Do Not Sin Against the Child

Do Not Sin Against the Child

A Sermon
(No. 840)

Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, November 8, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [48]Metropolitan Tabernacle Newington.

"Spoke I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child?'"
Genesis 42:22.

THUS Reuben reminded his brothers of his admonition concerning
Joseph–thus would I address you with regard to your own children. I
thought it meet, beloved Friends, as our friend, Mr. Hammond, is coming
among us to labor for the conversion of the young, that I should, as it
were, this morning deliver the preface to his series of services.
Perhaps by enlisting the consideration and the affectionate prayers of
God's people for the young, I may be doing more to help my friend in
his work than it would be possible for me to do by any other means.

Note the words of the text. "Spoke I not unto you, saying, Do not sin
against the child?" The essence of sin lies in its being committed
against God. When men are fully convinced that they have disobeyed the
Lord, and that this is "the head and front of their offending," then
they are brought to a true perception of the character of sin. Hence
David's penitential Psalm has for its acutest cry, "Against You, You
only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight." Yet the sword
of sin cuts both ways–it not only contends against God but against His
creatures, too. It is a double evil. Like a bursting shell, it scatters
evil on every side. Every relationship which we sustain involves duty,
and consequently may be perverted into an occasion for sin.

We are no sooner in this world than, as children, we sin against our
parents. As members of a family we sin against brothers and sisters,
and against playmates and acquaintances. We launch into the outside
world, and around our ship sins dash like raging billows. As our
various relations are multiplied, our sins also increase. We sin
against a husband or against a wife, against a servant or against a
master, against a buyer or a seller. On all sides the roots of our soul
suck up sin from the earth in which they spread. We sin in public and
sin in private. We sin against our poverty and against our wealth. Our
evil nature, like the deadly upas tree, distils its venom–the poison
of sin drops on all who come under our shadow. As the sea surrounds all
shores, so sin beats with deadly waves upon all connected with our
life. Our sin assails both Heaven and earth, time and eternity, great
and small, old men and children.

The text calls us to consider one particular form of sin, namely,
sinning against a child, and it is of that I intend to speak this
morning, looking up to the great Father of spirits that He would teach
me to speak aright. First, what is this which has been spoken to us?
"Do not sin against the child." Secondly, who said it? And, thirdly,
what then?

I. First–and this will occupy most of our time this morning–WHAT IS
THIS WHICH HAS BEEN SAID TO US? "Do not sin against the child." This
warning may be suitable for every one of us without exception. Those
who are not parents and who are not teachers of the young, are,
nevertheless, bound to remember that they are in a commonwealth of
which young people make up a very considerable part. Little eyes are so
quick to observe the actions of those who are grown up–adults should
be careful what they do.

Every man, by his own conduct, is, more or less, educating the rising
generation of the nation. If a man acts amiss. If his speech is foul.
If his conversation is polluted, he helps to educate children in the
school of Belial. If, on the other hand, his ways are right, and, by
the Grace of God he is made to act morally and to speak truthfully, he
is doing something, unconsciously it may be, but still he is doing
something to train up one for virtue and holiness. The exhalations of
our moral conduct sweetens or defiles the general atmosphere of
society, and in this, children, as well as others, are partakers.

I would say to every man who is giving full swing to his passions, if
nothing else will check you, at any rate pause awhile when yonder
fair-haired girls and lisping children are gazing upon you. If you care
not for angels, stop for the sake of yon blue-eyed boy. Let not the
leprosy of your sin pollute your offspring more than must be. Were you
about to utter a lascivious sentence? Withhold it, I pray you, for it
is not right that little ears should so soon be desecrated by that
which has become common enough to you, but will as yet be shocking to
them.

Were you about to blaspheme? Is it not enough to curse your Maker? Why
need you bring a second curse upon that harmless little one? Why teach
those lips that will be all too ready to learn to speak the hideous
word? Man, if any feeling is left in you, respect the purity of
childhood and let the presence of youth, if it is not a motive for
sanctity, at any rate be a reason for restraint in open sin. Do not sin
cruelly and wantonly against the child.

