The Peculiar Mercy & Business of Life,Works VII, pp. 582-3, 590-2.
Seven Motivations for Family Religion
Let heads of families be exhorted to propagate religion to their children and families.
Motive 1. Consider ye have a charge of their souls, from God who has committed them to you. Hence the fourth commandment, the bond of all religion, is directed to heads of families. And in Abraham’s example their duty is laid before them, “I know him,” says the Lord, “that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment” (Genesis 18:19).
Motive 2. They are born like wild asses’ colts, and have a natural bent to the way of sin and destruction: “The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalms 58:3). It is too fond and blind a love to your children, that makes you take no notice of the corruption of their nature. And if they are naturally corrupt, what can ye expect but that they will run to their own ruin, if ye are not at pains with them for their souls” good? Hence says Solomon, “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself, bringeth his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15).
Motive 3. Parents propagate that corruption of nature to them, by natural generation. The sinful nature of children is a glass wherein the parents may get a humbling view of their own: “Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth” (Genesis 5:3). Compared with Job 14:4, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” Have ye been instrumental in conveying the poison to them, and will ye not be thereby stirred up to minister the antidote to them?
Motive 4. They are in the midst of many snares, entered into a world wherein offences abound (Matthew 18:7). Their youth makes them raw and unexperienced, and disposes them to be rash and heedless. They have need of a monitor, and instructor, and guide. How shall they learn, if they are not taught?
Motive 5. Ye must die; and it is like will die before them, and leave them in this evil world. Will ye not be concerned for them, that it may be well with them when ye are away? Your concern for their temporal provision will not make it well with them, while ye are not concerned to sow the seeds of religion in their hearts. That will be but to give much sail to an empty ship without ballast, that may sink her in the deep sea, as is seen in the sad experience of many.
Motive 6. They must die; and it may be they may die before you, and leave you; and then they will have no use for all the temporal provision ye have laboured for, for them. But religion propagated by you to them, will then appear a precious treasure. But if ye have neglected that duty to them, that will then appear a criminal neglect, which ye will never more be capable to mend; and it will leave a galling sting in your conscience, if ye be not quite stupid.
Motive 7. Lastly, What comfort can ye have in their case, while ye can have no comfortable prospect of their eternal happiness? If they were to be lords and ladies in this world, but to perish eternally in another world, what comfort can be there? The barren womb and dry breasts are preferable to the bringing forth children to the murderers; much more to the bringing forth children for hellfire.
Let these things work upon your consciences, and on your natural affection, to bestir yourselves towards the propagating of religion to the rising generation. If ye have any conscience of duty towards God, any humanity towards your fellow creatures, neglect it no more. For particular directions, I propose:
Ten Directions For Family Religion
1st, Acquaint them with God’s word. Let your children be learned to read; and your servants that cannot read, be so charitable as to teach them. And ye such servants secure that in your hiring of yourselves. And press them, and stir them up to read the scriptures ordinarily when they can do it. It is recorded of Timothy, to his honour, that “from a child he had known the holy scriptures, which are able to make men wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).
2ndly, Neglect not family catechizing. Oblige them to get the [Westminster] Shorter Catechism, and labour to make them understand it by examining them. For which cause ye have many good helps laid to your hand.
3rdly, Often inculcate on them their sinful and miserable state by nature, and the salvation for them in Jesus Christ.
4thly, Join a practical exhortation with your catechizing. It might be profitable to close the catechizing on every question of the Catechism upon a particular heed, with a short admonition to them by way of use. For example, on the first, [“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever,” exhort them]: Well mind that the great thing ye have to do in the world is to glorify God; and that the great thing ye have to seek is the enjoyment of him.
5thly, Inculcate upon them, and train them up in a reverence and esteem of the ministry of the gospel, as an ordinance of Christ for the salvation of sinners. And oblige your family to a conscientious attendance; none of them to sit at home that are capable of profiting by the word, without a reason that will bear weight before God (1 Corinthians 1:21). I urge this the rather that some are trained up in a neglect, or in a contempt of it, to the ensnaring of their poor souls. Mind the poor children of Bethel.
6thly, Inculcate and labour to impress them with the belief of the vanity of the world, and the impossibility of finding a rest to their heart in any creature. Tell it them from the word, your own and their experience.
7thly, Inculcate and labour to impress them with the belief of the full happiness to be found in a God in Christ, held forth to them in the promise of the gospel. Solemnly assure them, that there they may find a rest to their heart; and that God is offering himself to them as such.
8thly, Make it known to them, how good a master God is; how pleasant the way of holiness is; what an ill master Satan is; how contrary and odious sin is to God; how dear it stood Christ; how bitter it will be to the sinner here or hereafter.
9thly, Put them on praying by any means, and teach them to pray, and inculcate on them the necessity of it.
10thly, Make known to them how God is a God of exact justice, and purest truth: and from thence, as ye love their souls, endeavour often to inculcate on them, and impress them with a horror of injustice in the least things, and of lying in any case. The sad way some are brought up in those points, leave them without any conscience of common honesty or truth.
And mind that “precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10).
And be not discouraged, though ye see not the fruit. The fruit may come when ye are in your grave. Mind Manasseh’s conversion, when his godly father was dead and gone [2 Chron. 33:1-16].
Exhortation to Children
Now, ye young folk, and young ones, for whose cause so much has been said, I will leave this text, with three words to you, and a great offer.
1. Christ and the devil is striving about you. Christ is striving for you by his ministers, your parents, and masters, that shew a concern for your soul, and by your own consciences. The devil is striving to hold you, by his temptations, a vain and wicked world, and your own lusts. But the devil is a murderer, the world is false, and your lusts are deceitful—which ye will find if ye trust in them.
2. Ye are between the losing and the winning now. If Christ get you when ye are young, ye will serve him with life and spirit: if the devil prevail, the older ye grow, ye will go the farther from God. For youth goes with a great swing, right or wrong.
3. Eternity is at stake with you; eternal well or eternal woe, according to the side ye shall choose.
I offer Christ to you, and declare that he is willing to be yours and make you happy for ever, and be a rest to your hearts: “Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage” (Matthew 22:4). “I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me” (Proverbs 8:17). Remember this, and say, Amen.
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