Bertha and Her Baptism | Page 7

"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 not circumcised as a Jew, but, as the Bible says, to
have a seal of the righteousness which he had by faith. God made a
covenant with him as a believer, to be his God and the God of his
children, as the children of a believer, not a Jew; so that all believers
are blessed with believing Abraham, by having the same covenant
extended to them. Then, I take it, God gave him a sign and seal as a
pledge, and to remind him of it, and to keep his children in
remembrance." She paused, and I said:
"Please to go on." You remember, Bertha, how you used to make this
Mrs. Ford discuss doctrinal matters when she was sewing for you.
Mrs. Ford. I remember that father said that God took the rainbow as a
sign and seal of his promise, to Noah and all future generations, that
there should never be another universal deluge. So he appointed a
children's ordinance to mark his covenant with believers to the end of
time. Only there was this difference; the way of signing and sealing the
covenant not being coupled with the laws of nature, but conforming to
the kind of symbols successively in use, it was changed, at the time that
the Sabbath was changed, and the whole of the old dispensation; but
father used to say, Is the commonwealth and citizenship broken up
because the legislature adopts a new state seal? Does that destroy all
the old public documents?
Pastor. Good! So the United States' mint is from time to time changing
its dies; lately it has abolished copper, and substituted equivalent coins
of different composition. But money does not perish. A cent is a cent
still, red or white. So, whether the seal be blood or water, the great
ordinance which it seals remains the same.
"And now I will tell you," said I, "how it seems to me God's
covenanting with parents for their children came to pass. He wished to
give Abraham a token and seal of his love to him. So he took his child,
the thing which he loved best, and would see oftenest, and thought of
most, and made the child, as it were, the tablet on which to write his
covenant with the father. That was one reason. 'Because he loved the
fathers, therefore he chose their seed.' But this is the least of the reasons
in the case.

"Here is one of vastly greater importance. God wished to perpetuate
religion in the earth. He knew that the family constitution would be the
principal means of doing this, parents teaching and commanding their
children, and so transmitting religion. Because he knew that Abraham
would do this, he gave it as a reason for his love