But I would not merely put it in a light which may suit the vilest.
You, dear Friend, whoever you may be, owe a service to your neighbor.
You are to love him as yourself–and that word, "neighbor," includes
all mankind! The bond of the command is not limited to those who are
over 21 and have assumed the responsibilities of manhood. When God
wrote this Law He meant it to take in the whole sweep of our race. The
religion of Christ is a religion of love to mankind as such–it bids us
regard the babe upon its mother's knee as well as the gray-beard
leaning upon his staff–to all it speaks of love.

You are bound, therefore, by the universal Law, to have a love towards
children. And, as in the first place you are to refrain from doing or
saying anything which would injure their morals for this life, so are
you bound, as much as lies in you, to do all you can to train them by
your own example for excellence and happiness in the path of right. I
put forth God's claim and man's claim, this morning, to all of you–a
claim from which you cannot escape by any pretense whatever. A claim
which cannot be forgotten without sin.

We are all under obligations, both to old and young, to rich and poor,
and especially I urge the claims of those who as yet cannot speak for
themselves. To each and every child you are under an obligation as a
member of the great human family–as a citizen in one great kingdom–to
do nothing which may injure, and everything which may promote his
future welfare. I summon before you all the host who gather at their
mothers' knees, and beseech you by the heart of humanity not to drag
these little ones down to Hell!

To the parent the text speaks with a still small voice, to which I
trust none of us will be deaf. "Do not sin against the child"–against
your own dear child! Yet how many parents do so! If as I now speak,
unconverted parents will be compelled to acknowledge the truthfulness
of the accusations I shall lay against them, I hope they will be led to
deep and true repentance. There are many parents who neglect,
altogether, the religious education of their children. Were their
children born without souls, they could not be more indifferent to
their welfare than they now are! If it were revealed to them that their
little ones, when they slept in their coffins, would be as the
offspring of dogs and horses which have no hereafter, they could not
treat them in a more thoughtless fashion than they now do!

Why, are there not many of you who, when you have sent your children to
Sunday school, think you have done all that is to be done for them? And
even if this little is neglected, you are content. You never prayed for
your babes–how can you? You do not know, yet, what it is to pray for
yourselves in sincerity and truth! You never pointed your Samuels and
Hannahs to the "Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." How
could you? Your own sin lies upon you unforgiven!

You have never instructed the dear little ones in the danger of
rebellion against God and in the necessity of being reconciled to Him
through faith in the precious blood of Christ–how can we expect you to
do this while you, yourselves, remain aliens and strangers to the
blessed God and have not submitted yourselves to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ? I remember a woman who was converted at an advanced age, who
had been left years before, a widow with many children. She was a most
exemplary, moral, and industrious woman and earned her living by most
laborious work. Yet she managed to bring up all her family, and settle
them in a suitable manner.

But after her conversion I think I never saw more bitter tears than
those which she shed when she said, "I took care to feed them and
clothe their bodies, but I never thought of their souls! Alas for me, I
knew no better! But alas for them I left the chief thing undone! The
other day I spoke to my eldest son about the things of God and he told
me religion was all a farce. He did not listen to a word I said. And
well," she said, "might he be an infidel when his mother never said a
word by which he could have been led to the Savior."

Words were spoken by way of comfort to her, but like Rachel, she
refused to be comforted because, she said, and said truly, her great
opportunity had been thrown away. The best time of effort for a mother
had been allowed to pass away unused. Her harvest was passed and her
summer was ended–and her children were not saved! Some of you who are
now godless, I trust may be brought to the same repentance. But I would
have you saved so bitter regret by being led now to give your hearts to
Christ while yet your children are about you.

In speaking to parents I put the charge in the mildest terms and have
said that some have done nothing to train their families for the
Savior, but graver accusations may be brought. Are there not some here
who have done much the other way, much to quench the motions of the
Spirit in the juvenile mind? Much to harden the children's hearts and
to lull their consciences to sleep? It is a disgraceful fact that many
fathers educate their children for the service of Satan. They are the
devil's lackeys, introducing their sons into the courts of the Evil
One.

When parents take their children to the theater, what can they expect
to be the result? When they send them to the beer shop, or let them see
their drunkenness, what surer school of vice can they send them to?
Parents who teach their children to sing the silly, frivolous and
perhaps licentious songs, are sacrificing them to Moloch! Shame is it
when from a father's lips the boy hears the first oath and learns the
alphabet of blasphemy! There are crowds of parents upon whose head the
blood of their children will certainly descend because they have
launched them on the sea of life with the rudder set towards the
rocks–with a false chart, a deceitful compass–and every other
appliance for securing eternal shipwreck.

