Some time ago I stumbled across the writings of the Puritans and for several years their work formed the staple of my reading. Centuries after they put pen to paper, their insights into human nature struck a chord with me and changed the way I understood sin and the grace of God forever.
Of course, as a home-educating mother, I was incredibly excited when my two interests intersected and the Puritans had something to say about children!
Arthur Hildersham’s 29-page booklet, ‘Dealing with Sin in Our Children’ ticked both of these boxes. His work is an exhortation to parents to do their utmost to work grace in their children and to use the means that God has made available to us. I have returned to it a number of times and would love to encourage you with his main points:
The Motives
Why should parents have a particular concern for the souls of their children? Firstly, because we love them and in justice, we are ‘bound to make amends for the wrong we have done them’. Our children’s sin is inherited from us and when we wrong somebody, we are required to do what we can to right this.
Secondly, we will be hugely comforted to know that our children have had their sinful nature healed and that they have been redeemed. Children who are regenerated will be much more loving towards their parents than those who are not. Moreover, their regeneration can be a testimony ‘of the truth and soundness of grace in us.’
The Duty
Although our children do not ultimately belong to us but to the Lord, Hildersham’s challenge is that parents are charged with the souls of their children. He writes,
‘No minister is more straitly charged of God to teach and catechize his flock than you are to instruct your children…None have such opportunities to instruct and bring others to goodness as parents have.’
On a grander scale, ‘the hope of God’s church and the propagation of religion unto posterity depends principally upon parents taking care to make their children religious.’
The Means
Hildersham directs parents in the use of the means God has given us:
- We must be careful to maintain authority over our children. We instruct our children by teaching them to know God when they are young, by making them acquainted with the practice of reading the Bible, prayer, giving thanks at mealtimes, and singing the Psalms, by taking them with us to church, and by testing them about what they have heard.
- We are to set a good example for our children. Our children should realize from our conversations that we fear God and that we love good things. Hildersham notes, ‘domestic examples, especially the example of parents, is of more force with their children to do them either good or harm than all other examples are’.
- We carefully watch over where our children go when they leave home. We pay attention to which schoolmasters and tutors we send them to as well as which ‘services’ and marriages we place them in.
- The final means which is the key to the first four points is that of prayer (Judges 13:8). We must earnestly pray for our children.
Hildersham wraps up with the encouragement that although he cannot assure parents that using these means will necessarily bring forth fruit in each one of our children, that: ‘None have more cause to expect and, with patience, to wait for a blessing from God in the use of the means of grace towards any than you have towards your children because of the promises God made to you concerning your children (see Genesis 17:7, Psalm 22:29-30 and Isaiah 44:3). The fruit of your labor may appear hereafter, though it does not yet, as experience has proved in many good men’s children who for a long time lived most ungraciously.’
This booklet is an encouragement to me to continue the means that the Lord has directed, to work in faith expecting fruit, and to trust that whatever the ultimate outcome, I please the Lord by being faithful to do my duty.
