MORE SPECIAL MOTIVES FOR A HOLY AND CAREFUL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.
BECAUSE the chief part of family care and government consisteth in the
right education of children, I shall adjoin here some more special
motives to quicken considerate parents to this duty; and though most
that I have to say for it be already said in my "Saints' Rest," part
iii. chap. 14. sect. 11, &c. and therefore shall be here omitted, yet
something shall be inserted, lest the want here should appear too
great.
_Motive_ I. Consider how deeply nature itself doth engage you to
the greatest care and diligence for the holy education of your
children. They are, as it were, parts of yourselves, and those that
nature teacheth you to love and provide for, and take most care for,
next yourselves; and will you be regardless of their chief
concernments? and neglective of their souls? Will you no other way
show your love to your children, than every beast or bird will to
their young, to cherish them till they can go abroad and shift for
themselves, for corporal sustenance? It is not dogs or beasts that you
bring into the world, but children that have immortal souls; and
therefore it is a care and education suitable to their natures which
you owe them; even such as conduceth most effectually to the happiness
of their souls. Nature teacheth them some natural things without you,
as it doth the bird to fly; but it hath committed it to your trust and
care to teach them the greatest and most necessary things: if you
should think that you have nothing to do but to feed them, and leave
all the rest to nature, then they would not learn to speak; and if
nature itself would condemn you, if you teach them not to speak, it
will much more condemn you, if you teach them not to understand both
what they ought to speak and do. They have an everlasting inheritance
of happiness to attain; and it is that which you must bring them up
for. They have an endless misery to escape; and it is that which you
must diligently teach them. If you teach them not to escape the flames
of hell, what thanks do they owe you for teaching them to speak and
go? If you teach them not the way to heaven, and how they may make
sure of their salvation, what thanks do they owe you for teaching them
how to get their livings a little while in a miserable world? If you
teach them not to know God, and how to serve him, and be saved, you
teach them nothing, or worse than nothing. It is in your hands to do
them the greatest kindness or cruelty in all the world: help them to
know God and to be saved, and you do more for them than if you helped
them to be lords or princes: if you neglect their souls, and breed
them in ignorance, worldliness, ungodliness, and sin, you betray them
to the devil, the enemy of souls, even as truly as if you sold them to
him; you sell them to be slaves to Satan; you betray them to him that
will deceive them and abuse them in this life, and torment them in the
next. If you saw but a burning furnace, much more the flames of hell,
would you not think that man or woman more fit to be called a devil
than a parent, that could find in their hearts to cast their child
into it, or to put him into the hands of one that would do it? What
monsters then of inhumanity are you, that read in Scripture which is
the way to hell, and who they be that God will deliver up to Satan, to
be tormented by him; and yet will bring up your children in that very
way, and will not take pains to save them from it! What a stir do you
make to provide them food and raiment, and a competent maintenance in
the world when you are dead! and how little pains take you to prepare
their souls for the heavenly inheritance! If you seriously believe
that there are such joys or torments for your children (and
yourselves) as soon as death removeth you hence, is it possible that
you should take this for the least of their concernments, and make it
the least and last of your cares, to assure them of an endless
happiness? If you love them, show it in those things on which their
everlasting welfare doth depend. Do not say you love them, and yet
lead them unto hell. If you love them not, yet be not so unmerciful to
them as to damn them: it is not your saying, God forbid, and we hope
better, that will make it better, or be any excuse to you. What can
you do more to damn them, if you studied to do it as maliciously as
the devil himself? You cannot possibly do more, than to bring them up
in ignorance, carelessness, worldliness, sensuality, and ungodliness.
