SERMON CCLXXXI.

BY REV. J. W. YEOMANS.

FAMILY SALVATION.

"And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood."-Gen. 7: 7.

The family of Noah, as we have seen, enjoyed a precious fruit of their father's righteousness. It was to them an inestimable blessing that their father was a man of faith. When the God in whom he believed proposed to make his case a permanent example of the favor to be hoped for by the righteous, he put the children with the father in the provisions of the gracious covenant; and they received a benefit of the father's righteousness on the ground of their relation to him.

How happily does the spirit of this covenant agree with the lively sentiments of natural affection in the heart of the christian parent. Had Noah been chosen alone to that salvation, and had his family been left involved in the perdition of the ungodly world, while his faithful instruction and their faithful obedience had been the same as it was, what a scene had been presented in that household at the moment of the parent's supposed final separation from the children! There was a tender element in his fatherly love which came not from the tie of blood. His children were pious towards their father, if not towards God; and this filial piety, while without the father's faith it could stand them in no stead before God as a ground of their salvation from the flood, did nevertheless prove the delicate line by which the father's faith led them into the ark. And how tenderly did it endear them to him! They had been the objects of his pious care. Their welfare had engaged his anxious concern. Their character was, under God, the creature of his own influence. He had prayed with them. He had prayed for them. He had instilled into their minds the doctrines of his own righteousness. They, by their father's counsels, had kept themselves

from the abominations of the world; and seemed willing, as their history shows, rather to adhere to his doctrines and go with him into the ark, than to take their chance with the rest of the world. How the objects of such affection and such care entwine themselves around a parent's heart, a parent only can know; and that parent only whose tender devotion to his children is sweetened by an equally tender devotion to God. What hopes of future fruit from such culture! How precious that field where he has sown in such tears; the field which he has fenced and guarded from the tread of the destroyer, and in which he has watched day and night for the springing of the precious blade! To see such a field deluged with the waters of a premature destruction were an affliction which could not come upon so devoted a friend of God, except for palpable reasons. Imagine him tearing himself away from his weeping family, to go alone into the ark: My children, you hear him say, I have been warned of God that he is about to destroy the world by a flood. By his direction I have built this ark, in which he has promised to save my life. I have taught you the duty which God requires of you. I have prayed for you. You have witnessed my labor and expense in building this ark; you have approved them; you have joined me in them; and have cheerfully consented to this application of property, which, had you survived my decease, would have fallen by inheritance to you. But I have received no command to take you with me into the ark. And although, in the sorrow of my fatherly heart, I could wish to die for you, or even with you, yet I go myself into a safe refuge from the storm and the flood, and must resign you to destruction.

Could such a scene be looked for under a dispensation of mercy; and in a case, too, where kindness to a beloved friend is the sole and professed reason for the act, and where the faithfulness of that friend in all his duties as a parent is openly approved? What violence, without cause, to those profound and sacred sentiments of parental love implanted by God's own hand in the bosom of man; sentiments which in no degree of their power are the offspring of evil in the heart; nay, which are increased in their very tenderness by the spirit of devotion which God approves. To torture thus the spirit of a godly man, who, it would seem, had nothing for which to reproach himself, nothing for which God upbraided him in the matter of parental duty; whose children, by their dutiful compliance with his commands in the matter pertaining to the

covenant of the ark, had knit themselves with every fibre of his fatherly heart; we say not by any means that Noah could in justice claim better treatment at the hand of God, but we do say it seems not like the manner of the grace of God. Such are not the tender mercies of the Lord. He professes to regard the affections of nature in the hearts of his own children, and shapes the methods of his grace to his schemes of creation and providence.

The principles on which this act of divine favor proceeded from father to son claim here to be carefully traced. It does not appear that Shem, Ham, and Japheth would have been saved from the flood had not their father been a righteous man. It is not said that they were righteous before God. It is not intimated that they were consulted in relation to the covenant; or that the covenant was made with them in any personal sense. It was for them, but with their father; in the whole transaction he was their representative; and his righteousness was so imputed to them, that provision was made for them in the ark as though they, like him, were righteous. All was done through him, and in his name. This seems the true representation of these transactions.

