is outward in the flesh ; but 
 he is a Jew which is one inwardly ; and circum- 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 65 
 
 cision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in 
 the letter.' The chief thing that God observed, 
 and particularly noticed, were the feelings of the 
 heart ; for ' as a man thinketh in his heart, so is 
 he' in the sight of God. This is confirmed by the 
 express words of the covenant: *I am the Al- 
 mighty God ; walk before me, and be thou per- 
 fect.' God required as much experimental religion 
 of the Jews as he does now of Christians. ' This 
 day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to 
 do these statutes and judgments : thou shalt there- 
 fore keep and do them with all thine heart, and 
 with all thy soul.' Hence we are taught that the 
 whole heart and soul were required in the dis- 
 charge of every duty. The heart must be right 
 with God, or all their religion would be a dull for- 
 mality, and presumptuous hypocrisy. The ordin- 
 ances of the Jewish religion could not be properly 
 observed without heart-religion. 
 
 Every part of the Old Testament dispensation 
 had its correspondent under the ISTew Testament 
 economy. Circumcision was instituted by the ex- 
 press command of God as a token of the covenant 
 between God and his servant Abraham, and ' he 
 received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the 
 righteousness of faith which he had, yet being 
 uncircumcised.' Circumcision was not the initiat- 
 ing ordinance into the church, but * a seal of the 
 
6Q THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 righteousness of faith/ which righteousness is a 
 justifying righteousness. It was imputed or 
 reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. The 
 paschal lamb that was slain, and his blood 
 sprinkled upon the door-posts, had a special 
 reference to the Saviour who was crucified, and 
 whose blood was shed for the remission of sins. 
 The feast of the passover corresponded with the 
 gospel feast, or the Lord's supper, and hence 
 Christ is called our passover. 'None were per- 
 mitted to eat the passover before they were cir- 
 cumcised. * There shall no stranger eat thereof ; 
 but every man's servant that is bought for money, 
 when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he 
 eat thereof. And when a stranger shall sojourn 
 with thee, and will keep the passover to the Lord, 
 let all his males be circumcised, and then let him 
 come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that 
 is born in the land ; for no uncircumcised person 
 shall eat thereof.' Before this token of the cove- 
 nant was apphed, they could not be entitled to the 
 privilege of members of the Jewish church. As 
 faith was necessary in order to become fit subjects 
 for circumcision, even so much so that without 
 faith their circumcision was made uncircumcision, 
 it hence follows that faith was as indispensable a 
 qualification in order to be circumcised, as it is in 
 order to be a fit subject for baptism. Faith was 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 6Y 
 
 as necessary to become a member of the Jewish 
 churcli as it is for admission into tbe Christian 
 church. It was as much impossible to please God 
 without' faith, under the ancient dispensation, as 
 it is now. It was the duty of every Jew to ad- 
 here rigidly to all the rites and ceremonies of the 
 law. They were positively enjoined by the great 
 Lawgiver, and could not be neglected without in- 
 curring guilt and the Divine displeasure ; and yet 
 the Lord says : * Bring no more vain oblations : 
 incense is an abomination unto me: the new 
 moons and Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, 
 I cannot away with: it is iniquity, even the 
 solemn meeting.' Why is the solemn meeting 
 called iniquitous ? Why are these divinely com- 
 manded external rites and ceremonies an abomina- 
 tion unto the Lord ? Are they not odious to God 
 simply because there is no heart in them ? Was 
 it not because they had nothing but lip-service ? 
 Was there not a want of humility, and sincere 
 and penitent obedience to God in the heart ? God 
 has always loved to see vital piety in his creatures. 
 Experimental piety was the same thing in Moses, 
 Joshua and David that it was in Paul, Peter and 
 John. Vital piety was anticipated and expected 
 to, be in the hearts and practice of the professors 
 of religion in every age of the church and of the 
 world. Are we not constrained to admit that the 
 6* 
 
68 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 qualifications necessary to constitute membership 
 were essentially and in spirit the same in both the 
 Jewish and Christian church ? Is not then the 
 true church of God one and the same under the 
 two different dispensations ? 
 
 lY. That the Jewish and Christian church are 
 the same and only true church of God in the 
 .world, is further proved from the fact that the 
 rules of moral conduct and discipline have been 
 essentially the same under each dispensation. 
 
 The command of God to the Jews was, that 
 they should love the Lord God with all their 
 heart ; that they should love their neighbor as 
 themselves ; that they should not vex or oppress 
 a stranger ; and that if they perceived an enemy's 
 ox or ass going astray they must certainly bring 
 it back. Hence they were taught to do good to 
 all, not excepting their enemies. This perfectly 
 accords with the precepts of the ISTew Testament. 
 Christians are commanded to love God with all 
 the heart : to love one another, and to improve 
 every opportunity to do good to all. Love your 
 enemies ; pray for those that despitefuUy use you 
 and persecute you ; and render blessing for curs- 
 ing. Hence the fundamental laws by which the 
 true church has been governed, are the same in 
 spirit and in the letter in every age of the world. 
 They produce the same effect upon the conduct 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 69 
 
 and moral character of mankind. All kinds of 
 vice, by whatever name they were called, were 
 expHcitly prohibited. The same things were re- 
 peated and confirmed by the precept and example 
 of the New Testament economy. 
 
 Idolatry, profanity, lying, fraud, oppression, 
 envy, revenge, fornication, and all kindred vices 
 were forbidden in the Old and New Testaments. 
 The discipline in each were very similar, and their 
 object the same. It was to reclaim, and not de- 
 stroy an offending brother. ' Thou shalt not hate 
 thy brother. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy 
 brother, and not suffer sin upon him.' By which 
 we are taught that it was esteemed a duty and a 
 privilege to endeavor to reclaim a brother who 
 had wandered from the path of rectitude. And 
 do not such instructions agree perfectly with the 
 precepts taught by the Saviour ? * If thy brother 
 trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault.' 
 If the offending brother is reclaimed, a brother is 
 gained, is forgiven, and restored to his standing in 
 the church. When a Jew repented of his sin, he 
 was directed to bring his sin-offering, to lay his 
 hand on the head of his victim, as an expression 
 of his penitence and desire of pardon and forgive- 
 ness. It became the duty of the priest to make 
 atonement for him by offering his victim, and then 
 he was forgiven, and restored to his standing in 
 
YO THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 the clmrch. There were some dififerent rites and 
 forms pursued to bring about the same results ; 
 but these different forms terminated in the same 
 point, and produced the same kind of feelings to- 
 wards sin, and reconciliation to God and man, 
 and thus were evidence of the unity of design in. 
 the discipline of each of the churches. If an of- 
 fender in the Christian church remains obstinate 
 and self-willed, and perseveres in his sin, he is 
 cast out, and treated as an heathen man and pub- 
 lican. There is a correspondent law in the Jewish 
 church. *The soul that doeth aught presumptu- 
 ously, (whether he be born in the land, or a stran- 
 ger,) the same reproacheth the Lord; and that 
 soul shall be cut off from among his people.' Be- 
 cause he hath despised the work of the Lord, and 
 hath broken his commandment, that soul shall 
 utterly be cut off: his iniquity shall be upon him. 
 The rule of moral conduct and discipline breathes 
 the same spirit in each church. There are some 
 different measures, forms and ceremonies prac- 
 tised, but they are intended to accomplish the 
 same end, produce the same kind of reformation 
 and moral character, and to excite the exercises 
 of the same graces of the Spirit. To generate love 
 to God and to man ; and produce universal peace 
 and happiness, is the grand design of the rites, 
 ceremonies, and discipline of each church. 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Il 
 
 V. That the Jewish and Christian church are 
 essentially one is further proved from the fact that 
 the sacraments and ordinances are similar in their 
 import and design. Circumcision under the Jew- 
 ish economy was a seal or token of faith, and 
 hence is called a ' seal of the righteousness of 
 faith,' which Abraham had, being yet uncircum- 
 cised ; which shows that he first believed, and 
 was then circumcised together with his household 
 in token of his faith. Baptism has precisely the 
 same import under the present dispensation. The 
 jailer, as soon as he possessed his faith in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, * was baptized, he and all his 
 straightway, as a token of his faith. The eunuch 
 was informed that he might be baptised, * if thou 
 belie vest with all thine heart.' Baptism is the 
 seal of faith in a Saviour, or of a gracious cove- 
 nant. When, therefore, any person dedicates 
 himself, or his children and household to Christ 
 in baptism, it is a seal or token of his faith, and of 
 his covenant relation to God. 
 
 Circumcision took away a part of the flesh, and 
 plainly denoted the necessity of a change of heart, 
 and that the old man must be put off, and that the 
 new man must be put on. Hence we are taught 
 the entire corruption of the carnal heart, for 
 surely we should not be commanded to put off the 
 old man with his deeds, if it were not enmity 
 
X2 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 against God, and radically wrong. Hence the 
 rites of tlie Jewish economy clearly taught the 
 doctrine of human depravity, and the necessity of 
 a change of heart. 
 
 And does not baptism teach the same impor- 
 tant and momentous truth, by the washing of re- 
 generation and renewing of the Holy Ghost ? 
 When, therefore, water is apphed in baptism to 
 infants or to adults, it teaches the native depravity 
 of the human heart, and the need of being 
 cleansed, or washed in the laver of regeneration, 
 and sanctified and renewed by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The import and design of circumcision and bap- 
 tism We the same. They are the seal of the 
 same righteousness of faith, a sign of the same 
 gracious covenant, designate the same native 
 moral character, and necessity of regeneration, 
 and imply the exercise of faith in the same Sa- 
 viour, and point to the same blood of atonement, 
 and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Abraham 
 was required to believe and be circumcised be- 
 cause God had made a covenant with him and his 
 seed. It then sealed a covenant. It did not 
 make the covenant, nor initiate the subject into it. 
 The hearers of the apostles were to repent and be 
 baptized, because the promise was unto them and 
 to their children. And to what promise does the 
 apostle allude, but the promise on which the church 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Y3 
 
 is based, even the promise made to Abraham, in 
 whose seed ail the famihes of the earth were to be 
 blessed. 
 
 There is a more striking similarity in the import 
 and design of the passover. The paschal lamb 
 intimated the safety of all who placed themselves 
 under the cover and protection of the blood of 
 their atoning sacrifice. So Christ is exhibited as 
 the ' Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of 
 the world.' 
 
 The killing of the lamb, the sprinkling of the 
 blood on the door-posts to save them from the 
 destroying angel, and the roasting of it in the fire, 
 are so many rites very clearly typifying the awful 
 sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, and the sal- 
 vation of all those who take shelter under the 
 blood of the atonement, and receive Christ as 
 their great passover lamb. Are not these same 
 truths strikingly exhibited to us in the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper? Christ is called by an 
 inspired apostle, ' our passover who is sacrificed 
 for us.' If we, with these marks of similarity and 
 spirituality, denominate the one a political com- 
 munity, or at most, a political or secular theocra- 
 cy, and the other an ecclesiastical organization, 
 do we not separate what God hath joined to- 
 gether ? And then one or two questions naturally 
 arise, which cannot be very easily answered. 
 
74 THE OXEXESS OF THE 
 
 "Where was God's true cliurcli previous to the ad- 
 vent of Jesus Christ ? Or was the world without 
 any true chuixh till Christ came into the world ? 
 "When did a regular organization take place, or 
 when was the true church of God organized ? It 
 will not do to say, that it was organized when Christ 
 instituted the Lord's Supper, for that would be 
 grafting it upon the old stock, and then it must 
 still remain only a political community or a kind 
 of political theocracy. 
 
 YI. Those who were members of the one 
 church, were also members of the other, and that 
 without being newly initiated, as has always been 
 the custom in going from one church to another 
 and different church. 
 
 We have no account that Christ or his disci- 
 ples ever separated themselves from the Jewish 
 church. Christ himself was a member of that 
 church, and never was broken off from it, or ex- 
 communicated from it, till after the new reorgani- 
 zation of the church in the institution of the Lord's 
 Supper. He was circumcised and always partook 
 of the passover, and v/as always present, or it 
 would have been noticed as a charge against him. 
 
 The passover was a Jewish institution, very dis- 
 similar from all other institutions. It was com- 
 menced and commemorated by divine appoint- 
 ment. It belonged by a special, by a divine 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. TS 
 
 arrangement to the Jewish church, and none were 
 permitted to participate in it but regular members. 
 While it reminded the Jews of their remarkable 
 deliverance from Egyptian bondage, it also prefig- 
 ured or typified the Christian passover, or sacra- 
 ment. As the paschal lamb pointed to the 
 Saviour himself as the great atoning sacrifice for 
 for sin, so the passover pointed to the Lord's 
 Supper, or sacrament. The one typified or pre- 
 figured a Saviour to come; the other is com- 
 memorative of a Saviour that has already come, 
 and who has made the predicted atonement by 
 sufferings and death. Christ, by his own act, 
 proved them to be one institution in spirit, or 
 rather parallel and corresponding institutions 
 under two different dispensations; for when he 
 for the last time celebrated the passover, he took 
 the bread and the wine, and gave it to his disci- 
 ples, and said, ' Take, eat ; this is my body. And 
 he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to 
 them, saying, Drink ye all of it ; for this is my 
 blood of the New Testament, which is shed for 
 many, for the remission of sins.' And this he did, 
 while at the passover. By this act Christ institu- 
 ted the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and com- 
 manded it to be commemorated or kept in every 
 succeeding age till he come. He did not by this 
 act, either directly or indirectly, disband or disor- 
 7 
 
76 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 ganize the Jewish church ; neither did he convey 
 the idea that they were then, by partaking of this 
 bread and ciip, or sacrament, become members of 
 a new and different church. They were still 
 members of the same church ; and we have no 
 authority from Scripture to conclude that we are 
 members of a church radically different in spirit, 
 or in design, from the ancient Jewish or Abraha- 
 mic church, though we are under a different dis- 
 pensation, where the same truths and doctrines 
 are communicated in a different way, or by different 
 rites. There is no new covenant made, if by new 
 we are to understand that which has never been 
 revealed, for the covenant of grace is unalterably 
 the same, and all the gracious provisions of the 
 Abrahamic covenant are continued and perpetua- 
 ted under the Christian dispensation, in which 
 spiritual light shines brighter, and is more clearly 
 revealed than under the former dispensation. 
 That was but the dawning of the day ; this is the 
 sun rising in its strength, splendor and glory, and 
 will shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect 
 day. There being no new, or essentially different 
 covenant, and having no account when the apos- 
 tles passed out of one church into the other, we 
 may naturally conclude their membership has 
 never been changed ; or in other words, they 
 were always members of one and the same 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 7*7 
 
 church ; for certainly, if they had ever separated 
 themselves from that church to which they were 
 originally united, we should have had some inti- 
 mations of it somewhere in the New Testament. 
 This would have been an event of the utmost im- 
 portance to the world in every subsequent gene- 
 ration, and certainly at such a momentous season 
 and significant era as the Pentecostal revival, we 
 should, if ever, have heard something about the 
 change of their ecclesiastical relationship ; but at 
 the close of that glorious work it is simply stated, 
 * and the same day there were added unto them 
 about three thousand souls. And the Lord 
 added to the church daily such as should be 
 saved.' Hence there was no church but the one 
 to which the immediate followers of Christ were 
 connected. They never changed their relation- 
 ship to the Jewish church, except that which was 
 implied in the institution of the eucharist at the 
 last passover, which our Lord himself attended. 
 Being members of the church under both dispen- 
 sations, it necessarily follows that the Jewish and 
 Christian church were radically the same. 
 
 VII. That the Jewish and Christian church are 
 essentially the same true church of God, may be 
 urged from the fact that he is equally the great 
 Head of both, and they are represented as his 
 house, or building. In the Old Testament, the 
 
78 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 church is called the spouse. If the church he a , 
 spouse, she must have a husband. The Lord of 
 hosts is represented as the husband of the church, 
 who has the special and providential government 
 of it in all her troubles. He supports and pro- 
 tects her, as a husband does his wife, and is bound 
 by his divine promise to prevent the gates of hell 
 from prevailing against her : ' Thy Maker is thine 
 husband ; the Lord of hosts is his name ; the God 
 of the whole earth shall he be called.' But, in 
 the New Testament, the church is called the bride, 
 the Lamb's wife. Nothing, then, can be more 
 manifest than the important truth that both 
 churches are one ; for it is absurd and inconsistent 
 to suppose that Christ has two true churches in 
 the world. 
 