The devil can do nothing else to damn either them or you, but by
tempting to sin, and drawing you from godliness. There is no other way
to hell. No man is damned for any thing but this. And yet will you
bring them up in such a life, and say, God forbid, we do not desire to
damn them? but it is no wonder; when you do by your children but as
you do by yourselves. Who can look that a man should be reasonable for
his child, that is so unreasonable for himself? or that those parents
should have any mercy on their children's souls, that have no mercy on
their own? You desire not to damn yourselves, but yet you do it, if
you live ungodly lives: and so you will do by your children, if you
train them up in ignorance of God, and in the service of the flesh and
world. You do like one that should set fire on his house and say, God
forbid, I intend not to burn it: or like one that casteth his child
into the sea, and saith, he intendeth not to drown him; or traineth
him up in robbing and thievery, and saith, he intendeth not to have
him hanged; but if you intend to make a thief of him, it is all one in
effect, as if you intended his hanging; for the law determineth it,
and the judge will intend it. So if you intend to train up your
children in ungodliness, as if they had no God nor souls to mind, you
may as well say, you intend to have them damned. And were not an
enemy, yea, is not the devil more excusable, for dealing thus cruelly
by your children, than you that are their parents, that are bound by
nature to love them, and prevent their misery? It is odious in
ministers that take the charge of souls, to betray them by their
negligence, and be guilty of their everlasting misery; but in parents
it is more unnatural, and therefore more inexcusable.
_Motive_ II. Consider that God is the Lord and Owner of your
children, both by the title of creation and redemption: therefore in
justice you must resign them to him, and educate them for him.
Otherwise you rob God of his own creatures, and rob Christ of those
for whom he died, and this to give them to the devil, the enemy of God
and them. It was not the world, the flesh, or the devil that created
them, or redeemed them, but God; and it is not possible for any right
to be built upon a fuller title, than to make them of nothing, and
redeem them from a state far worse than nothing. And after all this,
shall the very parents of such children steal them from their absolute
Lord and Father, and sell them to slavery and torment?
_Motive_ III. Remember that in their baptism you did dedicate
them to God; you entered them into a solemn vow and covenant, to be
wholly his, and to live to him. Therein they renounced the flesh, the
world, and the devil; therein you promised to bring them up
virtuously, to lead a godly and christian life, that they might
obediently keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same
all the days of their lives. And after all this, will you break so
solemn a promise, and cause them to break such a vow and covenant, by
bringing them up in ignorance and ungodliness? Did you understand and
consider what you then did? how solemnly you yourselves engaged them
in a vow to God, to live a mortified and a holy life? And will you so
solemnly do that in an hour, which all their life after with you, you
will endeavour to destroy?
_Motive_ IV. Consider how great power the education of children
hath upon all their following lives; except nature and grace, there is
nothing that usually doth prevail so much with them. Indeed the
obstinacy of natural viciousness doth often frustrate a good
education; but if any means be like to do good, it is this; but ill
education is more constantly successful, to make them evil. This
cherisheth those seeds of wickedness which spring up when they come to
age; this maketh so many to be proud, and idle, and flesh-pleasers,
and licentious, and lustful, and covetous, and all that is naught. And
he hath a hard task that cometh after to root out these vices, which
an ungodly education hath so deeply radicated. Ungodly parents do
serve the devil so effectually in the first impressions on their
children's minds, that it is more than magistrates and ministers and
all reforming means can afterwards do to recover them from that sin to
God. Whereas if you would first engage their hearts to God by a
religious education, piety would then have all those advantages that
sin hath now. Prov. xxii. 6, "Train up a child in the way he should
go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The language which
you teach them to speak when they are children, they will use all
their life after, if they live with those that use it. And so the
opinions which they first receive, and the customs which they are used
to at first, are very hardly changed afterward. I doubt not to affirm,
that a godly education is God's first and ordinary appointed means,
for the begetting of actual faith, and other graces, in the children
of believers: many may have seminal grace before, but they cannot
sooner have actual faith, repentance, love, or any grace, than they
have reason itself in act and exercise. And the preaching of the word
by public ministers is not the first ordinary means of grace, to any
but those that were graceless till they come to hear such preaching;
that is, to those on whom the first appointed means hath been
neglected, or proved in vain: that is, it is but the second means, to
do that which was not done by the first. The proof is undeniable;
because God appointeth parents diligently to teach their children the
doctrine of his holy word, before they come to the public ministry:
parents' teaching is the first teaching; and parents' teaching is for
this end, as well as public teaching, even to beget faith, and love,
and holiness; and God appointeth no means to be used by us, on which
we may not expect his blessing. Therefore it is apparent, that the
ordinary appointed means for the first actual grace, is parents' godly
instruction and education of their children. And public preaching is
appointed for the conversion of those only that have missed the
blessing of the first appointed means. Therefore if you deny your
children religious education, you deny them the first appointed means
of their actual faith and sanctification; and then the second cometh
upon disadvantage.
