Then were there brought unto Him little children.
The children for Christ
I. They need the Saviour.
1. AS children, they are within the covenant and provisions of grace.
2. They are naturally blind and dark.
3. Nor let us forget that they are guilty.
4. They need, therefore, to be led to Jesus as penitent sinners for forgiveness and peace. They need a guide, a shield, a true friend, etc.
II. They may be brought to him when very young.
1. On this point, opinion among godly people has been very much modified since the general establishment of Sunday-schools.
2. It is a great mistake, and involves a great wrong to the child, not to insist upon his deciding and choosing Christ now, for unbelief and carnality are gaining strength.
3. There is no kind of knowledge which will find readier access to the juvenile mind, and be more easily retained there, than the knowledge of Christ.
4. How many and how marked are the examples of early piety which the Bible records.
5. The religion of children-if genuine and healthy-will differ in some respects from the religion of elderly people. Ignorant prejudice has done a world of mischief.
III. One of the first duties we, as a church, owe the Lord Jesus is to assist in bringing these children to him.
1. They are our own flesh and blood. They are our own immediate successors in the Church and the world. They are immortal. They are the object of Jesus’ redeeming love; they are brought within our influence that we may be Christ’s ministers to them, and their guides to Him, etc.
2. The present is the golden Opportunity. The promise is true to your children, that they also shall receive:’ remission of sins,” and “the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Bring them to Jesus! Alas! some of you parents, masters, heads of households are not yourselves following Christ, and how can you bring your children or young people to Him? Teachers, suffer the children to come to Jesus, and hinder them not, etc. (J. Findlay.)
A sermon on Sunday-school work
I. The principle on which the sunday-school should be founded. It must be founded and carried on in Faith, in its usefulness, its worth, its importance. Faith in your schools; faith in God; in the child whom you teach; and in the Scriptures which are to be taught.
II. The end, the great object, which should be proposed and kept steadily in view by its friends. The great end is, to awaken the soul of the pupil, to bring his understanding, conscience, and heart into earnest, vigorous action on religious and moral truth, to excite and cherish in him spiritual life. The great end in religious instruction, whether in the Sunday-school or family, is, not to stamp our minds irresistibly on the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs; not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought;… not to tell them that God is good, but to help them to see and feel His love in all that He does within and around them. In a word, to awaken intellectual and moral life in the child.
III. What is to be taught in sunday schools? The Gospels, the Gospels, these should be the text-book of Sunday Schools. There are three great views of Christianity, which pervade it throughout, and to which the mind of the learner must be continually turned.
1. The spirituality of the religion.
2. Its disinterestedness.
3. The vastness, the infinity, of its progress.
IV. How shall it be taught? Attention must be secured by moral influence. You must love the children. You must be interested yourselves in that you teach them. Be intelligible. Teach by questions. Teach graphically where you can. Lay stress on the most important things. Carry a cheerful spirit into religious teaching. (Dr. Channing.)
Little children brought to Christ
I. Who were now brought to Christ? Probably infants. None of them were arrived at the full exercise of reason; and some of them might be carried in the arms of their friends.
II. For what end were they brought to Christ? Probably not to be healed of sickness or weakness. It was, that He might lay His hands upon them and bless them. They had a high opinion of the piety of Jesus, and of His interest in the Divine favour.
III. The reception Jesus gave the children. Kind and gracious.
IV. The declaration he made concerning them. “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Christ commends in children three or four things, wherein they who are adult ought to resemble them.
1. Freedom from prejudice or openness to conviction; freedom from pride, or humility; freedom from worldly affections, or indifference to earthly things: and finally, freedom from custom of sinning, or innocence. (Nath. Lardner.)
Reflections on the incident
1. The doctrine of this text may afford comfortable thoughts concerning such as die in infancy, or in very early age, before they have done good or evil.
2. It teaches us to be cautious, how we disparage the human nature, and say, that it is, in its original conception, corrupt, depraved, and defiled.
3. This history teaches us the right of young persons to be present at the worship of God, and seems to hold forth the duty of those under whose care they are, to bring them early to it.
4. We may infer that it is not below persons of the greatest eminence for wisdom and piety to show affection and tenderness for little children.
5. We hence learn, that all of us arrived to years of knowledge and understanding should see to it, that we bear a resemblance to little children. And 6, this history affords encouragement to young persons arrived to the use of reason and understanding to come to Christ, and offer up themselves to God in and through Him. (Nath. Lardner.)
Our likeness to little children.
1. As respects faith. Children are trustful: its trust has little to do with the intellect. Faith is not a thing of the understanding, but of the heart. When you read the Bible, do it as a little child, “My Father says thus.” A child’s joy is always truer than a child’s sorrow.
2. A child’s mind has a wonderful power of realization. They soon picture what is said to them. We should realize the invisible.
3. Little children may be angry, but their anger never lasts.
4. They are innocent and do not hurt.
5. They are, as a rule, generous with their possessions.
6. The sympathy of a child is perfect, to a tear or a smile he will respond in a moment.
7. A little child is a thing new born. We must be born again. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
“Suffer” little children to come
I. What mothers want for their children.
II. What disciples sometimes want for the children. To run away and not be troublesome. Sometimes they would keep them away from Christ until they grow big. Whence can such a mistake arise? From such ideas as-
1. Christ is too busy with saving men to care about the children.
2. Children have not the needs which Jesus came to supply.
3. If the children get the blessing now they will lose it ere they become men.
III. What Jesus wants for the children. To come to Him. They can trust, love, etc. (R. Tuck, B. A.)
Jesus and children
The most beautiful scene in the Bible.