 Again: The church is called God's building, 
 fitly framed together ; but Christ is the foundation 
 on which it is built. It is said : ' My servant, 
 Moses, is faithful in all mine house.' By house 
 is understood the Jewish church, over which Moses 
 presided. 'But Christ was counted worthy of 
 more glory than Moses ; inasmuch as he who hath 
 builded the house hath more glory than the house.' 
 Again : * Moses was verily faithful in all his house 
 as a servant, for a testimony of those things which 
 were to be spoken after ; but Christ as a son over 
 his own house ; whose house are we, if we hold 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 79 
 
 fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope 
 firm unto the end.' This was Christ's house, for 
 he built it, and he was a son over his own house. 
 His house was the Christian church ; ' of whose 
 house are we ;' referring to behevers, or professing 
 Christians. But in this house (that is, Christ's) 
 Moses was faithful. Hence the Jewish and Chris- 
 tian church are essentially, and in spirit and de- 
 sign, the same true church of God. 
 
 Inference. If the Jewish and Christian church 
 are radically the same, and if the qualifications 
 for admission are the same, then the children of 
 believers sustain a similar relation, and are entitled 
 to equal privileges in each church. If the chil- 
 dren of believers, under the Christian dispensation, 
 had been deprived of or denied the privileges 
 granted by covenant to Jewish children, it is a 
 matter of such vital importance, that it could not 
 have been omitted in the divine record, or in the 
 organization of the Christian church. The chil- 
 dren of believers, even where only one of them is 
 a professed Christian, are recognized as holy; 
 that is, under the protection of the covenant. 
 Where, in the divine record, or even by the de- 
 cisions of the primitive Christian church, has 
 God excluded children from the privileges granted 
 to Jewish parents ? If any such exclusion had 
 ever taken place, it would have been such a per- 
 
80 THE ONENESS OF THE 
 
 feet innovation as would have insured it a promi- 
 nent place in all ecclesiastical records ; but there 
 is no such event on record. I have never learned 
 that the children of Christian are intellectually 
 inferior to the children of Jewish parents. Faith 
 had just as distinguished a place under the J6 wish 
 as under the Christian dispensation. Children 
 are children in every age of the church and of 
 the world, and are to be treated as such. The 
 children in every age of the world are equally 
 capable of exercising faith. As much, then, will 
 be required of children under the more simple 
 and clear dispensation of the Gospel, as under 
 that dispensation which exhibited by various typi- 
 cal rites, and was only a shadow of good things 
 to come. If it was proper to circumcise Jewish 
 children, on the ground of the faith of parents, 
 or as a seal of the parents' faith or covenant, it is 
 equally proper to baptize children ; and it cannot 
 be omitted without a neglect of duty and a breach 
 of covenant. Is it right or equal to say that 
 the children of the Jews were the children of the 
 covenant, but the children of Christians are not ? 
 and that, too, when each of the churches is based 
 upon the same covenant and promises? May 
 Jewish parents bring their children to the church, 
 place the token of the covenant upon them, and 
 put them under the shadow of the covenant for 
 
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 81 
 
 protection, and must Christian parents be denied 
 this privilege, and leave their children behind 
 them? Did Peter reason thus on the day of 
 Pentecost, when he said : ' The promise is imto 
 you and to your children, and to all that are afar 
 off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.' 
 It does appear to me a peculiarly interesting and 
 encouraging fact for parents who love their chil- 
 dren, that Peter should be mspired to refer to 
 this promise, and bring in children to share the 
 covenant blessings of the God of Abraham, at 
 the time when there was such a universal excite- 
 ment, and the minds of all appeared to be entirely 
 enveloped. In this great excitement children were 
 not forgotten, as being a party interested in the 
 covenant. His enlarged and inspired benevolence 
 brought in the dear children for a share of the 
 divine blessmg. It was not possible to forget 
 them, however much his soul was thrilled with the 
 infinitely rapturous and interesting scene before 
 him. Have Christian parents lost their sensibility, 
 that they can leave their children to lie in the open 
 field of impiety, and to form their moral character 
 from the unholy influences with which they are 
 surrounded ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 PARENTAL riDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 ** For I know him, that he wiJl command his children and his honse- 
 hold after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice 
 and judgment ; that the Lord may hring upon Abraham that which he 
 hath spoken of him." — Genesis, xviii. 19. 
 
 The Lord knew the pious patriarch, that he 
 would be faithful, and that he would * command 
 his children and his household after him,' and 
 therefore knew what to promise. Abraham had 
 been tried. There was no question concerning his 
 piety, his fidelity, and his love to God. He 
 placed the most imphcit confidence in the divine 
 promise, when everything seemed to militate 
 against its fulfilment. Against ' hope believed in 
 hope, that he might become the father of many 
 nations.' God positively predicted a blessing upon 
 the nations descending from the posterity of this 
 venerable patriarch, and with them all the nations 
 of the earth were to participate. This blessing 
 was predetermined, God had a definite plan by 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 83 
 
 which it was to be effected ; and one of the means 
 was the parental faithfulness of Abraham. 
 
 The text suggests some arguments to encourage 
 parental faithfulness. 
 
 I. If parents are truly faithful, God hath en- 
 gaged * that their children shall keep the way of 
 the Lord, to do justice and judgment.' "What he 
 hath said he will make good, for he is not a man 
 that he should He. You may set it down for a 
 certainty, that if a child is ' trained up in the way 
 he should go, when he is old he will not depart 
 from it.' The impressions that are made upon 
 the minds of children are deep and lasting, and 
 will have an influence in forming their moral char- 
 acter. Hence, if they are taught to govern their 
 passions and to bridle their tongues, and have 
 good examples, not only of morality but of vital 
 and every-day piety, constantly placed before 
 them, it will have a powerful and salutary effect 
 upon all their subsequent conduct. But if chil- 
 dren do not perceive the fruits of true godliness 
 in the lives of their parents ; if the parents' re- 
 ligion is mere morality and an external profession > 
 and if, when they converse with their children, 
 they do not enter into the very feelings of the 
 child, and if possible discover the secret movings 
 and intents of the heart ; and if they do not 
 manifest to their children that the religion they 
 
84 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 profess is very searching, and reaches to all the 
 secret feelings and motives of the heart; these 
 children will be prone to form a very unfavorable 
 opinion of the glorious truths of the Gospel. The 
 children of such parents will imbibe the most 
 bitter hatred and deep-rooted prejudice against 
 the religion of their parents. By your every-day 
 life and conduct, teach your children that your 
 religion is of the heart, and has a sanctifying in- 
 fluence upon all your conduct and conversation ; 
 yea, and by your holy example command your 
 children and your household after you, and the 
 divine promise secures a blessing upon your off- 
 spring. They will never be satisfied with a super- 
 ficial religion. Be faithful, as Abraham was, and 
 the covenant blessing will rest upon your chil- 
 dren ; and as Isaac called upon the God of Abra- 
 ham, so will your children call upon your God to 
 remember the oath he sware unto you. As the 
 faithfulness of Abraham was remembered in Isaac, 
 so your faithfulness will not be forgotten in your 
 children. If you are faithful, like Abraham, many 
 Isaacs will be found among your posterity, who 
 will rise up and bless your memory. If you train 
 up your children for God, and in faith consecrate 
 them to his service, God will not refuse to own 
 them, for obedience will be their happiness and 
 their life. If the present generation were truly 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY RE^YARDED. 85 
 
 faithful, their children's children, yea, unborn 
 generations down to the latest ages, would keep 
 the way of the Lord, and do justice and judgment, 
 and participate in the blessings of renewing grace. 
 Some, perhaps, are ready to .inquire, why are 
 the children of professedly pious parents in so 
 many instances wicked, disobedient, and rebel- 
 lious ? It cannot be because God has broken his 
 promise, for 'it is impossible for God to lie.' The 
 fact is, most of pious parents are unfaithful in 
 many respects; and, like Eli, do not properly 
 restrain their children. They are not sufficiently 
 circumspect, and prayerful, and dihgent in train- 
 ing them up in the ' nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord.' From the conduct and appearance of 
 children and youth, have we not reason to conclude 
 ihere are too many Ehs, even among those who 
 dedicated their children to the Lord ? The sphit 
 of our text assures us that when parents are faith- 
 ful in training their children for God, these chil- 
 dren will be blessed and sanctified, and will walk 
 in the way of the Lord, and do justice and judg- 
 ment. Notwithstanding some of the children of 
 pious parents are wicked and impenitent, yet the 
 great majority of them are pious, and do now 
 constitute the visible church ; and her main de- 
 pendence for her future existence and prosperity 
 is upon the children of the covenant, and the faith- 
 fulness of God to his promise. 
 
86 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 II. God hath positively determined a blessing 
 upon the faithful exertions of parents. This idea 
 is clearly implied in the text. The faithfulness of 
 Abraham was one of the appointed means by 
 which the Lord would bring upon him and his 
 posterity the promised blessing. When God pro- 
 mises to bless, he determines the means by which 
 to effect it. When he chooses any one to eternal 
 life, he determines the means by which they shall 
 be brought to the truth. So he determines the 
 means by which all Abraham's spiritual seed are 
 to be reconciled to God. Hence, if we were to 
 examine the records of all our churches, we should 
 find that its present members are composed, for 
 the most part, of such children as were piously 
 educated, or who have received pious instruction 
 in Sabbath-schools, or whose parents or grand- 
 parents were truly pious and in covenant with 
 God. True, God is not limited. In some in- 
 stances, to show the sovereignty of his grace, 
 God does take the children of the most impious 
 and obstinate sinners, and make them heirs of 
 God, and joint heirs of Jesus Christ. Yea, some- 
 times the most hardened sinners are brought to a 
 saving knowledge of the truth ; but, after all, 
 these cases may be traced back to the covenant of 
 some of their ancestors, whose prayers are at last 
 answered. The pious education of children is the 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 87 
 
 ordinary and regularly divine appointed means by 
 whicli the elect are to be gathered from the four 
 winds. 
 
 It is true the children of the truly pious do not 
 appear immediately to follow in the steps of their- 
 fathers, and we are almost ready to conclude that 
 God has forgotten his covenant. Why is this so ?' 
 In some cases it may be to try parents, and thus 
 ascertain whether they hold on to the divine cov- 
 enant and promise in spite of the greatest dis- 
 couragements. If they hold on, and earnestly 
 plead for the covenant blessings, their children 
 will eventually be converted. In other case s it 
 may be owing to their omission of some duties ; 
 for the most pious parents are not without their 
 failings, and are not privileged to see the conver- 
 sion of their children, and yet they may meet 
 them on the right hand of the Son of Man. In 
 other cases parents have been too sparing of their 
 instructions and admonitions, and thus the early 
 education of the children is neglected. Although 
 these children may one day be gathered into the 
 fold of Christ, yet, since their early religious edu- 
 cation was neglected, God does not see fit to 
 grant them the privilege of seeing and enjoying 
 the fruit of their labors in this life. For infinitely 
 holy and wise reasons they are denied this satis- 
 faction, and yet they will learn that he was true to 
 8 
 
88 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 his covenant, so that all the blame will rest upon 
 parents. ' , 
 
 III. If parents are faithful, they leave their 
 children an entailed estate, of which they cannot 
 be defrauded, for it is insured to them by the 
 promise of God. This was the chief legacy 
 Abraham left his posterity. All his descendants 
 plead the Abrahamic covenant, nay, many went so 
 far as to plead a presumptuous trust in it. It is 
 ■a fact that, through the faithfulness of Abraham 
 as a means, the greatest blessing mankind have, 
 or ever can receive, has rested upon our fallen 
 race ; the gift of the Son of God to die for us, and 
 the descent of the Holy Spirit to renew and 
 sanctify us. A chosen and a pious remnant were 
 preserved in every age of the Jewish church, that 
 a way might be prepared for the predicted and 
 -determined blessing to be introduced into the 
 world. Where is the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob ? Where is the covenant-keeping God 
 of David? Where is the Lord God of Elijah? 
 has been the prayer and the language of the truly 
 pious in every age when pleading for some special 
 blessing. Is it not the language of Christians 
 now ? Is it not the language of some who hear 
 me, that the prayers of such and such a pious per- 
 son will yet be answered? Their children will 
 experience the covenant blessing of the God of 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 89 
 
 their fathers. May we not hope that there are 
 some now waiting for an answer to the prayers of 
 some departed, and pious, and faithful servant of 
 Christ ? Some of our church have pious, and some 
 impenitent friends in foreign lands. The pious 
 have been converted in answer to the prayers of 
 God's covenant people ; and have not the impeni- 
 tent some in the covenant, who will give no rest 
 to the throne of grace till they are converted? 
 If your pious and covenant parents are now living, 
 they are still praying for others, and perhaps for 
 the one that sits next to you, and perhaps for you. 
 If they are dead, have they not prayers on file in 
 the court of heaven before the throne of grace, so 
 to speak, that yet remain to be answered ? Hence 
 we may conclude, if parents are faithful to their 
 covenant, and truly pious, they will entail a rich 
 blessing upon their children; yea, upon their 
 children's children. The treasures of this world 
 that you leave them may very easily be taken 
 from them ; but this is a glorious and rich legacy, 
 of which they cannot be deprived. Parents ! if 
 you are faithful, your prayers will be answered in 
 your children, and in your children's children, to a 
 thousand generations. Is not this a lasting and a 
 rich legacy ? God is as faithful to his covenant 
 now as he ever was. And as an unspeakably 
 rich blessing was entailed upon the posterity of 
 
90 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 Abraham, so may we not certainly calculate that 
 a blessmg will be entailed upon our posterity, if 
 we are faithful to command our children and our 
 household after us ? Dare we hesitate whether 
 or not to perform our whole duty to our children ? 
 Dare we question the covenant faithfulness of 
 God ? Have you not a rich reward promised you 
 for doing that which it is your happiness to do, as 
 well as your duty ? And have you not evidence 
 that the blessing will be extended to your latest 
 posterity ? What greater encouragement can you 
 wish ? Do you wish an angel to come from high 
 heaven, and assure you that your exertions will 
 not be in vain ? You have even more than this ; 
 you have the promise of God sealed with the 
 blood of his own dear Son. Be assured, if you 
 will not take encouragement from the word and 
 promise of God, the declaration of the archangel 
 Gabriel will not move you. 
 
