THIRD NIGHT.
“Are you ready now?” said little Emma, coming skipping into her grandmother’s room. “I have just finished learning my verses in Romans, and I so weary to hear about some more Scripture doctrines.”
“I am quite ready,” said her grandmamma; “but it would make me happy, before I begin, to hear you repeat whatever verses you have been committing to memory to‐night.”
So saying, Emma stood by her grandmother’s chair, and, without a mistake, repeated from the 10th to the 15th verse of the eighth chapter of Romans. The last one was this, “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!”
“I am happy, my dear child,” said old Mrs Allan, “that these have been your verses to‐night, as they refer to the very subject I should like now to speak to you about.
“You remember what I explained to you last Sabbath?”
“Yes, grandmamma,” said Emma. “It was about Justification. God the Great Judge trying the sinner at His bar, and sending him away freely forgiven for the sake of Christ.”
|Of Adoption.| “You are right, my dear; and we are now going to speak about Adoption. I wonder if you know what that is.”
“Oh, no. I have often wondered what that word can mean, and I long to hear from you.”
|Difference between Justification and Adoption.| “Well, then, my child, as in Justification God acts as a Judge, so in Adoption God acts as a Father.”
“How I should like to hear about this, grandmamma! There is something terrible about the thought of a Judge; but there is nothing but love and joy in the thought of a Father!”
|Of our State by Nature.| “It is true, my dear,” said her grandmother; “but by nature none of us are in the family of God; we are called ‘children of wrath;’ ‘children of the devil;’ ‘enemies!’ God puts a very solemn and striking question about us—‘How shall I set thee among the children?’ He sees that we are such poor miserable sinners, that if He had dealt with us as we have deserved for our sins, we should have been for ever ‘children of wrath!’”
“What, then, could have made God adopt us into His family?” said little Emma.
|Difference between Man’s Adoption and God’s.| “This, my child,” replied the other, “is the thing in which God’s Adoption differs from man’s. When a man takes a little orphan child into his house, and is kind to it, and brings it up as his own, it is because of something attractive, and lovely, and engaging in the child. I knew an old gentleman who saw a lovely little boy with golden locks, and he was so struck with his beauty, he would never part with him, but brought him up as his own son. But how different is it with us and God! The Bible represents sinners as lying all filthy and vile in the open field; so vile, that none would look at them, ‘all passed them by!’ But God came, lifted them up, and said unto them, ‘Live!’ ‘I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters.’ What, my dear Emma, would you call this act of God in Adoption?”
|Adoption all of Grace.| “Oh, I would say,” said her little hearer, “that it is the same as with Justification. It is an ‘act of God’s free grace’—that is to say, that there was nothing about us to make God love us, or be kind to us, and that it was all of His own great and wonderful kindness and mercy in Christ Jesus!”
“You are right, my darling; and do you remember the name of an aged disciple of Jesus who delighted more than all the rest to speak of God’s love? And perhaps you remember, too, what he says about this adopting love of God?”
“Oh, yes,” said Emma; “I think that will be the text Mr R. was preaching from last month:—‘Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!’ But, dear |When Adoption takes place.| grandmamma,” continued she, “you told me last Sabbath that Justification takes place in this world, whenever the sinner believes in Jesus. It cannot surely be that this great honour of being children of God, and adopted into His family, can begin on earth?”
“Yes, dear child, it does,” said her grandmother. “Justification and Adoption are just different names for one great act. God, as I said, is represented in the one as a Judge, in the other as a Father. I don’t know if Mr R. |The Apostle John’s Testimony.| took the next verse in that beautiful chapter along with his text. If he did so, it will tell you when the believer is adopted, and can call God his Father.”
Little Emma quickly turned up her Bible, and read as follows:—“Beloved, now are we the sons of God!”
“You see, my child,” continued the old lady, “when this act of fatherly love takes place; it is ‘now;’ and if my dear little Emma loves the Lord Jesus, she can now look up to the Great God, and say, ‘He is my Father;’ and to Jesus, and say, ‘He is my Elder Brother!’”
