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ON THE

SUPPORTS AND ENCOURAGEMENTS

AFFORDED

TO CHRISTIAN MOTHERS

IN THE

EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN,

ON GOD'S COVENANT PROMISES.

GOD is wonderfully manifesting himself for the seed of his people at the present day. Pious laymen now have an opportunity of doing almost as much for the advancement of Christ's kingdom as ministers.

For my own children, I desire not to prescribe how, or where, they shall serve God; this I would leave to his wisdom, whether it shall be in heaven or on earth; at home, or at the ends of the earth; as public or as private characters.

But that they may be his servants—this one hope I would press to my bosom till I die. Not because I deserve any blessing, but because nothing is too much to hope from that God, who hath given his only-begotten Son to die for the redemption of

man; and because that work is finished, and he can now glorify himself in our salvation; because he has promised that the Redeemer "shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied;" and because he has declared himself the Covenant God of believers," and of their seed after them.”

I have forfeited all claim to the covenant of his grace a thousand thousand times; nevertheless, "He is mindful of his covenant." Though we change, "He abideth faithful." His purposes of mercy shall prevail, not only in opposition to our numberless sins, but to their utter destruction, if we are his children; and the top-stone of our salvation shall be laid, amidst the shoutings of “Grace, grace unto it!" Here is all my hope for myself, or my children. Mrs. HUNTINGTON.

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WE meet with very glorious promises that God has made to the posterity of the saints, "The Lord will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed." 1 "Fear not Jacob my servant, and thou Jeshurun, whom I have chosen ; will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, and as willows by the water-courses."2 "As for me, this is my covenant

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with them, saith the Lord, My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, from henceforth and for ever." Now, though these promises shall not be made good to every particular person in the church, yet it is the church of God that is the proper subject unto whom they shall be made good, and in an ordinary way they shall be accomplished unto none else: and by nature, one man has no more right to a promise than another, nor ground to expect it; only the covenant of God makes the difference; they are all heirs of the promises, as they are children of the covenant and kingdom.

This is gospel, and therefore to be believed and laid hold upon, as well as any other part of the second covenant; for a believer in the exercise of his faith is to take in the whole covenant, as in the obedience of faith he is to take in the whole commandment. A man's faith, if it be sincere, must be universal, as well as his obedience: that this is gospel and a gospel promise, we suppose no man will deny, "I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed." 2 Now how does the Lord become the God of the parents? It is only by covenant, and so he is said to be the God of the Lord Jesus Christ; he saith, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God.'

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Isa. lix. 21.

2 Gen. xvii. 7.

3 John xx. 17.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" i It is spoken with reference unto the covenant into which Christ had entered with the Lord. Now being the parents' God in covenant, he says he will be the God of their seed, that is, their's in covenant also. We may observe that God hath revealed this as gospel, and also that the people of God have exercised their faith upon it as gospel, in the behalf of their children.

STRONG.

BETTER MOMENTS.

My mother's voice!-how often creeps
Its cadence on my lonely hours;
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer,
While leaping pulses madly fly,
But in the still unbroken air

Her gentle tone comes stealing by,
And years, and sin, and manhood flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.

The book of nature, and the print

Of beauty, on the whispering sea,
Give aye to me, some lineament
Of what I have been taught to be.

1 Matt. xxvii. 46.

My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drank up tears;
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years ;
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.

I have been out at eventide

Beneath a moonlight sky of spring, When earth was garnished like a bride, And night had on her silver wing; When bursting leaves, and diamond grass, And waters leaping to the light,

And all that makes the pulses pass

With wilder fleetness thro' the night;

When all is beauty-then have I,

With friends on whom my love is flung, Like Myrrh on wings of Araby,

Gaz'd up where evening's lamp is hung; And when the beautiful spirit there Flung over me its golden chain, My mother's voice came on the air, Like the light dropping of the rain,

And rested on some silver star,

The spirit of a bended knee;

I've poured her low and fervent prayer,
That our eternity might be,

To rise in heaven, like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light!

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