 IV. Another thing implied in the text is : If 
 parents are faithful to their covenant vows, then 
 their children are prepared to receive a blessing. 
 In order that God might bring a blessing upon the 
 posterity of Abraham, it appeared necessary that 
 he himself should be faithful. Is not this the case 
 with parents always ? Does not God accomplish 
 his purposes of mercy now through the instru- 
 mentality of second causes as much as he ever 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 91 
 
 did ? Let us contemplate the case candidly and 
 honestly. Here are a number of children that 
 have always had good examples placed before 
 them. They have been taught by precept and 
 example to respect religion; good and virtuous 
 sentiments have been uniformly inculcated on their 
 minds ; Bible truths have always been echoed in 
 their ears ; and they have been moulded and form- 
 ed under the very droppings of the sanctuary and 
 the family altar, Now will it not be extremely 
 difficult to eradicate these truths from their minds ? 
 Is there not hence a preparedness to receive the 
 blessings of sanctifying grace? Have we not 
 greater reason to expect a blessing in the use of 
 the appointed means than in the neglect of them ? 
 Are we not warranted in confidently expecting the 
 conversion of our children, if we train them up in 
 the nurture and admonition of the Lord ? Chil- 
 dren that have been religiously educated before 
 they are converted, do act more consistently and 
 more from principle than others. There is com- 
 monly something in their very external appearance 
 and countenance that tells where they were edu- 
 cated. It is seldom that you hear them making- 
 a mock of religion, or behaving improperly in the- 
 house of God ; they have been taught better man- 
 ners. But the children of unfaithful parents are 
 directly the reverse. They are taught to disre- 
 8* 
 
92 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 spect religion, and tacitly encouraged to neglect 
 the means of grace. They have no good and sal- 
 utary example placed before them at home. The 
 parents themselves make their atlendance at the 
 house of God a mere matter of convenience, and 
 not the business of the Sabbath ; for if their selfish 
 interest requires it, they hesitate not to profane 
 the holy Sabbath. Jf^ow may we not very easily 
 determine where God is most likely to bestow his 
 blessing? Who are best prepared to appreciate 
 and be profited by the ordinary means of grace ? 
 True, God does sometimes take the children of 
 unfaithful parents, and make them the monuments 
 of his sovereign grace ; but this is not his ordinary 
 method of dealing with his creatures. I do not 
 wish to be understood by anything I have said, 
 as thinking that there is anything in the means 
 themselves, or even in the faithful use of them, 
 meritorious ; but I do assert the absolute necessity 
 of their use, for without, the conditions are not 
 accomplished. 
 
 y. The evil consequences of unfaithfulness and 
 the blessed results of faithfulness on the part of 
 parents, when set in contrast, ought to be an 
 additional encouragement to parental fidelity. 
 Through parental unfaithfulness the church soon 
 becomes corrupted : erroneous principles will grad- 
 ually gain credence and popularity ; vice will im- 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 93 
 
 perceptibly.increase ; and immorality and infidelity 
 will insidiously destroy the church. Look at the 
 apostolic churches in Asia, apd the primitive 
 Christian churches in Europe and Africa. Where 
 are they ? What vestige of ancient purity and 
 simplicity in even the church at Rome? The 
 Asiatic churches are no less corrupt. In their 
 religious rites and ceremonies, the most cruel 
 practices prevail. With some, the more cruel and 
 inhumane, the more praiseworthy. And to what 
 cause can it be rationally ascribed ? Was it owing 
 to the impurity of the apostolic doctrines? Not 
 at all, for the apostles ' spake as they were moved 
 by the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 That Laodicean spirit which first crept into the 
 churches was exactly calculated to make parents 
 lax in their discipline ; inattentive to their own ex- 
 ternal deportment, and loose in their morals. 
 Their children, from the native depravity of the 
 heart, improved upon their parents' vices. The 
 corruption increased with every successive gener- 
 ation, until she declined into a set of rites which had 
 nothing of Christianity but the name, and in some 
 cases not even that. Now how would you feel 
 to rise from the grave after a few generations 
 shall have passed off the stage of life, to see your 
 posterity enjoying this good land, but destitute of 
 a Christian church, deprived of the means of 
 
94 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 grace ; involved in heathenism, superstition, igno- 
 rance, idolatry, or plunged into all the excesses of 
 infidelity and profanity? Does not the very thought 
 make you shudder ? Can you anticipate such a 
 degeneracy with any calmness and composure? 
 The primitive Christians, no doubt, thought such a 
 declension impossible. But it has taken place in 
 the churches of Asia Minor. Vital piety is a 
 stranger in most of those countries, and districts 
 that once were favored with the presence and per- 
 sonal ministry of the Son of God, and with the 
 examples and holy doctrines of his apostles. The 
 pure, undefiled and experimental religion of the 
 Bible hath left those countries, and a few rays of 
 light from the sun of righteousness have shone in 
 upon our Western world ; and the hearts of many 
 have rejoiced in the Saviour. Shall it be rehearsed 
 to future generations that the unfaithfulness of 
 parents have darkened our moral horizon, and 
 shut out the clear and glorious light of the gospel? 
 All are ready to say such a dreadful calamity must 
 be avoided, if possible. It is possible ; it is easy. 
 The faithful performance of the Abrahamic cov- 
 enant will effectually and certainly prevent such 
 an awful result. Let every parent do his duty in 
 the pious education of his children and such a 
 state of things cannot exist. Let parents be as 
 wise in their generation as the children of this 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 95 
 
 world, and there will be an uninterrupted harvest- 
 season, and our beloved church will shine brighter 
 and brighter unto the perfect day. Every empty 
 church in our land would be speedily filled, and 
 the rising generation would more than supply the 
 place of their parents. The pious parent when 
 leaving the world would be cheered with the 
 pleasing reflection that his children are polished 
 stones in this glorious building, the church. This 
 return to the Abrahamic covenant, and the faith- 
 ful discharge of its covenanted duties, would bring 
 us back to the divine administration of the affairs 
 of the church to its original platform. And can 
 there be a better plan devised than the one God 
 has recommended in his word ? While Sabbath- 
 schools are regarded as very efl&cient in accom- 
 phshing the divine promises, (and I wish to give 
 them God speed by every possible means,) yet 
 what could they accomplish without the hearty 
 co-operation of parents ? The original divine plan 
 has been too much neglected, to the essential in- 
 jury of vital and intellectual piety. When Sab- 
 bath-schools and parental fidelity become com- 
 pletely amalgamated into one solid phalanx, and 
 act in , perfect harmony and concert, they will 
 soon and very rapidly secure the conversion of the 
 world. But as far as the Sabbath- school stands 
 alone, unsanctioned by parental fidelity and 
 
96 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 prayers, or supersedes parental fidelity, so far it 
 becomes proportionably ineflScient. And I do 
 really question, whether any enterprise for the 
 conversion of the world will be very efficient with- 
 out the prayerful co-operation of parental fidelity. 
 Contemplate for one nioment the anguish and 
 regret that agitates and distracts the inmost soul 
 of the unfaithful parent in his last struggle, when 
 viewing his wicked and impenitent children around 
 him. With his whole system paralyzed in death, 
 and his soul on the very eve of leaving his frail 
 and mortal body, with a wild and ghastly look, 
 he says : ' I have neither taught you by precept 
 nor example to love and fear God ; by my silence, 
 I have encouraged you in the ways of sin ; I have 
 been leading you to hell ; unhappy father ! 
 ruined children ! You will soon meet me in the 
 abodes of wretchedness, if you do not repent. I 
 have much that I want to say, but strength fails 
 me, and death is about to close my lips.' His 
 children being hardened in sin, attribute all his 
 distress and agony of soul in their behalf, to an 
 effeminate fear of death. Although they may 
 tremble with cold horror, and an awful thrill of 
 ten'or may agitate their souls, yet they very soon 
 forget the awful scene. Thus a misspent life, and 
 the neglect of parental duties in the appropriate 
 season, constitutes death doubly terrific. 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 97 
 
 But contemplate for one moment the other side 
 of the picture. The pious and faithful parent 
 sees death approaching, but as his confidence in 
 the divine promise is strong and unwavering, so 
 death to him hath lost its sting, and the grave its 
 gloom. His children are around his bed to catch 
 the last words that drop from his lips, and to com- 
 ply with his last request ; their prayers are lifted 
 to God for some guardian angel to convoy his 
 soul to the mansions of bliss and the bosom of his 
 Saviour : and the dying parent prospectively sees 
 his place more than filled in the church and in 
 the world. And if he should have an impenitent 
 and disobedient child around his couch, an implicit 
 confidence in the promise of his covenant-keeping 
 God, and a consciousness that he has tried faith- 
 fully to do his duty, affords him a sweet composure 
 of soul, and a heavenly peace as the soul leaves 
 its clayey tabernacle ; or he can afi'ectionately^and 
 feelingly give him his last warning and dying ad- 
 vice, and that with a clear and steady voice, feel- 
 ing that his confidence in the divine Saviour is 
 unshaken. While looking death in the face, and 
 almost in the presence of the unseen God, and in 
 paradise with the Saviour, he points him to that 
 Saviour who was with him in life, and his great 
 and only solace in death ; and while gasping in 
 death breathes out a fervent prayer for his im- 
 
98 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 penitent son, and sweetly sleeps in the embraces 
 of the Saviour, prepared to meet that son before 
 the judgment-seat. And now what other encour- 
 agement, or what stronger motive, do you need to 
 induce you to be faithful, to command your chil- 
 dren and your household after you ? You have 
 the solemn pledge of your covenant-keeping God, 
 that your children shall inherit the richest bless- 
 ing Heaven can bestow ; and the blessing, rich and 
 invaluable as it is, and ill-deserving as we are of 
 it, is not confined to your children, any more than 
 it was confined to Isaac, but descends to our 
 children's children, even to a thousand genera- 
 tions. Even in your family there may be another 
 part of the ancient promise to Abraham accom- 
 plished, which may be a very prominent part of 
 the consummated church, redeemed by the blood 
 of Christ from our lost and ruined world. 
 
 Besides, your love to your children, and a de- 
 sire to see them polished stones in that glorious 
 building, for the glory of the great Architect or Re- 
 deemer, should be an additional motive to fidel- 
 .ity. What is more desirable" to the pious parent's 
 heart than the prospect of meeting his dear chil- 
 dren at the right hand of the Son of Man in glory, 
 and to unite with them in anthems of praise to re- 
 deeming grace ? You may be the divinely ap- 
 pointed means of bringing them home to eternal 
 
PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 99 
 
 glory. The parental fidelity of Abraham was the 
 divinely appointed means for preparing the way 
 for covenanted blessings to rest upon his posterity. 
 He thus became the father of the faithful ; and 
 why may not you be the spiritual fathers of your 
 posterity ? What hinders you from giving a di- 
 rect and powerful religious impulse that shall 
 reach down to the final consummation of the 
 church? As the parental fidelity of Abraham 
 has reached down through many generations to 
 you, so that you have been the favored recipients 
 of covenanted blessings, so why may not your 
 parental fidelity reach down to the end of the 
 world ? Is it not in this way that the church has 
 been perpetuated ? Shall its further and contin- 
 ued progress be arrested by your violation of the 
 covenant and your parental neglect of the pious 
 education of your children ? 
 
 Again, reflect for one moment. What a per- 
 fect ecstatic joy must have thrilled the soul of 
 Abraham when he met Isaac in the paradise of 
 God ! And how was that joy increased and ele- 
 vated into a perfect and heavenly rapture as Ja- 
 cob and the patriarchs, Moses, David, Elijah, and 
 Elisha swelled the heavenly throng ! How will 
 his soul swell with gratitude and praise to his 
 covenant-keeping God, as he sees the children of 
 the promise entering the Mount Zion above! 
 9 
 
100 PARENTAL FIDELITY REWARDED. 
 
 And when the children of the promise of this age 
 shall be seen collecting around the throne of God 
 and the Lamb, and a perpetual succession of the 
 elect from the four winds flocking into the beatific 
 presence of the Saviour, how will all the souls of 
 the redeemed be divinely enraptured! If like 
 Abraham you exercise parental fidelity in the 
 pious education of your children, you will expe- 
 rience a similar ecstasy of joy and delight, of 
 gratitude and praise; a joy that will know no 
 limits, and a sweet hosanna to God and the Lamb 
 that will eternally thrill your soul with a love that 
 is divine and heavenly, and with a happiness that 
 is eternal and without alloy. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MISSIONARY SERMON. 
 
 " And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth ; and thou shalt spread 
 abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south ; 
 and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." 
 — Genesis, xxviii. 14. 
 
 The supreme and grand object of the gospel is 
 to gather together the elect from the four winds 
 of heaven, and organize them systematically into 
 a body, or church. And this church is to be the 
 light of the world, the salt of the earth, the city 
 set on a hill, and the leaven intended to reach to, 
 and revolutionize, renew, and transform a wicked 
 world into a glorious, and splendid * temple in the 
 Lord, in whom also ye are builded together for an 
 habitation of God through the Spirit.' All our 
 associations, whether large or small, so far as they 
 are in accordance with, and are managed and im- 
 proved according to the divine word, are intended 
 to bring back to God a lost, ruined and fallen 
 world. In our families, in our ecclesiastical or- 
 
102 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 ganizations, and in all our benevolent enterprises, 
 we should liave an eye single to the glory of 
 God, and the glorious consummation of all the 
 divine purposes of mercy. Family religion car- 
 ried out in its legitimate results is the germ of 
 every ecclesiastical organization and benevolent 
 enterprise ; and the best possible security, so far 
 as human agency is concerned, for the perpetuity 
 of our civil and rehgious hberty. 
 
 The infinite and eternal God, who is the head 
 and author of this church, has placed great em- 
 phasis, and appended infinitely momentous results 
 upon family rehgion; and hence he said of 
 Abram : * For I know him, that he will command 
 his children, and his household after him, and 
 they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice 
 and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon 
 Abram that which he hath spoken of him.' 
 And what hath the Lord spoken of him? *I 
 will establish my covenant between me and thee, 
 and thy seed after thee in their generation, for an 
 everlasting covenant ; to be a God unto thee, and 
 to thy seed after thee.' The fidelity of Abram, as 
 the father of his family, was the appointed medium 
 through which all the families of the earth were 
 to be blessed. Family rehgion, carried out in its 
 legitimate consequences and divinely intended 
 effects, is that life-giving, and spirit-moving, and 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 103 
 
 grand and sublime, though simple enterprise, which 
 must convert the world. And no benevolent en- 
 terprise should contemplate or aim at any thing 
 less than the conversion of the world. This Di- 
 vinity contemplated in the family organization of 
 Abram. I have recently pondered in my mind 
 which benevolent enterprise of the age claims our 
 first attention, and demands our chief patronage, 
 and have at length made up my mind that a 
 family missionary society, properly conducted, 
 would very easily amalgamate all those benevo- 
 lent objects into one grand central organization in 
 such a way as must necessarily secure the entire 
 accomplishment of the great whole. 
 
 I. The EXTENT AND UNIVERSALITY OP THE Dl- 
 VINE PROMISE AS MADE TO AbrAM, IN WHOSE 
 FAMILY THE CHURCH WAS FIRST VISIBLY ORGANIZED, 
 AND IN THE TEXT RENEWED, REPEATED AND CON- 
 FIRMED TO Jacob and his seed. 
 
 II. The divinely appointed medium through 
 
 which THIS PROMISE IS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED. 
 
 I. The extent and universality of the Divine 
 promise, as made to Abram, in whose family the 
 church was first visibly organized, and in the text 
 renewed, repeated, and confirmed to Jacob and his 
 seed. 
 
 In the text it is said, * Thy seed shall be as the 
 9* 
 
104 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad 
 to the west, and to the east, and to the north and 
 to the south ;' and if this does not include the 
 whole earth, then certainly the latter part of the 
 promise or covenant must fill up every remaining 
 vacuum, ' for in thee and in thy seed shall all 
 the famines of the earth be blessed.' And all the 
 families of the earth will necessarily include all 
 the nations of the earth as well as every individu- 
 al. Who are left out of this enumeration ? Who 
 can consistently regard himself as not included in 
 the promise ? Who is not at perfect liberty to 
 place himself under the protection of this cove- 
 nant ? But all the families of the earth have not 
 been blessed, for great multitudes of the human 
 race are now sitting in the region and shadow of 
 death, and have never heard of a Saviour, nor 
 participated in the blessings and consolations of 
 the gospel ; then the promise has not been wholly 
 accomplished. True, but it is in the course of 
 being accomplished in the present rapid and uni- 
 versal distribution of the Bible, and the success 
 that is attending missionary labors, and the divine 
 patronage that the multiphed benevolent enter- 
 prises of the age experiences. The very spirit 
 and substance of the promise is scattered all along 
 through the Bible, and repeated and confirmed to 
 God's people in different eras of the church ; and 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 105 
 
 they are a perpetuation of the covenant, and an 
 evidence of the divine determination to accomphsh 
 all he hath promised. While the Jews, by their 
 infidelity, threw themselves from under the pro- 
 tection of the covenant, yet they are assured, 
 upon their repentance and return to God, of a re- 
 turn of the blessing in such a sense, that their 
 latter end shall be better than their beginning. 
 And not only so, but Christ has promised to him 
 the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost 
 parts of the earth for his possession. And as 
 Christ is the glorious and divine personage in 
 whom, or through whom, all the famihes of the 
 earth are to be blessed, and as in accordance with 
 the divine promise, he, the expected seed and the 
 predicted Shiloh has come, and is proclaimed a 
 Saviour for all, in that he hath tasted death for 
 every creature, so the way is pre-eminently pre- 
 pared for the universal spread of the gospel. 
 Every middle wall of partition is broken down, 
 and every obstacle in the way of the entire ac- 
 complishment of the whole promise of God is 
 entirely removed out of the way, and human 
 agency is being brought to harmonize with the di- 
 vine arrangements and plans, and the work of 
 the evangelization of the world is going onward. 
 
