The children of the New Testament ...

Front matter

J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J

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{ UNITED STATES OP AMERICA! j

Preface

It was on a bright and balmy afternoon in the leafy

month of May, as we sat with a friend on a grassy

Schuylkill, that the idea of this little book was first

suggested. Surrounded with the fresh and springing

beauty of the season, we felt ourselves in sympathy with

nature, rejuvenated, and, as in our childhood, every

thing seemed —

" Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream."

It was by a very natural association in our minds, that the conversation turned upon little children. Our friend, for many years a faithful Sunday School teacher, related several touching incidents of recent occurrence in his school, illustrating the fond affection ©f little children for those manifesting a kindly interest in them,

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IV PREFACE.

and how quick and responsive their sympathy to every token of kindliness and love.

After some interchange of sentiment upon this attractive feature of childhood, our thoughts turned to the several scenes in the New Testament, in which little children were brought to view in attitudes and relations so beautiful and attractive. And the opinion was mutually expressed, that a collection of these scenes, with such reflections as they would naturally suggest, into the form of a little book, might prove both interesting and profitable.

The idea has been actualized and embodied in this little work. As it makes no great pretensions, it needs no apology.

Originality belongs to comparatively few. We have not hesitated to adopt leading ideas from Olshausen and other German writers, as well as from Chalmers, Melvill, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Cheever, and others.* Where we have employed the thoughts and phraseology of others, we have acknowledged our indebtedness by the usual marks of quotation.

If the poetical quotations are numerous, it is owing partly to our fondness for thoughts in that form of

* This acknowledgment is especially applicable to chapters 2d and 3d.

PREFACE. V

expression, as well as to the fact, that our thoughts assume their best attitudes aud loveliest attire in Poetry, which is "the blossom and fragrancy of all human knowledge.''

The idea that a book is original, in proportion to the absence of all quotational signs, is, we think, a fallacy. There may be least originality, where there are no signs of quotation. And according to D'Israeli, the man who never quotes from others, is, in turn, rarely ever quoted by any body else.

The reader will notice, that in the classification of the Scripture scenes, we have inverted the order observed in the sacred record. The reason of this will be at once obvious, and, therefore, needs no explanation.

Our design has been simply to bring consecutively to view, these picture scenes of little children in the New Testament, and evolve the moral lessons they infold, and apply them to practical improvement. And, if this humble effort shall serve to awaken a livelier interest, and a more solemn sense of responsibility, in our relations to little children, and quicken the efforts of Christians, in the religious education of

the young, under a conviction of their important 1*

VI PREFACE.

instrumental connection with the advancement of Christ's kingdom, we shall be satisfied.

And we are encouraged in the hope of such a result, from the fact, that a book small in size and attractive in its outward appearance, may find access, where books of larger bulk, and more elaborate argument, would be unwelcome. " Ships of small draught maysail up the tributary streams of the popular mind, where vessels of heavy tonnage cannot be admitted.''

We commend this plea for little children — and these affectionate monitions to Christian parents — and the consolatory thoughts for the bereaved, to the Spirit and blessing of —

" Him, whose praise I seek — Whose frown can disappoint the proudest aim, Whose approbation, prosper even mine."

Philadelphia, Dec. 1853.

FRIENDS txlWt GJU*»i,.

SCRIPTURE SCENES

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

AND DEDICATED

AUTHOR.

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

INTRODUCTION.- — THE WONDERS OF BETH- LEHEM.

The " Holy Child Jesus." The Childhood and Youth of Christ. The Devout Simeon, with the infant Saviour in his arms. Jesus among the Doctors in the Temple. The sympathy of Christ with little children. The beauty of childhood. Poetical quotations from Wordsworth 25

Chapter II. Little Children Brought To The Saviour

Explanation of the scene in Mark x. 13-14. The Disciples' conduct. The probable reasons of their interference. The Saviour's displeasure at their conduct. His affectionate welcome to children. How parents now may prevent children from going to Christ. An earnest dissuasive from such deportment. The importance of example. The influence of the home-spirit. The positive duty of bringing our children to the Saviour 50

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X CONTENTS.

