Study Desk

This I don't write to give you any confusion, but by way of remonstrance, to you who are my dear children.

for the unbelieving husband is christianiz'd by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is christianiz'd by the believing husband: else were your children heathens: whereas they are christians.

now if the law engraven on stone, the letter of whose sanction is death, was delivered with such glory, that the children of Israel could not steadily behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, tho' it was transient;

and do not act as Moses did, who threw a veil over his face so as to hinder the children of Israel from perceiving the end of that which was to cease:

This is the third time I purposed to come to you; but I will not be burdensome to you; for I seek not yours, but you: since it is not expected children should lay up for their parents, but parents for their children: on the contrary,

so hence ye know, that it is they who believe who are the children of Abraham.

even so we, whilst we were children, were in a state of servitude to the elements of the world. but when the time appointed was accomplished,

my dear children, how am I in pain, till Christ be formed in you?

these things have an allegorical meaning: the two women signify the two covenants, the one from mount Sinai, which is represented by Agar, whose children were born in a state of servitude.

this Agar answers to the Jerusalem now in being, for she is in servitude with her children:

for it is written, "rejoice thou barren, that bearest not; break out into loud acclamations, thou that hast not the travels of childbirth, for more are the children of the desolate, than of her that hath an husband."

Now we, my brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of the promise.

so then, my brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free-woman, by virtue of that freedom which Christ has procur'd for us.

having predetermin'd to adopt us by Jesus Christ to be his children, according to the good pleasure of his own will,

from whom the whole family in heaven and earth are denominated his children:

that we should be no longer children, fluctuating, and carried about with every empty doctrine, by men vers'd in sleight and the crafty arts of deceit:

Be ye therefore imitators of God, as his dear children; live together in love,

you were heretofore altogether in the dark, but now being enlightned by the Lord, behave as children of light:

Children, obey your christian parents: for this is the law.

and you fathers don't exasperate your children: but instruct them in the discipline and institution of the Lord.