 We are explicitly informed that the stone cut 
 out of the mountain without hands shall become 
 
106 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 a great mountain, and fill the whole earth, and 
 there are a multitude of promises that speak the 
 same language in substance and in spirit. It is 
 said of the Messiah's kingdom, ' Of the increase of 
 his government and peace there shall be no end. 
 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and 
 from the river unto the ends of the earth. In 
 that day, — In what day ? At the time when the 
 patriarchal promise is completely accomplished, 
 and the gospel is being published to the whole 
 world. — ' In that day shall there be upon the 
 bells of the horses holiness to the Lord ; and the 
 pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls 
 before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and 
 Judah shall be hoHness to the Lord of hosts.' Here 
 is a confirmation of the doctrine of the text, and 
 evidence that God had not forgotten his original 
 promise, when the Jews, that is, the church, were 
 in adversity, and were about to be restored from 
 their Babylonish captivity. In fact, this restora- 
 tion was an earnest of the final resuscitation of the 
 remnant according to the election of grace, and 
 the glorious consummation of all the divine pur- 
 poses of mercy to our world. 
 
 Why are we informed, * That the kingdoms of 
 this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, 
 and of his Christ ; and he shall reign forever and 
 ever ?' And why is it written, ' For thou wast 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 107 
 
 slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, 
 out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and 
 priests ?' Has the God of eternal truth made 
 such blessed and soul-animating promises with no 
 intention of fulfilling them ? Hath God encour- 
 aged us to expect that the world will be convert- 
 ed, merely to tantalize us, and excite our curiosity, 
 and put our minds upon a perpetual stretch to in- 
 vestigate his word ? Hath God informed us that 
 mankind will be redeemed by the blood of Jesus 
 out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
 nation ; and that the kingdoms of this world are 
 to become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
 Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever ? and 
 are we building castles in the air, when we confi- 
 dently pray and labor for the latter-day glory of 
 the world, which kings and prophets desired so 
 anxiously to see ? And are all our strong desires, 
 and fondly cherished expectations of the universal 
 emancipation of a lost world from the cruel bond- 
 age of sin and Satan a perfect delusion ? If the 
 promise in the text, sanctioned by parallel prom- 
 ises scattered all through the Bible, and the al- 
 ready begun, and the continued fulfillment of that 
 very promise from the time of its uttemnce to the 
 present day, as developed in the history of the 
 Jewish church to the coming of Christ ; and from 
 
108 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 that period, in the scattering of the Jews among 
 all the nations of the earth, and in the rise, pro- 
 gress and history of the Christian church to the 
 present day, be not evidence of the certainty of 
 the final and complete fulfillment of the promise, 
 then I can have no evidence that the sun will set 
 to-night, or rise to-morrow, or that the world will 
 not be drowned by a flood, the bow in the eloud 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 II. The divinely appointed medium through 
 which this promise is to be accomplished. 
 
 All, or certainly the most prominent and distin- 
 guished promises of God to man, seem to be con- 
 nected either directly or indirectly with personal 
 piety and family religion. The history of the 
 world is nothing more nor less than a history of 
 family religious education. If we discover anar- 
 chy, confusion, and unsubmission to the civil au- 
 thority, it may easily be traced to some wicked 
 Ham or Canaan ; or if order, propriety and sub- 
 jection to the powers that prevail, it may as easily 
 be traced to some faithful Abram, or devoted 
 Hannah, and their obedient children, Isaac and 
 Samuel. Historical fact, and the very spirit of 
 the divine promises, direct our attention to family 
 religion, as the divinely appointed means to secure 
 the salvation of a lost world. 
 
 In every family there is necessarily an educa- 
 
"WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 109 
 
 tion society, in which all the children are instruct- 
 ed, and every subsequent act of their lives partici- 
 pates of the nature of the education they have 
 received in a greater or less degree, and thus ex- 
 hibit in their conduct the character of their in- 
 structors. Here there is the infant school, in 
 which the mother principally and almost exclu- 
 sively officiates. Her very nod, and the expres- 
 sion of her countenance, instantaneously suppresses 
 the smile that sits upon the lips of the helpless 
 little immortal, or her frown arrests in a moment 
 its first mischievous act. Maternal approbation, 
 expressed in the placidness of her countenance, 
 encourages and cherishes the first buddings of the 
 enmity of the carnal heart. Here are taught and 
 learned the first lessons that form the future char- 
 acter of the man. Impressions made in this 
 school upon the infantile mind are seldom if ever 
 entirely obliterated. And, alas ! how often are 
 the first buddings of evil highly approbated, as 
 exhibitions of the precocious cunning of the lisp- 
 ing and almost helplesss infant ! At this very criti- 
 cal juncture, how easy to repress the first risings 
 of iniquity, but how seldom is it done ! Here, 
 more frequently than we imagine, the character 
 for life is formed under the plastic tuition of ma- 
 ternal tenderness. Here are taught the first ele- 
 ments of Christianity, and here originates that 
 
110 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 missionary spirit which regulates the whole subse- 
 quent life. Here S. J. Mills was taught that mis- 
 sionary spirit which has been felt on the arid 
 plains of Africa, in India, and upon the isles of the 
 sea. On the lap of his devoted mother, and in 
 this blessed infant school, was he solemnly dedica- 
 ted to the missionary work ! Was not this a 
 mighty moral engine, emphatically calculated to 
 secure the entire accomplishment of the precious 
 promise contained in the text ? 
 
 How soon is the Sabbath-school and catecheti- 
 cal instruction necessarily introduced into the 
 family arrangement ! How early in life are chil- 
 dren taught to sanctify or desecrate the holy Sab- 
 bath by the example and precept of their parents ! 
 With what delight do parents listen to the first 
 warblings of their infant offspring ! What pains 
 do they take to induce the babe to speak, and 
 enunciate the name of father or mother ! How 
 soon and how diligently do they catechise it, that 
 they may ascertain what it can comprehend ! 
 How easy now to impress indelibly upon their 
 infantile minds important and eternal truth ! 
 Here, too, parents are instructors in this domestic 
 Sabbath-school, and every parent is necessarily a 
 teacher. It is an office they must execute ; their 
 instructions will have an effect upon the whole 
 domestic circle, and its influence, whether good 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. Ill 
 
 or bad, is not and cannot be confined to that in- 
 dividual family. It is felt in the whole communi- 
 ty, in the conduct of the children, so that all learn 
 the entire nature and character of the education 
 they are receiving at home. Parents, then, are 
 the instructors of their children, and it is utterly 
 impossible to escape or evade the responsibility. 
 A careless neglect to mould and form the minds of 
 their children to habits of virtue, is teaching them 
 impiety, for parental indifference gives a full rein 
 to all the unhallowed principles and passions of 
 the carnal and unrenewed heart. The free indul- 
 gence of children to grow up in habits of idleness, 
 and inattention to the proper culture of their 
 minds, is emphatically teaching them evil ; for in- 
 nocence and idleness are utter strangers. Idleness 
 is the legitimate parent of vice. Besides, a deter- 
 mination to leave your children at perfect liberty 
 to form a character independent of your example, 
 according to the light of nature and reason, is a 
 perfect impossibility in the very nature of mind. 
 The parental example cannot but have an influence 
 upon the mind of the child, who always necessa- 
 rily looks up to his parent as the model of perfec- 
 tion. How can the infantile and youthful mind 
 avoid being influenced by parental example, even 
 where there is no special precept given for the 
 regulation of their conduct ! Sometimes a pa- 
 10 
 
112 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 rent's wicked example does compel the child, 
 ■when it is permitted to come within the influence 
 of a virtuous atmosphere, to contemplate the pre- 
 cept and example of others, and in some cases 
 the thrillingly alarming contrast does induce the 
 child to avoid the example of its wicked parents. 
 This ordinarily occurs when some disinterestedly 
 pious individual assumes the dread responsibility 
 of controllino' and directino; the education of 
 that child ; and then that child regards with 
 dread and horror the example and precept of 
 that wicked parent, and in its turn becomes ex- 
 tremely anxious to instruct its parent. Hence 
 neglect on the part of parents is calculated to re- 
 tard the progress of the gospel in the world, and 
 prevent the conversion of the world. Fidelity on 
 the part of parents will prepare the way for the 
 accomplishment of the divine promises. 
 
 But another enterprise here forces itself ujion 
 our attention, that is indispensably necessary to 
 the perfecting of family religion. The parent 
 needs a directory that is infallible and super- 
 human, or he will be pecuharly prone to err in 
 judgment. Here, then, we must introduce the 
 Bible. In this he is taught how to instruct his 
 children. His precepts and example must cor- 
 respond. "While he is expressly commanded, 
 * Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 113 
 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 might. And these words which I command thee 
 this day, shall be in thine heart ;' he is com- 
 manded to teach his children the same things : 
 * And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
 children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest 
 in thine house, and when thou walkest by the 
 way, and when thou liest down, and when thou 
 risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign 
 upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets 
 between thine eyes. A.nd thou shalt write them 
 upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.' 
 These directions, faithfully obeyed and followed 
 up, would soon convert the world. And these 
 are divine directions for the regulation of our 
 family religion, and perfect obedience to these in- 
 structions will certainly constitute every family a 
 Sabbath school, a Bible class, and a Bible society ; 
 and these, carried out in their legitimate results, 
 will certainly insure the perfect and entire accom- 
 plishment of the promise in our text. Having 
 then, according to the divine plan, enjoined upon 
 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the whole Jewish 
 church, in the family organization, to all intents 
 and purposes, an infant-school, a Sabbath-school, 
 a Bible class, a Bible society, these conjointly 
 must open to the benevolent a field of operation as 
 extensive as the world, and originate a desire to 
 
114 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 do good on an infinitely more extended plan, 
 especially when the length and breadth, and ex- 
 tent, and universality of the divine promise is con- 
 templated, which made all this arrangement for 
 instituting and conducting family religion. How 
 can instruction, thus communicated in the family, 
 be confined to that narrow circle ? Can the con- 
 templation of such sweet and precious promises, 
 and the possibility of their perfect fulfillment agi- 
 tating hearts warmed with divine love, and excit- 
 ing souls earnestly to desire for the salvation of a 
 lost world, as generated in such domestic Sab- 
 bath-schools, and education societies, be confined 
 to that little circle ? As easily may you confine 
 the meridian rays of the sun, and close up the 
 door of divine compassion, and smother the love 
 of God to a guilty world. Has the eternal God, 
 through the instrumentality of family religion, de- 
 vised a plan for all the famiHes of the earth to be 
 blessed, and when that plan is brought into oper- 
 ation in one family, will he crush the germ in its 
 very bud ? He did not do it in the families of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; for, through these 
 families and that blessed seed, how extensively 
 has the gospel already been spread ! He did not do 
 it in the mother of the family of Samuel J. Mills ; 
 and he has not done it in many families that could 
 be mentioned in these latter days. What is it that 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. IIS 
 
 gives life and energy to all the benevolent enter- 
 prises of the present age! Remove all family- 
 religion from Christendom, and how speedily 
 would every fountain of benevolence be dried up ! 
 How soon would every missionary station be 
 abandoned ! How soon would ' darkness cover 
 the earth, and gross darkness the people !' The 
 missionaries who have no families, have felt the 
 want of family religion to give them influence 
 among the heathen; for while they have no 
 families of their own, they are regarded with 
 extreme jealousy and suspicion ; and hence one of 
 them has made the remark, * A family circle is a 
 sanctuary, which a missionary to such a people 
 needs above every other external comfort. While 
 it, in good degree, raises him above suspicion, it 
 concentrates around the fireside a thousand refin- 
 ing and elevating influences, which can proceed 
 from no other source.' — See Missionary Herald 
 for March, 1846, page 99. 
 
 Infer. I. In view of this subject, as connected 
 with the conversion of the world agreeably to the 
 divine plan, an immense responsibility rests upon 
 the head of every family. You are a prominent 
 agent for the missionary society, whether foreign 
 or domestic ; you necessarily exert a commanding 
 influence ; you do much for or against the con- 
 version of the world ; the instructions you give 
 10* 
 
116 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 your family, by your precept and example, will be 
 felt upon unborn generations. If one sinner de- 
 stroys much good, then the wicked example and 
 precept of one head of a family will do incalcu- 
 lable injury. You are placed in a veiy prominent 
 and commanding station ; and God has placed 
 you there to be a blessing to your family, and, 
 through them, a blessing to imborn millions. 
 Has the covenant blessing descended to you 
 through an unbroken chain, through thousands of 
 generations ? Are you enjoying the sweet con- 
 solations of the Christian rehgion in your own 
 soul ? And do you feel it to be a privilege to 
 have been born and educated in a gospel land, 
 and to have lived under the very droppings of the 
 sanctuary and the family altar ? And are you not 
 solemnly bound, by every possible means in your 
 power, to perpetuate these rich covenant blessings 
 to your family, and use every effort to transmit 
 them to all the families of the earth ? Can you 
 be exonerated from blame, if you neglect to have 
 a domestic Sabbath-school, and an education and 
 missionary society in your own family ? As your 
 family is incorporated in that one perfect chain of 
 families from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to that 
 period when all the families of the earth are to be 
 blessed, so your neglect of duty, which breaks 
 one link in that chain, will be calculated to break 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. Il7 
 
 the chain, and arrest the perpetuity of the bless- 
 ing, and entail the curse of God upon your pos- 
 terity. I know very well that God has things so 
 wisely arranged in his providential government, as 
 to insure the full success and entire completion of 
 his promise to bless all the families of the earth 
 through the glorious Gospel of his dear Son; I 
 know, too, that though, by your infidelity and ne- 
 glect of covenantal duties, you make a mighty 
 effort to break away from the conditions of the 
 covenant, and thus arrest the perpetuation of the 
 blessing, God will so overrule your wickedness 
 that it will not retard the fulfilment of his pro- 
 mise. But are you willing to be deprived of your 
 place in that covenant chain of family blessings ? 
 Are you wilhng to take the responsibility of 
 making an effort to defeat the divine plans of 
 benevolence ? Are you willing to be the medium 
 of entaihng curses upon your posterity ? Are you 
 willing to stand in the way of the conversion of 
 the world ? ' 
 
 Infer. II. In view of this subject, v/e discover 
 the simplicity of the divine plan for the conver" 
 sion of the world — even so simple and plain, that 
 every one can easily compreheijd it, and as easily 
 reduce it to practice. It is a plan in which all 
 can perform a part. Parents and children, rich 
 and poor, the learned and the ignorant, the states- 
 
118 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHQLE 
 
 man and the peasant, the profound philosopher, 
 and he that has a weak intellect, may do some- 
 thing to forward the glorious work of carrying 
 salvation to all the families of the earth. A part 
 of God's greatness consists in accomplishing great 
 and stupendous enterprises through the instru- 
 mentality of things that are denominated weak 
 and inefficient. Hence it is written : ' God hath 
 chosen the foolish things of the world to confound 
 the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things 
 of the world to confound the things which are 
 mighty.' Hence the little family circle is to deter- 
 mine the destiny of the world ! How high an 
 estimate, then, must the eternal God set upon 
 family religion ! Family religion is the little in- 
 ternal machinery that moves all the stupendous 
 and benevolent enterprises of the age, that are 
 shaking the strongholds of the pagan and heathen 
 world. Though the family be in the vale of 
 poverty and obscurity, and have never been seen 
 half a mile from home ; and though they may be 
 lost in the multiphcity of famihes more noted, 
 with which they are surrounded ; yet they pro- 
 duce an under-current that cannot be successfully 
 resisted, and in the final consummation they will 
 emerge from their deep obscurity, and bring 
 countless and invaluable blessings in their train. 
 With what little effort and self-denial may we all 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 119 
 
 be found workers together with God ! His plan 
 is brought down to the level of the very poorest, 
 that the prayers of all and the interest of all may 
 be concentrated to one point — the glory of God 
 in the salvation of the world. How easy is it for 
 every family to have a missionary box, and each 
 individual to drop a cent or more every week into 
 that box ! Then something will be done syste- 
 matically, and no family will feel it; and yet, 
 when all these mites are collected together and 
 cast into the treasury of the Lord, it will amount 
 to a considerable sum — a sum that will cause us 
 to feel a deep interest in the missionary operations 
 of the age. If we feel a deep and lively interest 
 in these missionary operations, we shall feel a dis- 
 position to pray more for the conversion of the 
 world ; and to the missionary this is emphatically 
 desirable. We shall then, too, feel proportionably 
 more desirous for the success and growth of vital 
 religion in our own souls, and in that portion of 
 the Lord's heritage where Providence hath cast our 
 lot. This will kindle a little flame of divine love 
 around each domestic hearth, that will exert a 
 salutary and life-giving influence upon the whole 
 community, and cause all to experience more in- 
 tellectual enjoyment, and generate a genuine dig- 
 nity of character and self-respect, that will put a 
 new aspect upon everything, and greatly elevate 
 
