Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

great social interests, but cannot protect them. Here, too, universal human consent, permits the parent to do for the child, what he cannot do for himself. He has still more important spiritual interests, and we know that God often requires the parent to represent the child here also. But bend your thoughts upon this remarkable historical fact. In the formation of the Church, God himself did set apart the parent to act for his child.

Circumcision was the act whereby faith was expressed in the first church covenant. Therefore God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself. He did so and thus expressed his faith. Circumcision must of course express the faith of the child under the same covenant. But the child cannot circumcise himself. What is to be done? God settles this question; He commands the parent to act for his child and circumcise him. Accordingly, as by the circumcision of himself, Abraham expressed faith for himself, so by the circumcision of his child, Abraham expressed faith for his child. The Abrahamic covenant is the New Testament Church! If God, in the former, required the parent to act for the child and express his faith, God, in the latter, requires the parent to do the same.

Should there still hang about the mind an impression that the faith of the subject should be personal, there is a teaching in the Scriptures which should satisfy it. Baptism expresses faith, but circumcision also expresses faith, for God built this ordinance purposely that it might be a distinguished sign of faith. Rom. iv. 11. If then, scripturally, faith is necessary to baptism; scripturally, faith was just as necessary to circumcision. Yet circumcision, “a seal of the righteousness of faith," was scripturally administered to the infant. Where lies the very slightest scriptural difficulty in the last case, which was not scripturally removed in the first? If the incapacity of the infant to believe did not, in ancient times, prevent his being circumcised on the strength of his father's faith, why should the incapacity of the infant to believe, in modern times, forbid his being baptized on the same basis; especially in view of the fundamental fact, that in founding His Church, God commanded the parent to act for the child?

If now our readers will attend to two points, they will see

how the Almighty addresses the conscience of parents on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant:

I. The Abrahamic covenant, in its substance, is a valid covenant in our day.

[ocr errors]

We shall not go over the arguments already adduced for this truth. The apostle's climax is all we shall repeat. Though it were a man's covenant it should not be disannulled, yet this is the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ."

II. The application of the sign and the seal to the children of believers in the Abrahamic covenant, is not matter of form but of substance.

"This is my covenant. Every male child among you shall be circumcised." What is important in a covenant beyond parties; obligations; influence?

If w

we so

1. Parties. You covenant with an hundred men. interpret your deed as to throw out fifty of the parties, is this an unimportant modification of your contract? Have we left the substance of your deed untouched? On the contrary, is any thing more important in a covenant than its parties? Put some other person in the place of Him who so kindly covenants. with man in the patriarchal interview, and have you not substantially altered the covenant? The parties to the Abrahamic covenant on man's side, you know, are believers and their seed. Abolish the application of the sign and seal to the seed of the believer, and you throw out of the covenant more than half of its original parties. Whatever may be our cpinion of the matter, we apprehend that both the world above and the world below adjudge this a very serious change in the substance of the covenant.

2. Obligations. You affect the obligations of the parties just as seriously. Obligation relates to two things-the act to be performed, and the moral force which impels to the performance. The Scriptures command all parents to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord; and all children to honor and serve their Maker. The application of the sign and seal of the covenant to the seed of the contractor does not affect the obligation of the parties, so far as respects the services to be rendered. But it greatly augments their obligation, in view both of the kind and of the degree of the moral force which binds to

the duty. Surely God's general word enjoining upon parents the pious education of their children, creates the most solemn obligation. But when God calls the parent before his very face; spreads before him his solemn duty to his children; makes him solemnly swear that he will be faithful; compels him to affix both his signature and his seal to the vow; and finally dismisses him well-assured that he leaves all this upon record in God's house until the day of reckoning,—who will dare to say that such a transaction contributes no additional obligation? Again: When God, as it were by His own hand, writes on the very body of a child a solemn oath-that this person is sacred to God, and that he will serve him foreverere long, when time makes known to his adult years, that it was God Himself who had caused that oath of consecration to be religiously inscribed upon his person,-who will dare to say that the party is, nevertheless, authorized to consider this whole procedure as a senseless formality, and that respect for God does not require him to take the slightest notice of that personal claim to his heart and service so emphatically asserted by the God who made him?