“How kind in God,” said Emma, with the tear in her eye, “to love sinners so much, and deal with them so tenderly! I think this, too, explains my favourite story in the gospel—does it not, grandmamma?”
|Our Lord’s Parable about Adoption.| “I remember now what your favourite is,” said the other, after thinking a moment; “it is the Prodigal Son; and you are very right; there is no portion of the Bible which speaks more beautifully of God’s adopting love. You remember, at the very same moment that God forgave the Prodigal, He ordered ‘the ring to be put on his finger’ (the ring of adoption); and He calls him, ‘This, my son!’”
“Oh! I shall love to read that parable more than ever,” said Emma. “I don’t think any earthly father would have been so kind to an ungrateful son. But you often tell me that ‘God’s ways are not as man’s ways;’ and it is surely so in this.
|Evidences of Adoption.| “But how can I know, dear grandmamma, whether I am a child of God? I would feel as if I was richer and happier than the richest in the world, and greater than earthly kings or queens, if I could be sure that the Great God was my Father, and that I was His child.”
“That is a very natural question, my dear, and I shall do what I can to answer you. Let me ask you another question. What are your feelings towards your earthly parents?”
|Love of God.| “I love them,” said Emma, “very much; I try to do what they bid me, and I am always unhappy when I do anything that vexes or hurts them.”
|Hatred of Sin.| “It is the very same, my dear,” said her grandmother, “with the children of God. If you are really a child of God, you will love Him, and try to do all His will, and be unhappy whenever you sin against Him or displease Him.”
“I will tell you another thing, grandmamma,” interrupted the little girl; “I am never happy when I am far away from my father, or when my father is far away from me. Sometimes he has to go away for many days to a distance, and I so weary for his coming back. I think and speak of him all the day long; and once I remember, when I was a week away at aunt Fanny’s, I so longed to get back again to be with him.”
|Filial Nearness.| “Well, dear child, you have just given another mark by which you may know if you are a child of God. Do you love your Heavenly Father’s presence? Do you love prayer, |Prayer.| which brings you always near Him? and are you always unhappy when you forget prayer, which drives you away from God; or commit sin, which drives God away from you?”
“Oh, yes, dear grandmamma, I think I can say I am; but then, I often sin, and I fear”——
“Stop, my dear child,” said the old lady. “Remember, it is a great cause of grief to the true child of God, that the power of sin is so strong in his heart, and that the devil is so often tempting him.”
“But,” exclaimed Emma, “does not the Bible say, ‘We cannot sin, because we are born of God’?”
|How the Child of God “cannot sin.”| “Yes, my child, you are correct; but I must tell you the real meaning of that verse, so that you may not be cast down by supposing it asks what you cannot give. That verse means, that God’s children cannot go on in a course of sin. They cannot love sin, and continue in sin; but it does not mean that their lives are so perfectly holy that they never can know what it is to have a bad heart and wicked thought. Alas! this never can be, till the adopted children of God get safe into their Father’s house in heaven!”
“Oh! how I wish,” said Emma, “I could love this kind Heavenly Father more than I have ever yet done; and hate sin more and more every day!——I am afraid, dear grandmamma, I tire you with my questions; but I have just one more to ask to‐night, and then I shall go to bed. You often speak of it being our duty to ‘fear God.’ Now, how should we fear a God that you have just been telling me to love?”
|What it is to “fear” God in Adoption.| “I do not wonder, my child, at your question. But there are two kinds of fear; the wicked ‘fear’ God as an awful Judge; they fear Him—that is, they are afraid of Him, and tremble to think of His hatred of sin, and His judgment day. But the children of God ‘fear’ their Heavenly Father in another sense; they ‘fear’ to offend Him. It is because they love Him so very much, that they are afraid of doing anything that would displease Him. The wicked man’s fear is what the Bible calls ‘the fear that hath torment.’ The other is the fear, and reverence, and godly awe of ‘perfect love.’
“Good‐night, then, my dear,” said the kind old lady, kissing her little scholar. “I love you much as an earthly parent; but your Heavenly Father loves you more. When you go down on your knees to pray to Him to‐night, think of that sweet verse in Jer. iii. 4, ‘My Father! thou art the guide of my youth!’
“You will not know all the wonders of the subject I have been speaking about to‐night till the gracious Heavenly Father who adopts you opens to you the gates of His own palace in glory, and when, taking you by the hand, and shewing you all the unsearchable riches which Jesus has purchased for you, He will say, ‘My child! thou art ever with me; and all that I have IS THINE!’”