120 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 the morality and intelligence of the community. 
 We shall then learn from our own experience that 
 ' the liberal soul shall be made fat ; and he that 
 watereth shall be watered also himself.' Benevo- 
 lence exercised towards others will rebound in 
 redoubled blessings upon our own souls. There 
 is something peculiarly mysterious and wonderful 
 in the divine plan of doing good, for it is always 
 sme to benefit the giver; so that 'It is more 
 blessed to give than to receive.' As we cannot 
 injure others without injuring ourselves, so we can- 
 not do good to others without proportionably 
 benefiting our own souls. This divine enterprise 
 of family religion for the spread of the Gospel 
 through the world, is wonderfully calculated to 
 happify not only families, but the whole com- 
 munity. It gives every member of the family 
 something to do, something to occupy the mind 
 and elevate the standard of intelligence, which 
 imposes upon each one a great degree of personal 
 responsibility. It takes the mind away from the 
 supreme contemplation of ourselves, and con- 
 strains us to meditate upon the situation and 
 miseries of our fellow- men ; and as we are divinely 
 exhorted to * remember them that are in bonds, 
 as bound with them ; and them which suffer ad- 
 versity, as being yourselves also in adversity ;' so 
 we very naturally and imperceptibly lose sight of 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 121 
 
 oiu* diminutive self in our sympathetic benevo- 
 lence for those who are so much worse oflF than 
 we ourselves. This sympathetic benevolence hav- 
 ing once found a lodgment in our bosoms, enlarges 
 and expands the mind, breaks down the strong 
 bonds of prejudice, dislodges envy from the soul, 
 banishes and exterminates covetousness (which is 
 idolatry) from the family, generates that charity 
 which rejoices in the prosperity of others, and so 
 liberalizes the mind that every narrow and con- 
 tracted scheme is abandoned, and we are prepared 
 to engage heartily in every good work. And 
 when the minds of the whole family circle are so 
 entirely saturated with benevolence as to do to 
 others what they would that others should do to 
 them, then the naked are clothed, the hungry are 
 fed, and the poor and the destitute have the Gos- 
 pel preached unto them ; then do happiness and 
 peace reign in that family, and heaven has begun 
 in their souls, and the donor and the beneficiary 
 rejoice together; and sometimes it is extremely 
 difficult to determine which is the most grateful, 
 the giver or the receiver. 
 
 'Now, if every family in the whole community 
 were completely, in all their parts, saturated with 
 this divine benevolence ; if prejudice, envy, super- 
 stition, bigotry, and covetousness were so ob- 
 literated from every mind in that whole community 
 
122 THE CONNECTION OF THE WHOLE 
 
 as to fit and prepare them all to be workers to- 
 gether with God; then should. we see this divine 
 enterprise, based upon the grand principle of the 
 Abrahamic covenant, rapidly perfecting the divine 
 promises, and blessing all the falnilies of the 
 earth. 
 
 When the Lord Jesus Christ gave his solemn 
 and immensely responsible commission to his dis- 
 ciples, immediately previous to his ascension into 
 heaven, saying, ' Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature,' it was in 
 perfect accordance with the original promise of 
 salvation to all the families of the earth. Christ 
 himself being the promised seed,and the expected 
 Shiloh in whom all the promises centred, it was 
 meet and proper that he should give a new im- 
 pulse to the work. This was emphatically done 
 by bis mission, which afforded miraculous evidence 
 that God remembered his covenant, and by the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pente- 
 cost ; and hence Peter alludes, very decidedly and 
 significantly, to the original covenant, as if it were 
 obligatory, and actually accomplishing, for he 
 says : * The promise is unto you and to your chil- 
 dren, and to all that are afar oflP, even as many as 
 the Lord our God shall call.' Nothing, in all 
 these miraculous exhibitions of divinity, was in 
 contrariety with this grand model of missionary 
 
WITH THE CONYERSIO^T OF THE TTORLD. 123 
 
 effort that is set before us in the text. Eveiything 
 that Christ said and did was, in fact, carrying on- 
 ward and forward the divine plan for the con- 
 version of the world, and preparing the way for 
 Christ to have the heathen for his inheritance, and 
 the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, 
 and to see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. 
 As every father is the divinely installed minister 
 over his own household, and the shepherd of that 
 little flock which he daily finds in the domestic 
 circle, so he necessarily finds himself amalgamated 
 and incorporated in the divine plan suggested by 
 the text, and imperfectly developed in this ser- 
 mon, and in the history of the church and the 
 di\dne moral government of the world. In pro- 
 perly maintaining and managing our family re- 
 hgion, according to the principles of the Abra- 
 hamic covenant — * For I know him, that he will 
 command his household after him, and they shall 
 keep the way of the Lord, and do justice and 
 judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham 
 that which he hath spoken of him' — we have in 
 our possession the very germ of the church, the 
 nucleus of every missionaiy enterprise, and the 
 very core of every benevolent institution. If we 
 have so much in our possession, then certainly 
 all these means of grace are so under our control, 
 that we can very easily give efficiency to all their 
 11 
 
124 THE C02TKECTI0N OF THE WHOLE 
 
 movements, or we may as easily retard their salu- 
 tary operations. We cannot make a moral move- 
 ment around our domestic liearth without touching 
 some hidden nerve or chord that will pulsate 
 through the whole church, and be felt, more or 
 less sensibly, in every part of the Christian, hea- 
 then, and pagan world. Look at the sensation 
 produced by the prayers, piety, and devotion of 
 S. J. Mills' mother. Its thrills have not ceased 
 to vibrate through the world, whether Jewish, 
 Christian, pagan, or heathen, and cannot cease 
 till the church is consummated in glory. The 
 church that is in thine house, or the family mis- 
 sionary society, is a kind of spiritual magnetic 
 telegraph, by which the magnetic fluid passes 
 with the greatest imaginable rapidity through 
 every part of the divine moral government. 
 
 j^ow, if every family throughout Christendom 
 were a church, with an altar on which the morn- 
 ing and evening sacrifice was ever burning, and 
 around every altar was organized a family mis- 
 sionary society, and every soul fired with a genu- 
 ine missionary spirit, how long would those flames 
 remain pent up in those domestic churches ? How 
 long before all these twinkling luminaries would 
 commingle their flames into one grand fountain of 
 light, that would irradiate every benighted part 
 of our globe ? And as every ray increases that 
 
WITH THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 12ff. 
 
 fountain of light, and proportionably magnifies its 
 splendor and utility, and sends an additional thrill 
 of joy among glorified and redeemed souls, so, 
 who in this assembly would be willing to be found 
 destitute of a missionary spirit ? What head of 
 a family does not wish to be enumerated among 
 those twinkling luminaries that, conjoined, pour 
 such a flood of light, of glory, and of happiness 
 upon a lost world ? 
 
OATALoara 
 
 OF 
 
 VALUABLE PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 ISSUED BY M. W. DODD, 
 PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, 
 
 Cor. ©Its 3^aU Square anti Spruce St. 
 
 (opposite city hall, new YORK.) 
 
 CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH'S WORKS, 
 
 "WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 2 Volumes, Octavo. 
 
 CONTADflNG PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR ON STEEL, 
 
 WITH SEVERAL OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THE WORK. 
 
 The Publisher invites the attention of the public to this new Editloa 
 of one of the most popular and useful writers of the present age. 
 ' It contains, in the compass of nearly 1700 large octavo pages, all the 
 productions, in Prose and Poetry, of this admirable authoress, suited to 
 a Standard Edition of her Work'?. Several of these were furnished in 
 manuscript for this edition by Mrs. Tonna, which has her express en- 
 dorsement, and is the only one in this country from which she has de- 
 rived any pecuniary benefit. 
 
 To give additional value to the work by iliustrating and enibellishlng 
 it, we have, at considerable expense, added to it several Engravings 
 from Steele, got up expressly for this purpose. It is believed few works 
 can be found surpassing these in value for family reading. They com- 
 bine, to an unusual degree, an elevated moral tone, with reading attrac- 
 tive to both old and young. And for the requisites of beauty, cheapness, 
 and legibility combined, this edition of Charlotte Elizabeth's works is 
 not excelled by anything in the market. 
 
 The last edition contains her Memoir by her husband, designed to be 
 a Supplement to Personal Recollections, and embracing the period from 
 the close of her Personal Recollections to her death. Also, " War with 
 the Saints ; or, Count Raymond of Toulouse,"— the work she finished 
 almost simultaneously with her earthly career. 
 
 1 
 
OP rN IONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 *• Charlotte Elizabeth's Works have become so univer- 
 sally known, and are so highly and deservedly appreciated 
 in this country, that it has become almost superfluous to 
 praise them. We doubt exceedingly whether there has 
 been any female writer since Hannah More, whose works 
 are likely to be so extensively read and so profitably read 
 as hers She thinks deeply and accurately, is a great an- 
 alyst of the human heart, and withal clothes her ideas in 
 most appropriate and eloquent language. The present 
 edition, unlike any of its predecessors in this country, is 
 in octavo form, and makes a fine substantial book, which, 
 both in respect to the outer and inner, will be an ornament 
 to any library." — Albany Argus. 
 
 " These productions constitute a bright relief to the 
 bad and corrupting literature in which our age is so 
 prolific, full of practical instruction, illustrative of the 
 beauty of Protestant Christianity, and not the less abound- 
 ing in entertaining description and narrative." — Journal 
 of Commerce. 
 
 *' In justice to the publisher and to the public, we add 
 that this edition of Charlotte Elizabeth's Works will form 
 a valuable acquisition to the Christian and Family Libra- 
 ry." — Christian Observer. 
 
 " We experience a sense of relief in turning from the 
 countless small volumes, though neat and often ornate, 
 that the press is constantly throwing in our way, to a 
 bold, substantial- looking octavo of 850 pages, in plain 
 black dress, with a bright, cheerful countenance, such as 
 the volumes before us. Of the literary characteristics of 
 Charlotte Elizabeth \se have had frequent occasion to 
 speak. Her merits and defects are too well known to 
 need recapitulation here." — JVewark Daily Advertiser. 
 
 This third volume completes this elegant octavo edition 
 of the works of this popular and useful author. The 
 works themselves are so well known as not to need com- 
 mendation. The edition we are disposed to speak well 
 of. It is in clear type, on fine paper, and makes a beauti- 
 ful series. It is, moreover, very cheap." — JVew York 
 Evangelist. 
 
 X7E ALSO PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING OF CHARLOTTE ELIZ- 
 ABETH'S WORKS, IN UNIFORM, NEAT 18mo. VOLS., 
 VARYING FROM 25 TO 50 CENTS PER VOL 
 2 
 
Boohs Published and for Sale by M. W. Lddd. 
 
 LIFE OF CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. 
 
 l6mo. 
 
 With a new and accurate Portrait^ finely engraved on steel, expressly 
 for this volume. 
 
 " We doubt if the lives of many females are blended with 
 more incidents and richer lessons of instruction and wisdom, 
 than the life of Charlotte Elizabeth. It will be found as cap- 
 tivating as any romance, and will leave on the mind a lasting 
 impression for good. Mr. Dodd's edition before us, is certainly 
 a very beautiful one, and we hope will commend itself to many 
 readers. Over three hundred pages of the work are occupied 
 with Charlotte Elizabeth's Personal Recollections. Mr. Tonna 
 has added Explanatory Notes, and a Memoir, embracing the 
 period from the close of her Personal Recollections to her death. 
 It is embellished with a finely executed portrait of Charlotte 
 Elizabeth, which is said to be an excellent likeness of its la- 
 mented original." — Albojiy Spectator. 
 
 " Mr. Dodd of New York has published, in a handsome vol- 
 ume, the Personal Recollections of Charlotte Elizabeth, accom- 
 panied by a Memoir, embracing the period from the close of 
 the work just named to the time of her death, thus giving a 
 connected and interesting Memoir of her life. The biographi- 
 cal sketches of the life of one of the most eloquent and gifted 
 female writers of the nineteenth century, thus united in one 
 volume, will be peculiarly acceptable."— Phil. Christ. Observer. 
 
 "Mr, M. W. Dodd, writes a friend, has opportunely brought 
 out a new and beautiful edition of the Life of Charlotte Eliza- 
 beth. Its intrinsic value and interest are too widely known 
 to need our commendation ; but this edition is rendered doubly 
 attractive by a portrait, engraved expressly for it, and said to 
 be remarkably accurate. We have, with this, a bold auto- 
 graph, in very much such a hand as might be expected from 
 one who wrote so much and so well." — Neioark Daily Ad- 
 vertiser. 
 
 " It is a beautiful book, and presents a complete biography 
 of a truly pious and remarkable woman, whose excellent 
 writings have interested and benefitted thousands, on both 
 sides of the Atlantic, and are destined to be a lasting blessing 
 to the Church and to the world." — Baptist Register. 
 
 " A new and beautiful edition of this work, with additional 
 ma cer of interest, which will be sought by the many ad- 
 m ers of that gifted and distinguished writer." — New York 
 O'jserver. 
 
 3 
 
Boohs Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH'S WORKS. 
 
 IN 18mo. VOLUMES. 
 
 JUDAH'S LION. 
 
 " In a sprightly, well-written narrative, containing scenes of high dnh 
 matic interest; it portrays the character and hopes of the Jews in their 
 dispersion, and points to the means which may be blessed in restoring 
 them to the faith of Abraham, in the true Messiah." — Phila. Observer. 
 
 " Individuality of character is faithfully preserved, and every one is 
 necessary to the plot. The reader will find in this book much informa- 
 tion that he can only find elsewhere by very laborious research. Char- 
 lotte Elizabeth is a firm believer in the national restoration of the Jews 
 to the possession of Palestine, but believes they wiU previously be con- 
 verted to Christianity. We advise our friends not to take up this book 
 until they can spare time for the perusal ; because, if they commence, it 
 will require much self-denial to lay it down until it is fairly read 
 through." — Christian Adv. and Jour. 
 
 THE FLONA^ER GARDEN. 
 
 A collection of deeply interesting Memoirs, beautifully 
 illustrated under the similitude of flowers. 
 
 POSTHUMOUS AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 *' Most of the Poems contained in this volume, now appear for the flrsl 
 time, and have been furnished chiefly by the friends to whom they were 
 addressed. They breathe the same heavenly spirit, and bear the im- 
 press of the same gifted mind, with all the other productions of tho la- 
 mented Authoress." — Albany Statesman. 
 
 FALSEHOOD AND TRUTH. 
 
 ** A beautiful and instructive volume, worthy to be put into the hands 
 of all children and youth, as a choice token of parental solicitude for 
 their preservation from insidious errors, and the establishment of the 
 truth as it is in Jesus. Few there are indeed of any age who can read 'A 
 without equal profit and pleasure." — Boston Recorder. 
 
 CONFORMITY. 
 
 " We read this little volume with great a*id unqualified satisf;iction. 
 We wish we could induce every professor of religion in our large cities, 
 *nd indeed all who are in any way exposed to contact with the fashiona 
 ble world, to read it. The author, in this little work, fully sustains hex 
 high reputation as a very accomplished and superior writer, and the 
 staunch advocate of Evangelical principles, carried out and made influ 
 •ntial upon the whole life and conduct." — Epis. Recorder. 
 
Books Pvhlished and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH S WORKS CONTINUED. 
 
 COUNT RAYMOND OF TOULOUSE, 
 
 And the Crusadk against the Albigenses, under Popb 
 Innocent III. By Charlotte Elizabeth. Illustrated 
 edition. l6mo. 
 
 •'The subject of this volume, and the spirited style In which it Is 
 written, will command for it an extensive circulation; but it derives 
 an additional interest from the fact that it was the last work which 
 proceeded from the prolific pen of Charlotte Elizabeth. It occupied 
 much of her time and thoughts during the last eighteen months of her 
 life, and her earthly existence came to a close almost at the same mo- 
 ment." — Christian Advocate and Journal. 
 