Chapter III. The Children In The Temple

Explanation of the temple-scene, Matt. xxi. 15-16. The hosanna of the children. The displeasure of the priests and scribes. The Saviour's vindication of the children. Ps. viii. 2, explained. The importance of early impressions. Reformation. National education. Sunday schools. Facts, showing that children trained in religion will become the champions of truth and virtue. Beautiful visions of the future , , 77

Chapter IV. Timothy

His early religious education. The influence of maternal piety. Eunice an example for the imitation of mothers. The " child father of the man/' Instruction and piety combined. Encouragement to pious mothers 95

Chapter V. The Infanticide At Bethlehem

Explanation of the scene. Seeming incongruity. Vindication of Divine Providence, in the massacre of the infants. Infant martyrs. The scene, suggestive of the following topics :

1. The death of little children. Sources of consolation. Providence. Infant salvation.

CONTENTS. XI

2. Mission of children. The advent of a little child in the family. The child at home. The sick and dying child. The memory.

3. Children in heaven. Beautiful aspect of the heavenly home.

4. Recognition. Difficulties of the doctrine. Scriptural aspect of the subject. David. Recognition of the loved and lost in heaven 108

Conclusion 185

THE

CHILDREN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Cfjapfu fix si

THE HOLY CHILD JE S US. — Acts iv. 27.

" ! is it not a blessed thought, Children of human birth, That once the Saviour was a child, And lived upon the earth?"

There is an obvious propriety in devoting this first chapter to the "Holy Child Jesus. " In proposing to speak of the little children of the New Testament, the first place is due to the pre-eminence of the Divine Child; and, in addition to the moral fitness of this arrangement, it is also in harmony with the order of the sacred history.

3 ( 25 >

Our first ideas of the Saviour, derived from scripture prophecy and history, are associated with his coming as a little child. The most remote, as well as the proximate intimations of his advent, w T ere given in the promise of a child. The first promise that sounded amid the wreck of Eden, like the first notes of the Gospel, and arched the clouded earth with the bright rainbow of hope, was given in language that awakened the expectation that the promised Messiah would come as a little child. Such seems to have been the idea of our primeval Mother, causing that simple and childlike outburst of her heart, as she looked upon her first-born son, with the words of joy and transport, "I have gotten a man from the Lord ! " words expressive of the secret hope of her heart that her first-born son was the promised "seed of the woman."

Among the most distinct announcements of his coming, in the Messianic prophecies, is that of the rapturous Isaiah, catching, in prophetic vision, a glimpse of the wonders of Bethlehem, exclaiming — "Unto us a child is born ; unto us a son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." The inspired prophet sees the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, in that little child in Bethlehem.

And "when the fulness of the time" was at hand, the proximate intimation of the fact w T as given in the promise made to the devout Zacharias, that his wife Elizabeth should bear him a son, and that he should be a holy child, and many should rejoice at his birth." Luke i. 13, 14, 15.

And as the ecstatic father folded that son of promise in his arms, he was moved to pour forth the gushing emotions of his joy in the prophetic exclamation, " Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest!" — He saw in that child the Forerunner of the Messiah — the beauteous morning-star that heralds the coming day.

" The Harbinger of the Gospel was a sanctified little child."

In harmony with these pre-intimations, the Messiah came as a child. "When the humble shepherds received the message, "Unto you is lorn a Saviour," and had listened with bewildered joy to his birth-hymn sung by the angels, " Glory to God in the highest," they went to Bethlehem, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.

