sayed every other means of pacifying the broils of nations, or soothing the irritations of families and individuals, cast also this trouble at the feet of the Redeemer, and ask from God the remedy which the skill and power of man is not able to bestow! May a spirit of forbearance be diffused more largely amongst us! May every professor of the religion of the Cross carry about with him, as it were, an atmosphere of love! Into whatsoever house he enters, may he say, "Peace be to this house;" and may every heart feel the influence of the benediction! We live, my brethren, in the midst of an irritable and jarring world. It is our bounden duty to labour, in the name and in the power of the God of love, to show that we are His servants who "maketh men to be of one mind in an house."

SERMON XIV.

THE FATHER OF A FAMILY.

GEN. xviii. 19.

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 spoken of him.

WHEN Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, in the heat of the day, three angels appeared to him in human form. At once, with the simplicity of those ancient days, he arises, and entreats them to rest awhile, and bathe their feet, and partake of the hospitality of his tent. After the meal is finished, they ask for Sarah; and, having conveyed to her the promises of the Lord with regard to herself and her family, they proceed to the fulfilment of the office with which they were charged: "they turned their faces from thence, and went towards Sodom."

It was at this time that the Lord, about to empty the vials of his wrath upon the devoted Cities of the Plain, resolves to unfold his intention to his favoured servant. "And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?" Then comes the text, in which the motive is assigned why it pleased the Lord to make this remarkable revelation

to him: Shall I hide these things from Abraham?... "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 Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

This testimony to the patriarch Abraham, considered as the head and father of a family, I propose, in dependence on the Divine blessing, to examine to-day. And in so doing, I shall consider,

I. TO WHOM, as the head of a family, HIS IN

STRUCTIONS WERE DIRECTED.

II. What was THE NATURE OF THESE INSTRUC TIONS; and,

III. The BLESSING PRONOUNCED upon them.

I. I am to consider to WHOM, AS THE HEAD AND FATHER OF A FAMILY, THE INSTRUCTIONS OF ABRAHAM WERE ADDRESSED.-It is said," he will command his children and his household after him."

1. In the first place, then, his attentions were directed to his "children."-How widely different are the points in the character and conduct of individuals, which engage the attention of God and that of his poor erring creatures! If the worldly historian wishes to exalt any particular individual, he searches for some quality or action of public notoriety and splendour, and blazons it in the pages of his narration. In like manner, the artist seizes the object of his art in some moment of distinction and triumph, and displays him to us in the act of slaughtering an enemy, or subduing an empire. But what is the quality and practice which it pleases the Lord to record and celebrate in the conduct of his servant? "I know him," that he will be a tender and watchful parent; an anxious and devout guardian of that family which I have committed unto him. And the whole volume of Scripture breathes the same spirit. The tenderness of parental feeling is often chosen to

describe the disposition of God himself towards the children of men; and no language is thought too strong to condemn the absence of such a feeling, or the neglect of the duties which are associated with it. Listen, for instance, to the awful threats denounced against Eli, for a want of vigorous resistance to the profligacy of his children: "I will judge his house, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." Listen, also, to the expressive language in which these family duties are enforced upon every professed servant of God: "Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children; and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." The picture presented to us in the text teaches the same lesson with the more direct precepts on the subject. Behold the patriarch. To what employment does he retire from his public duties ?-to the instruction of the family with which a Gracious Providence had surrounded him. There it is, that, with assiduous affection, he urges on the great work of their edification, and growth in grace and love. Regarding the division of society into families, and the instinctive love of parent and child as provisions mercifully designed to secure for the young the guardianship of the more mature and enlightened, he enters upon this interesting duty; and strives to fence off, as it were, from the waste of human existence, that portion of the vineyard of the Lord which is assigned to him. -And, my Christian brethren, if there is a spectacle more terrible than another, to a mind taking its conceptions of right and wrong, of good and evil, from the only infallible standard, the book of God, it is that of a parent forgetful of these high duties, and, by his negligence or corrupt example, hanging the mill-stone of impenitence round the neck of his child, and so plunging it in the depths of perdition. We could not persuade ourselves, after the example of the poor hea

then, to cast the fruit of our loins to the monster of the forest, or to the bird of the air; to abandon him to starvation or nakedness, while we had bread to eat or raiment to put on: "but, alas! are not many starving the souls of their children-robbing them of the robe of a Saviour's righteousness-and, at the best, so trifling with their eternal interests that they may justly expect the offspring of their bosom to arise in the presence of the Great Judge, and curse the authors of their existence, as the instruments of their eternal ruin.

2. But, secondly, under this head, it is said of Abraham, that he would command his "household” also to "keep the way of the Lord."-Love to our children, if this love does not extend itself from them to all others with whom God has brought us into connexion, it is to be feared is little better than a species of enlarged selfishness. Among the most interesting and important of these alliances, is that of the master with the servant. If servitude be considered merely as an arrangement of society, which binds one man slavishly to do the will of another at a certain fixed stipend; far from finding any thing in such an arrangement which interests and gratifies the mind, there is much to revolt and offend it. But if servitude be regarded as that arrangement of society by which, as the servant is bound to promote the bodily ease and comfort of the master, so the master is bound to promote the spiritual welfare of the servant; no appointment can be better calculated to improve the condition of mankind, and to promote the glory of God. In this case it becomes a scheme by which the extreme classes of society are brought together upon terms of reciprocal comfort and advantage; by which a man pays, with the strength of his body, for the benefit of his soul; and those who most need to learn are brought under the close superintendence of those who, from their external circumstances, are best qualified to teach. And this is evidently the true notion of Christian servitude.

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