3. Influence. If there is one additional thing important to a covenant, it is this: It should possess dignity enough to influence the parties to do their duty. The application of the token to the children of the Church is well calculated to wield a vast power in securing fidelity to the covenant. That solemn act of all the good men and women of the world, whereby they enter God's house, and there sign and seal, in God's presence, their solemn vow that they will be faithful to their childrenwho can believe that this religious vow will exert no influence over their parental fidelity? That merciful act of God, whereby he meets them with His own signed and sealed pledge of gracious countenance and coöperation in their most arduous, anxious task-who can believe that this sacred pledge will never encourage them in moments of despondency, nor rouse them to renewed prayer and toil when faith had almost failed? Who can believe that the well educated children of the Church will neither feel that their solemn dedication to God by his direction, lays them under obligation to serve Him; nor take encouragement in the hour of honest struggle, from God's formal

pledge of saving assistance? In a word, the application of the token of the covenant to the seed of the pious, levies contribution upon every power of every parent and child of God's Church, and calls out the combined strength of all, through every moment of life, to build up God's kingdom in the world. Assuredly there will be a vast short-coming of universal, adequate response to this appeal, but it is just as certain that this very appeal will secure a vast increase of holy power to the cause of Christ in the world.

And now we expect our brethren, in Christian integrity, to stand by us and say, If there is any one thing in the Abrahamic covenant which is matter of substance, and should stand and be enforced in our day, it is the obligation to do now what God commanded to be done of old, even the infixing of the blessed token of divine adoption upon the child, as well as upon the parent.

Under the administration of early times, such a spectacle was scarcely ever seen in the Church of God, as a parent whose child did not carry the sign of God's covenant of adoption. Whenever such an unhappy object was found, that child was instantly cut off from God's family. But the Abrahamic covenant is the Christian Church. The Abrahamic covenant is in full force. We leave it a question for the consciences of our brethren, How is it that your children are wandering abroad upon the earth without the mark of God's covenant of mercy? How is it that you, as Christian men, have never recorded your vow in the temple of the Lord, to do a parent's part by them?

ARTICLE II.

1. A Hand-book of Astronomy. By DIONYSIUS LARDNER, D. C. L., formerly Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in University College, London. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea. 1854. 2. The Plurality of Worlds. With an introduction by EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D. D., President of Amherst College. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1854.*

3. More Worlds than One, the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian. By SIR DAVID BREWSTER, K. H., D. C. L., F. R. S. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1854.

[The following Article is filled with valuable facts, but the Editors are obliged to acknowledge themselves unconvinced by the argument. They are quite satisfied that, whatever may be the truth in regard to suns and moons, the planets and those bodies occupying analogous positions in other solar systems, are inhabited by rational creatures.

We take this opportunity to say a word or two concerning the relation between religion and science. Truth is always consistent with itself, and Christianity being the highest and purest truth can only be rendered more illustrious by any light that may beam upon it from the far dimmer orb of science. We have never been, in the least, afraid of truth in any sphere. It is our opinion, also, that every department of thought should be carried out in its own appropriate way, and to its legitimate conclusions, there being no danger that truth will clash with truth. Infidelity has had in our times its crude levities and unscientific rejoicings over Christianity demolished, as has been imagined, by natural philosophy and physiology. We, however, while we allow discussion on these subjects, are not responsible for an unsettled geology, an astronomy of mere speculation, or a crude physiology. We regret that the tendency of these studies

*The author has recently published, "A Dialogue on the Plurality of Worlds: being a Supplement to the Essay on that Subject." This work, however, in which the writer replies to the various objections that have been urged against his views, we have not yet received.

« ПредишнаНапред »