The Magi of Persia saw His star in the evening sky, beckoning them to Judea. It was to them the star of Jacob, and, moved by a divine impulse, they make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and inquire, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? " Directed to Bethlehem, they renew their journey — " and lo ! the star which they saw in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was." They were filled with ecstatic joy — " the morning-star of their hope had become the evening-star of their desire accomplished.' '

" And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child, with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped Sim''

Thus beautiful are the associations of Messiah's kingdom with a little child. Nor are we to regard it as an unmeaning coincidence. There is a touching significance in the fact that the Son of God came as a little child, yet a Saviour. " It was to teach us that he is the Saviour of little children, who bear his likeness more closely than the best disciple of mature years ever can, as well as of the adults who believe in his name. It was to claim the whole world of infancy as his own, however men might reject his grace. It was to assure the anxious mother bending over his image in her

child, that

She may trust her sweet babe through the hour of danger, To the mercy of Him, who was laid in a manger."

As we turn and look at that picture of the Nativity, (as represented in our frontispiece,) and recall the wonders of Bethlehem, we feel the dread but touching mystery which surrounds the Babe in the manger, and our hearts are bowed with the prostrate Magi in worship.

That little child is the incarnate God! a Being at once human and divine. That little hand is the hand of Him who of old laid the foundations of the earth, and stretched abroad the heavens as a curtain; that infant cry is the voice of Him, who, in the beginning, said, "Let there be light, and there was light !" Our reason is bewildered, and our conceptions of what we see are dim and misty. Can this be what was promised in Paradise Lost ? Was it this, seen in the dim distance, that gladdened the heart of Abraham ? Was it this that made the dying eyes of Jacob flash with the glory of the latter days ? How can it be ? We look again, but our thoughts seem to commingle in a confused and gloomy shade, and the only distinct consciousness is that of mystery. We turn to the Gospel, 3* and read with the scene still before us — "In the beginning was the Word, and the "Word was with God, and the Word was God ; and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." Then, however it may baffle our understanding, that mysterious child is Emmanuel, God with us. We receive the incarnation as a fact of Divine revelation ; and if any in their stultified reason ask, "What kind of a revelation is the revelation of a mystery ? " we answer that it is the revelation of a fact, all the modes and relations of which are not known ; a revelation analogous to that of nature — for she surrounds us with facts, and leaves us in the midst of mysteries to wonder and adore. The Bible reveals great facts, as the night shows the stars, and, like Nature, leaves us standing in the midst of infinity, surrounded with mystery, with a thousand questions unanswered. (Hopkins.)

And there is no conflict between reason and mystery ; they are equally conditions of a spiritual but limited existence ; and it must be equally obvious, that to finite beings, religion dissociated from mystery is impossible. A religion without a mystery would be a religion without spiritual attributes, without immortality, a religion without a God! Fichte, speaking of the Incomprehensible One, says, " What I understand is, from my very understanding it, finite, and by no progression can ever be transformed into the Infinite. I will not attempt that which my finite nature forbids. I will not seek to know the nature and essence of thy being."

It is with something of this feeling I receive the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God. I receive it as a fact of Divine revelation. It is a dread and impenetrable mystery which transcends my reason, and eludes all human analysis. The fact I know, that God is incarnate in Christ Jesus ; but the modes and relations of the fact are too subtle, too vast, too profound for human thought. There is in the mysterious union of the Divine and human an inherent necessity, veiling it in a profound and sacred obscurity.

But if it baffles my understanding, it touches and moves my heart, as no other fact ever has done, or can do. It meets a want of my spiritual nature, which nothing else can satisfy. The mind can never rest with mere abstractions ; it demands living realities. And hence, if it has not this great objective fact of Christianity, God in Christ, it will either lose all consciousness of God, or, as in Paganism, fashion some symbol of divinity, however degrading ; or, as in more thoughtful minds, run into Rationalism, which has its real foundation in that theory of Pantheism, " which ends in deifying the natural powers of man. For put the Incarnation out of view, and Pantheism is the natural resource of reflective minds."*

