“Here is encouragement to the neglected duty of education. Many
times we neglect our little children, think we can do no good upon them.
Oh, water the seed of grace, for aught you know they may be sanctified
from the womb. It is said of John the Baptist, Luke 1:15, ‘He shall be filled
with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.’ Oh, this will make them
exert and put forth those hidden operations of grace which God worketh
upon their souls; therefore water the seed of grace with the dew of
education. God will call you to account for the education of your children:
Ezek. 16:20, ‘Moreover, thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters,
whom thou hast born unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them
to be devoured: is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast
slain my children?’ that is, dedicated to me by circumcision. Consider,
they are God’s children, and you are only entrusted with them that you
may bring them up. Let us, that have been instruments to convey an evil
nature to them, assist them in the work of grace. Many have been
converted by private education before they have been called by the
ministry of the gospel. You cannot do your children worse hurt than to let
them run wild. Consider they are the natural branches of the covenant,
and you should bestow culture upon them. Dionysius, the tyrant, to be
revenged of his adversary, brought up his child to riot and wantonness.
You cannot do yourselves a worse injury, nor yourselves a greater
revenge, than to let your children run wild.”
— Thomas Manton on faithful parenting
—
“Here is comfort to believing parents concerning their children
dying in infancy. We should not doubt of their salvation, unless we
should wrong the covenant of grace. To what end doth God say, I am your
God, and the God of your seed? Consider, Jesus Christ himself was the
advocate of children, and would plead their right against his own
apostles, when they thought Christ would have nothing to do with
children: Mat. 19:14, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven’—suffer them to come; I
have provided heaven for them, as well as for others. And Christ that hath
said, ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven,’ certainly will find out a way how
to settle the title upon them, and to enstate them into the kingdom of
heaven. David, when his child died, comforted himself in this: 2 Sam.
12:23, ‘But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back
again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.’ It is not only
meant of the state of the dead, that were a brutish argument, but ‘I shall
go to him;’ the meaning is, to the glory of the everlasting state; nay,
though they die without the seal of the covenant. The Hebrew children
were murdered as soon as born, Exod. 1:22; and Mat. 2:16. The children
of Bethlehem shed their blood by martyrdom, before they shed their
blood by circumcision, and therefore leave them in Christ’s arms.”
— Thomas Manton, comforting the parents of covenant infants dying in infancy
—
“But this is not all his righteousness unto children’s children! Learn to fear God; that is the best way of providing for your children. We all seek the welfare of our children. You may heap up riches and honour upon them, and leave a curse with it; you may entail them an estate, and wrath with it; but leave them a covenant interest, that is an excellent inheritance. Wicked parents do as it were stop the way of God’s mercy from descending upon their posterity; at least, they do not open a passage and channel, that grace
may run down freely and with an uninterrupted course. God often
threatens, that ‘The posterity of the wicked shall be cut off,’ Ps. 109:13.
You may not only injure your own souls, but your posterity. Oh, for your
poor babes’ sake, learn to fear God, that you may not leave them to the
wrath and displeasure of God!…God will require not only the neglect of your own souls at your hands, but visit you for neglecting your children; that you have not taken a course to open a passage, that grace may descend to them.”
— Thomas Manton, to parents
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