Proverbs 22:6

Pro 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Ver. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go.] Or, According to his measure and capacity, dropping good things by degrees into his narrow mouthed vessel, and whetting the same upon his memory by often repeating, as the knife by oft going over the whetstone (it is Moses’s comparison) {a} becomes keen and useful. This is the way to make them expert and exact, and to secure them from Satan, for we are not ignorant of his wiles. It is reported of the harts of Scythia, that they teach their young ones to leap from bank to bank, from rock to rock, from one turf to another, by leaping before them, which otherwise they would never practise, by which means, when they are hunted, no beast can ever take them. So if men exercise their children unto godliness while they are young, Satan, that mighty hunter, shall never have them for his prey. They will not be young saints, old devils, as the profane proverb hath it; but young saints, old angels. Now, as all children should be carefully catechised and well principled, so those Timothies especially that are designed to the work of the ministry. Quintilian’s orator must, from two or three years old, be inured and accustomed to the best and purest words, very well pronounced unto him by his nurses, parents, handmaids, as soon as ever he begins to babble. Quanto id in theologo futuro expetendum, curandumque magis? {b} How much more, saith a learned man, should this be done by one that is to be a divine?

{a} Shanan and shanah; repetere sicut in acuendo. {Deu 6:6}

{b} Amama in Attib.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro_22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

On the education of youth

A strict and virtuous education of youth is absolutely necessary to a mans attainment of that inestimable blessing, that unspeakable felicity, of being serviceable to his God, easy to himself and useful to others in the whole course of his following life. To the proof of this, lay down six propositions.

1. That in the present state of nature there is in every man a certain propensity to vices, or a corrupt principle more or less disposing him to evil, which principle is sometimes called the flesh, sometimes concupiscence, sometimes sensuality, and makes one part of that which we call original sin.

2. That the forementioned propensity of the sensual part, or principle, to vice, being left to itself, will certainly proceed to work, and to exert itself in action; and if not hindered and counteracted will continue to do so, till practice passes into custom and habit, and so by use and frequency comes to acquire a domineering strength in a mans conversation.

3. That all the disorders of the world, and the confusions that disturb persons, families, and whole societies or corporations, proceed from this natural propensity to vice in particular persons, which being thus heightened by habitual practice, runs forth into those several sorts of vice which corrupt and spoil the manners of men.

4. That when the corruption of mans manners by the habitual improvements of this vicious principle comes from personal to be general and universal, so as to diffuse and spread itself over a whole community, it naturally and directly tends to the ruin and subversion of the government where it so prevails.

5. That this ill principle is to be altered and corrected only by discipline, and the infusion of such principles into the rational and spiritual part of man as may powerfully sway his will and affections, by convincing his understanding that the practice of virtue is preferable to that of vice; and that there is a real happiness and honesty in the one, and a real misery, as well as a turpitude, in the other; there being no mending or working upon the sensual part, but by well-principling the intellectual.

6. This discipline and infusion of good principles into the mind, which only can and must work this great happy change upon a mans morals, by counter-working that other sensual and vicious principle, which would corrupt them, can never operate so kindly, so efficaciously, and by consequence, so successfully, as when applied to him in his minority, while his mind is ductile and tender, and so ready for any good impressions. For when he comes once to be in years, and his mind, having been prepossessed with ill-principles, and afterwards hardened with ill practices, grows callous, and scarce penetrable, his case will be then very different, and the success of such applications is very doubtful, if not desperate. It is necessary that the minds of youth should be formed and seasoned with a strict and virtuous and early and preventing education. On three sorts of persons this trust rests--

(1) Parents.

(2) Schoolmasters.

(3) The clergy. (R. South.)

The education of children

The careful, prudent, and religious education of children hath for the most part a very good influence upon the whole course of their lives.

I. Wherein doth the good education of children consist?

1. In the tender and careful nursing of them.

2. In bringing them to be baptized.

3. In a due care to inform and instruct them in the whole compass of their duty to God and to their neighbour.

4. In a prudent and diligent care to form their lives and manners to religion and virtue.

5. In giving them good example.

6. In wise restraints from that which is evil, by seasonable reproof and correction.

7. In bringing them to be publicly catechised.

8. In bringing them to be confirmed.

II. More particular directions for the management of this work. The young have to be trained in the exercise of the following graces and virtues: Obedience, modesty, diligence, sincerity, tenderness, pity, good government of their passions, and of their tongues, to speak truth and to hate lying; to piety and devotion towards God, sobriety and chastity with regard to themselves, and to justice and charity towards all men, Endeavour to discover the particular temper and disposition of children, that you may suit and apply yourself to it. Endeavour to plant those principles of religion and virtue which are most substantial and likely to have the best influence on the future government of their lives. Check and discourage in them the first beginnings of sin and vice: as soon as ever they appear pluck them up by the roots. Take great heed that the children be not habituated and accustomed to any evil course. Bring them, as soon as they are capable of it, to the public worship of God. Put them upon the exercise and practice of religion and virtue, in such instances as their understanding and age are capable of. Add constant and earnest prayer to God on behalf of your children.

III. Some of the more common miscarriages in the performance of this duty. These may be found in relation to instruction, example, and reproof. There often is too great rigour and severity; at other times too great laxity. It is always mischievous to punish while under the influence of passion.

IV. Show how good education comes to be of so great advantage. It gives religion and virtue the advantage of the first possession, and the further advantage of habit and custom.

V. Stir up those whose duty this is to discharge it with great care and conscience. Good education is the very best inheritance you can leave your children. In this way you promote your own comfort and happiness. The surest foundation of the public welfare and happiness is laid in the good education of children. Consider the great evils consequent on the neglect of this duty. (T. Tillotson, D.D.)

Training up children to the primary virtues

Habits of virtue are of the same nature with dexterity in the mechanical or other arts. Would we acquire this dexterity, we must exercise ourselves early and constantly whether in the virtues or the arts. It is necessary for us to train up children to virtue with all possible care from their earliest infancy, and continually to exercise them in it, if we would have them truly virtuous persons. To do this we should find out their temperament, and conduct ourselves accordingly: we should habituate them to act from principle and design; we should teach them to be attentive to the consequences of their actions; we should strive to make their duty their pleasure. Further rules are--

1. Inure them from their earliest infancy to obedience and submission.

2. Inspire them with a predominant love for truth, for sincerity and frankness.

3. Train them to diligence, to method, and to industry in their affairs.

4. Be very careful to bring them up to humility and modesty.

5. Endeavour to inspire them with a sincere affection and hearty good-will towards all mankind, without distinction of rank, of religion, of country, or of outward fortune.

6. Neglect not to train them to compassion and benevolence.

7. Train them to patience in sufferings, to fortitude and courage in misfortune, to a steady and intrepid behaviour in all situations. These qualities and virtues are indispensably necessary to us in our present state. We must learn first to practise them in trivial matters if we would do so afterwards in riper years and more important emergencies. (G. J. Zollikofer.)

Child-training

Introduction:

1. Mobility needed in subject of training; therefore man is born a child. Yet be aware, flexibility passes, tendency to solidify soon creeps in.

2. Parents here granted right of loving dogmatism: in the way they should go.

I. True training embraces care and system.

1. These should touch each part of child-nature: flesh and blood. Evolution of full manhood only reached thus. Bodies are fed and trained. Mystery is, the soul often neglected. No animal neglects its young as man does. Every home should be its own Sabbath-school.

2. Cant train without a line to go on--a faith that can be taught--a system. Trained child not found where fathers mind is dark or chaotic. You like your child to choose its faith when it can think for itself? No child is mentally or spiritually free from bias. Child has all to learn. Has no standard of selection. First trainer has greatest power, whether good or evil. Mark this: if you dont bias it for good a thousand tutors outside your home will bias it to its hurt.

II. Train child to decide moral questions by principle, not by feeling.

1. A child is composed of appetites and moral sense. These all glow. But appetites get two or three years start of moral sense. You must be swift in training, or you wont get moral sense to overtake appetite.

2. Every day of life offer times for moral decision. Think of George Eliots Arthur Donnithorne; sweet temper, weak moral sense, strong animal tastes; so a standing peril to himself and others.

3. The one grand deciding principle for all souls is: What does Christ love, that is the thing to be done. It is sure: it carries child to right issues. It is safe: it imperils nothing in its whole being. It is rapid: under it souls grow holy fast.