Doubtless there are some here, unconverted men and women, whose example
has already come home to them in the ungrateful conduct of their sons.
They have seen their children grow up to be estranged from them. And if
they are, therefore, blaming the Providence of God, let them pause
awhile and ask themselves whether they ought not rather to blame
themselves–are they not reaping according to their sowing? What are
our children, for the most part, but what we make them by our training?
And if they have grown up like ourselves–and our faults are mirrored
in their characters–let us repent in dust and ashes before God!

Never think it a hard law that our sins against our children should
recoil upon ourselves. Fathers and mothers who sin against your
children, I fear you will be lost, yourselves. But before that doom
overtakes you, I pray you remember that you will not perish alone in
your iniquity–your household will suffer with you! If you have no care
about your own souls, yet think, I pray you, of the little ones
entrusted to you. You have some in Heaven whom Sovereign Mercy has
caught away from the cradle and the breast that they may sing the
praises of God forever. I cannot bear to think that you should drag the
others down to the pit of Hell! For your own sake. For their sake,
pause awhile–murder not your own flesh and blood! Repent of your own
personal sins and seek mercy at the hands of Jesus that you may from
now on never more sin against the child!

If these things come home forcibly to you who are unsaved, much more to
Christian parents! Do Christian parents ever sin against their
children? We answer, Christian parents are not perfect! They are yet in
the body, and have yet to mourn over sins and shortcomings. And so, not
condemning you who fear God–for who shall condemn whom Christ has
justified?–yet let me, for the awakening of your consciences and to
drive you again to the blood of Jesus for pardon, remind you that we,
alas, too often do sin against our children! We are under a double
responsibility, not only because they are our children, but because God
has given us salvation. We are bound, having the light, to give that
light to all around us, and bound by other ties to give the light,
first, to those who have sprung from our loins.

If we deny our most loving efforts to our own households, we must
surely be inhuman! Not only may we not talk of Divine Grace, we can
scarcely boast of fulfilling the promptings of Nature itself, if we
have no compassion for our children's souls. Yet what do you think–may
not our inconsistencies be the reason why our children are not
converted? Is the boy compelled to say, "My father hardly believes what
he says, or else he would not act as he does"? Do you not think that in
many families where the parents are worldly and conformed to the world,
it would be a great wonder if the sons and daughters were not ungodly?

Are there not many Christians so busy about making money that they have
no time to speak about soul concerns to their children? And if those
children were to die, do you think those parents could excuse
themselves? If their children died without hope, how would their
parents quiet their consciences? Do we, as a rule, pray for our own
children as we ought? Do we wrestle with God for them night and day? Do
we ever spend an hour, say, in pleading with the Most High that they
might live in His sight? And if we have prayed, do we use such efforts
for our children as dying beds will make us wish that we had used? Have
we spoken personally to them about their salvation? Having done it
once, have we repeated it? If we fear that we have not touched the
right chord of the heart, have we made up our minds to persevere in
affectionate admonitions and earnest entreaties until every one of them
shall be saved?

I know that some of you have done so. I rejoice in some fathers and
mothers in this congregation, that they do lay themselves out for the
conversion of their children. And of these I may also add that, for the
most part, they have seen the desire of their hearts. But where there
has been no desire, and no prayer, and no effort–if the children die
unsaved, what balm can heal the mother's wounds? O you have been
baptized into Christ and profess to have put on Christ! O you who claim
to love your Lord and Master, what shall we say to you if your sons
shall be unchastened like those of Eli, and shall die in their sins? If
your sons turn out to be Nadabs and Abihas and not Samuels, how can we
console you if you have not wept over them?

