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SERMON 111

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.

DUTY OF PARENTS.

Train Up A Child In The Way He Should Go; And When He Is Old He Will Not Depart From It. - Proverbs 22:6.

IN the preceding Discourse I gave a brief account of the duties of children. I shall now proceed to consider the duties of parents. This also I must consider in a very summary manner, notwithstanding the copiousness and importance of the subject.

In this passage of Scripture, parents are directed to ‘train up their children in the way in which they should go;’ and, to encourage them to this duty, a promise is given, that their children, if trained in this way, ‘will not depart from it.’ The word train originally denotes to draw along by a regular and steady course of exertions; and is, hence, very naturally used to signify drawing from one action to another, by persuasions, promises, and other efforts, continually repeated. In a loose and general sense, therefore, it may easily include all the duties of parents to their children.

The way in which a child should go, is undoubtedly the way in which it is best for him to go, with respect both to his temporal and eternal well-being.

These duties are customarily, and justly, distributed under three heads:

The maintenance:
The education:
The settlement of children.

The maintenance of children must unquestionably be such as the circumstances of the parents will admit, consistently with the dictates of prudence, and such as will secure comfort to their children. Their food and raiment, their employments and gratifications, ought to be all such as to promote their health. They are carefully to be nursed in sickness, and guarded from danger. Their enjoyments of every kind ought invariably to be innocent; reasonable in their number and degree; evident testimonies of parental wisdom, as well as of parental affection; such as shall prevent them from suffering unnecessary mortification; and such as shall not flatter pride, foster avarice, or encourage sloth or sensuality. They ought also to be such as to place them upon the same level with the children of other discreet parents in similar circumstances.

The education of children involves their instruction and government.

The instruction of children includes the things which they are to be taught, and the manner of teaching them.

The things which children are to be taught, may be distributed under the two heads of natural knowledge, and moral knowledge.

Natural knowledge includes,

1. Their learning.

By this I intend every thing which they are to gain from books; whether it be learning, appropriately so called, or the knowledge of arts and sciences. Of this subject I observe generally, that, like the maintenance of children, it must comport with the circumstances of the parents. It ought also to be suited to the character, talents, and destination of the child. But an acquaintance with reading, writing, and arithmetic is indispensably necessary to every child. It is indispensable, that every child should read the Scriptures; highly important, that he should read other religious books; and very useful, that he should enlarge his mind by such diversified knowledge, as may render him beneficial to himself and to mankind.

2. Natural knowledge includes also an acquaintance with at least some one kind of useful business.

Ordinarily, this acquaintance can be gained only in the practical manner; that is, by placing the child, at an early period of life, in the business which is to be learned. After he has been instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, which are indispensable to the advantageous prosecution of every kind of business, he should be required to do the very business in which he is to be educated.

There is no greater mistake on the part of rich parents, than their neglect of educating their children to the thorough knowledge of some useful business. It is often observed, and generally felt, that such an education is unnecessary, because their children are to inherit fortunes. The children also feel, and are taught by their parents to feel, that such an education is utterly unnecessary for themselves. Both at the same time are but too apt to consider active employments, and even the knowledge necessary to direct them, as humiliating and disgraceful to the children. These are very great mistakes; the dictates of pride and vanity, and not of good sense. Were nothing but the present prosperity of children to be regarded, they ought invariably to be educated in the knowledge of useful business. Almost all the wealth in this country is in the hands of those who have acquired it by their own industry and almost all those who inherit fortunes dissipate them in early life, and spend their remaining days in poverty and humiliation. Ignorance of business, and its consequences, idleness and profusion, will easily, and in a short time scatter any estate. A fortune is a pond, the waters of which will soon run out; well directed industry is a spring, whose streams are perennial.

Besides, the man who pursues no useful business is without significance, and without reputation. The sound common sense of mankind will never annex character to useless life. He who merely hangs as a burden on the shoulders of his fellow men, who adds nothing to the common stock of comfort, and merely spends his time in devouring it, will invariably, as well as justly, be accounted a public nuisance.

Beyond all this, every parent is bound by his duty to God, and his children, to educate them to useful business, in order to enable them to perform their own duty; to become blessings both to themselves and mankind; and to possess the rational enjoyments furnished by a life of industrious activity; in their very nature incomprehensibly superior to sloth and profusion.