III. Train child to judge Christianity by best results. Much of training given unwittingly. Soul-suction always going on in a child. Five senses are five avenues to soul. Crowds of motley ideas go up them--each idea a teacher. In your home they hear your views of men and actions. Beware! if you condemn Christianity, because of its sullied specimens, you harm the child. Put religion in its highest light. For its sake ask: What are its finest results? Show them spiritual splendours. Show them John, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Newton, Hale, Wesley. Christian gallery not wanting in fine portraits. Show them Christ. Moral longing will awaken them; they will hunger and be filled (Mat_5:6). Conclusion:

1. All details come under these principles.

2. Thus you will train a godly seed. (British Weekly.)

On religious education

i. An exhortation to the discharge of an important duty. The wisdom and propriety of the exhortation are founded on certain qualities inherent in man.

1. Man is remarkably prone to imitation. In private families every action of the parent is imitated by the child. So it happens in the aggregate life of the nation. The cast of general manners depends upon the leaders of society.

2. Children in their infant years contend obstinately for the gratification of their own humour. The principle of self-will is not in cases to be reprehended. When it makes us resolute in spurning compliance with mean conditions, with base proposals, and wicked instigations, it is generous and manly, and should be cherished. But reasonable accommodation of our own inclinations and our own sentiments to the dispositions and opinions of others is absolutely necessary for the transacting of human concerns, and consequently for the existence of civil society. It should therefore be taught to children, because they are inexperienced; and enforced on young persons, because their passions are turbulent. The training of children in the way of subjection to discreet and moderate control is an act of judicious kindness in every parent.

3. When we are born we bring with us minds already furnished with methodical principles; but through the sole gift of God we are endowed with capacity either for the inventing or the learning of arts and sciences. The extent to which this capacity becomes advantageous depends in a great measure on the degree and manner of culture with which it is improved.

4. In the generality of men there is an active spirit which is impatient of rest, and which will find itself employment. Children therefore need training in the proper methods of spending energy in labour and in recreation.

5. There is in man a most unhappy tendency to do evil. Man finds it more easy to indulge his appetites than to raise his soul to higher objects. The best friend of the child is he who begins with the first dawn of understanding to impress on the mind of his child that there is a God everywhere present in power and knowledge, and another state of existence, where goodness shall terminate in happiness, but vice be productive of misery.

II. The effect which will ensue from early care employed in education. The mental faculties most distinguishable in our first years are memory and imagination. If the proper effects of right instruction are not so visible as might be wished at every period of our age, let no one hastily conclude that therefore the elements of education are totally obliterated. Good principle may for some years lie dormant in the mind. Unless in cases of extreme depravity, the good principle, like the good seed, will at last find its way to shoot up, and give a tenfold measure of increase after its own kind. The training, then, of children in the way they should go is from the nature of man indispensably necessary. (G. J. Huntingford, D.D.)

Of the duty which parents owe to their children

I. The heinous nature and fatal consequences of the neglect of parental duty.

1. As it appears in the sight of God.

2. As it affects the children.

3. As it affects parents themselves.

II. How parents should educate their children.

1. Train your children to revere you.

2. Train them to implicit submission to your authority. Insubordination in youth is the certain inlet to all that is disorderly in riper years.

3. In order to train your children to moderation in pleasure, lead them, as early as possible, to mark the imposture of passion, and guard them from all intimacy with the loose and the dissipated, and interdict them of all loose and licentious reading.

4. Train them to industry and frugality. Unremitting application and assiduity are the only means by which pre-eminence among men can be attained.

5. Train your children to virtue and candour, and justice and humanity.

6. Train your children to piety. True views of the benignity of the Ruler of nature will impress their susceptible breast, with the feelings of genuine piety, and lead them to love the Lord their God with all their heart and strength and mind. (W. Thorburn.)

The formation of the minds of children

1. Repress not their curiosity or their inquisitiveness. It is in itself no fault. It is rather a strong impulse and an excellent means to become intelligent and wise.

2. Accustom your children or your pupils to the use of their senses; teach them to apprehend justly.

3. Beware of giving them false or not sufficiently precise ideas of any matter, though of never so trifling import.

4. Set them to learn nothing which, either on account of their tender age or from the want of other kinds of knowledge necessary to that purpose, they cannot comprehend. Measure not their capacities by yours.

5. Endeavour not only to increase and extend their knowledge, but likewise to render it solid and sure. It is far better for them to know a few things thoroughly than to have only a superficial acquaintance with many.

6. Guard them from being hasty in forming conclusions, and avail yourself of all opportunities for leading them, by observations, to circumspection and precision in their inferences and judgments. (G. J. Zollikofer.)

The formation of the hearts of children

To form the hearts of children means to direct their appetites and affections to the worthiest objects, to inspire them with a predominant love for all that is true and right and proper, and thereby to render the performance of their duty easy and pleasant to them.

1. Study to find out their temperament, and conduct yourself according to it. The temperament is, as it were, the soil that is to be cultivated, and the diversity of this soil is not so great but it may soon be discovered. More or less vivacity and quickness of apprehension, more or less sensibility to good and evil, to pleasure and pain, more or less vehemence in the affections, more or less disposition to rest or to activity--in these consist the principal diversity in what may be called the temperament of children. All these various temperaments may equally lead either to the virtues or to the vices.

2. Accustom them to act from principle and design, and not by blind impulse or mere self-will.

3. But be not satisfied with teaching them to act from reason, as rational creatures; but teach them to act upon the noblest principles, and in pure and beneficent views. Beware of setting only their ambition in motion, and of inciting them to application and duty from no other motive than the idea of the judgment that others pass on them.

4. Teach them, further, to attend to the consequences of their actions or of their behaviour. Teach them duly to prize that inward peace, the satisfaction, the cheerfulness of mind, the health and strength of body, and the other advantages which they have derived from honest and proper conduct.

5. Strive to make their duty a pleasure to them.

6. For facilitating all this to them, for teaching them to act upon principle, to act from the best motives, and to be attentive to the consequences of their actions, you should accustom them betimes to self-examination, which is the most excellent means for constantly becoming more wise and virtuous.

7. Teach them, in like manner, to reap benefit from the conduct of other persons.

8. Finally, to this end call history likewise to your aid. (G. J. Zollikofer.)

Advantages of good training

They who are well educated generally behave well for the following reasons:

1. Early impressions are deep.

2. Habit is strong.

3. Early piety is acceptable to God. The first love of an innocent heart is sacrifice of a sweet savour. (S. Charters.)

Religious training

A child may be said to be taught when in words we clearly convey to his mind any truth or enjoin upon his conscience any precept. He is trained when we ourselves so pass before him, in practical illustration of the truth and precept, that he is drawn along after us in the same way. The principle applies peculiarly to moral and religious instruction. Suppose you wish to instruct a child in benevolence or charity. You tell him what it inclines one to do for the needy and suffering; you dilate upon the beautiful sentiments which the exercise of it incites in ones own breast; you refer to distinguished examples of it that have blessed the world. All this is teaching. But now, again, you take your child by the hand, and lead him with you into some abode of poverty and want; you let him see with you the necessitous situation of the inmates of that cold and ill-provided dwelling; he marks the yearning of your heart towards them, and his heart swells in sympathy; the satisfaction that exhilarates your soul he shares as you freely give the needed aid; he witnesses the whole reciprocal action of a living bounty on your part and a returning gratitude on the spot. And this is training. One such scene will avail more than many lectures to make your child charitable. Or suppose, again, you would instruct your child in devotion, prayer to God. But to what purpose if the child is not moreover trained to pray?--to what purpose if the very house he lives in is a prayerless house? Would you instruct your child in that cardinal excellence of truth? You insist often, in words, on its importance. But, more than this, train it to do so. You rebuke deception. It is well. But practise not in any way what you rebuke. Would we instruct our children to be kind and gentle? How? by a command? Not so only, but more powerfully by the affectionate and pleasant bearing and tone of our own speech and person. Parents and friends often wonder that, after all the pains taken with children, the frequent counsels and admonitions, they should yet afterwards go astray. But was the child who has disappointed you trained as well as taught? Did you uniformly go before to beckon and lead him after in the way you first pointed out? But in the majority of cases the rule will hold good: your child will keep on as he has been trained. The soldier in his age might as soon forget the drill of his early discipline, or the sailor the first calculations by which, under the rolling planets, he made his way over the uncertain waves, as your child the practical guidance to which you have actually used him through a series of years. He will keep on, if you have been his leader and forerunner, when your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and will run the race after very much as you have run it before. The chief significance of the grave where you lie down will be to fix the direction in which you trained and the point at which you left your child. Your bark will disappear as it sails on over the misty horizon; but his bark shall hold the same course. Whither, whither shall it be? (C. A. Bartol.)

