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HEAVENWARD THOUGHTS

FOR

CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLDS:

BEING

BRIEF MEDITATIONS ON A FAMILY'S DAILY TEXTS

FOR A YEAR.

By D. O. H.

WITH AN

INTRODUCTION BY THE REV. W. W. CHAMPNEYS, M.A.,
Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, and Vicar of St. Pancras.

Second Edition.

LONDON:

WERTHEIM, MACINTOSH, & HUNT,
24, PATERNOSTER Row,

AND 23, HOLLES STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE.

1865

100.c. 248.

"THESE WORDS, WHICH I COMMAND THEE THIS DAY, SHALL BE IN THINE AND THOU SHALT TEACH THEM DILIGENTLY UNTO THY

ᎻᎬᎪᎡᎢ ;
CHILDREN."

"LET THE WORD OF CHRIST DWELL IN YOU RICHLY IN ALL WISDOM;

TEACHING AND ADMONISHING ONE ANOTHER."

"SANCTIFY THEM THROUGH THY TRUTH; THY WORD IS TRUTH."

BODL

ΟΙ

INTRODUCTION.

THE "FAMILY ” seems to be the reflection on earth of a reality in Heaven, even as the Tabernacle was a copy of the pattern shewn to Moses in the Mount.

GOD is "the Everlasting Father," Angels are "the Sons of GOD," Adam, who was only "a little lower than the Angels," was "the Son of God;" and broken, separate, shattered as the family principle is by sin, yet it is still true, that "God hath made of one blood all nations." All men can say, what Jacob's children said, "We are all the sons of one man."

That "Family" principle which, had Adam not sinned, would have bound all men together as brethren, Christ came to restore. He is the New Head of a new Family. The "first of the creation of God"-"the Firstborn among many brethren." By Him, the Elder Brother, the lost family inheritance is redeemed. He is gone to prepare for

the FAMILY "the house of many mansions," and there "to bring together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad." "As many as believe on Him, to them gives He power (privilege or right) to become the Sons of God." To all these He says, "One is your Father even God, and all ye are brethren."-These He directs to address God as their Father, "Our Father," and the most perfect happiness on which our hopes are fixed, is the happiness of a FAMILY-of God's sons and daughters-all like their Father, because like Him, who "is the image of the Invisible God"-having one heart and mind and will;-because Christ the Son of God, will be "in them," even as God is in Him. "I in them, and Thou in Me."-JOHN xvii. 23.

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Every Christian Family is the Church in miniature, and the Church a Family at large. And whatever has served to help, teach, and comfort one Christian Family, has in it the elements that may do the same to all. The plan adopted (and successfully) to bind together one happy Christian Family-(for an account of which, I refer the reader of this Introduction to the Prefatory Notice that follows) may, if God graciously grants His blessing, prove a source of

comfort, and a means of instruction to others of those "families, which call upon His name," and which, though scattered they may be, and divided for a time, as they must and will be, have the blessed hope of being united again in their FATHER'S HOME. To such I venture to commend this little Book, with the assured hope that what has been thought out and prayed over and passed through the mind and heart of one Christian, will, because it is drawn from God's own word, be blessed to many.

WHITECHAPEL, December, 1858.

W. W. C.

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