Parental Desire, Duty, & Encouragement 2

Next Part Parental Desire, Duty, & Encouragement 3

II. Those MEANS which must be used by him in order to obtain it.

In the distribution of his favors to the human race, God generally connects his bounty with our exertions. This remark applies both to temporal and spiritual benefits. Nor can we expect that even our children will be blessed, independently of our efforts. If, therefore, it be asked, what can be done by us that our children may participate in spiritual and eternal blessings? I answer, in the language of inspiration, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This exhortation enjoins the whole extent of religious education; on which I shall now insist; as an attention to this subject forms the only rational ground for expectation of the divine blessing on your offspring. Religious education includes, Discipline, Instruction, Example, and Prayer—and any system defective in either of these important particulars is not likely to be attended with success.

1. If we would have our children grow up as we desire, we must maintain DISCIPLINE in our families. By discipline, I mean the exercise of parental authority in enforcing obedience to all suitable commands and prohibitions.

This part of religious education should begin EARLY. The importance of this is written upon the whole system of nature, and is repeated on every page of the history of Providence. The 'supple twig' bends to your will, while the 'sturdy oak' laughs at your authority. A radical mistake with many, who see the importance of discipline generally, is an error as to the period of life, when it ought to commence. They forget that children are to be brought under the control of authority, long before they are capable of instruction. The 'tempers of the heart' sprout before the judgment begins to bud; and therefore before the parent can attend to the latter, all his care should be directed to the growth of the former. And as 'conscience' at a very early period of childhood ascends her throne in the bosom, cites the little culprits before her tribunal, and makes them sensible of her verdict—we should as early, join the exercise of parental authority with the power of this inward monitor, and impress their minds with the distinction between right and wrong.

Discipline must be REASONABLE in all its commands, and that reasonableness should, as much as possible, be seen upon the face of the command. We should particularly guard against enjoining anything obviously ridiculous or impracticable. There are few impressions to which the minds of children are more susceptible than those of ridicule—and any command, which, when it is attempted to be obeyed, subjects them to the mortification of either derision or despondency, is destructive of all confidence in parental discretion; a lack of confidence is soon followed by contempt, and that as soon by rebellion. As frequently, therefore, as possible, when the child is capable of reflection, let the reasonableness of your commands be manifest. But as this cannot always be the case, and where it cannot, your authority must not give way, I exhort you, by a line of consummate wisdom towards your children, to transfuse into their minds that lesson which you have learned with respect to Jehovah--to trust His heart, where you cannot trace His hand.

Discipline, to be successful, must be STEADY and UNIFORM. This is of the utmost importance—for depend upon it that a parent, whose commands spring only from his mood, will soon find to his cost, that he has taught his child to obey from no other principle.

The first thing to be attended to in a command is, that it be reasonable; and the second, that it be obeyed. All parents ought to consider themselves invested by God with a degree of authority, which they can at no time allow to be trampled under foot by their children, without despising an ordinance of God. I have been shocked to see some families, where parental authority seemed to be the result of no principle, subject to no rule, directed to no end, but caprice.

These alternate fits of stern severity and ruinous indulgence were following each other with most destructive influence, like a frosty night succeeding a sunny day in the early spring--to the injury of every tender plant exposed to its baneful attack. There was nothing belonging to parental authority but the scourge, and that never used, but in seasons when it ought never to be used at all—in moments of passion! There were the arms of a weak mother affording an asylum to the young fugitive, fleeing from the displeasure of a stern father; there the child, placed between these two extreme sources of ruin--undue severity, and foolish fondness--was learning to abuse the indulgence of the mother, and to detest the authority of the father. Christian parents! is it thus you cause your families to become the nurseries of the church of Christ? alas! they look more like the hotbeds of sedition, and the schools of political tyrants.

The great defect in the administration of public justice in this country is, that the penalties of the law are too severe to be executed—hence it is that such multitudes are condemned, and compared with this number so few executed. In consequence of this, the severity of the threatened punishment loses all its effect in deterring from the commission of the crime; because of the chance of mitigation which the general practice of our courts holds out to the offender. Take heed that you do not make this the fault of your domestic discipline. Never command what you do not mean to have performed—never threaten what you do not mean to inflict.

Discipline should always be maintained in a spirit of LOVE. For if indulgence has slain its tens of thousands--severity has slain its thousands. Man is a creature formed to act more by the constraints of love than fear; hence says God in speaking of Israel, "I drew them with cords of love, with bands of a man." Do we not thus learn from him who constructed the human mind, and of course, best knows the principle on which its operations are to be directed--that it is to be governed by affection? Of all the incorrect, unnatural, disgusting associations, which the disordered state of the moral world ever presented to the eye of an observer, there is not one more repugnant to the feelings than "a tyrant's rod, grasped in a father's hand!"