The education of the young

I. An interesting object. A child.

1. Its personal powers (Job_32:8), the faculties of the mind.

2. Its social importance.

3. Its possible elevation.

4. Its total depravity. Socrates confessed of himself that his natural inclinations were exceedingly bad, but by philosophy he overruled them.

5. Its immortal duration.

II. An important duty. Train up.

1. Let him be taught useful learning.

2. Let him be instructed in religious knowledge.

3. Let him be impressed by a consistent example.

4. Let him be guided into proper habits.

5. Let him be sanctified by earnest prayer.

III. An encouraging prospect.

1. From the Divine appointment (Deu_4:10; Deu_31:13; Eph_6:4).

2. From the Divine procedure. (Studies for the Pulpit.)

The religious instruction of the young

1. See to it that we present the Divine character in a manner calculated to encourage young hearts.

2. Distinguish between the way in which death affects the body and the way in which it affects the spirit.

3. Make it clear that the religion of Christ is in harmony with all innocent recreation and enjoyment.

4. Do all in our power to interest the young in the services of the sanctuary.

5. See that you offer to the young the truth which God has revealed to you, and of which you have felt the power.

6. Avoid all treatment of the young that is calculated to dispirit and discourage. Be careful not to exact too much from them.

7. Be varied in your teaching, and do not be depressed if the attainment of your object is delayed. (S. D. Hillman.)

The necessity of a wise and wholesome discipline

1. As soon as children are capable of reflection endeavour to make them acquainted with some of the leading truths of the gospel.

2. Explain the duties of practical religion as well as the articles of belief.

3. Be careful to set before your children an example worthy of imitation, for instructions and exhortations will be invalidated by inconsistency.

4. Discipline, reproof, and correction are necessary in the family as well as in the Church and State.

5. Let correction and reproof be accompanied with fervent and importunate prayer.

6. Keep a watchful eye over them to see what may be the fruit of your labour. To rightly perform parental duties we must begin betimes; secure the affection of the children; keep them out of the way of temptation; and instruct them with gentleness. (B. Beddome.)

Godly training

The various branches of godly training may be thus enumerated:

1. Instruction in right principles--the principles of Gods Word.

2. The inculcation of right practice--the practice of Gods will.

3. Salutary admonition and restraint, and correction.

4. The careful avoidance of exposure to evil company and evil example.

5. The exhibition before them of a good example in ourselves.

6. Constant, believing, and earnest prayer. (R. Wardlaw, D.D.)

Education

I. Whom should we educate? The material. A child. The world teems with analogies both real and obvious, whereby the moralist may enforce the duty of educating in the comparatively pliable period of youth.

II. The process of education. Train up. Note the distinction between teaching and training. There may be teaching without training. Moral training according to a Divine standard, with the view of moulding the human being while yet young and tender into right principles and habits of action, is the only education worthy of the name. The oldest training-school is the best--the school at home; sisters and brothers are the best class-fellows, and parents the best masters. But formidable obstacles, both intrinsic and extrinsic, prevent or impede parental training.

III. The aim and end of education. In the way he should go. Wisdom in choosing the proper time, and skill in adopting the best method, would be of no avail if false principles were thereby instilled into the mind and evil habits ingrafted on the life. If we do not train the children in truth and righteousness it would be better that we should not train them at all. (W. Arnot, D.D.)

The training of children

There are many qualifications necessary for carrying out this important duty.

I. Sanctified love. This is not mere instinctive fondness which is common to man and animals, but--

1. A perception of the true beauty of childhood.

2. A realisation of the purity of childhood.

3. A consciousness of the guileless simplicity of childhood.

II. Felt responsibilty.

1. Children are not our own.

2. Children are the future inhabitants of the world. Hence the world will be, to a certain extent, what we make the children.

3. Children have immortal souls.

III. Indirect influence. To obtain this we must--

1. Subdue our own passion. No passionate parent can possibly influence his child for good.

2. Set a godly example.

3. Cultivate confidence and win affection.

IV. Patient waiting and earnest prayer. (Homilist.)

Childhood innocence a dream

Here is an assertion, but is not experience frequently at variance with it? The statement of the text is unqualified. Adherence to the right path is given as the invariable result of having been trained up in the right path. Can this be established by facts? With what restrictions are the words of the wise man to be understood? It is implied in the text that there is no tendency in a child to walk in the right way, and if we leave him to himself he will be sure to walk in the wrong. Almost from the moment of the childs birth can be discovered in the infant the elements of the proud, revengeful, self-willed man. There is hereditary guilt where there cannot be absolute. The innocency of childhood is a dream and delusion. In dealing with children we have not to deal with unoccupied soil, but soil already impregnated with every seed of moral evil. In what manner may the precept of the text be best obeyed? The great secret of training lies in regarding the child as immortal. (H. Melvill, B.D.)

Teach the youngest

Dr. Chalmers, in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Morton, says: You cannot begin too early. God should be spoken of to the very youngest, and the name of Jesus Christ familiarised to them; and every association of reverence and love that the tone and style of the parents can attach to the business of religion should be established in them. Their consciences are wonderfully soon at work.

Childhood injured

Childhood is like a mirror catching and reflecting images all around it. Remember that an impious thought uttered by a parents lip may operate upon a young heart like a careless spray of water thrown upon polished steel, staining it with rust which no after-scouring can efface.

Teaching and training

It is a very important thing to get hold of the distinction between teaching and training, or, as the margin reads it, catechising. Train up a child, not merely lead a child. There is a New Testament text which brings out the same thoughts where parents are taught to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Observe the distinction between nurture and admonition. Admonition means teaching, and nurture means training--two very remote things. Eli was a capital admonisher, but no trainer. Eli admonished his sons very often. If mere talking would have answered, he would have done well. He should have been like Abraham, who commanded his house after him. Do you think you could ever make good marksmen by giving lectures on the science of projectiles? Would that make men good shots? If you are to be good shots you must handle the rifle and actually shoot. (S. Coley.)

The training of a child

Human society is now hard enough, and needs more sympathy in it than one always sees; but what it would become if the hearts of men were not kept in some degree of softness and tenderness by the affections which are raised and developed by family life it is difficult fully to conceive. This text corrects the terrible and mischievous misconception that a childs future is altogether a thing of chance. It can be controlled. All life can be trained. It can be made to take a course different from that which it otherwise would take. The training is within certain limits. Children will be trained in spite of us. How they are trained depends largely on us. We rely on this same principle of training in every other relation which the child sustains. The laws of religious life are not capricious and incalculable laws. Duty has to be learned like a business, or a science, or a profession. The training of a child consists in

1. Teaching.

2. Example.

3. Discipline.

4. Prayer.

Show me a child well instructed in the truths of the gospel, living day by day in the presence of consistent and winning examples, and surrounded with prayers, and I do not say that such an one may not through a strange self-will break his way through all these blessed influences and become a wreck and a castaway, but it will be a wonder if he comes to such a melancholy end, and it is easier to believe that in such a case the training has been faulty than that there has been a failure in the Divine promise which connects the spring and the autumn. (Enoch Mellor, D.D.)

The training of children

The whole human family has descended from the loins of Adam, and is necessarily tainted with his impurity. By one mans disobedience many were made sinners. We are all under the power of sin. This tendency to sin is often exhibited in the child long before the dawn of consciousness. It is constitutionally a sinner, and the uninterrupted development of its nature will necessarily be a growth in sin.

I. The text does not mean that this sinful nature is to be trained in the hope of producing blessed results, but something higher and better is to be supplied from without. Life and grace and power have been brought into the service of humanity in the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and are to be made over to us by the operation of the Holy Ghost. But this Divine life is here only in germ, and must be developed in the midst of certain conditions, and here is a duty that God requires at the hands of parents. I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and that they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He had spoken of him. Here it is expressly stated that Abraham was to do his part in order that the Lord might verify to him the blessings guaranteed in the covenant.

