Views Of Christian Nurture And Of Subjects

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 edition. Excerpt: ... The next passage I cite, as one that is remarkable for containing, in a single sentence, almost every point of doctrine involved in my view of Christian nurture, without professing to give any theory at all of that subject; "the secret seeds " of a new character planted by "education "-- before "actual acquaintance with Christ"--"stirring, working and reaching after further grace "--all in such a way that the new character gets a start of what is evil and "ungodly." The only thing wanting is that such a result is not set up as the aim of parental training, but is merely affirmed of "some" children. Yet of such a number, that when we come to "confirmation," which he is here commending, two classes are to be made--those who are to have simple "confirmation" and those who are first to have "absolution." And if some children are to be confirmed without absolution, it is making a very practical matter certainly of the possibility that children may "grow up" in piety. "Of those baptized in infancy, some do betimes receive the secret seeds of grace, which, by the blessings of a holy education, is stirring in them according to their capacity, and working them to God by actual desires, and working them from all known sin, and entertaining further grace, and turning them into actual acquaintance with Christ, as soon as they arrive at full natural capacity, so that they never were actual ungodly persons."--CoTifirmation, fol. vol. iv. p. 267. The citation that follows brings us to the same result by a different method--showing, in particular, the relative importance in Baxter's view of Christian nurture and Christian preaching as the instrument of adult conversions. The italics are his own. "Ungodly parents do serve the devil so effectually, in the...