THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. O GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have Price 3d., or 2s. 6d. per dozen, BY THE REV. J. E. SAMPSON. Also, 32mo., Cloth, Part I., 1d. and 2d. Parts I. and II., 3d. For Grade IV., see Hints and Helps, 183, and Gospel Manual Grade III. The Folios refer to Hints and Helps. The Systematic Bible Teacher. THIS WORK is designed to supply A Complete System of essential, defined and suitable Lessons, which all Parents, Teachers and Ministers require for the right-religious training of the young in both the Homes and the Day and Sunday-schools of our beloved land. Lessons that all Teachers can both teach and profit by; that Scholars can as easily learn and teach to others; that Parents can train by all the week at home; that Ministers without study can examine upon, and that when taught will insure conscious progress in such Bible knowledge as the Holy Spirit can and does bless. The lack of these in the past and consequent loss of home training by parents as well as proper help and examinations by Ministers fully account for the sad after-life of so many Sunday-school scholars and others. Parents are the divinely appointed teachers and trainers of their own children, and nobody else is either so responsible or as able to do it as they are who have them day and night. As a rule, however, they are not doing it according to the requirements of the Bible, chiefly because they don't know how, and have no suitable system to guide and enable them. Ministers, who seem next responsible to see that they are so taught and trained and to turn such knowledge to the highest and holiest account, having no proper system are alike unable to do their part either to teach and examine the children or to reach and help the parents, and as a natural consequence, Sunday-schools are very far from what they might be, and parents being beyond the reach of either Ministers or Teachers the homes, alas, are almost entirely neglected. The Lessons of which this System is composed are no new thing got up in a day, written and published for sale or for a denomination, but are the productions of Master-minds with great learning and im Dr. Watts, whose praise is in all the churches, is said to have been invited to spend a week on a visit at the Mansion of Sir Thomas Abney; that he went and stayed thirty-six years, fulfilling the duties of domestic chaplain and theological tutor of Sir Thomas's rising family. While there he is said to have written entirely for that family his Graces, Prayers, Hymns, Scripture Characters, Catechism, and other works for the Young, and that he taught every lesson himself, long before they were offered to the public, and that before publication they were all further revised and corrected by some of the ablest divines of the day, and altered as they thought desirable. Then Dr. Watts thoroughly knew the Contents of our Holy Bible. He also knew as thoroughly the languages of the Bible, and he knew far better than most people now-a-days the religion of the Bible. He also knew too well that playing at teaching Religion as now, whether among youths or adults, must result in ruin to souls. He knew as a Divine that a fear of God, a proper fear of His wrath and Curse against sin is both possible and consistent before, as well as a Scriptural means to, divine conversion. Dr. Watts therefore wrote the 28 Divine Songs on as many essential subjects as a System of Religion in Verse just as he wrote the 24 Catechism Answers to be the same in Prose purposely to teach that "fear of the Lord" which "is the beginning of wisdom" too seldom to be met with now in children and young people. While these Hymns are preserved and taught in their entirety they answer the noble end, but if mutilated or separated, though still precious fragments, they are no longer what the learned divine intended them to be, and they must fail of his designed end. Mark the essential importance of the subjects of these Headings to the Hymns, and how essential each of them is to Bible Religion. James Montgomery, the poet, says of these compositions :-"We come to the greatest name among Hymn writers, for we hesitate not to give that praise to Dr. Isaac Watts, since it has pleased God to confer upon him, though the least of the poets of this country, more glory than upon the greatest of that or any other, by making his Divine Songs a more abundant and universal blessing, than the verses of any uninspired writer that ever lived." The Assembly's Catechism needs no comment from us for teaching Scripture Doctrine and Bible Religion. Doubtless it stands to-day unsurpassed if not unequalled. |