II. This training should begin at the very dawn of the childs existence. When we are told to train up a child in the way that he should go, it is meant that we should do this; not let it first grow up in sin and then try to reclaim it afterward by extraordinary effort. To do that is to give the world, the flesh, and the devil all the advantage. The child will not grow up a Christian without the influence and teaching of the parent. The receptive faculties of the child must be trained and sustained, and then the Holy Ghost will sanctify the life and make it fruitful in holiness. During its earliest life the child absorbs impressions and is completely under parental influence and direction. Parents are also invested with authority over the child, and it will need discipline, but this must be exercised in love. For the lack of this spirit corrections administered are often of no avail Correction administered in a wrong spirit will do harm and not good. It must be evident, therefore, that properly to train our children we must not only teach them Christian doctrine, but we must live the life of a Christian.

III. If a child is thus nurtured and trained in the Divine life we need not suppose that a technical experience or sudden transition is necessary to constitute it a Christian. The neglect of parental training cannot be made up in any other way. There is no danger of claiming too much for our holy religion. The whole being of man is to be sanctified by it. The chief end of our existence is to glorify God. How often it is said of a man who dies owning no property that he left nothing to his family! But every child is an heir, and his inheritance is indefeasible. First of all are his memories of his parents and his home. The man who has no property to devise should not be unhappy. I give and bequeath to my children a good name, a Christian example, and a faithful training. Is not that a good start for a last will? These are legacies over which no heirs quarrel and that require no probate outside of the sanctuary of the heart. (E. R. Esohbech, D.D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro 22:6. Train up — Hebrew, חנךְ, initiate, or instruct; a child in the way he should go — Or, according to his way, that is, in that course or manner of life which thou wouldest have him to choose and follow. Or, as some render the clause, in the beginning of his way, that is, in his tender years, as soon as he is capable of receiving instruction, the Hebrew על פי דרכו, signifying, literally, in the mouth of his way, and the mouth being often put for the beginning or entrance of a place or thing. And when he is old, he will not depart from it — Namely, not easily and ordinarily. The impressions made in his childish years will remain, unless some extraordinary cause occur to erase them. “Instruct a child,” says Bishop Patrick, “as soon as ever he is capable, and season his mind with the principles of virtue before he receive other impressions, and it is most likely they will grow up with him; so that when he is older he will not forsake them, but retain them as long as he lives.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6 Give to the child instruction conformably to His way;

So he will not, when he becomes old, depart from it.

The first instruction is meant which, communicated to the child, should be על־פּי, after the measure (Gen 43:7 = post-bibl. לפי and כּפי) of his way, i.e., not: of his calling, which he must by and by enter upon (Bertheau, Zckler), which דּרכּו of itself cannot mean; also not: of the way which he must keep in during life (Kidduschin 30a); nor: of his individual nature (Elster); but: of the nature of the child as such, for דּרך נער is the child's way, as e.g., derek col-haarets, Gen 19:31, the general custom of the land; derek Mitsrâyim, Isa 10:24, the way (the manner of acting) of the Egyptians. The instruction of youth, the education of youth, ought to be conformed to the nature of youth; the matter of instruction, the manner of instruction, ought to regulate itself according to the stage of life, and its peculiarities; the method ought to be arranged according to the degree of development which the mental and bodily life of the youth has arrived at. The verb חנך is a denominative like עקב, Pro 22:4; it signifies to affect the taste, חך (= חנך), in the Arab. to put date syrup into the mouth of the suckling; so that we may compare with it the saying of Horace, Ep. i. 2, 69: Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu. In the post-bibl. Heb. חנּוּך denotes that which in the language of the Church is called catechizatio; חנוך (לנער) ספר is the usual title of the catechisms. It is the fundamental and first requisite of all educational instruction which the proverb formulates, a suitable motto for the lesson-books of pedagogues and catechists. ממּנּה [from it] refers to that training of youth, in conformity with his nature, which becomes a second nature, that which is imprinted, inbred, becomes accustomed. Pro 22:6 is wanting in the lxx; where it exists in MSS of the lxx, it is supplied from Theodotion; the Complut. translates independently from the Heb. text.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

CHAPTER 24

EDUCATION: THE PARENTS THOUGHT OF THE CHILD

"Train up a child according to his way, and even when he is old he will not depart from it."- Pro_22:6

"Withhold not correction from the child; if thou beat him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from Sheol."- Pro_23:13-14

IN Lecture IV we examined two of the main principles which should be inculcated on children in a Christian home. In the present lecture we approach the question of education again. It is necessary for us to examine two features of parental training on which the book of Proverbs lays repeated stress. First, the need of method in bringing up the young; and second, the way of punishing their delinquencies.

In the first we have an eternal principle, which applies and must apply as long as human nature endures, a principle which is even emphasized by the demands of our Christian faith. In the second we have a principle which is so modified and altered by the Christian spirit, that unless we make the largest allowance for the change, it may be, as it often has been, misleading and hurtful in a high degree. If we could trace out all the dark cruelties and injustice, the vindictiveness, the stupidity of parents, guardians, and teachers, who have sheltered themselves under the authority of the text, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall, drive it far from him," {Pro_22:15} we might read with a new application our Saviors stern censure of accepting the letter of Scripture in place of coming to Him and learning of Him who is meek and lowly of heart. {Joh_5:39}

But our first duty is to understand the wholesome and eternally valid teaching that is here given us about education. "Train up a child in the way he should go." We gain a good deal in vividness if we go back to the meaning of the word which is rendered "train." Derived from a noun which signifies the palate and the inner part of the mouth, its literal meaning is "to put into the mouth." The metaphor suggested is that of feeding an infant. Every parent recognizes the necessity of giving to the helpless children suitable nourishment. At first the mother feeds the babe at the breast. After the weaning she still feeds it with food carefully chosen and prepared. As the child grows older she changes the food, but she does not relax her care; and the father admits the responsibility of procuring the necessary diet for his little one, a responsibility which does not cease until the child is fully grown, fully formed, and fully able to provide for himself. Here is the suitable analogy for mental, moral, and spiritual teaching. The parents must feed their child with morsels suitable to his age, with the "milk of the word" at first, afterwards with strong meat. It all requires infinite care and forethought and wisdom, for there is a certain way of development, a certain ideal which the child must realize, and if the training be on the lines of that development, according to that "way," if it is to achieve that ideal, the teaching must all be accurately adapted to the age or stage of development, and to the particular character and disposition of the child. If the preliminary work of the parents is wisely done, if the influence exercised by them while their child is still entirely in their hands is exactly what it ought to be, there is no fear for the rest of life-"when he is old he will not depart from it." A great master of modern literature, who wandered through many ways of thought far from the opinions and faith of his parents, when in his old age he sat down to write the reminiscences of his life, discovered that the original bent given to his mind by his peasant parents had remained unexhausted to the end. Many beliefs currently held had faded and grown dim, much of the historical foundation of his religion had crumbled away, but there was a truth which he had learned from his mothers lips and had seen exemplified in his fathers life, and it returned to him in its full force, and remained unsubmerged in the tides of doubt, unaffected by the breath of change, it even acquired a fresh hold upon him in the decline of his days: -The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

It is a good illustration of the unrivalled power of the parents over a mans life. "The Lord hath given the father honor over the children, and hath confirmed the authority of the mother over the sons," says Ecclesiasticus (Ecclesiasticus 30:2). It is a rare opportunity which is given to parents. No sphere of influence which they may acquire can be like it; it may be wider, but it can never be so intense or so decisive. A father who abdicates the throne on which God has set him, who foregoes the honor which God has given him, or turns it into dishonor, must one day answer for his base renunciation before the Eternal Father. A mother who uses the authority over her sons which God has given her, merely to gratify her own vanity and selfishness, and to retain a love which she has ceased to deserve; or one who wantonly throws away the authority because its exercise makes large demands upon the spirit, has much to answer for at the Divine judgment-seat. Parental powers are so absolute, parental possibilities are so great, parental joys are so rare and wonderful, that they must of necessity be balanced by corresponding disadvantages in case of failure. "He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow, and the father of a fool hath no joy." {Pro_17:21} "A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him." {Pro_17:25; Pro_19:13; Pro_19:26} It must therefore constantly press upon all wise parents, how are they to act, what methods are they to adopt, in order to rightly discharge their duties, and to win that precious reward of "a wise son?" {Pro_15:20 Cf. Pro_10:1, Pro_27:22, Pro_9:3} "My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall be glad, even mine, yea, my reins shall rejoice when thy lips speak right things." "The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him." {Pro_23:15-16; Pro_23:24}

The answer which is constantly suggested by the book of Proverbs, and especially by our text, is this:-A successful parent will be one who makes the training of the children a constant and religious study. It is the last subject in the world to be left to haphazard. From the first a clear aim must be kept in view. "Is my great object that this boy shall be a true, a noble, a God-fearing man, serving his day and generation in the way God shall appoint? Is this object purged of all meaner thought? Can I renounce the idea of worldly success for him, and be indifferent to wealth and reputation, to comfort and ease for him?" When this question is satisfactorily settled, then comes a second, How is the aim to be realized? Is not the parent at once driven to God with the cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?" A mistake may be so fatal, and it is so hard to clearly see, to rightly judge, to firmly act, that nothing can avail but the direct teaching, inspiration, and power of the Spirit of God. Happy are the father and the mother who have been forced in their helplessness to seek that Divine help from the very first!