_Motive_ V. Consider also how many and great are your advantages
above all others for your children's good. As, 1. Nothing doth take
so much with any one, as that which is known to come from love: the
greater love is discerned in your instruction, the greater success may
you expect. Now your children are more confident of their parents'
love, than of any others; whether ministers and strangers speak to
them in love, they cannot tell; but of their parents' love they make
no doubt. 2. And their love to you is as great a preparative to your
success. We all hearken to them that we dearly love, with greater
attention and willingness than to others. They love not the minister
as they do their parents. 3. You have them in hand betimes, before
they have received any false opinions or bad impressions; before they
have any sin but that which was born with them: you are to make the
first impressions upon them; you have them while they are most
teachable, and flexible, and tender, and make least resistance against
instruction; they rise not up at first against your teaching with
self-conceitedness and proud objections. But when they come to the
minister, they are as paper that is written on or printed before,
unapt to receive another impression; they have much to be untaught,
before they can be taught; and come with proud and stiff resistance,
to strive against instruction, rather than readily to receive it. 4.
Your children do wholly depend on you for their present maintenance,
and much for their future livelihood and portions; and therefore they
know that it is their interest to obey and please you; and as interest
is the common bias of the world, so is it with your children; you may
easilier rule them that have this handle to hold them by, than any
other can do that have not this advantage. They know they serve you
not for nought. 5. Your authority over your children is most
unquestionable. They will dispute the authority of ministers, yea, and
of magistrates, and ask them who gave them the power to teach them,
and to command them? But the parents' authority is beyond all dispute.
They will not call you tyrants or usurpers, nor bid you prove the
validity of your ordination, or the uninterruptedness of your
succession. Therefore father and mother, as the first natural power,
are mentioned rather than kings or queens in the fifth commandment. 6.
You have the power of the rod to force them. Prov. xxii. 15,
"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of
correction shall drive it far from him." And your correction will be
better understood to come from love, than that of the magistrate or
any other. 7. You have best opportunity to know both the diseases and
temperature of your children; which is a great advantage for the
choosing and applying of the best remedy. 8. You have opportunity of
watching over them, and discerning all their faults in time; but if a
minister speak to them, he can know no more what fault to reprehend,
than others tell him, or the party will confess. You may also discern
what success your former exhortations had, and whether they amend or
still go on in sin, and whether you should proceed to more severe
remedies. 9. You have opportunity of speaking to them in the most
familiar manner; which is better understood than the set speech of a
minister in the pulpit, which few of them mark or understand. You can
quicken their attention by questions which put them upon answering
you, and so awaken them to a serious regard of what you say. 10. You
are so frequently with them, that you can repeat your instructions,
and drive them home, that what is not done at one time, may be done at
another; whereas other men can seldom speak to them, and what is so
seldom spoken is easily neglected or forgotten. 11. You have power to
place them under the best means, and to remove many impediments out
of their way which usually frustrate other men's endeavours. 12. Your
example is near them and continually in their sight, which is a
continual and powerful sermon. By all these advantages God hath
enabled you, above all others, to be instruments of your children's
good, and the first and greatest promoters of their salvation.
