Night of Weeping Author:Horatius Bonar Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE FAMILY DISCIPLINE. "train up a child in the way he should go," is the injunction God lays on us. But it is, moreover, the principle on whic... more »h he himself is acting with his Church. He is training up his children here. This is the true character of his dealings with them. The education of his saints is the object he has in view. It is training for the kingdom; it is education for eternity. How momentous, then, is the training ! It is God who is carrying it on by the Holy Ghost. It is the Church, which is the body of Christ, that is the subject of it. And it is to prepare her for an everlasting kingdom! In bringing many sons unto glory, it was needful that even the Captain of their salvation should be made perfect through suffering. Surely then God lays vast stress upon this discipline. In his estimation it is no unimportant, nor unmeaning exercise. Knowing this, the apostle exhorts us on this very point, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." It is too solemn to be despised, too momentous to be overlooked. The education of God's family is concerned in it. The preparation of an heir of glory depends on it. This discipline begins at our conversion. The moment we are taken into the family it commences. " He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." It is not always visible; neither are we at all times conscious of its operation. Nevertheless, from the very day that we are begotten again to a lively hope " it begins. It ends only with life, or in the case of the last generation of the church, with their being " caught up to meet the Lord in the air." It is a whole lifetime's process. It is a daily, an hourly discipline, which admits of no cessation. The rod may not always be applied, but still the discipline goes on. 1. It is the discipli...« less