The natural bond which bound them all together in the bundle of salvation was the bond of parental and filial love. Had Noah felt for his offspring no love, tender and chastened by the power of his pious faith; or had his love been less; or had it been only a selfish and depraved affection, which often in this world goes by the sacred and much abused name of parental love; or had he exercised his affection in a less religious treatment of his children;then, if even himself could have been saved as a righteous man, he could not have such hope for the salvation of his children. The cords of natural affection became, as it were, conditional conductors of divine favor to the children, and the conditions on which that favor was transmitted now demand our attention.

I. An evident condition on which the family of Noah were embraced with him in the ark, was his faithful instruction and his parental control. That in both these respects Noah did his duty to his family, is clear from the result. His children agreed in their views of truth and duty with him, and not with the rest of the world. They all went with him into the ark. They consented to their father's faith in relation to the coming of the flood; and since God had warned him, and he believed God, he warned them, and they believed him. He was not so fearful lest his children should not

be free and rational in adopting their opinions that he could not teach them his own; but, sure that opinions which were safe for him would be safe for them, he did not hesitate to instil his doctrines into their minds.

This word instil is intended here to denote much more than to recommend. The teaching of the parent implies a more powerful influence than mere explanation and recommendation. There is a theory which forbids a child to be taught truth any faster than he can comprehend the evidences of it; which brands as evil prejudice all belief not founded on the perception of evidence. But of this theory the practice of mankind is, and must be, a perpetual contradiction. If a child were not permitted to believe and practise upon philosophical truth fill he could perceive and weigh its evidences, how long in this world could he live? And is there no religious truth sufficiently fixed and certain for a child to receive and act upon under a parent's direction? The precepts of the Bible presume that there is. The laws of nature, which control the parental relation and dictate the parental duties, proclaim that there is; and these all assert that the parent is bound to find out truth for his children, and teach it diligently to them.

The reason of this duty is founded in the natural right and power of parental control. The parent can teach with authority; and he is the only human teacher who can. The preacher before his congregation can only explain and prove truth, and recommend it by consideration of the propriety of which every hearer claims and exercises right to judge for himself. But the parental prerogative controls the child's opinions; and if, by skill in governing his child and guiding his early thoughts, the parent can mould his child's opinions according to his pleasure, no natural rights of the child, no power, either civil or ecclesiastical, can properly interfere with his privilege. He holds the unquestionable right to command his child in the way which he conscientiously believes to be duty. He is the first judge of his child's duty. And for the successful exercise of that right, his relation to the child affords the most important facilities. The child is cast at his birth upon his parent's

care.

He has at first no more of opinion or of knowledge, except what he receives from the parent, than he has of liberty or property. He receives truth and acts upon it without examination, without a glimpse of evidence, and even without knowing the connection between truth and the evidence which supports it. At this

point of first impressions the power of the parent over the corld's impressions is almost absolute. No power of one finite mind over another can be more complete. Here is the beginning of the system of parental control. It is the power of the parent over first impressions. He has his children so much at his command that he may justly be responsible for their opinions, as he is for his own. And when right principles are thus early inculcated, the parent has great advantage over the maturer years of his offspring. In Noah's family we have remarkable evidence of his faithfulness. Those three sons and their wives honored their father's faith, and submitted to his direction. During those long hundred and twenty years, while their father was spending his time and his substance on that immense ark; while the changes of nature went quietly on around them, and all things remained as they were from the foundation of the world; while all the world besides were perhaps deriding him; his family clave to his interest, and shared in his reproach; and he led them all into the ark, amidst the scoffs of the ungodly neighbors, and under as bright a sun, perhaps, as ever shone.

This fact declares a volume on the subject of parental control. Let us learn a lesson from it. "Thou shalt come into the ark, and thy children." Had Noah sacrificed his control over his family to a vain ambition to have them appear independent and high-minded in the world, they might not have been saved. They might have refused to come with him into the ark. The management of the family in this matter is committed to him. God commands him, and leaves him to command his children. And by a strict and wise parental discipline he so commanded that not one disobeyed.

Would a parent know what things they are which he is bound to teach his children? They are the things which he thinks it safe and proper for him to hold himself. The parent should find out the truth for himself and them. He has more than himself to provide for. The word of God to every parent, like the word of Noah, is intended for the children likewise. Alas, then, for those children whose parents have no word of God for them; no covenant of God to commend to them; no faith in God to exemplify before them; no influence over their tempers and dispositions to keep them out of the world of wickedness.

Would the parent know how far he may trust God in relation to the salvation of his children? Trust in proportion your own faith