If we only knew it, all education is useless apart from the Spirit of God. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And liberty is just what is most needed. Mechanical schemes, cut-and-dried precepts, are quite insufficient. Moving in the liberty of the Spirit you have insight and adaptiveness; at once you perceive that each child is a separate study, and must be approached in a different way. One is sanguine and over-confident, and he must constantly be humbled; another is diffident and desponding, and must be encouraged with the bright word of sympathy, spoken at the right moment. "I see it all, my child; I know what a fight it is in which you are engaged." One is a born skeptic, and would know the reason why; he must be met with patient and comprehending arguments according to his mental powers. Another has no speculative instincts, and questions have to be raised, doubts suggested, in order to save him from drifting into the easygoing acceptance of everything which he is told. One seems naturally inclined to be religious, and must be carefully watched lest the sensitiveness should become morbid, and a dominant thought should lead to mania, melancholy, or a possible reaction. Another seems to have no religious instinct, and the opportunity must be sought for awaking the sense of need, rousing the conscience, opening the eyes to God.

But again, in proportion as parents are led by the Spirit, and make their sacred charge a matter of constant and beseeching prayer, they will in their own person and conduct represent God to the children, and so supplement all the possible defects of the express training and discipline. If the command "Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long" {Pro_23:17} is to have any weight with the child, he must live with those who themselves are in the fear of the Lord all the day long. A man must live near to God if he is to make God real to his children. A mother must hold very real converse with her Lord if His reality is to become obvious to her little ones. "As a child," says one, "I always had a feeling that God and Jesus were such particular friends of mammas, and were honored more than words could tell." If such an impression is to be created, depend upon it God and Jesus must be particular friends of yours. No talk, however pious, can create that impression unless the hallowed friendship actually exists.

Again, led by the Spirit, we are filled with Divine love; and no training of children can have any valuable or permanent effect which does not issue from, which is not guided by, and does not result in, love. For love is the Divine educator. It is this which accounts for the frequently observed anomaly that children who seem to have inferior home advantages and very inadequate education turn out better than others for whom no labor or expense or care seems to be grudged. If love is not there, all the efforts will fail. Love is the only atmosphere in which the spirits of little children can grow. Without it the wisest precepts only choke, and the best-prepared knowledge proves innutritious. It must be a large love, a wise love, an inclusive love, such as God alone can shed abroad in the heart. Love of that kind is very frequently found in "huts where poor men lie," and consequently the children issuing out of them have been better trained than those whose parents have handed them over to loveless tutors or underlings.

And this may perhaps fitly lead us to consider the other point which is before us-the prominence which is, in the Proverbs, given to chastisement. "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him, chasteneth him betimes." {Pro_13:24} "Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope, and set not thy heart on his destruction." {Pro_19:18} "Stripes that wound are a cleansing of evil, strokes of the recesses of the belly." {Pro_20:30} "Withhold not correction from the child; when thou beatest him with a rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from Sheol." {Pro_23:13-14} "The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself causeth shame to his mother." {Pro_29:15} "Correct thy son and he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul." {Pro_29:17}

Corporal punishment seems to the Christian, and to the common sense of a society which is the product of the Christian spirit, degrading, brutalizing, and essentially futile! It can only have even a modicum of good effect where it is inflicted by a loving hand, and in a loving spirit, without a trace of temper or cruelty, and obviously costing more to inflict than to bear. But even with all these conditions granted it is a most unsatisfactory method of punishment; it arouses vindictive feelings and savage passions. A whipped boy is almost sure to bully the next creature weaker than himself that he encounters; and acting only as a deterrent, it never reaches the conscience, or creates a sense of revolt from the sin for the sins sake, which is the object of all wise, or at least of all paternal, punishment. We can only, therefore, set aside the precept to use the rod as one which was in harmony with darker and harder times before the Savior of the world had come to reveal the inner life and to teach us how we are to deal with those mysterious and wonderful beings, our fellow-creatures.

But with this modification, and substituting "wise and merciful punishments" for "rod and stripes," these teachings remain of permanent validity. Our Heavenly Father chastens His children; by most gracious punishments He brings home to them the sense of sin, and leads them to repentance and amendment. And earthly parents, in proportion as they are led by the Spirit and filled with love, will correct their children, not for their own pleasure, but for their childrens good. The truth which underlies these apparently harsh injunctions is this: Love inflicts punishments, nor are any punishments so severe as those which Love inflicts; and only the punishments which Love inflicts are able to reform and to save the character of the delinquent.

We all of us know that weak and sentimental nature-too common among modern parents-which shrinks from inflicting pain under all. circumstances. Seizing on the ill-understood doctrine that Love is the sovereign power in life and in education, it pleads in the name of Love that the offender may be spared, that he may escape the due penalty of his fault. That is not a love like Gods love: and if you are careful to observe, it has not the remedial or saving effect which the love of God has. "He that declines to punish his child hates him; he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." In the poor childs heart so much foolishness is bound up, so much willfulness and temper, so much vanity and pride, so much sensuality and selfishness, so much unwholesome craving for amusement, it is so natural to the child to make pleasure the be-all and the end-all of life, that, if all this foolishness is to be driven away, there must be much sharp discipline and painful correction. The Divine method of punishment seems to be to let men eat of the fruit of their doings until they loathe it. They rebelliously call out for meat in the wilderness, and it turns into a satiety, a bitterness, and a plague, while it is between their teeth. Is it possible that parents too, under the guidance of the Spirit, may chasten their children in the same way, bringing home to the willful the painful effects of willfulness, to the vain the ridiculous effects of vanity, to the selfish the disastrous issue of selfishness, to the sensual the ruin and the misery of sensuality? Might not the most effectual punishment for every fault be an enforced quiet in which the culprit is confronted with the inevitable outcome of the sin? Does not even the hardest heart begin to melt, does not the dullest conscience begin to grow sensitive, when the sure results of evil are aptly portrayed before the mind? What pride would have courage to grow if it had a glimpse of the hard, dry, loveless, unloved, heart which is its inevitable fruit? What young man would venture to take the first downward steps in impurity if he had ever formed a conception of the devastation of brain and heart and life which must ensue?

The rod cannot open the eyes; it can but set the cunning intellect to work to find a way of enjoying the sin and escaping the rod. But the opening of the eyes-at which all true punishment must aim-reveals a rod which is bound up with the sin, sure as the sin itself. It is the parents solemn task - and many an inward sorrow must it cost-to bring, home to his childs heart these truths of experience which the child cannot at present know. Wise penalties and "reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself causeth shame to his mother." {Pro_29:15}

There is a voice, the voice of Divine Wisdom, which speaks continually to every, parent, to every teacher of youth: "Incline thine ear," it says, "and hear the words of the wise, and apply thy heart unto my knowledge"-without attention and application this heavenly wisdom cannot be known. "For it is a pleasant thing," so the voice continues, "if thou keep these words within thee if they be established together upon thy lips. That thy trust may be in the Lord,"-without whom the best-meant efforts will fail, -" I have made them known to thee this day, even to thee. Have not I written to thee excellent things of counsels and knowledge, to make thee know the certainty of the words of truth, that thou mayest carry back words of truth to them," those helpless and ignorant children whose needs "send thee" to me for instruction? {Pro_23:17-21}