An abstract spirit, infinite in purity and love, is indeed a grand conception ; but it is too cold, undefined, and distant, to satisfy the heart. There is still a conscious yearning for something to unite, according to Schleirmacher's view, the human consciousness with the Divine. And this is found in Christ. In him God draws nigh to us, and we see and feel his glory in the face of Jesus. In him we have a living incarnation of the Godhead. And though to the understanding it is a solemn and unfathomable mystery, the heart apprehends the ineffable idea, and is thrilled with a responsive love, conscious of having found God in Christ — and in him a solution of the mysterious yearnings of the soul for the infinite and immortal. By faith in him, the heart finds a brother, Saviour, friend ; and exultingly exclaims, with Thomas, " My Lord and my God !"

God incarnate in Christ ; it is a mystery sublime and

* Wilberforce on the Incarnation, p. 27.

beautiful ! But once seen by faith, realized to the heart in its saving and practical relations, it diffuses through the soul "peace like a river;" it transforms us with a divine glory. But it is only in an attitude of prostrate and devout worship, like that of the magi at the feet of Jesus — it is only when the soul is bowed in lowliness and faith at the foot of the cross, that the sweet mystery and glory of God in Christ is seen and felt by the heart in its saving, all-transforming power. It was just in this spiritual lowliness and self-abasement before Christ, D'Aubigne tells us, he rose from prayer in the study of the learned Kleuker of Kiel, and felt all his doubts and difficulties removed, and the peace of God in his soul ; and ever did he strive to keep his soul in that spiritual attitude at the foot of the cross. And it was thus, we are informed, that the distinguished scholar, Francis Junius, was recovered from absolute atheism, by a clear and sudden view of the glory of Christ, leading him to exclaim, " Thou, Lord my God, didst remember me, and received me, a lost sheep, into thy fold. ,, And this, we believe, is substantially the experience of every Christian. "Whatever mystery may surround the doctrine of " God manifest in the flesh" in the apprehensions of the mind, there is none in the heart. God in Christ received into the affections by a simple childlike faith, is the beginning of a divine light and life in the soul full of peace and joy, transforming it into the image of Jesus, from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord.

"I love th' incarnate mystery, And there I fix my trust."

But in addition to this general aspect of the incarnation, there is something inexpressibly beautiful and touching in the fact, that the Son of God appeared as a child. "It is a remarkable circumstance," says Barnes, "in the scripture account of the incarnation of the Son of God, that he did not at once assume the human form in its mature and manly proportions : that the second Adam did not appear on the stage as the first did, already a man in shape and stature, the most noble and beautiful of the race; but that he appeared as a child, with all the innocent characteristics and sympathies of a child.'

There was nothing unnatural or incongruous in the Godhead veiling itself in the form of a child. Some men, with their ideas of material vastness and expansion associated with their conceptions of God, have felt as if there was a kind of compression of the Divine Glory in that Babe of Bethlehem. Bat if we view God as a spirit, having no essential affinity with material vastness or grandeur, and conceive of his glory as consisting in spiritual excellences and perfections, there is no difficulty in seeing that glory in the immaculate child Jesus. "The true Shekinah," says Chrysostom, "is Man." But an innocent child is in some respects nearer the infinite, nearer Heaven, than a man, for

' Heaven lies about us in our infancy ."

And we may therefore say with, perhaps greater propriety, that the true Shekinah is a little child, and that the most beautiful shrine of Deity was that sinless child. "And. in him dwelt," even then, "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." "And those who saw him and believed, felt that Godhead lay in him softly and fully, as the image of the sun in a drop of dew."

But whatever of mystery may surround that scene in Bethlehem — however humbling to all the pretensions of human reason in its vain attempts to measure the dimensions of that infant cradle — however opposed to all our preconceptions of the Messiah — the fact has touched the sympathies of mankind, and won the heart of the world, as no other fact ever

has done, or can do. The simple but sublime fact

that the Eternal Word was veiled in an infant form,

and lived as a little child.

