ON THE

RULES AND EXAMPLES

FURNISHED BY THE SCRIPTURES

ON THE

SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.

ON THE COVENANT LOVE OF GOD.

GOD has been pleased, from the creation of the world, to make with his people covenants or agreements.

Adam was the first covenant head of his posterity; and in his fall, they all fell likewise. "In Adam all die."

Noah was the next illustrious individual with whom God vouchsafed to make a covenant, and to preserve, not only him, but all his family, on account of his faith. He is commanded to build an ark for the saving of his house, and is directed in these words to enter into it: Gen. vii. 1. "And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy

L

house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."

When God would choose a people from the world unto himself, that he might in a visible manner form a church upon the earth, he called Abram from Ur, of the Chaldees, and promised him, that" in him and in his seed, should all the nations of the earth be blessed." This promise was made not to all his posterity, but to Isaac, and then to his son Jacob, or Israel; and all the blessings run in this line.

Gen. xvii. 7-9. "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 unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God."

"And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations." ver. 19. Nehemiah ix. 7, 8. Acts vii. 5.

Deut. iv. 37, 40. "And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight, with his mighty power out of Egypt. Thou shalt keep, therefore, his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou

mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for ever."

Deut. x. 15. "Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day."

Deut. xxx. 5, 6. “And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it. And he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live."

1 Chron. xvi. 11, 13, 15—17. "Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually.—O ye seed of Israel his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones. Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant.” Psalm cv. 6—10.

Psalm xcviii. 3. "The Lord hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God."

Psalm cxlviii. 14. "He exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him."

Isaiah lxi. 8, 9. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them; and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed."

If

Jer. xxxi. 35-37. "Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar-the Lord of Hosts is his name. those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord, If heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord."

Ezek. xxxvii. 25, 26. “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, and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an everlasting covenant with them."

Acts xiii. 32, 33. "And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same, unto us their children."

These are but a few of the many passages which are scattered up and down the book of God, which declare, in unequivocal language, that God takes pleasure in the families of his people, and will bless them, in manifesting unto them his covenant love. M.

EXAMPLES

FURNISHED BY THE OLD TESTAMENT

OF THE BLESSING ATTENDING THE

RIGHT TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

ISAAC.

THE character of Isaac, the child of promise, forms a prominent feature in the volume of inspiration; indeed the whole book, from the time of his birth, contains nothing else but a history of his posterity, till the promised "seed of the woman" was born; who was descended from him according to the flesh, and in whom "all the families of the earth should be blessed."