their lip to the sound of that hateful mono- boys and girls are no comfort to their parents. syllable of refusal, and say, No. Some feelings are to mortals given, From passion's dross refined and clear, It would not stain an angel's cheek, it must be that tear which starts into the eye of boy and girl, when their heart feels the sudden throb of filial impulse. But oh, how melancholy, if, when obedience is asked, that eye should quickly lose its moisture, and glisten in wilful and wicked defiance, or refusal of a parent's orders. The apostle then comprehended love, veneration, and honour-all that a child owes its parents, when he said, "Children obey your parents." If they love them with a genuine heart, that love will prove its own living glory, and they will obey them. If they hold their sires in reverence, they will not and cannot slight their injunctions, but will exhibit a docile and cordial spirit of obedience. And what duty so immediately recommends itself to a Christian child as this? Natural instinct prompts to it. By what soft and powerful ties are not children bound | to the authors of their being? If they would but think for a moment on the years of helpless infancy through which the ceaseless care and nursing of parental love has led them; how the cradle of their sickness was watched with sleepless anxiety; how there was ever a voice to soothe, and a hand to support them; and how in a thousand nameless forms their wants and weaknesses were alike responded to, surely they would feel that obedience was a duty which needed no formal enforcement for it grew up unconsciously out of the daily and hallowed relations of the family circle. What child can look in its father's face, as that face beams upon it in dignified complacency, and say, No, to any request? What child can gaze into the affectionate and holy lustre of a mother's eye, and harden itself to refuse obedience? But what is the nature of this obedience? 1. It must be cheerful. That is to say, it must spring from love-out of the deep and unpolluted well of filial love. Forced or feigned compliance is very provoking to parents. When a child puts on a sulky face, and tosses its head, and mutters all the while to itself as it does what it is bidden-such obedience is almost as loathsome as direct rebellion. The merry light of a child's countenance should never be eclipsed in any of its acts of obedience. Grumbling and self-willed The language of a child's heart should always be-"I'll do this which I am commanded, ay, and much more-glad I am to be asked to do it, just to show in what unspeakable esteem and affection I hold my dear parents." 2. This obedience must be prompt. Children are not to be ever making excuses, and alleging that they are engaged, and pleading off from obeying, in the mean time, a parental injunction. The moment of command ought to be that of compliance. No pretence or procrastination-no affectation of wonder that your parents could order you to do this or that, when they surely must have seen you so busy and occupied. This conduct is trifling with the sacredness of parental authority. Let your obedience be spontaneous. Never need either to be coaxed or threatened into duty. Let your eager minds sagely anticipate what is expected from you. By all means do not lounge about and debate with yourselves whether you ought to obey or not. It is, a shame in children to seek to modify or beat down the parental command, in order that they may lazily render the smallest possible amount of service. When there is genuine affection in a young Christian heart, such reluctance and dilatory obedience will never be dreamed of. 3. This obedience should be uniform. The obligation to obey is not of occasional influence, it always lies upon children. There are some children who have pettish tempers, and sour all around them by their unworthy fits of periodical insubordination. They have crises of fretful rebellion, when nothing pleases them and nothing appears worthy of being obeyed. These exhibitions should be carefully avoided. A parent's will has a continuous and unimpaired sacredness; and such children as I have described spoil the charm of their past good conduct by their froward periods of sullen and refractory misdemeanor. Your obedience should not be like the tropical well, which, in certain seasons, is dry, dusty, and full of bitter disappointment to the traveller, but like one of our own streams— calm, clear, and steady in the flow of its perennial and refreshing waters. 4. Obedience must be universal. It is captious and whimsical on the part of a son or daughter to make any selection among the parental precepts, to obey some and pass over others with oblivion and disregard. All the commands of father and mother rest upon the same basis; and every one of them is of equal sacredness. Some children will do this, and not do that, merely because their humour inclines them the one way and not the other. This arbitrary procedure is an index to deep selfishness, for it shows their anxiety not to please their parents, but to consult Children and gratify their own caprice. must not make conditions of obedience; but must obey simply because they are told to obey. It is enough that the parent wills it. He may give no reasons; but such ought to be your faith in a parent's wisdom and love, that, without hesitation, you submit. The only limitation is that specified in the last clause of the verse, and by the words "in the Lord." It is to be religious obedience. Parents are not to enjoin anything contrary to the law of God: as in that case children are bound to refuse compliance. It is of Christian parents and children the apostle speaks; and so he does not take time to point out any exceptions. But