By Rev. JAMES MACLEOD.
“Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of God, etc. (Luke, xviii, 16, 17).”
FIRST: Taking the little children to the Lord. They did the wisest thing that could be done. The parents believed in original sin. Dr. Rainy’s Declaratory Act was not in their religion. Children are born with original sin in their state and nature. We are like young serpents in this respect: The young serpent is as full of poison as the mother serpent although it cannot use it, because of its tenderness and weakness, till it grows older and stronger. That is the way with us. When we are young we cannot put sin into actual operation. As we grow older we shew what is in us. Parents who are taught of the Spirit know something of what is in the sinful human heart. Their desire is that their children might be delivered from its painful stings. They brought their infants to Jesus. Wise parents! As early as possible. We believe that godly parents pray to the Lord for their infants before they are born into this world. The godly mother knows that if her infant is born alive into this world that he or she is not to be an angel. It is not an innocent infant that he is to be. One of the seed of Adam, sinful, corrupt, and inclined to evil. She will pray for the soul of her infant. She will bring her infant to Christ by prayer and supplication. This is the great importance to have a mother who fears the Lord. A graceless mother is like one of the daughters of Moab. It is a great calamity to have a graceless mother. We read that the disciples rebuked those who brought their infants to the Lord. Silly men! Why did they rebuke the parents who brought their children to the Lord? You see, my friends, that human nature till it is thoroughly changed by grace thinks that man can do something for himself. It is obvious to all that an infant can do nothing for himself, and human pride is more or less made bare and naked when the infant appears before the Lord. The infant is as capable to save himself from hell and death as the most able and strongest man on the face of the earth. The infant has a moral nature that can be saved just the same as the lad of twenty or the man of forty. No doubt the disciples understood this at a later period of their experience. The young convert is not free of the old idea of work, work for your salvation! Alas! he must learn differently.
Secondly: The blessed Lord called them to Him. “Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of God.” It is very strange why they should forbid them to come to the Saviour. When we keep the children away from the means of grace we in that measure keep them away from Christ. Parents who do not endeavour to bring their children to the public worship of God are here rebuked by the Lord. The Lord is able to save to the uttermost and surely the infant has a soul when born into this world the same as the old man of seventy! Why do parents in many places make no efforts to bring their children to the means of grace. They go themselves, sit under the preaching of the Word for years derive no benefit, harden under the Word and if their child was half as often with the parent he might be saved and blessed by the Lord, while the mother or father remained as cold as stone and as dumb as the dead. It is much easier
to draw the attention of the child to the Word of God than old hardened sinners. The young mind is more alert, more active, and it is far easier to make lasting impressions on the mind of the young—”Suffer little children come unto me, and forbid them not.” Parents make excuses in some cases at any rate, and say they have not proper clothes for the church. But on Monday morning they send them to school with whatever clothes they have. Why not to the church on Sabbath morning with the same clothes? Poverty is no disgrace if the parents are honest otherwise—not drinking or gambling and wasting the money that should be used to buy clothes for the poor children. We make great noise if we do not get baptism for our children when they are infants and yet we make no effort to bring them to the means of grace! The infant should be baptised and received into the visible church at the earliest possible moment if the parents were capable to instruct the infant in the truth. Why not make the same effort to bring the infant to the house of God, to hear the Word and to train the child in the ways of the Lord? It is the place where the Lord promised to meet with sinners old and young. See the Lord was present to bless the infants. Are you to keep your infant from the very place where the Lord is? Do not deal so cruelly with your child, my friend.
Thirdly: If we do not receive the kingdom as a little child we shall never enter therein. All who enter into the kingdom must be as infants—not as mighty men, giants, as successful admirals, generals, politicians, philosophers, scientists, men of letters, millionaires, as kings, dukes, or lords, nor as Pharisees either, but as little children. We must be as the tiny infants in our own sight and estimation. Thousands of grand scholars will be in hell for ever. Unconverted religious ministers, graceless elders, deacons and members will be in hell for ever. They are giants and mighty men that cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Christ came to save blind, dumb, deaf, leprous, devil-possessed, mad men, crippled women, maimed old, and young men, women bound by Satan for years and years, bankrupts to law and justice, infants, and the utterly helpless, naked and hell-deserving that is the kind of ruined sinners Christ came to save and that will enter into the kingdom. Poor Nicodemus was bewildered when the Lord told him that he would have to be born again—an infant, a mere child, a tiny helpless believer. What a shock to his grand attainments! The scholar, the teacher, a master of arts in Israel! We need not doubt but he knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and a good deal of the Platonic philosophy, Moses, and the Prophets, a smattering of science, a son of Abraham, according to the flesh, to the bargain and with all his education he was on the broad way that leadeth into hell! He was prepared to learn the true wisdom and become as a little child and to enter into the kingdom by sovereign free grace. “Learn of me for I am meek and lowly.”