The failures are numerous, disastrous, heartbreaking, but they are unnecessary. Your children are holy; they belong to the Saviour in whom you yourselves believe. Grasp that truth; go to Him in sublime faith. "Lord, it is not with Thee to save a part, to choose this one and save that. Thou wilt glorify Thyself in every one." (The Education of a Christian Home) Surrender yourself to Him that He may use you to exhibit His Divine graces and saving love to the children. Live with Him daily, that the glory of the communion may not pass away from your face, or appear only by fits and starts-and so train up your child according to his way; and when he is old he will not depart from it.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

Bring him up virtuously, and he shall so continue.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Here is, 1. A great duty enjoined, particularly to those that are the parents and instructors of children, in order to the propagating of wisdom, that it may not die with them: Train up children in that age of vanity, to keep them from the sins and snares of it, in that learning age, to prepare them for what they are designed for. Catechise them; initiate them; keep them under discipline. Train them as soldiers, who are taught to handle their arms, keep rank, and observe the word of command. Train them up, not in the way they would go (the bias of their corrupt hearts would draw them aside), but in the way they should go, the way in which, if you love them, you would have them go. Train up a child according as he is capable (as some take it), with a gentle hand, as nurses feed children, little and often, Deu 6:7. 2. A good reason for it, taken from the great advantage of this care and pains with children: When they grow up, when they grow old, it is to be hoped, they will not depart from it. Good impressions made upon them then will abide upon them all their days. Ordinarily the vessel retains the savour with which it was first seasoned. Many indeed have departed from the good way in which they were trained up; Solomon himself did so. But early training may be a means of their recovering themselves, as it is supposed Solomon did. At least the parents will have the comfort of having done their duty and used the means.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Train--initiate, or early instruct.

the way--literally, "his way," that selected for him in which he should go; for early training secures habitual walking in it.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 6. Train up a child in the way he should go] The Hebrew of this clause is curious: חנך לנער על פי דרכו chanoch lannaar al pi darco, "Initiate the child at the opening (the mouth) of his path." When he comes to the opening of the way of life, being able to walk alone, and to choose; stop at this entrance, and begin a series of instructions, how he is to conduct himself in every step he takes. Show him the duties, the dangers, and the blessings of the path; give him directions how to perform the duties, how to escape the dangers, and how to secure the blessings, which all lie before him. Fix these on his mind by daily inculcation, till their impression is become indelible; then lead him to practice by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, till each indelible impression becomes a strongly radicated habit. Beg incessantly the blessing of God on all this teaching and discipline; and then you have obeyed the injunction of the wisest of men. Nor is there any likelihood that such impressions shall ever be effaced, or that such habits shall ever be destroyed.

חנך chanac, which we translate train up or initiate, signifies also dedicate; and is often used for the consecrating any thing, house, or person, to the service of God. Dedicate, therefore, in the first instance, your child to God; and nurse, teach, and discipline him as God's child, whom he has intrusted to your care. These things observed, and illustrated by your own conduct, the child (you have God's word for it) will never depart from the path of life. Coverdale translates the passage thus: "Yf thou teachest a childe what waye he shoulde go, he shall not leave it when he is olde." Coverdale's Bible, for generally giving the true sense of a passage, and in elegant language for the time, has no equal in any of the translations which have followed since. HORACE'S maxim is nearly like that of Solomon: -

Fingit equum tenera docilem cervice magister

Ire viam, quam monstrat eques; venaticus, ex quo

Tempore cervinam pellem latravit in aula,

Militat in sylvis catulus. Nunc adbibe puro

Pectore verba, puer; nunc te melioribus offer.

Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem

Testa diu. HOR. EP. lib. i., ep. 2, ver. 64.

"The docile colt is form'd with gentle skill

To move obedient to his rider's will.

In the loud hall the hound is taught to bay

The buckskin trail'd, then challenges his prey

Through the wild woods. Thus, in your hour of youth

From pure instruction quaff the words of truth:

The odours of the wine that first shall stain

The virgin vessel, it shall long retain."

FRANCIS.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. in the way he should go] Lit. according to his way. The injunction contemplates not only the broad principles of education, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, which are the same for all, but their adaptation to each particular case, in a careful study of individual character and capacity, and with a thoughtful regard to future course of life: “his way.”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Train up a child in the way he should go,.... As Abraham trained up his children, and those born in his house, in the way of the Lord, in the paths of justice and judgment; which are the ways in which they should go, and which will be to their profit and advantage; see Gen 14:14; and which is the duty of parents and masters in all ages, and under the present Gospel dispensation, even to bring such who are under their care in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Eph 6:4; by praying with them and for them, by bringing them under the means of grace, the ministry of the word, by instructing them in the principles of religion, teaching them their duty to God and man, and setting them good examples of a holy life and conversation; and this is to be done according to their capacity, and as they are able to understand and receive the instructions given them: "according to the mouth of his way" (s), as it may be literally rendered; as soon as he is able to speak or go, even from his infancy; or as children are fed by little bits, or a little at a time, as their mouths can receive it;

and when he is old he will not depart from it; not easily, nor ordinarily; there are exceptions to this observation; but generally, where there is a good education, the impressions of it do not easily wear off, nor do men ordinarily forsake a good way they have been brought up in (t); and, however, when, being come to years of maturity and understanding, their hearts are seasoned with the grace of God, they are then enabled to put that in practice which before they had only in theory, and so continue in the paths of truth and holiness.

(s) "super os viae suae", Montanus; "ad os viae ejus", Schultens. (t) "Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem testa diu", Horat. l. 1. Ep. 2. v. 69.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Train - Initiate, and so, educate.

The way he should go - Or, according to the tenor of his way, i. e., the path especially belonging to, especially fitted for, the individual’s character. The proverb enjoins the closest possible study of each child’s temperament and the adaptation of “his way of life” to that.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

It is a proverb, is added by St. Jerome, to make the sentence more striking. --- It. He is like a tender plant, (Calmet) or wax, or a new vessel. Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem

Testa diu. (Horace, ep. i. ad Lol.)

--- "Shall wool regain its whiteness after it has been dyed purple?" (St. Jerome, ad Lætam.) --- Hebrew, "initiate a young," &c. Proportion your lessons to his capacity, and make him relish them.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Train up, or, initiate or instruct, a child in the way he should go, Heb. in or according to his way, i.e. either,

1. According to his capacity. Or rather,

2. In that course or manner of life which thou wouldst have him choose and follow. Or, as one learned man renders it, in the beginning of his way, i.e. in his tender years, as soon as he is capable of instruction. Heb. in the mouth, &c. The mouth is oft put for the beginning or entrance of any place, as Gen 29:2; Jos 10:18; Pro 8:3; Dan 6:17. Will not depart from it, to wit, not easily and ordinarily. The impressions made in childish years will remain, as hath been observed by all sorts of learned writers. But this, as many proverbs of like nature, are not to be understood as if they were universally and necessarily true, which experience confutes, but because it is so for the most part, except some extraordinary cause hinder it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. Train up a child, etc. — A very literal rendering of these familiar words would perhaps be: Make it narrow for the boy on the mouth of his way. It contains the idea of the old Hebrews in respect to education, (see note on Pro_1:3,) restraint, control, repression. Let there be restraint to the boy, or youth, as to his evil tendencies. “Hedge him in,” as Miller reads; restrain from the wrong way and constrain to the good. The “mouth of the way” would naturally be understood of the beginning of it. But the phrase has a conventional sense, meaning, according to, or according to the measure of. Hence the passage would read: Train a youth according to his way. The question now arises whether דרכו, (darko,) his way, means the way he should go, or something else. We do not find any clear example of this meaning of the word; nevertheless, we are loth to surrender the old, familiar sense. Gesenius, and after him Stuart and others, interpret it of the bent of the mind, genius, inclination, or disposition for some particular occupation or calling. Stuart observes, “As darko can mean only the way of the child, the moral couched under the phrase. ‘he should go,’ finds in reality no proper place, although the sentiment itself is excellent and agreeable to the tenor of Scripture. An interpreter’s business is rather to inquire what is said than to conjecture, however ingeniously and piously, what ought to be said.” This is very true, but those who interpret the words in this way are also obliged to conjecture as to the meaning of darko, for it is not perfectly evident that it means the bent, inclination, or temperament of the child. It is possible, after all, that “his way” simply means the way in which he is to go; the mode, manner, or sphere of life to which he is destined by parents or by circumstances. If he inherit a throne, educate him for it; if he is destined to this or that profession or occupation, give him the training that he needs for it. And a step further: as every wise and pious parent desires and wills his child to lead a virtuous and pious life, let such parent carefully educate him accordingly. For according to his education will be his future life.