 " The first thing we have to say of this work is, that it is one of 
 Charlotte Elizabeth's best ; the next, that there is much in a name, or, 
 in other words, that the work has now got a title, which tells the pub- 
 lic just what it is ; that it is admirably illustrated, in most perfect Cruik- 
 shank style; and, lastly, that it forms a delightful and valuable Gift 
 Book." — JlLbany Spectator. 
 
 "It is a striking, life-like picture of the sufferings of the Albigenses, 
 mingling the facts of history with sketches of personal character, and 
 individual heroism, in a manner to excite an interest, and at the same 
 time to instruct. It is a historical episode, replete with important les- 
 sons." — JVjw York Evangelist. 
 
 "The book will commend itself, as treating of incidents of thrilling 
 Importance, and on its own merits will secure a reading, while circum- 
 stances combine to invest it with peculiar interest, in the view of all 
 who love to see female talent exerted in the cause of religion and 
 truth." — Herald of Religious Liberty. 
 
 WRONGS OF WOMEN. 
 
 Part I. . ' Milliners aivd Dressmakers ;' TI. * Thk 
 Forsaken Home; III. 'The. Little Pin -Headers ;* 
 IV. * The Lace Runners.' 
 
 " Is now published in handsomely bound volumes by M- W Dodd. 
 These are the most popular and intensely interesting stories from the 
 ever-moving pen of Charlotte Elizabeth, and we are desirous to see them 
 widely read. They are eminently calculated to awaken sympathy for 
 the oppressed and the poor, and we therefore take pleasure in calling to 
 them the attention of our kind-hearted readers." — N. Y. Observer. 
 
 " This volume contains Charlotte Elizabeth's most graphic, truthful, 
 and pathetic expressions of the ' Wrongs of Women.' She has come out 
 as the champion of her sex, and if they have no such wrongs to be re- 
 dressed in this country, they have thousands who sympathize with their 
 enslaved sisters in Great Britain." — lb. 
 
 " The authoress of the ' Wrongs of Women/ Charlotte Elizabeth, haj 
 portrayed them in terms of exquisite pathos and heart-moving tender- 
 ness. Eloquently and forcibly has she denounced the inhuman policy 
 out of which they have grown; and with all the susceptibilities and 
 ovenvhelming influences of woman's affections, she approaches the sub- 
 ject in the hope of being able to bring some alleviation, some mitigation 
 of the mental and physical degradation of her sex."— .l^nerican {Boston) 
 Traveller. 5 
 
Books Published and /or Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 THE DESERTER. 
 
 •* We have never (we speak advisedly) read a story that more entirely 
 enchained us than this. We are not quite sure how much of it la 
 fancy, and how much fact ; but we rather suppose that the outline is 
 veritable history, while the filling up may have been drawn partly from 
 the author's imagination. The principal hero of the story is a young 
 Irishman, who was lead through the influence of one of his comrades, 
 to enlist in the British Army, contrary to the earnest entreaties of his 
 mother, and who went on from one step to another in the career of crime 
 till he was finally shot as a deserter ; though not till after he had practi- 
 cally embraced the Gospel. The account of the closing scene is one of 
 Ihe finest examples of pathetic description that we remember to have met 
 (Vith. The whole work illustrates with great beauty and power the 
 iownward tendencies of profligacy, the power of divine grace to subdue 
 the hardest heart, and the encouragement that Christians have never 
 to despair of the salvation, even of those who seem to have thrown 
 themselves at the greatest distance from divine mexcY-''''— Albany Daily 
 Citizen. 
 
 " This is one of the happiest efibrts of this exceedingly popular writer. 
 Its great aim appears to be to exhibit the truly benevolent influence of 
 real piety upon the heart of man, as well as the degrading nature of sin. 
 The narrative is admirably sustained— the waywardness of the unre- 
 generate exhibited in living colors, and so interspersed with sketches of 
 the * soldier's life,' as to add a thrilling interest to the whole. It forms 
 a neat library volume of near S50 pages, and is handsomely printed and 
 bound in cloth." — Auburn Journal. 
 
 " One of the happiest productions of the author. The narrative is 
 well sustained, and the personages and character are true to nature ** 
 —Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 COMBINATION. 
 
 " This is a tale, founded on facts, from the gifted pen of Charlotte Eliz* 
 abeth. It is well written, and contains the very best of advice. It lays 
 down with great force the mighty truth, that without Religion there 
 can be no virtue ; and that without the fear and love of God, man will 
 Inevitably be dashed on the rocks of irredeemable ruin. Religion is the 
 Sheet Anchor, the only protection to hold by in the hour of violent 
 temptation ; but if that be lost, all is over. Such little works as these 
 are eminently calculated to produce a vast amount of good ; and there- 
 fore let the heads of families place them upon their table for the benefit 
 of their children. 
 
 " In no better way could an evening be spent than by having it read 
 aloud, that a warning may be taken from the folly of others, and that 
 the course which has led them to ignominy and disgrace maybe most 
 sarefully avoided." — Boston American Traveller 
 
 THE DAISY— THE YEW TREE, 
 
 Chapters on Flowers, 
 
 Three most delightful little volumes, made up in part from 
 her very popular Flower Garden Tales for those who prefer 
 them in smaller volumes. 
 6 
 
Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 JUD/EA CARTA. 
 
 •Judaea Capta,' the last offering from the pen of this gifted and pop- 
 «iai writer, will be esteemed as one of her best works. It is a graphte 
 aarrative of the invasion of Judea by the Roman legions under Vespa- 
 sian and Titus, presenting affecting views of the desolation of her towns 
 and cities, by the ravages of iron-hearted, bloodthirsty soldiers, and of 
 the terrible catastrophe witnessed in the destruction of Jerusalem 
 The narrative is interspersed with the writer's views of the literal ful 
 filment of prophecy concerning the Jews, as illustrated in their extnt- 
 ordinary history, and with remarks contemplating their returning pros- 
 perity. Her occasional strictiu-es on the historj'of the apostate Josephus, 
 who evidently wrote to please his imperial masters, appear to haw 
 fceen well merited. The work is issued in an attractive and handsome 
 volume." — Christian Observer. 
 
 " If the present should prove to be Charlotte Elizabeth's last work, 
 she could not desire to take her departure from the field of literature 
 with a better grace ; and we doubt not that it will be considered, if not 
 the best, yet among the best of her productions. It is full of scripture 
 truth, illustrated by the charm of a most powerful eloquence ; and no 
 one, we should suppose, could read it without feeling a fresh interest 
 in behalf of the Jewish nation, and a deeper impression of the truth 
 and greatness, and ultimate triumph of Christianity." — Albany Daily 
 Jidvertiser. 
 
 "This volume -contains a description of some of the most terrific 
 scenes of which this earth has been the theatre. But instead of con 
 templating them merely as a part of the world's history, it takes into 
 view their connection with the great scheme of Providence, and shows 
 how the faithful and retributive hand of God is at work amidst the 
 fiercest tempest of human passion. The work contains no small por- 
 tion of history, a very considerable degree of theology, and as much 
 heautiful imagery and stirring eloquence as we often find within the 
 same limits. Those who have the other works from the same pen. 
 will purchase this almost of course : and they need have no fear that 
 H will disappoint any expectation which its predecessors may hav« 
 nwakened." — Albany Religious Spectator. 
 
 Also just published — 
 
 *THE CHURCH VISIBLE IN ALL AGES." 
 
 A work, making attraction to the youthful as well as tli* 
 more mature mind, a deeply interesting and important subject 
 
 All the foregoing are printed on clear, xoliiie paper t and 
 bound to match, making an attractive and beautiful set oj 
 books. They are sold in sets or separately, varying from 
 25 to 50 cents per volume. When purchased for Sabbatk 
 SchooUi a liberal deduction is made from the above price*. 
 
 7 
 
Books Published and for Sale hy M^ W. Dodd^ 
 
 PURITAN HEROES; 
 
 Or, Skktches of their Character and Times. By John 
 Stocghton-. With an Introductory Letter by Joel 
 Hawes, D.D. 
 
 "This is a well-printed dimdeciino volume, wherein is given a series 
 of admifHble sketches of those nobie niiiided men whose renunciations 
 of existing glaring evils subjected them to sn great a degree <if suflering 
 and calumniation. The present viiliune is not a continiious nor a prosy 
 history. It is iiiore; for whiie the best and standard authorities, old 
 MSS.. and curious- tracts, have been consulted in its compilation, it 
 abounds with vivid and life like pictures of the principal characters 
 and events in the time of the Puritans and JMonconformists. iSo portion 
 of English BIstory can be more interesting than this, and none better 
 deserves deep and earnest study." — JV. Y. Tribune. 
 
 "The perusal of this volume has awakened in our heart more than 
 eur former love for the PuriUins of the olden times, and given us a 
 burning desire that everj* American citizen may possess, individually, 
 as intense a. regard for the memory of those men whose principles, re- 
 fined like gold in the fires of intolerance and persecution, laid the 
 foundation on which the glorious superstructure of our Temple of 
 Liberty has been erected. The j^en of Stoughton has given to these 
 records of Puritan days all the vividness, power, and glory of life, and 
 Mr. Dodd has published them in a style of beauty and elegance worthy 
 of much commendation."— ^/ia7tj/ Upectatar. 
 
 "The author has evidently written so as to adapt his style to the 
 young, and thereby secure their attention to the toils and struggles ot 
 the early advocates of Truth, then imperfectly known, against ecclesi- 
 astical domination and spiritual tyranny. This we have no doubt he- 
 will have accomplished. The book is one of the must readable that 
 has been issued from the reiigious press for years. We mean that it 
 possesses a captivation, both from the style and the subject, which Ls 
 rarely fownA:'— Methodist Protestant. 
 
 "This book commemorates, in a thrilling and powerful manner, some 
 of the greatest spirits of perhaps the most interesting period of British 
 history. It shows us the struggles and heaviness of the free spirit as it 
 was coming forth to rij>en upou the earth. It is history, the most inter- 
 esting—but not continuous history. It is highly and most justly recom- 
 mended by Dr. \\a.\\e%J'''—Mbany Express. 
 
 "This work relates to a j^riod when great truths were struggling into 
 birth — when soul-liberty was asserted and maintained at the expen.se 
 of fortune, reputation, friends, everything: — a liberty which has long 
 blessed our happy land; and which is extending a like boon to other 
 nations.'*— 7%e Trojav, 
 
 "This book is of decided interest. The times to which it relates: 
 the characters it describes j the stirring events which it sketches ; and 
 the nubie sentiments which it illustrates, lend to it a peculiar charm." 
 —Biblical Repository. 
 
 "The volume before us gives an admirable insight into the character 
 and times of the Puritans. It is not a dry history, like Neal's: it is a 
 spirit-stirring review of the men and the age, in which every character 
 and every scene lives before us. Here we may worship wiih 'the 
 Islington Congregation' in the woods: here we may follow Barrov • and 
 Greenwood, and Perry, to the gallows: here we may witness th em- 
 barkation of the Pilgrim Fathers: here we may sit by the death-be of 
 Owen, and Baxter, and Howe; and walk among the graves of mei of 
 whom the world is not wosthv."— TA^c Indepmdent. 
 
Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 THE ATTRACTION OF THE CROSS. 
 
 The Attraction of the Cross, designed to illustrate the 
 leading Truths, Obligations and Hopes of Christianity 
 By Gardiner Spring, D.D. 12mo. Fourth edition. 
 
 ' We are not surprised to hear that Mr. Dodd, the publisher, has al- 
 ready issued the third edition of the Attraction of the Cross, by the Rev. 
 Dr. Sprin??. It is the ablest and most finished production of its author, 
 and will undoubtedly take its place in that most enviable position in the 
 family, as a volume of standard reading, to be the comfort of the aged 
 and the guide of the young. We commend it as one of the most valua- 
 ble issues of the press." — N. Y. Observer. 
 
 " This is no ordinary, every-day volume of sermons, but the rich, 
 ripe harvest of a cultivated mind — the result of long and systematic 
 devotion to the proper -work of the Christian ministry. We regard Dr. 
 Spring as one of the most accomplished preachers of the country. We 
 never heard him preach a weak discourse ; and whenever he appears 
 from the press, it is with words of wisdom and power. A careful perusal 
 of this admirable bool-: has afforded us great pleasure. We do not won- 
 der to find it so soon in a third edition. It will have a lasting reputa- 
 tion." — Baptist Memorial. 
 
 " This volume, which we announced two weeks ago, and which we then 
 predicted would prove to be the most excellent and valuable work yet 
 
 written by Dr. Spring, has more than equalled our expectations 
 
 We trust that every family in our land v.'ill read this precious work, 
 which illustrates so beautifully and attractively the leading truths, ob- 
 ligations and hopes ef Christianity, as reflected from the Cross of 
 Christ." — Albany Spectator. 
 
 " We mistake if this neatly-printed volume does not prove one of the 
 most attractive religious works of the day. It presents the practical 
 truths of religion, which all ought to know, free from the spirit of sect- 
 arianism or controversy. The book is prepared for permanent use, and 
 bids as fair, perhaps, as any book of the kind in our times, to live and 
 speak long after the author shall have gone to test the realities he ha« 
 80 eloquently described." — Journal of Commerce. 
 
 " Dr. Spring's new work, which we had occasion recently to announce, 
 is very highly commended elsewhere. A New-York letter in the Boston 
 Traveller thus introduces it to notice : — ' A new work of Dr. Spring, 
 " The Attraction of the Cross," has been published by M. W. Dodd, of 
 this city, r . . " The Attraction of the Cross" is destined to live among 
 the very best productions of the church with which its respected author 
 is connected. The style is remarkably pure, the arrangements of the 
 topics lucid and methodical, and the arguments addressed with great 
 force to the reason and conscience. It will stand by the side of '' Dod- 
 dridge's Rise and Progress," " Wilberforce's View," or the "Way of 
 Life," in the libraries of future generations.' " — Neuark Daily Adv. 
 
 " None will wonder at the rare success which this volume has won, 
 who live read it. P'..r comprehensiveness of views, beauty of style and 
 excellence and fervor of devotional feeling, few works bar lately ap- 
 peared that surpa.'.s it." — New-York Evangelist. 
 
 *• The grand relations of the Cross, its holy influences. Its comforts and 
 Its triumphs, are here exhibited in a manner cheering to the heart of 
 the Christian. And the perusal of this book will, we venture to say. 
 greatly assist and comfort :he children of God. . . ." — Presbyterian. 
 
 d 
 
Books Published and for Sale hy M. W. Dodd. 
 
 AN EARNEST MINISTRY, 
 
 The Want of the Times. By John Angell James. Witb 
 AN Introduction by Rev. J. B. Condit, D.D., of New- 
 ark, N. J. 
 
 "There is a power in the very title of this book. It strikes home to 
 the convictions of every mind that is wakeful to the condition and want* 
 of the church. ' An Earnest Ministry.' The ear tingles with the sound , 
 it stirs up thought ; it lingers in the memory ; it turns into prayer. 
 
 " ' Has the evangelical pulpit lost, and is it likely to lose any of itf 
 power V is the question with which the veteran preacher and authol 
 commences his discussion. In the progress of his own earnest mind 
 through the several stages of this subject, he begins with the ministry 
 of the Apostles, linding his theme in it ; examines the nature of ear- 
 nestness, and shows its appropriateness in him who handles the word 
 of life, in respect to its matter, manner, and practice; illustrates his 
 points by numerous quotations and biographical notices ; and from the 
 whole, gathers motives of great power to bear on the conscience of the 
 professional reader. 
 
 " We wish that we could lay a copy on the table of every pastor, and 
 put it into the portmanteau of every missionary in the land ; we should 
 feel quite sure that the Sabbath following, at least, would bear witness 
 to its effect ; and we should hope for still more enduring results. And 
 we could scarcely imagine a more useful appropriation of money, than 
 would be made by supplying the young men of our own Theological 
 Seminaries, with each a copy of this exhibition of an 'earnest minis- 
 try.' "— JV. Y. Observer. 
 