if parents bid their children steal, or lie, or break the Lord's day, the good child will humbly, but firmly, say,-"Nay;" or adopt the words of Joseph,-"How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The phrase "in the Lord," marks the circle within which all parental command, and all filial obedience should be confined; and in what spirit the sceptre should be swayed on the one hand, and loyalty exhibited on the other. The apostle adds, "for this is right." The apostle means, that the obedience of children is, to use a common phrase, a right thing in itself. It is not based on expediency; but it has its source in the very nature of that relation which subsists between parents and children. Why, the very name of "parents and children” points out the origin and reason for filial duty. This is the meaning of the word, as seen in Matthew xx. 4-7. Filial compliance is an obligation independent of all accidental. circumstances, and even of any formal and express enactment. It is felt to be an immutable law of nature among the heathen; and, indeed, over the world. "It is right;" -and it is seen to be right: for not only does instinct claim it, but religion enjoins, and the Son of God exemplified it. Jesus was “ subject to his own parents"-was in every respect a dutiful child- -was an example in this, as in every other feature of his character -and when he was suspended on the cross, amidst the excruciating agonies of a painful and shameful death, and with a terrible pressure of Divine wrath on his pure and susceptible spirit, he commended to the care of the beloved disciple his aged and widowed mother, who stood by him bathed in maternal tears. SUNDAY. O DAY most calm, most bright, The fruit of this, the next world's bud, The indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a Friend, and with his blood; The couch of time, care's balm and bay; The week were dark, but for thy light: Thy torch doth show the way. The other days and thou Make up one man; whose face thou art, Knocking at heav'n with thy brow; The worky-days are the back part; The burden of the week lies there, Making the whole to stoop and bow Till thy release appear. Man had straight forward gone To endless death; but thou dost pull And turn us round, to look on one, Whom, if we were not very dull, We could not choose but look on still; Since there is no place so alone, The which he doth not fill. Sundays the pillars are, On which heaven's palace arched lies: The Sundays of man's life, This day my Saviour rose, Who want herbs for their wound. The Rest of our creation Our great Redeemer did remove As Samson bore the doors away, Christ's hands, tho' nail'd, wrought our salvation, The brightness of that day Thou art a day of mirth: And, where the week-days trail on ground, HERBERT. SPARKLETS AND PEARLS. It is an excellent remark of Antoninus, the great Roman emperor and philosopher, that "no man was ever unhappy for not prying into the actions and conditions of other men; but that man is necessarily unhappy who doth not observe himself, and consider the state of his own soul." THERE can be no doubt but that everything in the world, by the beauty of its order, and the evidence of a determinate and beneficial purpose which pervades it, testifies that some supreme efficient power must have pre-existed, by which the whole was ordained for a specific end.-Milton. WHEN the afflicted pray with fervour, they sometimes feel an unexpected calm pervade their souls; doubtless God comes more particularly to give peace to those whose confiding spirit has claimed his pity. -Draz. IF the tree do not bud and blossom, and bring forth fruit in the spring, it is commonly dead all the year after; if in the spring and morning of your days, you do not bring forth fruit to God, it is a hundred to one that ever you bring forth fruit to him, when the evil days of old age shall overtake you, wherein you shall say, you have no pleasure.Brooks. Ir is no unusual thing with God to suffer his own dear children to be inwrapped in the common calamities of offenders. He makes a difference in the use and issue of their stripes, not in the infliction. The corn is cut down with the weeds, but to a better purpose.-Bp. Hall. NOTHING can be very ill with us when all is well within we are not hurt till our souls are hurt. If the soul itself be out of tune, outward things will do us no more good than a fair shoe to a gouty foot.Sibs. NEITHER fears nor favours can tempt the holily resolute: they can trample upon dangers and honour with a careless foot.-Bp. Hall. TRUST God and be doing, and let him alone with the rest. Sibs. THE worst man may grieve for his smart: only the good heart grieves for his offence.—Bp. Hall. MANY a one works for the church of God that hath yet no part in it.-Bp. Hall. WHAT we are afraid to do before men, we should be afraid to think before God.-Sibs. How opportunely hath God provided succours for our distresses! It is his glory to begin when we have given over; that our relief might be so much the more welcome, by how much it is less looked for.-Bp. Hall. THOUGH death be before the old man's face, yet he may be as near the young man's back.-Brooks. He is too covetous whom God cannot suffice: he hath all things that hath him that hath all things. -Bridge. GOOD Council is never the worse for the foul car riage: there are some dishes of which we may eat, even from sluttish hands.-Bp. Hall. It is a matter of faith not to trust to that which the eye seeth, but that which the word promiseth.— Luther. AMONG many things that Beza in his last will and testament gave God thanks for, this was the first and chief, that he at the age of sixteen years had called him to the knowledge of the truth, and so prevented many sins and sorrows that otherwise would have overtaken him, and have made his life less happy, and more miserable. Young saints often prove old angels, but old sinners seldom prove good saints.