body and soul. And this may help us to expound that other parrallel text, Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beat him with the rod he shall not die : the meaning may be either that correction will not kill him; the rod will break no bones; so preventing and reproving at once the silly and sinful tenderness of fond parents, who think if they should correct their children, they would presently die of it; they are as afraid to use the rod as if it were a sword. Nay, but saith the Holy Ghost, fear not correction, for behold, the strokes of the rod are not the strokes of death: it is but a rod, it is not a serpent, take it into thy hand; it may smart, it will not sting. To obviate the fear of parents in this case, God himself giveth his word for it, He shall not die. This may be the meaning, or else (which I rather conceive) the words may be a motive drawn from the fruit of correction; Withhold not correction from the child; why? He shall not die, i. e. it may be, and (through divine blessing accompanying it) is often a means to prevent death; it may prevent the first and second death; to which the child is exposed by the sinful indulgence of the parent. The word used in this place, saith one, seems to note an immortality; so that He shall not die, is all one as if the Holy Ghost had said, He shall live for ever; the rod on the flesh shall be a means to save the soul in the day of the Lord Jesus; We are chastened that we should not be condemned with the world. Such smitings (as David saith in another case) shall be a kindness; and such. rebukes are so far from breaking the head, that they shall be an excellent oil which shall cure, and give life. Even the philosopher could say, "Correction " is a kind of physic or medicine." Alas, our children are sick, and cruel is that mercy which will suffer them to die, yea eternally, rather than disgust their palates with a little bitter physic! Apes and monkies they be in the form of men and women, who thus hug their little ones to death; paricides rather than parents; of whom we may say, as sometime the Roman emperor said of Herod (when he heard that he had murdered his own son among the rest of the infants in Bethlehem, that so he might be sure to destroy the King of the Jews) "surely it were better to be such people's swine than their sons." O hateful indulgence! merciless pity! to lose a child for want of correction! such parents throw both the rod and the child into the fire at once; the rod into the fire of the chimney, and the child into the fire of hell. This is not done like God, for "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth: And so doth every wise loving parent; He that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. As moths are beaten out of a garment with a rod, so must vices out of childrens' hearts. And for want of this disciplinary love, how have some children accused their parents on their death-bed, yea at the gallows! and how many do and will curse them in hell, in some such language as Cyprian supposeth infants to complain of their parents who denied them baptism: "The treacherous fondness of our parents hath brought us into these torments; our fathers and mothers have been our murderers; they that gave us our natural life have deprived us of a better; and they that would not correct us with the rod, have occasioned us now to be tormented with scorpions." Yea, even in this life, how do many godly parents smart for their fondness, because they will not make their children smart for their folly. Eli and David would not so much as rebuke their sons; and God gave them rebukes in their sons. It is said of Eli, his sons made themselves vile, and he RESTRAINED them not: the Hebrew signifieth, he FROWNED not upon them. Oh sad! for want of a frown, to destroy a soul! I am much afraid, this unchristian, yea unnatural indulgence of parents, is the fountain of all that confusion, under which England at this time reels and staggers like a drunken man: and for this very sin, at least, for this among others, yea, and for this above others, God is visiting all the families of the land, from the throne to the poorest cottage. Parents have laid the foundation of their own sorrows, their childrens ruin, and the desolation of the nation, in the looseness and delicacy of their education, and yet are not sensible of it to this day. Therefore God doth cross us in our righteous desires; we have walked, even in this point, exceedingly contrary to God, and to his discipline; and therefore God is walking contrary to us, and is punishing us seven times more for this iniquity. And therefore Q that parents would at length awaken themselves, to follow both the pattern and precept of their heavenly Father, who, as he correcteth whom he loveth, so he commands them to correct if they love their children. Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou corp rect him with the rod he shall not die. And it is fur ther worth observation, that the same word in the original, which is translated withhold, signifieth also to forbid; meeting with another distemper in parents, who as they will not correct their children themselves, so also they forbid others to correct them, under whose tuition they put them as if they were afraid their children would not have sin enough here, nor hell enough hereafter, they lay in caveats against the means which God hath sanctified for their reclaiming. Parents, take heed when you commit your children to others' hands, you do not in the meanwhile hold their hands if thou judgest them not wise, why dost thou chuse them? if thou chuse them, why dost thou not trust them? Well then, if the rod be in thine own hand, withhold it not; if in thy friend's hand, forbid it not. Certainly there is great need of this duty, which the Spirit of God doth frequently inculcate all through the Proverbs. 2. You that are parents, or instead of parents, if you would have your children happy, ADD INSTRUC TION TO CORRECTION. Imitate God in this part of paternal discipline also; let chastisement and instruc tion go together: it is what the Holy Ghost urgeth upon you; Bring them up in the NURTURE and ADMONITION of the Lord. There be two words relating to both these parental duties; in the nurture or correction; and it is added, of the Lord: that is, either in the chastisement, wherewith the Lord exerciseth his children; or in the chastisement which the Lord commandeth earthly parents to exercise towards their children; this is the first duty, of which already. And then there is another word, which holdeth forththe end and design of parental correction; that is the admonition for instruction of the Lord; in counsels and instructions taken out of the word of God, or such as are approved of by God. The sum is this, that while we chasten the flesh, we should labour to inform and form the mind and spirit, by infusing right principles, pressing and urging upon their tender hearts, counsel, reproof, and instruction, as the matter requireth. This is the duty of parents, to imitate God, to let instruction expound correction; and with a rod in the hand, and a word in the mouth, to train up their children to life eternal. A dumb rod is but a brutish discipline, and will certainly leave them more brutish than it found them. Chastisement, without teaching, may sooner break the bones than the heart; may mortify the flesh, but not corruption; extinguish * Εν πάδεια. † Εν νουθεσία. it |