THE FAMILY PROMISE.
BY JOSEPH M'CARRELL, D.D.
The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. From the beginning of the creation God has dealt with man as a social being. He made them a male and a female, and the first institution in innocence and in Eden, was marriage. In his dealings with Adam, God deals with the race. He made with them his covenant when he made it with Him. Hence, by the disobedience of one, many were made sinners; in Adam all die. With Noah he made a covenant never to drown the world again by the waters of a flood. This promise belongs to the children of Noah, the human race.
To Abraham, the father of the faithful, the Almighty God said, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." (Gen. 17:7.) In token of this covenant, Abraham was circumcised, and his family, and his posterity, at eight days old. This principle of the ecclesiastical unity of the many, this family, is continued under the new dispensation of the covenant, and distinctly announced in the memorable sermon of Peter, on the day of Pentecost: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." (Acts 2:38, 39.) Accordingly, when Lydia believed she was baptized, and her household; and when the jailor believed he was baptized, he and his, straightway. (Acts 16.) And so clearly was this principle established, that it extends to the children of parents of whom one only is in the covenant; "for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy." (1 Cor. 7:14.) The first mother derived her personal name from this great principle. Under the covenant of works her name is simply the feminine form of the man, אשה the woman, from אש the man. But when, in the awful darkness which followed the fall, the first light broke upon the ruined race, in the grand comprehensive promise, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel," it was promised that she should be the mother of a Savior who should destroy the grand adversary of man, though he himself should suffer in his inferior nature in the eventful conflict. In view of this great honor, that she should be the mother, according to the flesh, of the living Savior, and all that should live by his mediation and grace, Adam called his wife's name Eve, חוה, because she was the mother of all living, חי. (Gen. 3:20.) The family identity, established at the beginning of the dispensation of grace, and continued to the end of divine revelation without the least shadow of change, gives to Christian parents their grand encouragement and constraining motive to seek the salvation of the children whom God hath given them. His former respects, first, themselves, and then their children, as part of themselves. As it is necessary that they should believe the promise to themselves, in order that they may enjoy it; so they must believe the promise respecting their children, in order that the children may enjoy the blessing. And as they must prove the reality of their faith in the promise which respects themselves by their works, so they must prove the reality of their faith in the promise which respects their children by the faithful discharge of the duties which they owe to God in their behalf. Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
A soldier is not trained for the service of his country or the field of battle by a few lectures on the art of war. He must be drilled, practiced, in the very things which he must do upon the field of blood. So the children of believers, who are to take the places of their fathers and mothers in the grand warfare against Satan, the world, and the flesh, must be practiced in these very truths, and graces, and duties which they must labor and do, that they may be saved and be instrumental in extending that kingdom which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, to the end of the earth and to the end of time. Let Christian parents make full proof of the family promise, use it in their prayers at the Throne of grace, cling to it as the anchor of their hope for those who are as dear to them as their own lives, and prove the sincerity of their prayers by unmeasured diligence in instruction and parental authority and influence, and a holy example. It was a high commendation of Abraham, in whose seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed, that He who is the fountain of honor and blessing should say, "I know Abraham, 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 the thing that he hath spoken of him." If you would not that the blood of souls should be found in your skirts at the last day, and that the souls of your own children, plead incessantly the family promise, plead it in faith, approved by diligence and a holy example, not only point the road to heaven, but lead the way. So shall each Christian parent say to the Redeemer, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and admired in all that believe, Here am I, Lord, and the children which thou hast given me. Let children of Christian parents plead the promise made on their behalf. It has kept the true religion from becoming extinct; it will yet fill the earth with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Plead it for yourselves and show your faith in it by giving yourselves up to Emanuel, the great high priest of our profession, as free-will offerings in the day of his power, as his progeny, whom he will adorn with the beauties of holiness, as the dew from the womb of the morning, when reflecting the light of the sun refracts the prismatic colors. Say with David, "I am thy servant, the son of thine handmaid, and therefore belonging to His household, to serve Him, to glorify Him, to enjoy Him forever." But beware, on the peril of your souls, how you abuse your relation to the family of God. Think not in your hearts we have Abraham to our father; make not the holy promise, nor its holy author, a minister of sin, an apology for unbelief and all ungodliness. Wilt thou not at this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth? Hear, believe, plead and obey the gracious word. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring, and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses; one shall say, I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel."