Here, strange to say, some good men would thrust in a peremptory limitation, asserting that this family covenant is Abrahamic and Jewish only; good for them, but not good for the Christian age; good in the national but not in the family sense and application thereof.――――But what is the logic of such a limitation? Was the love of parent for offspring lost out of the human heart at the coming of Christ? Or did the Lord forget at that point how deeply he had implanted this love in human bosoms? Or did he think that piety, under the improved auspices of the gospel age, could thrive without the help of this family covenant? Or did he reason thus――that the gospel age having the advantage of the Jewish in so many points, could afford to forego this family promise, and yet not on the whole fall below the Abrahamic dispensation?――――Or in another point of view, looking at the evidence rather historically than logically, it is claimed, as I understand the argument, that Christ did not renew the promise――“A God to thee and to thy seed after thee”; and therefore it did not pass over into the gospel age.――――To which I reply; The real question is――not, Did Christ _renew_? but, Did he _annul_? Did he say――I have come to make void the law, not to fulfill? Did he say――That family covenant which the patriarchs loved so dearly, in the faith of which they trained their sons and daughters into the love and service of their fathers’ God, has well done its work and can stand no longer? Did he labor to reconcile the parental heart of his Jewish disciples――loving their dear little ones so tenderly――to this sudden withdrawal of divine promise――to this sore bereavement of hope and slaughter of faith? Was this what he meant when he said; “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven”? Or was this the meaning of Peter when in the first Pentecostal sermon he proclaimed――“The promise (of the Holy Ghost) is to you _and to your children_” (Ac. 2: 39)? Or could this have been the purpose of Paul when he testified; “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3: 29)?――――The proof that the gospel age ruled out the great family covenant is by no means apparent.――――It should be considered that the covenant is one thing; circumcision another. The covenant does not of necessity die because circumcision is discontinued. The covenant existed before circumcision and could be operative without it; indeed could live without any visible sign or seal, if so the Lord pleased.――――Nor does the perpetuity of this covenant turn on the proof that baptism takes in all respects the place of circumcision. Whether it does fill the same place or does not, the covenant standeth sure. There is value in an external rite or seal――else God had never enjoined it. But it falls exceedingly far short of being the thing of chief value.