Little Emma was one Sabbath evening alone in the room with her grandmamma. Good old Mrs Allan (for that was her grandmother’s name) was seated in her arm‐chair, beside a blazing winter fire. A small table was before her, with a Bible and a pair of spectacles lying upon it.
Emma came jumping up upon her grandmamma’s knee, and kissed her, and said—
“Dear grandmamma, there is much in that large Bible I do not understand; I should like so much to know all it tells about. When I was at church this forenoon, I heard Mr R., our clergyman, speak to the people about what he called ‘doctrines;’ and when he was telling about them, there were many things the people liked to hear which were too difficult for me. Do you think you could tell me about them in very simple words, and make them plain to me? I will promise to be very attentive to all that you say.”
“I shall be truly happy,” said the other, looking with a kindly smile on her little grandchild, “to do what you ask me. And if you will come to me for a few minutes every Sabbath night, I will try to explain these Bible doctrines to you as simply as I can.”
So saying, she put aside her spectacles, and drawing her chair closer by the fire, with her arm round little Emma’s neck, began as follows:—
|Of the Being of God.| “There was a time, my dear child, far, far back in eternity, when no one lived but the Great God, when no angel waved his wing, and no star glittered in the sky.
“This ever‐living God did not need angels or worlds to make Him happy. He was quite glorious without them.
“This great Being was one God; but there were three persons in the Godhead—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Of these, there was none higher or greater than the other; they were all equal in power and in glory.
|Of the Creation of all things.| “This Great God resolved on making angels and worlds; and He just said, ‘I wish them to be,’ and they were all made by the word of His power. And it was not a few that He made, but a very great many. He made large armies of angels; and such a number of stars and worlds, that they cannot be counted.
|Of our World.| “Among these crowded worlds which you see in the dark sky at night, there was a very little one—so little, as scarcely to be seen or noticed amid those around it.
“This little star was called ‘the Earth;’ and God loved it very much, and the Three Persons in the Godhead resolved to do something very wonderful with regard to it. God put a happy and holy creature into it, called Man; and He made him after His own image, and placed him in a beautiful garden.
|Of the Covenant of Works.| “While there, God entered with man into what is called a Covenant of Works.”
“What does a covenant mean?” inquired Emma.
“I shall tell you, my child,” said her grandmamma. “It is an agreement, or bargain, between two people. In the garden of Eden, the two parties were God and Adam; their covenant or agreement was this;—God said to Adam, ‘If you do what I ask you, you shall live and be happy. If you disobey me, you must “surely die.”’
|Of the Fall.| “God told him not to eat of the fruit of one of the trees in the garden; but though Adam had all the rest of the trees in Eden to eat of, he forgot God’s command, and took of the forbidden one; and he was driven out of his happy home, and became a lost and ruined creature.”
“How sad for poor Adam,” said Emma, “to be banished from his beautiful garden!”
“Yes,” said the other; “and sadder still to be banished from his God, with nothing before him but certain death!”
“But how was it, grandmamma,” inquired Emma, “that Adam did not die all at once? How did he continue to live after God had said that, if he disobeyed Him, he should ‘surely die’?”
“I was just going to explain this to you, my dear,” said Mrs Allan. “Our first parents could not have lived for one moment after their ‘Fall,’ if it had not been for another and more glorious covenant the Bible tells us of.”
“And what was the name of that covenant?” inquired Emma, eagerly.
“It was called the Covenant of Grace,” replied her grandmother. “I shall try, my dear child,” continued she, patting her grandchild on the head, “to make this very great and glorious subject as simple as I can to you; and after you hear me, you will, perhaps, be able to explain it to others.”
Little Emma was again very attentive, and her grandmamma proceeded:
|Of the Parties in the Covenant of Grace.| “I want to see, before I begin, if my little scholar remembers what I have just been telling her,—who the two parties were in the Covenant of Works?”
“God and Adam,” replied Emma.
“Yes, dear, you are right. And in this new covenant or agreement I am going to speak about, there were two parties also. Do you think you could tell me who they were?”
“Was it God and Adam again?” inquired the little girl.
“No, my child,” said the old lady. “Man, having broken the first covenant, could no longer enter into terms with God. There was some one who came in the place of guilty man. Can you tell me who this was?”
“It was the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Emma.
“Quite correct,” replied her grandmother. “God was angry with man, and could no longer speak with him. But Jesus said, ‘I will come in the room of those lost sinners, and speak to God for them.’ So God and Jesus made a covenant together. It was as if Jesus said to God, ‘O my Father, if Thou wilt pardon these poor sinners, I will leave my glorious throne, and come down to the earth, and die for them, and wash their guilty souls in my precious blood.’ And then God promised, and said, ‘I will pardon them! They deserve nothing but wrath; but, for the sake of what Thou art to do and suffer, as their Redeemer, I will shew them “Grace.”’ Hence this new covenant between God and Jesus was called ‘the Covenant of Grace.’”
“I should like to hear more,” said Emma, “about this glorious Being who loved man so much as to die for him. Why is He called by the name of Redeemer?”
|Of the Person of the Redeemer.| “Jesus is called ‘Redeemer,’ because He ‘buys back’ the lost souls of men. No one but God, in our nature, could do this. If the highest angel in heaven had tried to save us, he could not. Jesus Christ was both God and man. He had lived from all eternity ‘with God, and was God.’ He took upon Him our nature, and was born a little babe in the stable of Bethlehem. How sweet for little children to think that Jesus was once himself a little child!”
|Of the Humiliation of Christ.| “How wonderful!” said Emma, “for the great God of heaven to come down to dwell with man on the earth—to be called the ‘Man of Sorrows’—to be poor and hated, and have ‘nowhere to lay His head,’ till He laid it on the Cross, and there died a cruel death!”
“Wonderful indeed,” replied her grandmamma. “Can you tell me, my dear child, what became of Jesus after He died?”
|Of His Resurrection and Exaltation.| “Yes,” answered Emma; “I think He was laid in a grave in the middle of a garden in Jerusalem. A stone was put at the mouth of it, and soldiers were made to watch it. But after lying dead three days, He rolled away the stone, and came forth alive.”
“You are right, my child,” said Mrs Allan. “By this, God the Father shewed that He had accepted the work of His dear Son—that the wages of sin were all paid, and that His holy law was satisfied and honoured. After remaining forty days on the earth, Jesus went up among rejoicing angels to heaven.”
“And where is the Lord Jesus now?” inquired Emma.
|Of the Intercession of Christ.|