TEXT: COL. iii. 21.
MY devout hearers! Christian families, founded on the holy bond of marriage, are appointed, in the divine order of things, to be the nurseries of the future generation. It is there that the young souls who are to be our successors in cultivating the vineyard of God are to be trained and developed; it is there the process is to begin of restraining and cleansing away the corruption inherent in them as the children of sinful men; there that their earliest longings after fellowship with God are to be stirred, and that they are to be fitted, by training and exercise, for future usefulness in every good work. Therefore what more interesting subject can we consider than this most important work of Christian parents? which, however, is not the business of parents exclusively. If it were so, the subject would be less suitable for us; for we are not all parents who are met here; not all even engaged in the training and teaching of children. But in this case, as in others, the great, universal law of human life holds good, that two or three are not sufficient for the carrying on of a Christian work. And therefore the bringing up of children is not the work of the parents alone, nor even of the parents in conjunction with those whom they have directly engaged to help them in the way of oversight and instruction. Rather, because we all live in relations more or less intimate with the young, and exercise an influence on them; because it deeply concerns us all, as members of the Christian Church, that Christian dispositions and faculties should be called forth in them, we may correctly say that the bringing up of the younger generation, as a whole, is a work that belongs to the whole adult community, and wo are all bound to see that our share of the work is of the right kind.
But how difficult it seems to treat in a general way a subject like this in a manner suitable for a gathering of this kind. For how is it possible in a few separate discourses to review in a profitable way so wide a field of human wisdom and skill? and what an endless diversity of opinions must be taken into account, which would first have to be reconciled. However, this is not at all the place for setting forth a finished system of human wisdom and art for the training of our children. All that we can do is to awaken or confirm in our minds convictions of duty which shall lead us, at each moment, to the right steps. And when this is all we aim at, we shall be the less disturbed by the differing opinions, though they do indeed seem, at first sight, to present a difficulty. For some people hold that a man is entirely a result of training; that if it is only set about in the right way, and each part of the plan exactly calculated and fitted to the rest, one may make anything he chooses of any child; may draw forth in him, by practice, whatever natural gift he will, and may endue him, by instruction, with all kinds of intelligence and skill. Others, on the contrary, perhaps as lazy and careless as the first are proud and over-confident, maintain that with all our labour and skill we are, after all, helpless against the power of nature; that what we have built up with long toil is often overthrown with a single blow, when the object of our care begins to be more left to himself, and is able to give free play to his real nature; and that in reality every one must accomplish the work of his own salvation and education, in so far as that depends on man. It might, therefore, seem impossible to speak with any profit to those two classes of people together. But if I say to the latter class, Little as you may promise yourselves from training, yet, if you are careful to conduct yourselves according to God’s will in all your relations with grown-up people, you must be still more circumspect in your conduct towards your children, and it is only about this we shall speak; and if I say to the former, Much as you think you are able to do, even if you think the whole matter lies in your hand, yet you will not say that it is a matter of indifference how you manage, and all is left to your good pleasure; you will admit that there is a will of God, which you must seek to do: and in this both parties will be agreed, if they wish to treat the matter in a Christian way. And this is the only way in which it can be spoken of here; from no other standpoint can we consider any subject. We can only ask, How are children to be brought up for God? What, if we do not wish to miss this aim, is the will of God for us as regards them; what must we chiefly avoid; to what must we give the greatest amount of attention? Keeping these points in view, then, let us, with God’s help, enter on this subject.
It is somewhat remarkable that the apostle, in speaking here of the various relationships of family life, while he treats many other relations much more in detail, on the great subject of the training of children says absolutely nothing beyond the words we have read. In a similar context in the Epistle to the Ephesians, we find, it is true, a further exhortation added; but even there it is prefaced by this same warning of our text, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” This error, then—the only one against which the New Testament Scriptures so emphatically warn us—must be, it would seem, that which we are above all to guard against in the training of our children; indeed, it would almost appear that if we were only watchful enough against that, everything else would be of much less consequence. In the hope then that we have found the most important point in this lesson, let us try to-day to lay to heart this warning, not to embitter our children.