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to us and our seed after us? Is he ready not only to make us joint heirs with Christ to all the riches of his everlasting kingdom; but also to bestow the blessings of his covenant upon our children? And are not our hearts affected by his condescension and his goodness? Can we slight his grace? Can we despise his merey Can we be so ungrateful to God, so wanting, in affectionate concern for the eternal welfare of those who are our own flesh and blood ?

?

Some of us indeed are under the most solemn vows. We have sworn to the Lord that we will be his people, and that we will educate our children for him. Can we then go back? Can we prove faithless and false to our sacred engagements? Can we dishonour our God bring reproach upon his covenant, and leave our children exposed to have our iniquities judicially visited upon them! Our children as well as ourselves, are born for eternity. This world shall pass away, the heavens shall be rolled together like a scroll, the fabric of the universe shall be dissolved but our children will exist in happiness or in misery, in the realms of light or in the regions of darkness, when the earth and the heavens that now are shall be no more. They are here committed to our care to be trained up with reference to their eternal state. As we are faithful or unfaithful, we may be instrumental to their eternal bliss or to their eternal wo! How glorious on the one hand, how dreadful on the other, is this thought! O my brethren, can we trifle with concerns of this infinite moment!-We must meet our children at the bar of God. We must appear with them in the presence of assembled worlds, to give an account of the manner in which we have performed our duty to them, to our final Judge. Can we endure the thought of seeing them on the left hand? Of bearing their doom pronounced in that dreadful sentence, " Depart from me ye cursed" Can we endure the thought of having it appear that through our unfaithfulness our children. have perished forever? My brethren, by all that is tender in the name of parents, by all that is sacred in the vows of the covenant.-by all that is interesting in the riches of divine grace; by the value of our children as immortal beings, by the joys of heaven, and by the woes of hell, let us be incited, seriously and earnestly to at

tend to this subject, and bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Nor let it be thought that this is less important for those who are not in covenant with God and his people than for those who are. Your souls my dear people, are all precious, the souls of your children are all precious, infinitely precious; the gracious language of God to you all is, "Incline your ear and come unto me and I will make an everlasting covenant with you even the sure mercies of David." Hear then every one of you. Come yourselves, bring your children with you into the covenant of our God. Come parents, come children, and receive the blessing, even life for evermore.

Remark. We are too apt to forget our actual dependance on Providence, for the circumstances of every instant. The most trivial events may determine our state in the world. Turning up one street instead of another may bring us into company with a person whom we should not otherwise have met; and this may lead to a train of other events, which may determine the happiness or misery of our lives.-Cécil.

MR. EDITOR,

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I Have often thought, and still think, that curiosity, and love of novelty are among the most powerful principles of the human mind. We are all fond of a scene almost endlessly varied. May not editors take advantage of these principles of the human mind to promote more eminently the interest of that portion of the com munity to whom they devote their labour? And would it be consistent with your plan to insert in your pages fictitious narratives, written something in the manner of Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life Instruction conveyed through such a medium takes more powerful hold of the youthful mind, than if given through almost any other. You can give me an answer in the manner you think proper, and oblige, Yours respectfully, B. Y. We agree with B. Y. in these views, and shall be happy to receive able communications written in the style of Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life.-Edit.

Love is a Flower in Grace.—Written by SwAIN

THE finest flower that ever blow'd,

Open'd on Calvary's tree;
When Jesus's blood in rivers flow'd,
For love of worthless me!

Its deepest hue, its richest smell,
No mortal can declare;

Nor can the tongues of angels tell
How bright the colours are.

Earth could not hold so rich a flower,

Nor half its beauties show;

Nor could the world and Satan's power
Confine its sweets below.

On Canaan's banks, supremely fair,
This flower of glory blooms;
Transplanted to its native air,

And all the shores perfumes...

But not to Canaan's shores confined;
The seeds which from it blow
Take root within the human mind,
And scent the Church below.

6`ginals And soon on yonder banks above

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Blow br Shall every blossom here
Appear a fall-blown flower of love,
Like him transplanted there.

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A.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

evide BC-B., N.-B. Y. and F. are received. We have that an increasing interest is felt in the object and in the circulation of The Monitor. We confidently expect that some of the ablest writers of our Country, will condescend to use our work as a medium for benefitting the most interesting portion of the Community.

THE MONITOR.

VOL. I.

JUNE, 1823.

NO. 6.

THE SENSE AND DEGREE IN WHICH THE SACRED WRITERS WERE INSPIRED.

It is taken for granted in the following discussion that the evidence of the inspiration of the Scriptures, in general, is complete and satisfactory. Whatever, therefore, the sacred writers assert respecting the sense and degree in which they were inspired is entitled to implicit confi. dence. Laying aside, all speculation, what does Inspiration itself teach relative to this subject.

The Saviour in conversation with his disciples. just before the day of his suffering, sustains their desponding hearts with the promise that "the Comforter*-the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." 99 "When the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth.-He will show you things to come." The obvious and only exegesis which these passages admit is-the absolute promise of such a degree of supernatural influence, as would enable the Apostles to recollect the Saviour's instructions, to understand them more fully than they otherwise could, and as would guide their minds to the distinct apprehension of all the truth necessary for them to know and communicate; not only of those truths which were within the reach of unassisted intellect-but of those also which were beyond. These promises may be regarded as general Others are more particular.When summoned before magistrates, they were not to

*

Ilaganλntos-helper, assistant-synonomous with Tivεvua tas ainonias-interpreter,—or instructor of the divine will John xiv. 26. xv 26. xvi. 13-14. (Schleusner, on the word Παρακλητος.)

2d Edit.

16

feel solicitous respecting their defence, for in the very moment of emergency they should speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. In these promises the Apostle Paul is not directly included. But his language, entitled to equal credit, is-"The gospel which was preached of me is not after man. I neither received it of man nor was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." "We speak not the words which man's wisdom teacheth; But which the Holy Ghost teacheth."+

From these, and similar explicit declarations of Scripture we may conclude that the writers of the New Testament did enjoy such a degree of supernatual influence as enabled them perfectly to recollect whatever it was important for them to communicate of the Saviour's history; as guided or superintended them in the apprehension and communication of truth, and as, gave them a knowledge of subjects, which no unassisted efforts of the human mind could ever acquire.

What the sacred writers thus unequivocally claim, the first principles of philosophizing require us to admit. In accounting for a phenomenon "we must admit so many causes as are both true and necessary." Now what we are in this case to account for is the infallibility of the sacred writers. We receive their instructions as the standard of truth and the rule of duty. They tell us, of being moved by the Holy Ghost in what they commupi. cate. But in themselves they were imperfect and fallible. What then could render their imperfection, perfect; their fallibility, infallible.

In the first place take from the sacred writers the promised power of perfect recollection;-leave them to the unassisted strength of their memory, and after the lapse of a few months or years, what fact so plain that they were not liable to mis-state? What instructions so important, or so impressive that they were not liable to forget? What powers of recollection did they originally

* Matt. x. 19, 20. Acts ii. 24.

+ Gal. i. 11, 12.

1 Cor. ii. 13. xi. 23. xv. 1-3. Eph. iii. 3-8. 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.

The same argument, substantially, will apply to all the sacred writers. "For all Scripture was given by inspiration."

2 Tim.

iii. 16, which declaration applies directly to the Old Testament writers.

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