I. Jesus is attractive to children. Some men and women for whom they do not care. Jesus not like these. There are others for whom children are never shy, or afraid. Jesus like these.
II. Jesus is deeply interested in children.
III. Jesus prays for children. “He put His hands on them,” etc. Ancient custom. He ever liveth to make intercession for us.
IV. Jesus wishes children to be happy. He blessed the children who came to Him, and He blesses you.
V. Many children are with Jesus in heaven. (Alex. McAuslane, D. D.)
I. Who spake these words, and why were they spoken, “Jesus said.” Because He loved children and came to do them good.
II. How should little children come to Christ.
1. By thought.
2. Prayer.
3. Obedience.
III. What keeps little children back from Christ, and who forbids them to come to him. The disciples. I will point out what in yourselves keeps you back.
1. Idleness.
2. The mockeries of your playfellows.
3. Satan.
IV. What is to be gained by coming to Christ. (T. J. Judkin M. A.)
Blessing by imposition of hands
From Christ has been derived the custom among Christians, that lax; people, and especially children, should ask a blessing from their elders and from priests. This is the case in Belgium, where boys will run up to the priests and religious men, and ask them to sign them with the sign of the cross. They are taught to do this, both by the catechists and by their parents. Remigius says this was a custom among the Jews before the time of Christ. The great Sir Thomas More, the glory of England and a martyr, when he was Lord High Chancellor, publicly asked his aged father to give him his blessing. Moreover, the Church uses this ceremony of imposition of hands in baptism, confirmation, and orders. It is to pray for and obtain the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Lapide.)
Christianity cares for children
The gospel alone opens its warm bosom to the young. Christianity alone is the nurse of children. Atheism looks on them as on a level with the brutes. Deism or scepticism leaves them to every random influence, lest they catch a bias. The Romans exposed their infants. Barbarians and ancient tribes offered them as burnt-sacrifices to Moloch. Mahometanism holds mothers and infants as equally of an inferior cast. Hindooism forgets the infant she bears, and leaves it to perish on the banks of the Ganges. The Chinese are notorious as infanticides. Christianity alone contemplates them as immortal creatures, and prescribes for their tuition for heaven. And the nearer the time that the rising of the Sun of Righteonsness approached, the warmer and the more intense did the interest of the Church show itself in regard to the young. Moses gave directions on the subject. Joshua and Abraham commanded their households after them; David declared how the young were to purify their way; and Solomon distinctly enjoined them to remember their Creator in the days of their youth; but it was reserved for Him who spake as never man spake, to press that sentence, “Suffer the little children,” etc. The temple of Juggernaut presents a grave; the mosque, contempt; infidelity, neglect for children. The bosom of the Son of God alone Ends them a nursery and a home. (Salter.)
Children specially susceptible of spiritual induences.
In their case there is still-
1. Confidence, instead of scepticism.
2. Self-surrender, instead of distrust.
3. Truth, instead of hypocrisy.
4. Want of pretension, instead of pride. (Lisko.)
Ideas of women and children in the East
Women were not honoured nor children loved in antiquity as now they are; no halo of romance and tenderness encircled them; too often, indeed, they were subject to shameful cruelties and hard neglect. (Farrar.)
How children are forbidden
They may be “forbidden,” both by neglect and injudicious teaching.
I. By not being taught of Christ through word and example.
II. By being taught legalism; that is, “Be good, or God will not love you,” instead of this: Christ (God) loves you, therefore go to Him in order to be good. (Schaff.)
Christ’s example of dealing with children
1. His sympathy for and with children.
2. Our right to bring children to Him for blessing, and this before they can understand anything concerning Him or His truth.
3. That they are members of Christ’s kingdom, and are so regarded by Him, and are to be so regarded by us, and this irrespective of any parental faith.
4. That such as die before they have wandered out of God’s kingdom into the kingdom of Satan are certainly saved, since they are of the kingdom of heaven.
5. The incident condemns all conduct on the part of the church, the teacher, or the parent, which tends to repress, chill, or check the enthusiasm of childhood for Christ, and darken its simple faith in Him. (Abbott.)
A sermon to mothers
I. A mother’s love.
II. A mother’s responsibility.
III. A mother’s consolation. (P. Robertson.)
Maternal influence on children
It has been truly said that although women may have produced no work of surpassing power, have written no Iliad, no “Hamlet,” no “Paradise Lost; “ have designed no Church of St. Peter’s, composed no “Messiah,” carved no “Apollo Belvidere,” painted no Last Judgment; although they have invented neither algebra nor telescopes nor steam engines, they have done something greater and better than all this: it is at their knees that virtuous and upright men and women have been trained-the most excellent productions in the world. If we would find the secret of the greatness and goodness of most famous men we must look to their mothers. It was the patient gentle schooling of Monica which turned Augustine from a profligate to a saint. It was the memory of a mother’s lessons which changed John Newton, of Olney, from blasphemous sailor to an earnest minister of God. It was a mother’s influence which made George Washington a man of such truth, such nobleness, and such power, that he swayed the people of America as one man. (Wilmot Buxton.)
Early conversion
Conversions after forty years are very rare: like the scattered grapes on the remotest branches after the vintage is over, there is on]y one here and there. I have sometimes seen an old withered oak standing with its stiff and leafless branches on the slopes of a woody hill; though the same refreshing rains and genial sunshine fell on it as on its thriving neighbours, Which were green with renewed youth and rich in flowing foliage, it grew not, it gave no signs of life, it was too far gone for genial nature to assist. The old blanched, sapless oak is an emblem of the aged sinner. (Dr. Thomas.)