We shall generally find that the harsh language, and frowning countenance, with which a command is uttered, are more irksome than the command itself. I would entreat you never to forget a line, which I doubt not you have often repeated to your children, "Let love through all your actions run."

The nearer you live to their hearts, the more likely you are to impress them—for the words of our Savior will apply in all their force to this case, "If you love me, you will keep my commands." Attract them to love you; and then their own affection will constrain them to obey you. A child will generally feel no wish to escape from a system of discipline, which springs entirely from the tenderness of his father. Parental authority should, to a considerable degree, resemble the magnet, which while it has all the hard inflexibility of the steel, acts only by the attractive influence of the loadstone.

And as this applies to the whole of domestic discipline, so with peculiar force to the PUNITIVE part of it. If there be one act of paternal authority, which ought to display more affection than the rest, that act is correction—because there is no act so much in danger of misconstruction in the mind of the child. And if he be once impressed that his sufferings are inflicted more to gratify your resentment, than to cure his faults, he will be likely to feel towards you, as you would towards the surgeon, who, you were persuaded, tortured you for his pleasure, and not for your benefit. Let him be convinced that it cost you much anguish to inflict the least punishment—for as we sympathize with those around us in the feelings of their mind, a correction given in a rage will be generally received in a rage. Genuine repentance will be most likely to respond to genuine affection.

And here I would caution you against the injudicious conduct of those who substitute the divine threatenings of Scripture, for parental correction. To resort with a promptitude which has at last the effect of profaneness, to these awful ideas, on every recurrence of carelessness and perversity, is the way both to bring those ideas into contempt, and to make all faults appear equal. It is also obvious, that by trying this expedient on all occasions, parents will bring their authority into contempt. If they would not have that authority set at defiance, they must be able to point to immediate consequences, within their power to inflict on delinquency.

Perhaps one of the most prudent rules respecting the enforcement, on the minds of children, of the conviction that they are accountable to an all-seeing, though unseen Governor, and liable to the punishment of obstinate guilt in a future state--is to take opportunities of impressing this idea the most cogently, at seasons when the children are not lying under any blame or displeasure, at moments of serious kindness on the parts of the parents, and serious inquisitiveness on the part of the children; leaving in some degree the conviction to have its own effect, greater or less, in any subsequent instance of guilt, according to the greater or less degree of aggravation which the child's own conscience can be made secretly to acknowledge in that guilt. And another obvious rule will be, that when a child is to be solemnly reminded of these religious sanctions in immediate connection with an actual instance of criminality in his conduct, that instance should be one of the most serious of his faults, and one which will bear the utmost seriousness of such all admonition.

Discipline should respect each child in particular according to his individual disposition. In the same family, there may be a variety of dispositions, which will require a varied method of treatment--in addition to the general principles of education which apply alike to all minds. And therefore, as the farmer consults the nature of his land, adapting the seed to the soil; and as the physician studies the constitution of his patient, suiting the remedy to the disease; so ought every parent to study the dispositions of all his children, that he may adapt his discipline to the peculiarities of their respective tempers. And it requires no unusual amount of wisdom to discover wherein those peculiarities consist; for as the sun is seen most clearly when rising and setting, so the dispositions of mankind are discovered most distinctly in childhood and in old age.

Almost every child has some predominant feature of mind, which should be most assiduously checked or cherished, as it is either amiable or hateful. All have their besetting sins, which will be likely to expose them, in future life, to peculiar danger; and which, in dependence on divine grace, the parent should endeavor to tear up as roots of poison. And they each have some distinguishing traits of excellence, which should be seized as the helm of the mind, to steer it in safety, through the dangers with which it is surrounded.

It may, perhaps, after all that I have said, be asked by some, what has this to do with religion? To this it might be sufficient to reply--Did not Jehovah, with most emphatic marks of his divine commendation, mention the order of Abraham's family? "I know him, 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."

On the other hand, with what awful marks of divine displeasure did he punish the lack of discipline in Eli's family! "I am about to do something in Israel that everyone who hears about it will shudder. On that day I will carry out against Eli everything I said about his family, from beginning to end. I told him that I am going to judge his family forever because of the iniquity he knows about: his sons are defiling the sanctuary, and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I have sworn to Eli's family. The iniquity of Eli's family will never be wiped out by either sacrifice or offering." (1 Samuel 3:11-14) Heart-rending doom! Parents, take warning!

That discipline is connected with religion is plain—for what, in truth, is religion? Is it not choosing the will of God in preference to our own—bending our will to his absolute authority—implicitly obeying his commands—cheerfully acquiescing in his determinations without murmuring? And is not every parent to his child in God's stead? And thus by being trained up to consider and obey the authority of his parent as absolute, the child is gradually taught to bow down to the will of Jehovah.

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