“‘Tis education forms the common mind:

Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” — POPE.

When he is old — This expression does not signify old age; but simply mature age, or, as we say, when he becomes of age. The maxim is based on the well known force of habit. The statement is that of a general truth, and, of course, admits of exceptions. On the old interpretation we have met with no better note on this proverb than that of Dr. A. Clarke. The Geneva Bible reads the first clause thus: “Teache a childe the trade of his way.” The marginal note is: “Bring him vp vertuously, and he shal so continue.” The Douay, following the Vulgate, has this: “It is a proverb: a young man according to his way, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The Septuagint omits the verse entirely.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Train up a child in the way he should go. The verb translated "train" (chanak) means, first, "to put something into the mouth," "to give to be tasted," as nurses give to infants food which they have masticated in order to prepare it for their nurslings; thence it comes to signify "to give elementary instruction," "to imbue," "to train." The Hebrew literally is, Initiate a child in accordance with his way. The Authorized Version, with which Ewald agrees, takes the maxim to mean that the child should be trained from the first in the right path the path of obedience and religion. This is a very true and valuable rule, but it is not what the author intends. "His way" must mean one of two things either his future calling and station, or his character and natural inclination and capacity. Delitzsch and Plumptre take the latter interpretation; Nowack and Bertheau the former, on the ground that derek is not used in the other sense suggested. But, as far as use is concerned, both explanations stand on much the same ground; and it seems more in conformity with the moralist"s age and nation to see in the maxim an injunction to consider the child"s nature, faculties, and temperament, in the education which is given to him. If, from his early years, a child is thus trained, when he is old, he will not depart from it. This way, this education in accordance with his idiosyncrasy, will bear fruit all his life long; it will become a second nature, and will never be obliterated. The Vulgate commences the verse with Proverbium est, taking the first word substantively, as if the author here cited a trite saying; but the rendering is a mistake. There are similar maxims, common at all times and in all countries. Virg., "Georg.," 2:272"Adeo in teneris consuescere multum est.

Horace, "Epist.," 1:2, 67"Nunc adbibe puro Pectore verba, puer.

For, as he proceeds"Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem Testa diu.

Thus we have two mediaeval jingles"Cui puer assuescit, major dimittere nescit." "Quod nova testa capit, inveterata sapit.

Then there is the German saw, "Jung gewohnt, alt gethan." "What youth learns, age does not forget," says the Danish proverb. In another and a sad sense the French exclaim, "St jeunesse savait! si vieillesse pouvait!" All the early manuscripts of the Septuagint omit this verse; m some of the later it has been supplied from Theodotion.

The training of a child.

I THE NEED OF THE TRAINING. This arises from various causes.

1. An undeveloped condition. Each child begins a new life. If all that were desirable could be found wrapped up in his soul, this would need to be developed by education.

2. Ignorance. The child does not come into the world with a ready made stock of knowledge. He must learn truth and be made to see the right path, which is at first unknown to him.

3. Weakness. The child needs not only to be taught, but to be trained. He must be helped to do what is at first too much for his strength. His better nature must be drawn out, nourished, and confirmed.

4. Evil. A child"s mind is not a tabula rasa. We need not go back to Adam for evidences of hereditary evil. The child inherits the vices of his ancestors. Thus "foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child." Before he is guilty of conscious sin the tendency to wickedness begins to work within him.

II THE AGE OF THE TRAINING. This is to be in childhood, for various reasons.

1. Its susceptibility.

(1) Susceptibility to training. The young mind is plastic; habit is not yet confirmed. It is easier to form a character than to reform it.

(2) Susceptibility to religion. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Young children are peculiarly open to religious impressions. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison house begin to close Upon the growing boy. But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sets it in his joy. (Wordsworth)

Faith is natural to children. They cannot become theologians, but they may be citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Thoughts of God and Christ, and the call to the better life, can be well received by them.

2. Its dangers. Children are open to temptation. If not trained in goodness, they will be trained in evil. Some have thought that children should not be biassed in their religious ideas, but left in freedom to choose for themselves. We do not do this in secular matters, trusting them to choose their own methods of spelling and to manufacture their own multiplication table. If we believe our religion to be true and good and profitable, it is only a cruel pedantry that will keep it from children for fear of prejudicing their minds.

3. Its duties. Early years should be given to Christ. He seeks the opening bud, not the withered leaf.

III THE LAW OF THE TRAINING.

1. In action. There is a practical end in education. We are not merely to teach doctrine, but chiefly to train conduct.

2. According to right. This is not a question of taste. There is a way in which a child ought to go. It is his duty to tread it, and ours to lead him in it.

3. According to future requirements. While the main principles of education must be the same for all children, the special application of them will vary in different cases. We have to apply them to the specific career expected for each child. The prince should be trained for the throne, the soldier for the field, etc.

4. According to personal qualities. Each child"s nature needs separate consideration and distinctive treatment. The training that would ruin one child might save another. We have not to drill all children into one uniform fashion of behaviour; we have rather to call out the individual gifts and capacities, and guard against the individual faults and weaknesses. Thus the training of a child will be the directing of his own specific nature.

IV THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TRAINING. "When he is old, he will not depart from it." Age stiffens. It is well that it should grow firm in the right. Here is the reward of teaching the young. The work is slow and discouraging, and at first we see few results; perhaps we imagine that all our efforts are wasted upon thoughtless minds. But if the work is hard to begin, there is this compensation in it when it has fairly laid hold of a child, it is not likely to be ever effaced. The teachings of the Sunday school are remembered after many a long year.

Means to the preservation of the good name.

I EARLY TRAINING. (Ver. 6) The young twig must be early bent. Experience teaches us that nothing in the world is so mighty for good or evil as custom; and therefore, says Lord Bacon, "since custom is the principal magistrate of man"s life, let man by all means endeavour to obtain good customs. Custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, which is in effect but an early custom. The tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds, the joints more supple to all feats of activity and motions, in youth than afterwards. Those minds are rare which do not show to their latest days the ply and impress they have received as children.

II INDEPENDENCE. (Ver. 7) How strongly was the worth of this felt in those ancient times! Poverty and responsibility to others are to be avoided. Many are forced into distress of conscience and to the loss of a good name by being tempted, for the wake of the rich man"s gold or the great man"s smile, to vote contrary to their convictions. Others will sell their liberty to gratify their luxury. It is an honest ambition to enjoy a competence that shall enable one to afford to be honest, and have the luxury of the freest expression of opinion. Hence frugality becomes so clear a moral duty.

III INTEGRITY. (Ver. 8) Ill-gotten gains cannot prosper. "The evil which issues from thy mouth falls into thy bosom," says the Spanish proverb. The rod wherewith the violent and unjust man struck others is broken to pieces.

IV NEIGHBOURLY LOVE (Ver. 9) "Charity gives itself rich, covetousness hoards itself poor," says the German proverb. "Give alms, that thy children may not ask them," says a Danish proverb. "Drawn wells are never dry." So give today, that thou mayest have to give tomorrow; and to one, that thou mayest have to give to another. Let us remember, with the Italian proverb, that "our last robe is made without pockets." Above all, if our case is that "silver and gold we have none, let us freely substitute the kindly looks and the healing words, which are worth much and cost little.

V A PEACEFUL TEMPER. (Ver. 10) Let the scoffing, envious, contentious temper be cast out of our breast first. As for others, let us strike, if possible, at the cause and root of strife. Let there be solid argument for the doubter, and practical relief for actual grievances. Let us learn from the old fable, and follow the part of Epimetheus, who, when evils flew abroad from the box of Pandora, shut the lid and kept hope at the bottom of the vessel.

VI A FAITHFUL AND CONSTANT HEART. (Ver. 11) The greatest treasure to an earthly monarch, and dear above all to the King of kings. "He who serves God serves a good Master." Grace and truth are upon the lips of God"s Anointed forevermore. And to clench these proverbs, let us recollect that nothing but truth in the inward parts can abide before the eye of Jehovah. "A lie has no legs." It carries along with itself the germs of its own dissolution. It is sure to destroy itself at last. Its priests may prop it up, after it has once fallen in the presence of the truth; but it will fall again, like Dagon, more shamefully and irretrievably than before. Truth is the daughter of God (Trench). J.