-Brooks. THERE is no child that would be scourged if he might escape for crying.-Bp. Hall. THE whole world cannot weigh against this one comfort, that God is ours.-Sibs. No man dare ask of God so much as he is ready and willing to give.-Luther. So doth God love a good choice, that he reeompenses it with overgiving.-Bp. Hall. God most ready to help.-Luther. GOD draweth straight lines, but we think and call them crooked.-Rutherford. THERE is no more certain way to glory and advancement, than a lowly dejection of ourselves. How will our gracious God lift up our heads with true honour, before men and angels, if we can be sincerely humbled in his sight!-Bp. Hall. As a copy is then safest from blotting, when dust is put upon it; so are we from sinning, when in the time of our youth, we remember we are but dust.-gifts were sent unto him, sent them all back again, I HAVE read of one Myrognes, who when great Brooks. SINFUL man is not only blind, but is in love with his blindness; he boasts that he sees when he is most of all blind, and with all his might resists that true light, which by the works of Divine Providence, by the word of God, and some sparkling beams of the Spirit, most kindly offers itself.-Witsius. saying, I only desire one thing at your master's hand, to pray for me, that I may be saved for eternity.-Brooks. to a house, it is not easily swept out.-Bp. Hall. WHERE the father of a family brings sin home THE Christian doctrine is that Divine revelation I HAVE read of a devout man who when he heard known under that name in the beginning,) concerndisclosed to all ages by Christ, (though he was not a clock strike, would say, Here is an hour pasting the nature and worship of the Deity, for the that I have to answer for.-Brooks. By the death of Christ we are greatly stirred up, both to a caution against, and a detestation of sin: for that must needs be deadly which could be healed no other way than by the death of Christ. Who therefore, seriously considering that his sins could be no other way expiated than by the death of the Son of God himself, would not tremble to tread as it were this most precious blood under-foot by daily sinning?-Bp. Davenant. GRACE withereth without adversity.-Owen. promotion of the glory of God and the salvation of mankind.-Milton. that we can never say, that he who neglects to So many accidents may deprive us of our lives, secure his salvation to-day, may without danger put it off till to-morrow.-Archpb. Wake. LONDON: Printed by ROBERT NEEDHAM, 9, Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster-Row; and Published at the Office of "Sunday Reading for Christian Families," 8, Amen-Corner, Paternoster-Row. No. 7.] FOR CHRISTIAN FAMILIES. CONDUCTED BY JOHN KITTO, D.D., F.S.A. FOR SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 1853. FRONTLETS AND DOOR-POSTS. DEUTERONOMY VI. VER. 1, 2. These two verses are to be taken in connection with the two last verses of the preceding chapter; and their collective import is, that having received the Divine ordinances under the highest and most solemn sanctions, the Israelites were now bound to keep them with the most exact ob servance. [PRICE 2d. In habit of wearing certain ornaments upon the forehead and on the arm, and that Moses refers to these in the first expression here adduced. But the sense of this allusion must, it is apprehended, depend very much upon the fact whether these ornaments were or were not of an inoffensive character. this way the people of the East are at present much in the habit of wearing articles' superstitiously as charms and amulets, sometimes in the form of jewelry, and at other Ver. 3-5. Moses now tells them, that the times in the shape of lines or sentences, with essential substance and spirit of all these certain superstitious figures and symbols, ordinances was,-that they should acknow-written on scrolls or embroidered on linen. ledge the undivided sovereignty of Jehovah, If such were in use among the Hebrews, it and devote to him their best affections. The Jews regard these words, and those that follow, to the tenth verse, with singular veneration, under the impression seemingly that the term "these words" applies more particularly to the immediate text than to the general discourse. They write them upon vellum made of the skin of a clean animal; they bear them upon their persons; and they recite them every day with much reverence in a clean place. Thus used, they regard them as a most powerful preservative against all kinds of calamities. In short, they make “a charm" of this portion of Scripture. Ver. 6-9. The sacred injunctions furnished lessons, which they ought to keep continually before their own minds, and teach with assiduous diligence to their children. This is enforced in the remarkable language, "Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand; and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates." It has been questioned whether these words are to be taken as figurative expressions or as positive injunctions. We incline to the former opinion, apprehending that the allusions are founded upon usages then existing among the Hebrews, and the like of which are still found among Eastern nations. We may suppose that they were then in the VOL. I. is conceivable that Moses meant to supersede them by directing these precepts to be worn instead. But if no such motive was present, that is, if the articles to which he refers were simply ornamental, we should take the allusion to be merely figurative. The Jews, however, have interpreted