If they rebel like Absalom, who can wonder if their father never poured
out his heart before the Lord on their account? Do you expect to reap
without sowing, or to gather where you have not planted? Parental care
can, alone, preserve household piety, and if that is gone, the pillars
of the nation are removed. It is an ill day for any Church when family
piety is on the decline. Household religion has been the great defense
of England against Popery. Do not tell me of your State-paid clergy and
their lofty prelates–give me family prayer and the Pope may curse away
as long as he likes! Give us the open Catechism, and the children made
to understand it! Give us the Bible read from day to day, and godly
parents inculcating Gospel Truths upon their little ones' minds–and we
may laugh to scorn all the powers of Pope or Satan!

But once let the family altar be forsaken and let parents forget the
natural duty of ordering their households before the Lord, and you may
guard the Church as you will, your labor will be in vain! You have cast
down her hedges–the bear out of the woods shall waste her! You have
taken away the tower of the flock, and when the wolf comes he will find
the sheep an easy prey! Christian parents, though I cannot address you
this morning as I would, yet with all my heart would I say to you–do
not sin against the child by your ill example or by your negligence as
to his salvation–but seek of the Holy Spirit that to your own
offspring you may fully discharge the solemn duties which Providence
and Grace have thrown upon you.

The text has a word next to teachers, teachers especially of our Sunday
schools, though I hold that teachers of weekday schools ought not to
consider themselves exempted from seeking the good of the souls
entrusted to them. Teachers of Sunday schools, you have voluntarily
assumed a position, the responsibility of which is not to be laid aside
so long as you continue in the office. I beseech you, do not sin
against the child! He comes to you, this afternoon, to learn something
weighty and of eternal consequence–do not be dull and uninteresting.
Do not talk to him of unimportant matters. Do not be cold and sleepy
over your work, but tell him of Jesus lovingly, simply, earnestly. Do
not lead him to feel that you have, yourself, no faith in what you
teach. Be so earnest that he may see conviction gleaming from your eyes
and may soon, in return, feel it flashing into his heart!

Remember, other teachers have been prayerful over their children. They
have brought their boys and girls to Jesus, and have won a blessing
from the Master–will not you be prayerful, too? If not, it were better
for those children that you had never been born, and that some better
teacher had been set over them! Do not sin against the child,
therefore, by cumbering the ground and occupying a place which might
have been far more profitably filled by a more earnest spirit. In the
weekday do not sin against the child by conduct inconsistent with your
profession. Do not sin against the child by neglecting him during the
six days if you have opportunities for visitation. Seek his good at all
times, follow him with your prayers and tears if you cannot with your
personal visits and loving words.

As God gives you opportunity, let importunate entreaties and fervent
prayers go together–entreaties to him and prayers to God–and who
knows, God may give you his soul as a seal to your faithful ministry!
Teacher, do not sin against the child by failure in anything to which
conscience calls you. I am afraid, in looking back upon our own Sunday
school experience, some of us will have to acknowledge that we did sin
against the children a great deal–that we made our class rather a
school for teaching, reading, and repeating texts and singing hymns
than an occasion for aiming at heart-renewal and immediate salvation.

By the way, let me say while I am speaking to teachers, the word is
equally applicable to some of you who are not teachers, but ought to
be. In many of our Churches the work of teaching the young is left to
the very youngest–and advanced Christians usually decline the service.
Is this as it should be? I take it that for this work the Church ought
to send forth her picked men. If any of you have ability for the
teaching of youth and are not using the talent, you are sinning against
the child quite as much as if you undertook the work and did not
perform it thoroughly. There are schools in this neighborhood
languishing for lack of teachers. We have letters constantly sent to
us, "Can you send us help?" and it is a crying shame that in a
neighborhood so blessed with the Gospel there should be any Sunday
school pining for lack of teachers to instruct the children.

I am told that in some schools near this Tabernacle, there are
sometimes 50 or 100 children without teachers! I charge you, men and
women who know Christ, while such spheres are before you, do not stand
back from them lest it be charged upon you in the Day of Judgment,
concerning these little ones, that you withheld from them the Bread of
Life and left them to die in the dark!

The text further bears with equal severity upon the preacher. I feel it
chides and chastens me. Preaching is full often too obscure for
children. The words are too long, the sentences too involved, the
matter too mysterious. Well might the sermon be styled like matrimony
in the Prayer-Book, "an excellent mystery." I believe I have, as much
as most of my Brothers, sought out simple words and many dear children
have heard the Word from me and have been profited, while many others
of them delight to come to the Tabernacle to listen to the minister.
Still, we who occupy the pulpit do not feed the lambs as we should. We
should give them not merely a Word now and then, but if possible the
whole discourse should be such as they can understand.

