Motives For A Holy and Careful Education of Children # 2

Motives For A Holy and Careful Education of Children # 2

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 forever. To think that this was conveyed to them by your means, will give you a larger share in the delights of it.

Motive 6. Lastly, Consider what exceeding great need they have of the utmost help you can give them. It is not a bodily disease, an easy enemy, a tolerable misery, that we call unto you for their help; but it is against sin, and satan, and hellfire! 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 have obstinate vices which 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, who neglect the holy education of their children.

Yes, and to those professors of godliness, that slobber 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 unmerciful to the souls that you have helped to bring into this world! Think not so basely of them, as if they were not worth your labor. 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 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 teachable, before they are grown up to despise your help; before you and they are separated asunder, and your opportunities be at an end. Do not sell them to satan! Betray them not by your ungodly negligence. The undoing of your children's souls is a work much fitter for satan, than for their parents. You can speak odiously of unfaithful, soul-betraying ministers; and do you not consider how odious a soul-betraying parent is? If God entrusted you but with earthly talents, take heed how you use them, for you must be accountable for your trust; and when He has entrusted you with souls, even your children's souls, will you betray them?

Do not see your children the slaves of satan here, and the firebrands of hell forever, if any diligence of yours may contribute to prevent it. If you had instructed them diligently, and watched over them, and corrected them, and done your part, it is like they had never come to this. Alas, what creatures will they be if you leave them to themselves! how ignorant, careless, crude, and beastly! Oh what a lamentable case have ungodly parents brought the world into! Ignorance and selfishness, 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 a few obscure, humble souls, who love virtue, and look for their reward from God alone, and expect that by abstaining from iniquity they make themselves a prey to wolves (Isa. 59:15). Wicked education has unmanned the world, and given it to satan, and make it almost like hell. O do not join with the devil in this unnatural, horrid wickedness!

~Richard Baxter~

(The End)