SERMON X.

FOR A DAILY NATIONAL SCHOOL.

CHRISTIAN TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

MATTHEW 18. 5.

"Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.”

OUR blessed Lord has on several occasions made particular mention of little children. He sets them before us in some sort as an example. Not as though they were not corrupt by nature, proud, and angry, deceitful, and perverse; but because during their tender years they are more apt to learn than afterwards; and because He would have us, when grown up, alike ready to be taught, though that not out of weakness, but by choice, not by our parents upon earth, but by the Spirit of our Father which is in heaven. Children He takes

also to signify our relation unto God, as established by redemption through his blood, as distinguished from the condition of a servant or a slave, to which the bondage of sin naturally brings us. For under the Gospel it is our privilege to be "children of the Highest." (Luke 6. 35.) And if children," as the apostle argues, "if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." (Rom. 8. 17.)

But there is another and most important object, for which our Lord especially mentions children in the text; and this is, to impress on us as a part of our obedience due unto Him, that we should treat them with Christian kindness. "Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me." Whoso receives children with that respect and love, to which the name of Christ entitles them, with that warmth and tenderness of affection, which we owe unto our Lord and Saviour, and which He would have us pay to the least of these his brethren, they who thus receive children, shall be counted to have so received Himself.

And it is by this means that our Lord in other instances would move us to the ⚫performance of any duty, of which He speaks with more than common earnestness; He represents what we do to others to be done unto Himself. Thus in the deference which is due to the ministers of religion, He tells his chosen twelve; "he that receiveth you receiveth me." (Matt. 10. 40.) And again in the duties of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the prisoners and the sick; "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matt. 25. 40.) How, indeed, could He more forcibly incline us to be willing thus to help each other, than by telling us that in any brother who needs our help, we should see the image of Him that redeemed us? And how more strongly than by this same argument, could He have taught us, that kind treatment of children is a distinct and important duty of the Gospel; one of those convictions in the mind to which by reason we could never have attained, and

which therefore require to be revealed in Scripture; one of those habits in the soul which by nature we could not have, and which need to be engrafted in us by grace.

And this is the duty I wish now to insist upon; the duty of treating children on a Christian principle, the duty of receiving them in the name of Christ. For here I mean not to recommend such occasional affection, as the most hardened heart of the most unchristian parent must at some times feel towards an infant. I mean not that temper, which one while spoils by fond indulgence, and another provokes by vexatious punishment. No, I mean a Christian kindness. I mean love for Christ's sake, and by the rule of Christ's Gospel. I mean a kindness towards children, as different from the selfish fondness of the natural heart, as the charity which St. Paul describes, and which the love of Christ inspires, is different from that smoothness of the temper which we foolishly call good na

ture.

To receive children in the name of Christ, is to behave to them as He behaved Himself, as we may collect from his word that He would have us treat them. It is to be gentle to them, and meek, and tender hearted; it is to be pitiful, merciful, and courteous; it is to regard their infant form, as the shrine of an immortal soul. And whilst we allow in them no single sin, nor humour wilfully the most trifling fault, it is to correct ever in sorrow, not in anger, not as being at enmity, but in love, not as though we were revenging an affront, but as if we would "overcome evil with good." (Rom. 12. 21.)

And this we must do for Christ's sake, thus we must treat all children we ever meet with, out of our desire to do our Saviour's will. Not because we look down upon them as beneath our anger, therefore to bear with their perversity; this is not receiving them in the name of Christ. Not because it pleases us to see their smiles, not because it flatters our vanity to win their preference, therefore to wait upon their wants, and to return their