_Motive_ VI. Consider how great a comfort it would be to you, to
have your children such as you may confidently hope are the children
of God, being brought to know him, and love, and serve him, through
your own endeavours in a pious education of them. 1. You may love your
children upon a higher account than as they are yours; even as they
are God's, adorned with his image, and quickened with a divine
celestial life; and this is to love them with a higher kind of love,
than mere natural affection is. It would rejoice you to see your
children advanced to be lords or princes; but oh how much greater
cause of joy is it, to see them made the members of Christ, and
quickened by his Spirit, and sealed up for life eternal! 2. When once
your children are made the children of God, by the regeneration of the
Spirit, you may be much more free from care and trouble for them than
before. Now you may boldly trust them on the care of their heavenly
Father, who is able to do more for them than you are able to desire:
he loveth them better than you can love them; he is bound by promise
to protect them, and provide for them, and to see that all things work
together for their good. He that clotheth the lilies of the fields,
and suffereth not the young lions or ravens to be unprovided for, will
provide convenient food for his own children (though he will have you
also do your duty for them, as they are your children). While they are
the children of Satan, and the servants of sin, you have cause to
fear, not only lest they be exposed to miseries in this world, but
much more lest they be snatched away in their sin to hell: your
children, while they are ungodly, are worse than among wolves and
tigers. But when once they are renewed by the Spirit of Christ, they
are the charge of all the blessed Trinity, and under God the charge of
angels: living or dying they are safe; for the eternal God is their
portion and defence. 3. It may be a continual comfort to you to think
what a deal of drudgery and calamity your child is freed from: to
think how many oaths he would have sworn, and how many lies and curses
he would have uttered, and how beastly and fleshly a life he would
have lived, how much wrong he would have done to God and men, and how
much he would have pleased the devil, and what torments in hell he
must have endured as the reward of all; and then to think how
mercifully God hath prevented all this; and what service he may do God
in the world, and finally live with Christ in glory: what a joy is
this to a considering, believing parent, that taketh the mercies of
his children as his own! 4. Religion will teach your children to be
more dutiful to yourselves, than nature can teach them. It will teach
them to love you, even when you have no more to give them, as well as
if you had the wealth of all the world: it will teach them to honour
you, though you are poor and contemptible in the eyes of others. It
will teach them to obey you, and if you fall into want, to relieve you
according to their power: it will fit them to comfort you in the time
of your sickness and distress; when ungodly children will be as thorns
in your feet or eyes, and cut your hearts, and prove a greater grief
than any enemies to you. A gracious child will bear with your
weaknesses, when a Ham will not cover his father's nakedness: a
gracious child can pray for you, and pray with you, and be a blessing
to your house; when an ungodly child is fitter to curse, and prove a
curse, to those he lives with. 5. And is it not an exceeding joy to
think of the everlasting happiness of your child? and that you may
live together in heaven for ever? when the foreseen misery of a
graceless child may grieve you whenever you look him in the face. 6.
Lastly, it will be a great addition to your joy, to think that God
blessed your diligent instructions, and made you the instrument of all
that good that is done upon your children, and of all that good that
is done by them, and of all the happiness they have for ever. To think
that this was conveyed to them by your means, will give you a larger
share in the delights of it.
_Motive_ VII. Remember that your children's original sin and
misery is by you; and therefore, in justice, you that have undone
them, are bound to do your best to save them. If you had but conveyed
a leprosy, or some hereditary disease, to their bodies, would you have
not done your best to cure them? Oh that you could do them but as much
good as you do them hurt! It is more than Adam's sin that runneth down
into the natures of your children, yea, and that bringeth judgments on
them; and even Adam's sin cometh not to them but by you.
_Motive_ VIII. Lastly, Consider what exceeding great need they
have of the utmost help you can afford them. It is not a corporal
disease, an easy enemy, a tolerable misery, that we call unto you for
their help; but it is against sin, and Satan, and hell-fire. It is
against a body of sin; not one, but many; not small, but pernicious,
having seized on the heart; deep-rooted sins, that are not easily
plucked up. All the teaching, and diligence, and watchfulness that you
can use, is little enough, and may prove too little. They are
obstinate vices that have possessed them; they are not quickly nor
easily cast out; and the remnants and roots are apt to be still
springing up again, when you thought they had been quite destroyed: oh
then what wisdom and diligence is requisite to so great and necessary
a work!
And now let me seriously speak to the hearts of those careless and
ungodly parents, that neglect the holy education of their children:
yea, and to those professors of godliness, that slubber over so great
a work with a few customary formal duties and words, that are next to
a total omission of it. Oh be not so unmerciful to the souls that you
have helped to bring into the world! Think not so basely of them, as
if they were not worth your labour. Make not your children so like
your beasts, as to make no provision but only for their flesh.
