to a child for God and its natural guardians to
make a covenant together in its behalf.

_Mr. Benson._ It surely is so, if God truly is a party to such a
covenant. But where is the proof that he is? That is my trouble. They
tell me that this covenanting with God for a child, and sealing it with
an ordinance, ceased with Abraham, who was a Jew; that it was a Jewish
custom, which died out.

_Pastor._ Abraham a mere Jew! God's covenant with a believer and his
children a Jewish covenant! Never was there a greater mistake. Paul
tells us expressly it was not so. Get me a Bible, Helen, and bring me a
lamp. I read these words: "And the promise that he should be heir of the
world was not to Abraham and his seed through the law, but through the
righteousness of faith." His relation to the world was independent of
dispensations; it grew out of that faith which he had in common with all
believers to the end of time. "And he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being
uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe,
though they be not circumcised." Christ also says: "Moses, therefore,
gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the
fathers.)" Abraham was not a Jew when God covenanted with him, any more
than you, madam, were Mrs. Ford, when, at the age of sixteen, as you
have told me, you entered into covenant with God. That covenant had
chief respect to your immortal soul, and yet it reached in its
influences to all the conditions of that soul while here in the flesh.
So God covenanted with Abraham as a believer, not as a mere national
ancestor; yet temporal and spiritual blessings came in rich measures
upon his immediate descendants. But we read, "So then as many as be of
faith are blessed with faithful," that is, believing, "Abraham." "And if
ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the
promise." Can anything be plainer than this?

_Mrs. Ford._ My father was a minister, you know, sir, and he used to
preach a great deal on this subject.

_Pastor._ Let us hear your understanding of these passages, Mrs. Ford.

"I am afraid," said she, "I cannot tell you just what he used to say.
But my idea of it is this: Though Abraham was the founder of the Hebrew
people, he was no more a Jew than a Gentile in his covenant with God,
for it was as believer the great believer, that God made a covenant
with him. So that he was