Sacred simplicity should be so cultivated by the ambassador of Christ,
that lads and lasses should hear intelligently under a good shepherd,
and the least lamb should be able to find food. Is it always so with
ministers? I have my confessions to make, and some of my Brothers, if
they are ever awakened to a sense of sin about the matter, will have
even longer confessions to offer, since in our pulpits we do, too
often, sin against the child.

But we must push on. I want the Church of God, and especially this
Church, to attend carefully to the next few remarks. When teachers and
others are earnest about the conversion of children, and some of them
are converted, they then come into relationship with the Church, and
too often the Lord's people need the advice, "Do not sin against the
child." How can a Church so offend? It can do so by not believing in
the conversion of children at all! I am persuaded there are hundreds of
Christians who, in their hearts, altogether mistrust the worth of
regeneration unless the party born-again is over 16 or 18 years of age!
If the inmost thoughts of many professors could be spoken, it would be
seen that they are at once suspicious of a conversion if the convert is
only 13 years of age, and yet would cheerfully endorse the same
conversion if the person were 30 or seventy!

There is a sad respect of persons among us still–a lingering belief
that a certain period of years spent in sin must have elapsed before a
work can be commenced! And yet, if you were to think, the conversion of
a child is, in itself, no more difficult than the conversion of a
full-grown man! With God all things are possible! If it were right to
compare two equally Divine works, it should seem to be an easier thing
to renew the child than the man! There is less of the dire force of
habit to overcome! There is less to forget, less to repent of! Though
there is nothing spiritually good in us by nature, yet there is a
certain simplicity about the child–a readiness of belief, an absence
of cautiousness and questioning– which is exceedingly helpful in
receiving the Truth of God.

Where two things are both impossible, except with God, we may draw
comparisons. I should really say that the conversion of the child
appears to be the simpler work of the two–and how, then, have we come
to imagine it not to be so, I can scarcely tell! Surely that same Holy
Spirit who can enter into the man of 70, and overcome his sins and make
him to become like a little child, can enter, also, into the child and
overcome his natural depravity and make him willing, in the day of
God's power, and lead him to faith in Jesus!

If salvation had to do with mysterious doctrines hard to be understood.
If to be a Christian one needed to comprehend the Hebrew and the Greek
languages, we might admit the difficulty of the conversion of little
children. But if it is all so simple that he that runs may read, and he
that reads may still continue to run–if it is all so plain as to be
nothing more than this, "He that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ
shall be saved"–why not a child as capable of faith as a man? And why
may it not be as probable that we may see numbers of children converted
to God as that numbers of adults may give their allegiance to the
faith?

Get rid of this base idea, then, lest you be found sinning against the
child! God can save children! He has saved many! He has proved to His
unbelieving Church the greatness of His power towards the little ones.
Thrust out the thought, then, and expect, from this day forward, that
God will save the children as well as others. Having believed that
their conversion is possible, when you hear of it, be willing to
believe it is so. I do not ask of children that they should be received
into the Church without examination. I do not claim for a youngster who
declares that he is a Believer in Christ, that he should be received
into the Church with any less rigorous examination than any adult. All
I ask is that he should not be tormented with needless suspicions and
looked upon as an impostor!

Brothers and Sisters, it would be very greatly sinning against children
if the moment their little susceptible minds were made to feel terror
on account of sin, we should put that down as repentance. Or the moment
they felt some joy at the thought of the love of Christ we should
assure them that they possessed faith. This would be to educate them in
self-deception. We should not look to find in the young more than in
the old. But so far as faith and repentance are concerned, we must
require quite as much. I mean that the same repentance which is
necessary in an adult in order to salvation is indispensable in a
child.

The faith of God's elect is the same faith in the youth as in the
gray-headed man. Nothing short of real repentance and true faith in
Christ can save anybody–and there is no difference in age at all in
that respect. We ought, therefore, to expect in a child a sincere
hatred of sin, a true sense of its evil, a conviction that he cannot
save himself and a simple reliance upon the work of Jesus which we
expect in any other convert. Less than this will leave young or old
short of eternal life. Many say, "We must hope for the best, and we
must not expect too much of a child." But I reply we would do that
child most serious injury if we taught him to be satisfied with that
which is unsatisfactory and to rest anywhere but in the Lord Jesus! We
must expect as much, but what I plead for is we must not expect more!