Remember still that it is not beasts, but men, that you have begotten
and brought forth: educate them then and use them as men, for the love
and obedience of their Maker: oh pity and help the souls that you have
defiled and undone! Have mercy on the souls that must perish in hell,
if they be not saved in this day of salvation! Oh help them that have
so many enemies to assault them! Help them that have so many
temptations to pass through; and so many difficulties to overcome; and
so severe a judgment to undergo! Help them that are so weak, and so
easily deceived and overthrown! Help them speedily while your
advantages continue; before sin have hardened them, and grace have
forsaken them, and Satan place a stronger garrison in their hearts.
Help them while they are tractable, before they are grown up to
despise your help; before you and they are separated asunder, and your
opportunities be at an end. You think not your pains from year to year
too much to make provision for their bodies: oh be not cruel to their
souls! Sell them not to Satan, and that for nought! Betray them not by
your ungodly negligence to hell. Or if any of them will perish, let it
not be by you, that are so much bound to do them good: the undoing of
your children's souls is a work much fitter for Satan, than for their
parents. Remember how comfortable a thing it is, to work with Christ
for the saving of souls. You think the calling of ministers honourable
and happy; and so it is, because they serve Christ in so high a work:
but if you will not neglect it, you may do for your children more than
any minister can do. This is your preaching place; here God calleth
you to exercise your parts, even in the holy instruction of your
families: your charge is small in comparison of the minister's, he
hath many hundred souls to watch over, that are scattered all abroad
the parish; and will you think it much to instruct and watch over
those few of your own that are under your roof? You can speak odiously
of unfaithful, soul-betraying ministers; and do you not consider how
odious a soul-betraying parent is? If God intrust you but with earthly
talents, take heed how you use them, for you must be accountable for
your trust; and when he hath intrusted you with souls, even your
children's souls, will you betray them? If any rulers should but
forbid you the instructing and well-governing of your families, and
restrain you by a law, as they would have restrained Daniel from
praying in his house, Dan. vi. then you would think them monsters of
impiety and inhumanity; and you would cry out of a satanical
persecution, that would make men traitors to their children's souls,
and drive away all religion from the earth. And yet how easily can you
neglect such duties, when none forbid them you, and never accuse
yourselves of any such horrid impiety or inhumanity? What hypocrisy
and blind partiality is this! Like a lazy minister that would cry out
of persecution, if he were silenced by others, and yet will not be
provoked to be laborious, but ordinarily by his slothfulness silence
himself, and make no such matter of it. Would it be so heinous a sin
in another to restrain you? and is it not as heinous for you, that are
so much obliged to it, voluntarily to restrain yourselves? O then deny
not this necessary diligence to your necessitous children, as you love
their souls, as you love the happiness of the church or commonwealth,
as you love the honour and interest of Christ, and as you love your
present and everlasting peace. Do not see your children the slaves of
Satan here, and the firebrands of hell for ever, if any diligence of
yours may contribute to prevent it. Do not give conscience such matter
of accusation against you, as to say, All this was long of thee! If
thou hadst instructed them diligently, and watched over them, and
corrected them, and done thy part, it is like they had never come to
this. You till your fields; you weed your gardens; what pains take you
about your grounds and cattle! and will you not take more for your
children's souls? Alas, what creatures will they be if you leave them
to themselves! how ignorant, careless, rude, and beastly! Oh what a
lamentable case have ungodly parents brought the world into! Ignorance
and selfishness, beastly sensuality, and devilish malignity, have
covered the face of the earth as a deluge, and driven away wisdom, and
self-denial, and piety, and charity, and justice, and temperance
almost out of the world, confining them to the breasts of a few
obscure, humble souls, that love virtue for virtue's sake, and look
for their reward from God alone, and expect that by abstaining from
iniquity they make themselves a prey to wolves, Isa. lix. 15. Wicked
education hath unmanned the world, and subdued it to Satan, and make
it almost like to hell. O do not join with the sons of Belial in this
unnatural, horrid wickedness!