APPENDIX. NOTE A. p. 3. Persons of this description are ready to ask, with the amiable youth of whom we read in Matt. xix. 16-22, "What lack I yet?" But let them remember that, with all the exemption from evil which this lovely youth claimed, he was destitute of that renovation of heart without which no one can see God; and that, when brought to the test, he discovered his unfitness for the kingdom of God; and, so far as we know from the short history which is given of him, he never entered it. Let those persons whose characters are moral and estimable among men, narrowly scrutinize their own hearts, lest they deceive themselves; for their good qualities may render them more liable to self-deception than some others. It is the tendency of the soul towards God or the world, that constitutes the spiritual or carnal mind. To be sensual, not having the Spirit, is characteristic of the unconverted heart. NOTE B. p. 10. Whether the consciences of many professing parents are free from the guilt incurred by Eli, must be left to the determination of the individuals concerned in the inquiry. It is certain, that power is lodged in the hands of parents by the great Lord of all; which is to be employed, like every other talent, for the glory of God and the advantage of those committed to their care. It is to be feared that, in this day of liberty and equality, neither parents nor children are duly sensible of the extent of parental authority; of the awful responsibility resting on the former respecting the exercise of it, nor of the obedience due to it by the latter; that the reins of domestic discipline are held with too slack a hand, and are given up at too early an age, even in professing families. These considerations appear to the author to involve one of the crying sins which prevail in the religious world at the present æra, and to threaten the most fatal consequences both to society at large and to the church of God. Whether many Christian parents, whose children prove irreligious or profligate characters, may not be implicated in their children's guilt, by the defect of early restraint and instruction, and especially the former, is a solemn question. Certain it is, that the word of God has laid down a general rule on this subject, in which, though there may be exceptions, as in other general rules, something must be implied; Train up a child in the way he should go: : and when he is old he will not depart from it. Prov. xxii. 6. Even the heathens saw the importance of education, as appears by the well-known lines of Horace: Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odoren: On the story of Eli (1 Sam. ii.) Mr. Scott H makes the following reflections: The neglect of properly educating children, and the indulgence of their wayward inclinations, is a sin which God severely chastises in his own people: because it seems to imply a contempt of his authority and special favour, and a disregard to his glory, as well as to their immortal souls; and because it tends to the most fatal abuses and apostasies.'-Scott's Bible. NOTE C. p. 14. From the account given by Moses of the primæval state of man, it appears that he was not left to acquire ideas in the ordinary way, which would have been too tedious and slow, as he was circumstanced, but was at once furnished with the knowledge which was necessary for him. He was immediately endued with the gift of language, which necessarily supposes that he was furnished with a stock of ideas, a specimen of which he gave in giving names to the inferior animals which were brought before him for that purpose.'-Dr. Leland's Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation. Vol. 2, part ii, chap. 2, p. 21. Language must have come by inspiration, and that inspiration was necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may have speech; which I think he could no more find out without inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.'-Dr. Johnson: see his Life by Boswell. Vol. 2, p. 447. Whatever fantastical notions some men may advance concerning the origin of language, and the possibility of man's gradually inventing it by his own unassisted powers; yet, in fact, not a single instance can be produced, since the creation of the world, of any human creature's ever using articulate sounds as the signs of ideas; or, in other words, of his speaking or having language; unless he was first taught it, either immediately and at once by God, as Adam at his formation, and the apostles on the day of Pentecost, Acts ii, or gradually by his parents or nurses.' Parkhurst's Lexicon. On this subject see also Ellis's Inquiry, p. 8; and |