these words literally from very early ages: but we think not from the earliest ages; for we find no distinct mention, until we come to the New Testament, of the customs which this interpretation must have created, had its date been contemporary with the injunction; and we know that after the captivity many new customs came to be introduced, in order to illustrate or enforce what was then conceived to be the literal meaning of the law. The same observations apply to writing on the posts of the house and of the gates, which may be fairly taken to imply that inscriptions upon doors were well known to the Israelites as a custom of the nations with which they were acquainted. In fact, we know this to have been the case. For we find from the monuments of Egypt that not only was the name of the owner of a house frequently inscribed upon the lintel, but that a lucky sentence was often written over the entrance for a favourable omen. It is, indeed, at this day usual in Mahommedan countries, for sacred sentences, being texts from the G Koran, &c., to be painted upon or wrought in stucco over the entrances of private houses and public buildings, and even to display them in ornamental scrolls in the interior of apartments. And this, although it may seem to us trivial, forms a mode of instruction or of remembrance not to be despised in countries where printing does not exist, and where, consequently, every single copy of a work is the produce of long time and toil, which must be paid for in the price for which it is sold: books are thus necessarily scarce and costly luxuries-in fact, not accessible but to the wealthy, as was the case in Europe before the invention of printing, through which the Lord, who wields the thought and skill of man as the tools of his hand, has bestowed so many and such inestimable benefits on the modern nations of the West. Ver. 10-19. They were soon by the favour of their Divine Sovereign to be established in the possession of the long-promised home of their fathers, where they would be open to the dangers of communication with idolaters, after their long seclusion in the wilderness; but under the temptations to which they would there be exposed, the fear of his righteous displeasure, and the hope of his approbation, should be powerful motives to hold them to their fealty to him. The consideration he presents to them-a people hitherto dwelling in tents in the wilderness, that they should enter into the possession of goodly cities that they builded not," and of "houses full of all good things, which they filled not," may remind us that the Israelites had no distinctive or peculiar style of custom or usage in these matters. They entered a land already settled, and found more cities and houses than they could themselves for a long time occupy. They had not, therefore, any need to build or to construct, and when at length they came to this necessity, they had long been habituated to things as they found them in the land they had conquered, and necessarily constructed cities, built houses, digged wells, planted vineyards, after the manner of the previous inhabitants. In all these respects there was nothing peculiar to the Hebrews, as some have supposed. Ver. 20-25. The close of this chapter repeats, in different terms, the injunctions with which it commences,-of impressing the Lord's ordinances, and the facts of their already illustrious history, upon the minds of their children, by every means which the living conviction of their supreme importance might suggest. THE TWOFOLD TESTIMONY. THE usual way whereby Christians come to be assured of their regeneration, is by the joint testimony, both of marks and signs of grace, and also by the Spirit's witnessing to us that these marks and signs are in us. The Word and the Spirit are the twinlights that discover to us our condition. And as mariners presage to themselves a prosperous voyage when two lights, Castor and Pollux, appear; but a dangerous voyage, if only one appears: so here it is unsafe, in the trial of our regeneration, to take up with one single solitary light; but when both the light of Scripture marks and signs, and also of the Spirit's witnessing, appear together, we may then prosperously and happily proceed to a discovery of ourselves. So, (Romans viii. 16,) "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." To evidence that we are born again, there comes in a twofold witness: the witness of our spirits, and the witness of God's Spirit. Our spirit deposeth that we are so, that we are born again, and become the children of God; and this it doth, by observing the proper marks and characters that the Scripture gives of a child of God: and the Spirit of God comes in as another witness, that, in the mouth of two witnesses, this may be established; and by his immediate light, clears up the truth of that attestation that conscience did make; which takes away all doubtings and hesitancies, and fills us with a full assurance; yea, gives us a plerothy. So that, still, marks and signs are of great use for the discovery of the truth of grace. (1 John ii. 3.) By this we do "know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." But, still, we may be puzzled to know whether our keeping God's commandments be such a ground for our comfort; therefore the witness of the Spirit is here required to seal and confirm this unto us; without which, still, we shall be to seek assurance for all the marks that the Scripture lays down for evidences of our graces.BP. HOPKINS. PHYLACTERIES. AFTER the Jews had returned from Babylon, finding that all the calamities they had endured were in consequence of their not having kept the law of Moses as they ought, they determined to fulfil it to the very letter; |