" The happiest, the holiest, That ever blessed the earth."

How has the heart of the world gathered around that Divine child! How anxiously has it sought to lift the veil which hangs over the early years of Jesus, and desired to know " the precise complexion of that moral dawn which preceded the pure and perfect effulgence that shone forth on the history of his riper years!"* And in the absence of a full history, how has fancy taken the detached glimpses of his childhood given in the gospel of Luke, and sought to picture the sinless child with an outward form — the personification of all that is lovely and beautiful : a cherub's face and smile, seraphic purity, and a voice whose tones were musical with heavenly sweetness! And yet such an ideal of the holy child Jesus would fall immeasurably below the reality. For such an ideal is, after all, conceived from human standards and comparisons of what we know. Whereas David, in

* Chalmers.

his prophetic picture of the Messiah, says, " Thou art fairer than the children of men ; grace is poured into thy lips." Alexander renders the passage thus: " Beautiful, beautiful art thou above the sons of man. He is not praised as the fairest and most beautiful of men, but as fair or beautiful beyond all human standard or comparison. This general ascription of all loveliness is followed by the specification of a single charm, that of delightful captivating speech — grace or beauty of expression."* So that no ideal of human conception can reach the transcendent spiritual beauty and loveliness of the holy child Jesus. There are occasional glimpses of his early years in the gospel revealing those moral elements of character which, in their combinations and developments, afterwards appeared in the man Christ Jesus, who was holy and separate from sinners.

"We have in successive touches of the sacred penman, the simple relation of his deference to the doctors in the temple, and his personal interest in the questions connected with the great subject of religion — his filial subjection to Joseph and Mary — and in Luke xi. 40, a summary of his infant history. "And the child grew * Alexander on Psalms.

and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon him."

This passage indicates the purely human development of Jesus in body as well as mind. The words, " the grace of God was upon him," are not only expressive of the divine complacency in Jesus, but indicative of the efficient cause of the pure unclouded development of the life of the Redeemer. He possessed a sinless intellect. There w^as no moral haze to obscure his expanding mind. The rays of light had not to struggle through the mists of error and sin, that surround the mind of a sinful child. He grew in wisdom, for it was the aliment of his sinless soul. The idea is clearly expressed of a gradual development of his mind. There was the dawn, the morning, and the advancing day ; but it was a morning without obscuring mists, and a day with no overshadowing clouds. This idea is extracted and then expanded by Olshausen from the declaration, "the grace of God was upon him." In his exposition of this passage he says, " The grace is nothing but the dyowrq, "love," which manifests itself, and which proves itself efficacious. In every moment of the life of Jesus, the love of God was reflected in him as in a mirror ; he was in every sense a child, in every sense a youth, in every sense a man, and sanctified thus all the degrees of the development of humanity ; but there never appeared in him anything inconsistent therewith, which would have been the case had expressions of a riper or advanced degree of life manifested itself during the period of his childhood."

These several allusions to the early human development of Jesus, and the occasional glimpses of the moral features of his childhood, pure and sinless in all its manifestations, may give us some approximate idea of the "holy child Jesus," as a pure, sinless, beautiful, perfect child.

We cannot omit an allusion to that touching incident in the history of the infancy of Jesus, associated with his presentation to the Lord in the Temple. That Gospel picture of the aged and devout Simeon, folding the infant Saviour to his heart, with that sweet, swanlike canticle gushing from his soul, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation," has cheered the imagination and heart of the world. Even Joseph and Mary, after all the previous wonders of Bethlehem, marvelled when they saw that pious old man holding the child in his arms, and heard those words of prophetic ecstacy that glowed from his inspired lips. And no one that has ever read the Gospel forgets that scene. It has charmed the imagination of childhood, and lulled the aged saint to his last sweet sleep in Jesus. Never, says an eloquent preacher, was there a finer picture offered to the imagination. Old age gazing in raptured reverence on infancy ; and the saint on the verge of heaven beholding in that innocent and helpless Babe, the light and life of the world.

