A WORD TO PARENTS

My dear friends:

The care of precious souls is a great trust committed to you by God, and to Him you are accountable for it. The instruction of youth is not to be left wholly to ministers, to school-masters or mistresses. No, parents ought to be instilling good principles into children, and masters into servants, as they have occasion, which might serve to leave abiding impressions on them many years thereafter; and so ye would become “fellow-helpers of the truth,” as in 3 John 8. Pray do not think this is left to your option, to do it or not as you please: no, you are under an express divine command, O parents, to bring up your children “in the admonition of the Lord;” that is, in teaching them the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, Eph. 4:4. The word translated “admonition”, properly signifies “catechising.” Likewise, the word which is rendered “train up”, Prov. 22:6, signifies to “catechise” a child when he is young. The command which God gave to the Israelites, is still binding on you, Deut. 6:7, “Thou shalt teach them unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Abraham had a strong sense of his duty in this respect; and therefore he not only taught, but commanded, both his children and servants, to keep the ways of the Lord, Gen. 18:19. And can we expect to land in Abraham’s bosom, if we tread not in Abraham’s footsteps?

O fellow Christians! your enlisting yourselves and your children at baptism, under Christ’s banner, obligeth you to use your best endeavors to enlarge the borders of His kingdom, and to ruin the empire of darkness. You pray that His kingdom may come; and this binds you to choose the best means to obtain what you pray for, namely, to instruct the rising generation in the knowledge of Christ. This would make your piety extend to ages to come; for your example herein may be a motive to them to tread in the same steps, and so one generation will teach another. Do you yourselves know the joyful sound of salvation through our glorious Surety, and will ye not desire to make others know it too? You ought to say with the four lepers, when they found plenty in the Syrian camp, “It is a day of good tidings, we do not well to hold our peace,” 2 Kings 7:9.

And to conclude, let me likewise humbly entreat young persons, diligently to improve all such helps and means of instructions in the season of youth, and carefully to prepare for and attend all diets of catechising, whether in private or public, and hearken with delight to parents, masters, or ministers, who would teach them the things which concern their everlasting peace. O consider how many young people are hurried into eternity before they know and lay these things to heart! Believe it, friends, there is no heaven without Christ, no interest in Christ without faith, and no faith without knowledge. May therefore “the earth be filled with the knowledge of Christ, as the waters cover the sea!”

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