Page images
PDF
EPUB

shall have been answered in that which was temporal, and in the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," the divine mercies of our redeeming God shall be realized in that which is eternal.

22

SERMON II.

THE MOTHER.

GEN. iii. 20.

And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.

IT pleased God to endow Adam with. that peculiar wisdom which fitted him for the office assigned to him, of giving right names, according to their nature and character, to the different animals which the Lord had created. "The Lord God brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to

the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field." (Gen. ii. 19, 20.)

It also pleased God, of his infinite mercy, not to deprive Adam of this same wisdom after his fall. He still, through knowledge given unto him from above, knew the nature of God's wonderful works, and much of God's wonderful ways. That knowledge he fully made manifest in the true and honourable name which he gave unto his wife, in sure trust in the power and goodness of God, calling her "Eve, because," as the name implies, "she was the mother of all living." Twice was the honourable title of MOTHER bestowed upon Eve, whereby the divine mercy and favour towards her who was first in the transgression, were wonderfully manifested; first, as the sole earthly parent of the promised seed, who was to bruise the serpent's head; and then, as "the mother of all living." Eve felt the dignity thus conferred upon her, and in holy rejoicing at the birth of her

first-born son, gratefully acknowledged her peculiar blessedness: "I have gotten a man from the Lord;" an expression capable of the meaning put upon it by many, that she expected that this was the promised deliverer, the seed who should triumph over their great spiritual enemy. But be that as it may, Eve felt the dignity of becoming a mother, and spake of it as a "gift that cometh of the Lord." (Psalm cxxvii. 4.)

Thus, my brethren, I ground my address to you upon the character and duties of THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER, on the dignity and honoured privilege stamped on that relationship in holy writ, in the instance of our first parent," the mother of all living." I will now endeavour to put before you from the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, what should be the feeling in the mother's mind on her becoming a parent: first, in regard to herself, and secondly, in respect to her child.

Her first thought is due to God, and her heart should lift itself up in gratitude for her "safe deliverance in the great danger of child-birth." As of all earthly blessings, so of this, God is the gracious Author and Giver: "God setteth the solitary in families." (Psalm lxviii. 6.) “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children." (Psalm cxiii. 9.) And so powerful a cause of gratitude was this deemed by our Divine Master, that He illustrated another truth by it, and consecrated this mercy as a special call for rejoicing in the Lord: "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." (John xvi. 21.) Thus the general curse becomes an individual blessing. The origin of our sin is indeed marked in the continuance of the curse; but God's providence makes it an ultimate good; a

с

« PreviousContinue »