I am sure that there are some ministers and Church members who
discourage, at once, any profession of faith from boys and girls. "Oh
yes," they say, "it is the morning cloud and the early dew. It will
soon pass away." They utter sharp and hard things, which, if Satan
needed instruments, would be the very ones to grieve tender hearts!
They put on such frowns, and give themselves such lofty airs that
humble, timid children shrink back and are to the Church, for many a
day, perhaps, kept outside her pale. Let us judge them righteously, but
let us not judge them censoriously. Let us be willing to receive them
to Baptism and to the Lord's Table, and when they are received, instead
of thinking of them as though they were less valuable than other
members, let us count them to be the very pride of the flock!

I hate to hear people say, "They have received a pack of children into
the Church." "A pack of children," yes, and if Jesus carries them in
His bosom, surely you are not imitating Christ, nor exhibiting much of
His spirit when you look down upon them and despise them! To me, one
soul is as good as another. I rejoice as much in the addition of the
poorest mechanic to this Church as if he were a peer of the realm! I am
as grateful to God when I hear of repentance in the young as in the
aged, for souls, after all, are not affected in value by rank or age!

Immortal spirits are all priceless, and not to be weighed in the scale
with worlds. I pray you, therefore, rejoice if the Spirit of God dwells
in the lowly or in the great–in the young or in the old! He is the
same Spirit! He makes each renewed person equally His temple–and each
saved one is equally a jewel of Christ–dear to the heart of the
Eternal Father, beloved by Him who redeemed all His people alike with
His most precious blood! Let us not, therefore, as a Church, sin
against the child.

II. WHO SAYS THIS TO US? Nature says it first. The instincts of
humanity cry, "Do not sin against the child. It is but a child. It is
little–sin not against it." In the sacking of a town, in one of the
old bloodthirsty wars, a soldier seized a little child and was about to
kill him in very wickedness when the little one cried oat, "O Sir,
don't kill me, Sir, I am so little." The appeal saved his life. For the
same reason, hurt not your child or teach it evil. It is so little and
it is so trustful, that it is treason to lead it astray. Be careful how
you behave towards a soul which reposes in you so implicitly. Do not
sin against the child. It is your own. You gave it birth. You see your
own features in its smiling face. Will you lead your own child to Hell?
Will you be the destroyer of your own offspring? You love it. Your
heart overflows with affection for your child. Let Divine Grace turn
the streams of affection in the channel of wisdom that the immortal
nature of your child may receive the benefit.

Experience adds its voice to Nature, "Do not sin against the child."
Hundreds of parents have been brought with sorrow to the grave through
the natural result of their own failures and trespasses in reference to
their children. They taught the lesson of sin and the children, having
learned it, practiced it upon their parents. If you would not stuff
your pillow with thorns, do not sin against the child. Experience
teaches us, too, from its brighter side, the excellence of holy
behavior in the household. How often parents have had the reward of
well educating their children–how the father has leaned, when he has
grown weak upon the son's strong shoulder–and the mother has found her
dearest comfort upon earth in the daughter whom she had trained for
Christ!

Experience says, for your own sakes, lest you nurse an adder into your
bosom, sin not against the child. And for your own sake, that, as
arrows are in the hands of a mighty man, so may your sons and daughters
be in later life, sin not against the child. Conscience repeats the
same advice. That inward monitor ceases not to remind us of what is due
to God and to His peculiar charge, the weak and feeble. Conscience
tells us, plainly, that we must not sport with responsibilities so
vast. "Take this child and nurse it for me," said the daughter of
Pharaoh to Moses' mother, "and I will give you your wages." And even so
every babe that is cast into our lap by Providence is put there for the
same reason–that we may train it for God and obtain a reward of Divine
Grace at the last.