 " We read this work with the greatest interest. A more impressive, 
 truth telling, pungent appeal to the ministry, we have never met with. 
 This noble, stirring effort to infuse new life and energy into the minis- 
 try cannot be too highly praised. Without attempting an analysis of 
 its contents, we beg to assure oiu brethren, that of all useful and able 
 productions of this authfflr, this is by far the most useful and able. 
 There are hints, and appeals, and principles in it, of incalculable im- 
 portance, and of most awakening interest." — JV. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 " Every work of his we have read meets an exigency— in other 
 words, is opportune to the state of the Church, and shows profound 
 thought, thorough investigation, and withal, is given in a chaste and 
 vigorous style. This last volume in no sense falls behind — there is a 
 clearness, a comprehension, and a power in it, which makes it com- 
 pare with anything he has written ; and throughout it is an illustration 
 of the very earnestness he commends. Dr. Condit of Newark, has 
 written a very judicious introduction to the volume. We feel that 
 Mr. James may well be taken by young men in Theological training, 
 and ministers generally, as their oracle on the importance of earnest- 
 ness in the ministry." — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 " His specimens and illustrations, drawn from the most eminent divines 
 of ancient and modern days, and of various countries, are extremely apt 
 and interesting. By the method he has pursued, Mr. J. has given us a 
 kind of biographical library of the ministry, in such a manner as to im- 
 press their excellencies upon the memory, and to inspire a wish to imi- 
 tate them. The work is richly worthy of the perusal of the class fo^ 
 whom it is specially designed." — Christian Review. 
 
 " Not to make a book, but to do good, seems to have been the whol* 
 object in view. All our ministers, especially the younger, should give 
 this book a reading, and we believe its circulation generally among om 
 people would be productive of great benefit to the whole Church."' 
 Methodist PvJpit. 10 
 
Books Published and for Sale hy M. W. Dodd, 
 
 MACKNIGHT'S EPISTLES, 
 
 A NEW LITERAL TRANSLATION 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL GREEK. 
 
 or ALL THE 
 
 APOSTOLICAL EPISTLES. 
 
 WITH A 
 
 COMMENTARY AND NOTES, 
 
 Philological, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical.. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 A HISTOEY OF THE LIFE OF THE APOSTLE PADl, 
 
 BY JAMES MACKNIGHT, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF A HA.RMONY OF THE GOSPELS, ETC. 
 
 4 New Edition, to which is prefixed an Account of the Lift 
 of the Author, 
 
 KNAPP'S THEOLOGY, 
 
 LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE CHRISTIAN KNAPP, D.D., 
 
 PROrKSSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY LEONARD WOODS, JUN., D.D., PRESIDENT Of 
 BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BRUNSWICK, MAINE. 
 
 Third American edition, reprinted from the last London 
 edition, 
 
 U 
 
Books Published and for Sale hy M. W. Dodd. 
 
 LECTURES ON THEOLOGY. 
 
 By the late Rev, John Dick, D.D. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 "The Theological Lectures of Dr. Dick have been long enough be- 
 fore the public to hare acquired a high reputation. They are able, ju- 
 dicious, and concise, and possess such advantages of arrangement ant} 
 method, as to render the work extreiisely convenient for a class book, 
 and for general reference. A Professor in the United Session Church 
 in Scotland, the general tone of the theology of his work will not neerf 
 to be defined. It is consistently and decidedly Calvinistic. without; 
 being excessively strained. The calm and courteous spirit of all the 
 Doctor's diseui<sions — the fairness and urbanity shown towards oppo- 
 nents, and the judicious qualifications with which what he regards the 
 truths of his system are asserted, give the work a pleasing, and, at the 
 same time, a rare characteristic. The elegant style, too, in which the 
 dry themes of abstract theology are presented, always agreeable and 
 chaste, and often rising to true eloquence, ought not to be forgotten 
 among the excellencies of the book. We can say of this work, that for 
 a systematic, concise, and well-composed manual on theology, there is 
 hardly a superior to be had ; and, without excluding othfir works of the 
 kind, or the more elaborate treatises on particular doctrines, it is one 
 that should find a place in every well-appointed clerical library." — 
 Biblical Rep&sitory, 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 By Absalom Peters, D. D. 
 
 "A very ingenious, learned, and intelligible argument to prove that 
 sprinkling is the only mode of Baptism made known in the Scriptures, 
 and the Scripture warrant for Infant Baptism. We have examined it 
 with real interest and satisfnction, and we commend it to the attention 
 of all who would study the subject, whatever may be their present 
 views." — JVcra York Observer. 
 
 "The Berkshire Association, in requesting the publication of these 
 lectures, entitle them ' ./? shoi-t method of settling the question.' So it 
 will strike the reader, who peruses with candor the clear and cogent 
 ai^iimentation by which point Mfter point is established. In many re- 
 spects, this argument is new ; and it is conducted with such clear rea- 
 soning, and in language and statement so explicit, as to adapt it well 
 for general circulation among the churches."— JV''. F. Evangelist. 
 
 '•That works like that heading this article are well adapted to end 
 the controversy on this oft-inouted suiyeet. by the catholicistn of their 
 spirit, the clearness of their arguing, and the simplieity of their ^tyle, 
 will hardly be questioned. In each of these respects, to say nothing 
 of others, it is admirable. Tlie Baptist himself innst confess to the 
 uniform candor of tlie author, and acknowledge the ali-ptrvading auavi- 
 ter in modo. even if he deny the fartiterin re. in (he conduct of the ar- 
 gument. That 'sprinkling is the only mode of baptism made known by 
 the Scriptures.' is a startling proposition in the ears of many, and re- 
 quires accurate definition and severe logical argument, as well as clear 
 Scriptural testimony t» sustain it. And it is believed that such difini- 
 tlon. argument and testisnony. are here combined, as t<innot ba ovet' 
 thrown."— A'cir F.r^jflavd Pwriian^ 
 
Books Published and for Sale Ixj M. W. Dodd. 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE PURCHASE AXD SETTLEMENT 
 
 OF WESTERN NEW YORK, 
 And of thk Rise, Progress, and PfiESExx State of the 
 
 Presbyterian Church in that Section, By Rev, James 
 
 HOTCHKIN. Pp. GOO. 8vo. 
 
 " We announced this work as forthcoming, and are pleased 
 to see it, — a large and handsome octavo, with the most full, 
 minute, and valuable information respecting Western New 
 York, in its various ecclesiastical and historical departments. 
 It is said bv the X. Y. Evangelist that • jou could almost as 
 soon discredit the internal evidence of the New Testament, 
 as that this book tells what is true;' but this is an endorse- 
 ment which we should be slow to put upon any uninspired 
 history. But it is worthy of a wide diffusion, and we trust 
 that it will be the means of extending the knowledge of the 
 wonderful progress of that great region which it describes, 
 that it will dispel prejudices, and promote the cause of truth 
 and righteousness." — xV. Y. Observer. 
 
 " The work commences at the Indian title and occupation 
 — merges into the actual settlement by the Whites — gives the 
 progress of Population, the origin of the first settlers, and 
 their motives for emigration — their character — the firsl forma- 
 tion of religious bodies, and a complete, very detailed, and 
 valuable account of the various Presbyteries and Synods, 
 The ' History of Revivals,' to which a large portion of the 
 work is devoted, will be of peculiar interest to many, and the 
 detail of the primary Missionary operations is exceedingly in- 
 teresting." — N<iio York Tribune. 
 
 " This is an octavo of 600 pages. It is a valuable and 
 much-needed book. The author was evidently fitted for the 
 task which he has executed so creditably. He has lived and 
 toiled for nearly fifty years in the field which he describes. 
 His judgment is sound, his mind unbiassed, and his spirit 
 kind. It is an impartial and accurate history, we think, and 
 may be relied on in its statement of facts. Its style is sinaple 
 and unpretending, but it wears such an air of honest truth, 
 and so abounds with valuv'^.ble matter, secular and ecclesiasti- 
 cal, as to make it not only valuable, but really instructive." — • 
 Biblical Reposilory. 
 
 " Th.is is a full and minute history of Western rsew York, 
 from its purchase and settlement to the present time ; that his- 
 tory interwoven with the still rrore important history of the 
 rise, progress, and present state of ths Presbyterian Church 
 in that section, — a history of a peculiarly exciting, remarka- 
 ble, and interesting charact';r."-- AV'.-?/ Spectator. 
 
 13 
 
Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd, 
 
 CRUDEN'3 COMPLETE CONCORDANCE. 
 
 A COMPLETE CONCORDANCE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 
 oy THE 
 
 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT; 
 
 OR, A 
 
 DICTIONARY AND ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO THE BIBLE: 
 
 Very useful to all Christians who seriously read and study the 
 
 inspired writings. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS: 
 
 CONTAINING, 
 
 I. The Appellative or Common Words in so full and large a manner, 
 that any verse may be readily found by looking for any material wora 
 in it. In this part the various significations of the principal words are 
 given ; by which the true,jneaning of many passages of Scripture is 
 shown ; an account of several Jewish Customs and Ceremonies la also 
 added, which may serve to illustrate many parts of Scripture. 
 
 H. The Proper Names in the Scriptures. To this part is prefixed a 
 Table, containing the signification of the words in the original lan- 
 guages from which they are derived. 
 
 TO WHICH is ADDED 
 
 A CONCORDANCE TO THE BOOKS CALLED 
 APOCRYPHA. 
 
 The whole digested in an easy and regular method : which, together 
 with the various significations and other improvements now added, ren- 
 ders it more useful than any book of the kind hitherto published. 
 
 BY ALEXANDER CRUDEN, MA. 
 
 From the Tenth London Edition^ carefully revised and corrected by the 
 
 Holy Script2ires. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 AN ORIGINAL LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 "Ever since the first publication of Cruden's Concordance, in 1736, it 
 has maintained the acknowledged reputation of being the very best 
 work of the kind in the English language. Indeed, no ether has ever 
 14 
 
Books Published and for Sale hy M. W. Dodd. 
 
 deserved to be even compared to it. It maintains its superiority still; 
 and probably will ever hold that pre-eminence. 
 
 " We speak of the complete edition, which is here presented to the 
 public. A work in the market called Cruden's Concordance being only 
 a compilation from the complete work, and wanting many of its most 
 valuable features. To abridge this work of Cruden. as it came from his 
 finishing hand, would be to make it nearly valueless to ninety-nine of 
 every hundred who need a concordance. And of all aids to an acciurate 
 understanding of the Bible, we believe Cruden's complete Concordance 
 to be the best." 
 
 •' Dear Sir :— I have carefully compared your edition of Cruden's 
 Concordance with a fine English edition, and find it true to the original. 
 Knowing, from many years' use, the value of Cruden, I cannot but be 
 glad that you have thus presented a cheap edition of his invaluable 
 work to the American public. I find in your copy an unimpaired, com- 
 plete Cruden. This is not the case with another American edition, 
 published last year. In that, great liberties are taken with the original 
 work — such as abridgments, omissions, &c., greatly reducing the 
 amount of its contents, and in the same proportion diminishing its 
 value. A student of the Bible needs a concordance in which he can 
 find every passage he wants. Your edition is just such an one." 
 
 " We know, from long use, this full and admirable reprint of the 
 original Cruden's Concordance ; and we think that the whole value of ^ 
 the work depends upon its being complete and entire ; and that its 
 great value would be impaired seriously by the omission of a single 
 word or reference." 
 
 "The high price at which this gigantic work has been necessarily 
 sold hitherto, has prevented thousands from purchasing it. A complete 
 edition, with the very latest corrections, with the notes of the author 
 and every line of the London edition faithfully given, is now published, 
 as above, for only two dollars. It is the best commentary on the 
 Bible that was ever made : it is worth more to the diligent and devout 
 student than the whole of Henry or Scott, or any other critic, and we 
 would part with all our commentaries rather than with Cruden's Con- 
 cordance. It ought to be in every intelligent family, and we presume 
 that the low price at v/hich it is now sold will be the means of putting 
 it into the hands of many who would not otherwise have obtained it." 
 
 15 
 
Books Published a ad for Sale by M. W, Dodd, 
 
 ^NkY OF SALVATION. 
 
 By David Russell, D.D. 
 
 " The author is a distinguished minister of the Dissenting Congrega- 
 tional body in Scotland, having an important pastoral charge in Dun- 
 dee. His views are clear, comprehensive, and practical. This volume 
 addresses a most interesting class of the human family — those who are 
 awakened and inquiring on the subject of religion, and appears to be a 
 safe and profitable directory." — Religious Recorder, 
 
 THE GREAT COMMANDMENT. 
 
 By the Author of "The Listener," "Christ our 
 Example," &c. 
 "This book is so plain and simple as to be within the legitimate range 
 of any comprehension, and yet so strongly marked by vigorous concep- 
 tions and enlarged views oC truth, that the student of theology, or the 
 minister of the Gospel, may read it v/ith abundant profit. It is evi- 
 dently the production of a n)ind not accustomed to repose on the sur- 
 face of things, and is dictated by a spirit that has been accustomed to 
 intimate communion with the fountain of light and purity." — Albany 
 Statesman. 
 
 HAVE ME EXCUSED! 
 
 By Ezra D. Kinney, 
 
 Pastor of Ccng. Church in Darten, Conn. 
 
 "The pious author of this neat volume has here given a practical 
 exposition of the parable of the Great Supper, in which he has urged 
 the wonderful fulness of the Gospel otfer of salvation, and scattered the 
 excuses which sinners make for not accepting the invitation." — JV*. Y. 
 Observer. 
 
 WINSLOW ON THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Experimental and Practical Views of the Atonement. 
 
 By Octavius Winslow. l8mo. 
 
 "This is the first of a series of works which the author designs to 
 publish, of 'Experimental and Practical Views of Divine Truth;' and 
 If all those forthcoming prove as valuable as this, they must greatly 
 bless the Christian Church. The work before us is a mirror, in~which 
 Christ, in his atoning sacrifice, is reflected in the face of the Church, and 
 in which she beholds her entire beauty, righteousness, and eternal life, 
 as hid with Christ in God.'' — Albany Spectator. 
 
 THE PILGRIM'S NOTE BOOKj 
 
 OR, CHOICE SAYINGS ILLUSTRATIVE OF CHRISTIAN 
 CHARACTER AND DUTY. 
 
 Selected by Mrs. F. L. Smith. 32mo. 
 "It is a string of pearls, to be sought and kept and admired ; just the 
 book to lie on everybody's table, to be caught up and read at a leUur« 
 moraent for refreshment and reflection."— JV"*. Y. Observer. 
 16 
 
Boolts Fublished and for Sale by M. W. Dodo. 
 
 THE BOOK THAT WILL SUIT YOU; 
 
 Or a Word for Every One. By Rev. James Smith, Author ol 
 
 " Believer's Daily Remembrancer," &c. 
 
 "An elegant Kttle hand book of some 300 paces 16nio., and by an En 
 glish author Its contents are a rare selection of topics, treated briefly 
 D suit the circumstances of those who have fifteen or twenty minutes 
 .o sj)end in reading, which it would be wicked to throw away, and yet 
 Jiscouraging to commence a heavier volume. ' The Successful Mo- 
 Mier,' 'The Child's Guide,' 'The Husband's example,' 'The Wife's 
 Rule,' — these are some of the topics taken promiscuously fn m the 
 book ; and they show the author's mind to be travelling in the right di 
 rection, viz. : towards the theory^ of life's daily practice. We hope 
 that the time is near when Christian parlors will be emptied of 'The 
 Book of Fashion,' ' Somebody's Lady's Book,' etc., etc., made up of 
 love stories mawkishly told, and other drivelling nonsense ; and their 
 places supplied with works like the ' Book that will Suit you' — no less 
 pleasing, and far more useful." 
 
 GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS, 
 
 In a faithful account of the Life and death of John Banyan, 
 pp. 176. 
 
 " We are pleased to see a very handsome edition of this admirable 
 treatise. It is just published, and will be eagerly sought after by all 
 who admire the spirit and genius of this remarkable man whose ' Pil- 
 grims Progress' stands nearly if not quite at the head of religious lite- 
 rature." 
 
 KIND WORDS FOR THE KITCHEN; 
 
 Or Illustrations of Humble Life. By Mrs. Copley. 
 
 "This admirable little volume is the production of Mrs. Esther 
 Copley, (late Mrs. Hewlett.) whose popularity as an authoress has long 
 been established upon both sides of the Atlantic. The welfare of that 
 interesting and important part of society who discharge the domestic 
 duties of life has long engaged the attention of this distinguished and 
 accomplished lady. 
 