The only event in the Saviour's life mentioned in the Gospel history prior to his appearance in public, is one of peculiar interest, as unfolding in the child the consciousness of his divine nature, and foreshadowing his divine mission. We last saw the infant Saviour, as an unconscious child, in the arms of the ecstatic Simeon ; we see him now a holy and beautiful youth in the midst of the doctors in the temple, hearing and asking questions. "The opinion," says Olshausen, "that Jesus taught in the temple, must be dismissed as monstrous ; an instructing, demonstrating child, would be a contradiction which the God of order could not possibly have placed in the world. The words "listening to," and "questioning," of ver. 46, refer clearly enough to his receptivity. The Scriptures, and the sublime hopes

THE IIOLY CHILD JESUS. 41

which they awaken, must have formed no doubt the basis of his questions ; he inquires after himself ; and, we may say, that the w T hole struggle and longing displayed by the child Jesus was nothing but a desire for the revelation of himself."*

In his reply to the anxious and interrogating parents, we discover an awakening consciousness of his divine nature and mission. " How is it that ye sought me ? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ?" These words lift the veil of mystery that hung round the holy child Jesus, and give us a glimpse of what he then was, and what he was destined to be. They are words expressive of a dawning consciousness of the special relation in which he stood to the Father as the Son of God, and a presentiment of his sublime spiritual destiny, and a foreshadowing of his future beneficent mission.

Beautiful indeed to the imagination, and lovely to the heart, is the aspect of the Saviour as the "holy child Jesus." " He was a child — a holy child — a divine child — an eternal child. He seems still to sit among the doctors, with Zoroaster, and Moses, and Confucius, and Socrates, and Plato, ranged around him, both hear-

* Olshausen's Com. on Luke. 4* ing them and asking them questions, while they, like the sheaves of Joseph's brethren, are compelled to bow down before the noble youth."*

But the fact that the Son of God came and lived as a child, is something more than an object of mere poetical beauty or sentimental influence. It has a doctrinal aspect of great practical and consolatory interest. Jesus was in every sense a child, that he might be a perfect Saviour of children, as well as of believing adults. "Wherefore," says the apostle, "in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren." May we not comprehend in this essential assimilation to our humanity, the assumption of human nature in its lowliest form, that thus " Jesus passing through all the stages of human life, from infancy to manhood, might sanctify them all." The idea is as true and Biblical as it is beautiful and consoling. It was thus Christ became a merciful and perfect High Priest — possessing a sympathy with every stage of human development, and every phase of human life ; making him a perfect Saviour of little children, as well as of those of mature years ; touched with a feeling of the infirmities of these little ones, in all their mental and emotional trials — * Gilfillan, Bards of the Bible.

trials so subtile and hidden as to elude the eye even of a mother's love ; sympathizing with those incipient evolutions of thought and feeling long before they can find expression in language, or awaken a responsive sympathy even in a mother's heart.

There is something intensely interesting in this idea of the Saviour, as once a little child, and retaining ever after a perfect consciousness of his human childhood, and a consequent sympathy with little ones, such as no other being can feel, not even a mother in all her deep and yearning affection. It was this that gave such a touch of gentleness and simplicity to his whole character ; for even after he entered upon the great work of his manhood, the public teachings and redemptive works of his Divine mission, he seemed still to possess the moral beauty of a child. " His sermons, possessing no logical sequence and coherence, seem like the utterances of a divine infant." "When he spake as man never spake — when he performed his miracles of mercy — when he gave utterance to truths and sentiments such as had never fallen from human lips, " he still retained all the simplicity of character which he had when a child, and evinced in his manner all that would meet the sympathies of a child, and go at once to his heart.' '