The Church adds her voice to that of Conscience. "Do not sin against
the child," for the children are the Church's hope. Bring them to
Christ that He may put His hands upon them and bless them. That they
may become the future teachers and preachers, the pillars and defense
of Christ's Church below. Though some of us have lived but a few years
in this world, we have lived long enough to see some of our most
esteemed non-conforming families seduced by various motives into
communion with the world's religion and the world's church. The mystery
is not at all difficult to solve. The parents grew rich, and though
they were still among us, they were not of us. Pride separated them in
spirit, and their sons and daughters were introduced into other society
than could be found among the humbler followers of Jesus–to such
fashionable company they became united–and now the descendants of
Dissenters are among the fiercest revilers of our holy faith!

Better far were it for us to see our children carried to their graves
as infants–to be mourned over with the resignation which a sure hope
begets–than they should live to forsake the Lord God of their fathers
and to pull down what their fathers built up! That the sons of the
Puritans should degenerate into Cavaliers! That the sturdy Protestant
family should be led away with Puseyism! That the godly sire should be
followed by a reckless son is most deplorable– but so it has been in
all generations–and so it will be, still, while parents sin against
the child.

God himself, speaking from the excellent Glory, this morning, says to
each one of His servants here, "Do not sin against the child," and I
ask that if no other voice is heard, we may all bow before His Glorious
Majesty and ask for Divine Grace to be willing and obedient.

III. Thirdly, having heard the message, WHAT THEN? Only two things.
Does not that exhortation startle some of the unconverted and
unawakened here? I think if I were as you are, Sir, if I had lived to
be 60 years of age and my son had died through drunkenness, or my
daughter were at this time living a godless life and I were
unconverted, it would shoot a pang through my heart to think that I
should have brought such misery upon them through my neglect of Divine
things. A man often hesitates before he will plunge his family into the
speculation which he would not shudder at himself. To be damned,
yourself, is something terrible–condemned of God, withered and blasted
forever with His anger–cast away where hope can never come!

Well, you may gird up your loins and make your brow as brass, and say,
"I will even run the risk of that, and beard the Eternal, and defy the
fierceness of His wrath," but can you bear to think that your seed will
probably fall into the same condemnation? Eyes will peer at you through
the smoke of Tophet and shall recognize you–then some such words as
these shall be hissed into your ears–"A curse on you, O Man, the
author of my miserable being, and the cause of my endless ruin. A curse
be on you, and a sevenfold Hell on you, my Sire, and on you, Woman,
that gave me birth, for you trained me in the service of Satan and
everlasting destruction fell on me through you! O inhuman wretches, to
consign your own children to the flames! Fiends that you were, to teach
me the ways of vanity and irreligious, both by your example and your
precepts."

Ah! Sinner, this will multiply your torments! You shall be dragged down
by your own children's hands to lower depths of misery! I pray you stop
and think, and if you cannot redeem the mischief which you have already
done, yet repent of it! Fly to the Cross! Be saved yourself, and maybe
those of your house who still are spared, may, with yourself, be saved.
O that Divine Grace might lead you, like the Philippian jailor, to cry
out, "What must I do to be saved?" and then to hear the voice of
promise, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and
your house." Oh, if my words could be as flashes of lightning! If every
syllable I drop was a flame of fire, I should rejoice, if thoughtless
ungodly ones would but turn to God and live!

Does not this command of this morning press upon every Christian here,
not alone upbraiding us, but as arousing our laggard energies, exciting
us to something more of diligence and effort? Will you not, dear
Friends, this afternoon, pray that Mr. Hammond's words may be powerful
among the throng of boys and girls? Will it not be a matter of
conscience with everyone here that at home you will plead with God for
a blessing? And during this week will you not maintain a gracious
concert of earnest prayer that the benediction may descend like showers
of gracious rain upon these young plants?

Will you not give us your best help if you see any movements of God's
Spirit? Will you not join to cheer and to instruct the newborn
converts? Will you not consider whether you could not take a class in
one of the surrounding Sunday schools? Will you not roll away that
reproach which I mentioned just now, which rests upon some of you
because there are schools without teachers? Parents, will you not pray
for your children, and even today seek to hold up Jesus before them?
Will we not all, God helping us, say within ourselves that we will no
longer sin against the child, but in Jesus' name seek to gather His
lambs and feed them for Him? Amen.
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Crowding to Touch the Savior

A Sermon