 " We have rea'd the ' Kind Words for the Kitchen,' with a firm coa- 
 viction that it is the best work we have ever seen in so small a com 
 
 [)ass for its designed purpose ; it suggests all that a sense of duty would 
 cad the head of a well regulated household to advise, and having 
 loaned the book to ladies distinguished for their judgment and skill as 
 heads of well-governed families, they have urged its publication with 
 8 few omissions of matter deemed inappropriate to our country. 
 
 " We believe almost every Christian lady will be glad to place such a 
 m.inual of sound instruction in the h-inds of her domestics, and that 
 wbich is kindly bestowed will generally be frratefully received. With 
 au assurance that the general diffusion of this book would accomplish 
 a most valuable service in binding together more closely the interests 
 of the employer and the employed, and sofiening down the asperities 
 which so frequently grow out of the ill performed duties of the house- 
 hold sphere, we should rejoice to know that this little volume wai 
 aUiced by the side of the Bible Id every kitchen of our country.* 
 
 17 
 
Bnr>l-<t PuhUshea and for Sale by AL \\. Dodd. 
 
 SERMONS, NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED, ON VARIOUS 
 PRACTICAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 By the late Edward Dorr Griffin, D. D. 
 
 '* Dr. Griffin may be regarded as having been a prince among the 
 princes of the American pulint. He left a large number of senaons 
 carefully revised and ready for publication, part of which were pub- 
 lished shortly after his death, but the greater portion of which consti- 
 tute the present volume. They are ioubtless among the ablest dis- 
 courses of the present day, and are al.ke fitted to disturb the delusions 
 ef guilt, to quicken and strengthen, and comfort the Christian, and to 
 Berve as a model to the theological student, who would construct his 
 discourses, in a way to render them at once the most impressive, and 
 the most edifying." 
 
 A MEMOIR OF THE REV. LEGH RICHMOND, A.M. 
 
 Rector of Turvey, Bedfordshire. By Rev. T. S. Grimshaw, 
 A. M.. Rector of Burton-Latimer, die. Seventh American 
 from the last London Edition, with a handsome Portrait or. 
 Steel. 
 
 " We have here a beautiful reprint of one of the best books of it 
 class, to be found in our l?inguage. Such beauty and symmetry' of cha 
 racter, such manly intelligence and child-like simplicity, such officia* 
 dignity and condescending meekness, such warmth of zeal united wit> 
 a perception of fitness which always discerns the right thing to b« 
 done, and an almost faultless prudence in doing it, — are seldom found 
 combined in the same person. It is a book for a minister, and a book 
 for parishioners ; a book for the lovers of nature, and a book for thr 
 friends of God and of his species. Never perhaps were the spirits ant 
 duties of a Christian Pastor more happily e.vemplified. Never dir 
 warmer or purer domestic aflfections throb in a human bosom, or exer 
 cise themselves more unceasingly and successfully for the comfort, th# 
 
 £ resent well-being and final sa'vation of sons and daughters. From m 
 eart probably, did ever good will flow out to men, in a fuller, warmei 
 current. In a word, be was the author of the ' Dairyman's Daughter, 
 and the ' Young Cottager.' 
 
 " The engraved likeness of Mr. Richmond alone is worth the cost of 
 the work ; as illustrative of the uncommon benignity that adorned and 
 endeared the man to his friends and the world." 
 
 UNCLE barnaby; 
 
 Or Recollections of his Character and Opinions, pp. 316. 
 
 " The religion of this book is good— the morality excellent, and the 
 mode of exhibiting their important lessons can hardly be surpassed in 
 anything calculated to make them attractive to the young, or successful 
 in correcting anything bad in their habits or morals. There are some 
 twenty chapters on as many common sayings and maxims, occurrences 
 and incidents — in this respect bearing a resemblance to ' the Prompter, 
 a somewhat oracular book forty or fifty years ago. It is an excellent 
 book to keep in a family, and may b*.^ alike beneficial to parents an«l 
 children." 
 
 18 
 
Books Ptiblished and foi' Sale hy M. W. Dodd. 
 
 THE PEARL OF DAYS. 
 
 By a Laborer's Daughter, 
 
 "This is a most remarkable work, which has performed a great mis- 
 sion of mercy in England, and has now reached this country for the 
 same blessed end. It is a prize essay on the advantages of the Sabbath 
 to the working classes, written by a Laborer's Daughter, and is most 
 appropriately commended by an American clergyman in the preface, to 
 parents, to the friends of social progress, and to the working classes 
 themselves. Besides the Essay itself, there are added the attractions of 
 a sketch of the Author's life by herself, and several neat illustrations." 
 
 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR 
 FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 Compiled chiefly from the Published and Unpublished Docu- 
 ments of the Board. By Joseph Tracy. Second edition, 
 carefully revised and enlarged. 1 vol. 8vo. 
 
 " Mr. Tracy has performed his work well, and it is one that should be 
 found in the library of every intelligent citizen. It is interesting in 
 matter and subjects, and invaluable for a reference. The volume is 
 handsomely printed and illustrated with numerous plates, some of which 
 were drawn and engraved and printed by natives at Missionary stations. 
 The whole comprises a neat octavo volume of 450 pages. The research, 
 and clear and concise style of the work entitle it to great commeuda- 
 tioD." — Boston Traveler. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF 
 
 FRANCIS MARKOE, ESQ., 
 
 for many years an eminent merchant. 
 
 By Thomas H. Skinner, D.D. 
 
 " In a small volume the author has given us just enough insight of the 
 remarkable experience of one who, in the higher walks of life, honored 
 the Christian profession, to make us feel sadly disappointed that we are 
 not made more fully acquainted with him. No one can read the ac- 
 count of his conversion without feeling from that moment a peculiar 
 Interest in the man." 
 
 ELIZABETH THORNTON : 
 
 «R THE Flower and Fruit of Female Piety, &c. 
 1 vol. l8mo. 
 
 " This is the sketch of a young female possessing no common excel- 
 lence of character ; although called away from her labors of Christian 
 love when she scarcely numbered a score of years, she was trvUy ripe 
 for heaven. She lived and acted while life was hers for the great end 
 of being ; and no one of her sex could read this development of an ex- 
 alted character without the desire to imitate such an example. It is 
 just such a book we can most heaitiJy recommend for the Family and 
 Sunday School Library. — .V. Y. Com. Adoertiser. 
 
 19 
 
Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 PROFESSOR ALDEFS WORKS. 
 
 THE OLD STONE HOUSE j 
 
 Or, the Patriot's Fireside. By Joseph Alden, D.D. 
 
 "This is not only a capital book for boys, but suggests sentiments 
 not unworthy the attention of children of a larger growth. In it, the 
 spirit of true patriotism is finely illustrated by the examples of such 
 men as John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, Governor Morris, and our immor- 
 tal Washington. To those of our young friends who are looking for- 
 ward to the day when they may become statesmen, we would cor- 
 dially commend this little work, as an agreeable introduction to the 
 study of the constitution and history of the government under which It 
 is their high privilege to live" — JVewark Daily Advertise?'. 
 
 "The object of this volume is unique among books for children; 
 namely, to convey information of some of the early fathers of the 
 state and the foundation of the Government, which is done in a simple, 
 intelligible way, and calculated, from the form of conversation, to ar- 
 rest the attention. Its purpose and execution are highly commenda- 
 ble." — Literary World. 
 
 "Professor Alden's juvenile books are, in many respects, patterns of 
 publications for the young. They have a purity, simpUcity and gravity 
 of style, thp^must do much towards forming mental and moral charac- 
 teristics on me best model." — Religious Recorder. 
 
 " Under the guise of a familiar, pleasant tale of the Revolutionary 
 era. Dr. Alden has here presented a condent;ed and most excellent com- 
 pend of the elementary principles of the science of government, and 
 our early political history\ It strikes us as one of the most useful, a» 
 well as able and ingenious of the author's many valuable juvenile 
 works, and will be a good book for the family, and not less for the 
 school-room." — jV. Y. Evangelist. 
 
 EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 "A little volume of great value. The author does not pretend to 
 give the example of Washington in his entire life, but employs the 
 weight of his great name to arrest and fix the attention of the yoi^uS 
 upon some of the essential excellencies of character that were so fully 
 illustrated in that unequalled specimen of human greatness— the prom- 
 inent points in the work being the character of Washington as a re- 
 ligious man. The book should be in the hands of every youth in the 
 land." 
 
 REVIVAL IN SCHOOL. 
 
 " This book is a good one for parents, teachers, and children. Some 
 of the ditficult questions in Christian causistry are here indirectly solved 
 in a very intelligible manner; and the touchstone of piety is skilfully 
 applied. No Sabbath school or juvenile library should be without it." 
 —Christian Mirror. 
 
 Just published, in size and style corresponding with the 
 above, and to match, " The Pilgrim Fathers." Though 
 this does not bear its author's name, yet no reader of Prof. 
 Alden's admirable books will be at a loss to determine from 
 whence it comes. 
 80 
 
Books Publislied and for Sale by M, W. Dodd. 
 
 JUVENILE BOOKS. 
 
 THE TRAVELLER; 
 
 OR, WONDERS OF NATURE. 
 
 "The study of nature is always interesting, and should be beneficial, 
 especially by raising the thoughts to God, and exciting admiration of 
 him. The portions of His works noticed in these volumes, are moun« 
 tains, volcanoes, precipices, caverns, earthquakes, deserts, rivers, con- 
 tinents, whirlwinds, whirlpools, and waterspouts." — Christian Mirror. 
 
 "An interesting and instructive volume, which should be added to 
 every child's library, and may be read with profit by older persons." — 
 Methodist Protestant. 
 
 MRS. SHERWOOD'S WORKS. 
 
 I. 'The Drooping Lily.' l8mo. II. 'The Violet Leaf.' l8mo. 
 III.*' The LoFiT and Lowly Way.' 18mo. New ed. 
 " These volumes contain each, one or more biographical sketches from 
 the eloquent pen of Mrs. Sherwood. They are among her early publi- 
 cations, and of course bear no trace of the sad change which subse- 
 quently occurred in her religious sentiments. On the contrary, they 
 convey, with the captivating and winning style of Mrs. Sherwood, most 
 hijportant religious truth. 
 
 MORAL TALES FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 By Uncle Arthur. Illustrated by seven Engravings, 
 1 vol. 3'2mo. 
 " Dncle Arthur, the avowed narrator of these stories, must be a new 
 relation of Peter Parley and Robert Merry, he has so happy a faculty 
 of arresting the attention and winning the regard of the young. Hi3 
 stories are simple and natural : having a direct religious tendency, and 
 cannot fail to exert a salutary influr;nce upon the juvenile mind." — 
 Boston Merc. Journal. 
 
 PLAY-ROOM POETRY. 
 
 By S. S. H. 
 " It is our good fortune to know how much cordial interest in the 
 welfare of the young, how much clear knowledge of human nature, 
 what a world of goodness, tact, and quiet virtue, lurk under these mys- 
 terious initials. The book is what the work of such an authoress 
 ought to be, — fresh, original, simple, and suited exactly to those who 
 are to study it. We never saw a better work for youn^g children.*'— 
 J^ew England Weekly Review. 
 
 SCENES IN ROME,* 
 
 IN THE EARLY DAYS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 By J. W. Taylor. 18mo. New ed. 
 "This little work carries us back into the heart of Pagan Rome, and 
 shows us Christianity in some of its most vigorous workings with the 
 power of evil. It narrates various scenes, which, without any great 
 effort of imagination, may be siipposed to have taken place under the 
 reign of bloody Nero ; and the lofty moral heroism which it exhibits 
 on the one hand, and the spirit of fiend-like cruelty which comes out 
 on the other, fill us with alternate admiration and horror." — .ilbany 
 Daily Citixtn. 
 
 81 
 
Books Published and for Sale by M. W. Dodd. 
 
 MUSICAL WORKS BY HASTINGS. 
 
 MOTHERS' NURSERY SONGS. 
 
 By Thomas Hastings. 16mo, 
 
 " Those that know anything of the learning, piety, and musical taste 
 and skill of Hastings, desire no other recommendation for this little 
 book, than the simple fact that he is the author of it. 
 
 " This little book contains, first, six little cliapters on the 'Rudiments 
 of Notation ;' then follows a selection of simple, beautiful, and touch- 
 ing songs and hymns for children, set to music, and divided into four 
 parts, viz.: Parti. 'The Cradle.' Part II. 'The Nursery.' Part III. 
 'The Class Room,' Part IV. 'The Altar.' "— ,St. Louis Herald. 
 
 "We do take great delight in attractive books intended to do good to 
 children. We have gone through this book with pleasure. Some of 
 the songs are verj- touching, and others very sprightly. That one 
 opening ' Baby is crying,' came upon us with great effect, especially 
 the stanza beginning, 
 
 » I wish he were quiet. 
 He makes such a riot. 
 That nobody else can be heard.' " 
 
 Southern Methodist Pulpit. 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL LYRE. 
 
 Words and Music chiefly new. 
 
 Compiled and Composkd by Thomas Hastings. 
 
 16mo. 
 
 "In the language of the author's Preface, 'the object of this little 
 work is to combine religious instruction vrilh the enjoyment of chaste, 
 and simple music' Whether this object has been attained we need not 
 ask, when we know the author's name. We know of vothitiff contain- 
 ing, in so small a compass, or indeed in any shajie, that which is so 
 well adapted to the Sunday schools of our land. In the number of 
 thirty-two tunes of different metres, we have an ample range afforded 
 for the selection of tunes suited to any metre needed in Sunday school 
 singing, and this music, of the most chaste and pure description, at the 
 same time perfectly simple. The hymns, too, of which there are some 
 thirty or fortj', are of the most admirable character. We believe, too. 
 It is the design of the publisher to furnish the work at so low a price 
 (some four or five cents) as to make that no obstacle, in any case, to 
 their introduction in our Sunday schools." 
 
 THE CHILD'S BOOK OF DEVOTION. 
 
 A Collection of Hymns and Prayers in Verse, por 
 Children. ISmo. 
 By Rev. John A. Murray. 
 39 
 
SABBATH SCHOOL 
 
 BOOK DEPOSITORY 
 
 BEING SOLE AGENT IN NEW YORK FOR THE SALE OP THK 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS SUNDAY SCHOOL SOCIETY, 
 
 We have at all times on hand a full assortment of their publi- 
 cations, in quantities which we furnish at wholesale and retail 
 at the Society's prices in Boston. In addition to their valua- 
 ble series of Library Books, they publish a series of Question 
 Books, for Sunday Schools and Bible Classes, which are un- 
 surpassed, if equalled, by any now in use. 
 
 In connection with the above, we have a large assortment 
 of books published by ourselves and other individual pub- 
 lishers, suitable for Sunday School Libraries. 
 
 The above, with the publications of the Tract Societies, 
 and other Sunday School Societies, which are furnished by 
 us at Societies" prices, give us unusual facilities for filling 
 orders for anything needed for Sunday Schools. 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL LYRE. 
 
 Words and Music chiefly new. 
 
 COMPILED AND COMPOSED 
 
 By THOMAS HASTINGS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF VARIOUS MUSICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 The superior character of this work, for one of its kind, 
 and the very low price at which it is furnished, commends 
 it to the special attention of those connected with Sunday 
 Schools. 
 24 
 
M. ¥. DODD, 
 Ipubltsljcr anb i3ook0eUcr, 
 
 IN ADDITION TO 
 
 Eli (DWH IPIDFIBILII(DATI!(D)H§5 
 
 HAS ALWAYS ON HAND 
 
 A.MERICAN AND FOREIGN WORKS, 
 
 IN 
 
 RELIGIOUS, THEOLOGICAL, 
 STANDARD & MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE, 
 
 AND la 
 
 CONSTANTLY RECEIVING NEW WORKS, 
 
 AS THEY ARE ISSUED FROM THE PRESS, 
 
 AtL OF WHICH HE WILL SELL, AT 
 
 l¥B[OIL.E§AI.X: on RETAir.^ 
 
 ON THE MOST FAVORABLE TERMS 
 
 ORDERS FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES 
 
 RESPECTFULLY 8 O L I C I T fi D .