Parental training.

Very many parental hearts have leaned their weight of hope on these cheering words many to be sustained and gladdened, some to be disappointed. We look at

I THE BROAD SPHERE OF PARENTAL TRAINING. What is the way in which a child should be trained to go? It is one that comprehends much. It includes:

1. Manners. These are not of the first importance, but they have their value. And if politeness, demeanour, bearing, be not engraven in the young, it will not be perfectly attained afterwards.

2. Mind. The habit of observing, of thinking, of reasoning, of sound reading, of calm consideration and discussion.

3. Morals. The all-important habits of truthfulness, of temperance, of industry, of self-command, of courage, of pure and stainless honesty, of unselfish considerateness, of generous forgiveness.

4. Religion. The habit of reverence in the use of the Divine Name, of public worship, of private prayer, of readiness to learn all that in any way God is willing to teach us.

II THE STRENGTH OF THE PARENTAL HOPE. Let the child be trained in these right ways, "and when he is old," etc.

1. The assurance of habit. When we have firmly planted a good habit in the mind and in the life, we have done a very great and a very good thing we have gone far toward the goal we seek. For habit, early formed, is not easily broken. We sometimes allude to habit as if it were an enemy. But, in truth, it is our best friend. It is a gracious bond that binds us to wisdom and virtue. Without it we should have no security against temptation; with it we have every reason to hope that youth will pass into prime, and prime into old age, clothed with all the wisdom and adorned with all the grace that it received in its early years. What makes the assurance the more strong is that habit becomes more powerful with each effort and each action. Every day the good habits we have formed and are exercising become more deeply rooted in the soil of the soul.

2. The assurance of the common experience of mankind.

III THE NECESSARY LIMIT. Not the very best training of the very wisest parents in the world can positively secure goodness and wisdom in their children. For when they have done everything in their power, there must remain that element of individuality which will choose its own course and form its own character. Our children may choose to reject the truth we teach them, and to slight the example we set them, and to despise the counsel we give them. In the will of every child there is a power which cannot be forced, which can only be won. Therefore:

1. Let all parents seek, beside training their children in good habits, to win their hearts to that Divine Wisdom in whose friendship and service alone will they be safe. Where sagacity may fail, affection will triumph. Command and persuasion are the two weapons which parental wisdom will do its best to wield.

2. Let all children understand that for their character and their destiny they must themselves be responsible. All the very worthiest and wisest influences of home will lead to no good result it" they oppose to them a rebellious spirit, if they do not receive them in the spirit of docility. There is but one gate of entrance into life, and that is the personal, individual acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of the spirit. The parent may lead his child up to it, but that child must pass through it of his own accord. C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Depart - Not easily and ordinarily.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

6 Train up†a a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. {Train...: or, Catechise} {in...: Heb. in his way}

The hopes of at least two generations hang upon this most important rule. How can we look on a child without thoughtful anxiety? An existence is commenced for eternity. No power of earth or hell can crush it. The whole universe does not afford an object of deeper interest. It is an "arrow in the hand of a mighty man;" a most powerful instrument of good or evil, according to the direction that is given to it. (Psa 127:4 .)

Everything hangs on his training. Two ways lie before him — the way in which he would go, headlong to ruin; and the way in which he should go, the pathway to heaven. The rule for training implies obliquity. A young and healthy tree shoots straight upwards, and, instead of putting forth crooked and deformed branches, gives promise of a fine and fruitful maturity.

But all training, save on the principles of the Bible, must be injurious. To expand, without soundly enlightening, the mind, is but to increase its power for evil. Far better to consign it to total ignorance, inasmuch as the uninstructed savage is less responsible, less dangerous, than the well-furnished infidel.

Yet the religious training must not be the border of the garment, which might easily be cut off. It must be the pervading substance throughout. Begin, as Hannah did, with the dedication of the child to God. (1Sa 1:28 .) This done — train him as God’s child, entrusted to your care. Ask guidance from day to day — "How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him?" (Jdg 13:12 .) Train him, as a baptized child, in the principles of his baptismal engagements. Pray for him. Teach him to pray. Instruct him "from a child in the Holy Scriptures," as the sole rule of faith, and directory of conduct.†1

Indeed, unless you give a child principles, you leave him utterly helpless. And yet too often parents have no established principles of education themselves. The children are theirs. Something therefore must be done for their training for future life. But ignorant as they are of their moral state, and of their besetting evils, they are utterly unable to apply any effectual discipline. The child therefore becomes the victim of his parent’s ignorance. His education in all its important departments is neglected. The impulse of caprice gives the only direction, and in this atmosphere of confusion parental authority soon fails to control the far mightier influence of passion.

Certainly, admitting the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, nothing can be more ruinous than to thrust them out of their place, as the sum and substance of educational principles. Never was Scriptural training more momentous. From a defect here many young persons are tossed to and fro in every vacillation of error; and the anxious attempt to set them right we find to be ’building where there is no foundation, or rather, where there is not so much as ground to build upon.’†2 In fact, the mind, abhorring a vacuum, must have some notions. And the alternative is not between sound principles and none; but between wholesome truth and those crude or poisonous errors, which the subtle enemy is ever ready to inject, and the corrupt heart equally prepared to receive. Nor let the formation of sound practical habits, diligence, industry, and self-government, be forgotten. Let the child be trained, like the soldier under arms, to endurance, order, and subjection.

But we must not forget the distinct track of the educational training — the way in which the child should, not that in which he would, go. Heaven and hell are not more opposite than these two ways. Indeed they are identified with the narrow and broad way, in one of which every child of Adam is walking. The child’s will revolting from God is the certain way to ruin. The way back to God, marked out in the Bible, is consecrated by his blessing, and is the sure way to heaven. Wisely does Solomon direct us to begin at the mouth or entrance of his way,†3 — at the first opening intelligence. The more early the training, the more easy the work, and the more encouraging the results. Our character largely takes the form of that mold into which our early years were cast. Much in after-life, both good and evil, may be traced back to the seed sown in the days of infancy. It is a matter of experience, that what is early learnt, is most tenaciously retained. It stands the friction of time with the least injury. Far better, instead of waiting for the maturity of reason, to work upon the pliability of childhood.†4 The gardener begins to graft in the first rising of the sap. If the crooked shoots of self-will and disobedience are not cut off, their rapid growth and rapidly growing strength will greatly increase the future difficulty of bending them. Present neglect occasions after risk and perplexity. We may begin our work too late, but we can scarcely begin it too soon.†5 If the child be too young to teach to read, he cannot be too young to teach to obey. Never let the watchfulness to check the buddings of evil, and to cherish the first tenderness of right feeling, be relaxed. The ceaseless activity of the great enemy teaches the value of early training. Be beforehand with him. Pre-occupy the ground with good seed, as the most effectual exclusion of his evil tares. (Mat 13:25-28 .) Be at the mouth of the way with wholesome food, ere he has the opportunity of pouring in his "bread of deceit;" ere nature is hardened by the habits of sin, or brutalized by familiarity with vice.

But this training must be practical. The mere talk to a child about religion, without bringing it to bear upon his loose habits, and self-willed tempers, is utterly ineffective. None of us liveth to himself alone. We are all spreading around us an influence, whether for good or for evil. Here therefore in our families lies the responsibility of Christian consistency. If the child hears of godliness, and sees but wickedness, this is bringing him bread with one hand, and poison with the other; ’beckoning him with the hand to heaven, and at the same time taking him by the hand, and leading him in the way to destruction.’†6 Who would receive even the choicest food from a leprous hand? Neglect is far better than inconsistency; forgetfulness, than contempt of principle. A child learns more by the eye than by the ear. Imitation is a far more powerful principle than memory. A well-trained child gladly looks to his parent’s godliness as his model picture, to copy after. A wayward child eagerly seeks for the excuse of his own delinquency, and this discovery in parental example will harden him in infidelity and ungodliness.

This training is indeed a work of watchful anxiety, attended with painful, and often long-protracted, exercise of faith and patience. Who could hold on in it, but for the Divine support of the parental promise — When he is old, he shall not depart from it? The man will be, as the child is trained. Education is utterly distinct from grace. But, when conducted in the spirit, and on the principles, of the Word of God, it is a means of imparting it. Sometimes the fruit is immediate, uniform, and permanent to the end.†7 But often "the bread cast upon the waters of the covenant is found," not till "after many days" (Ecc 11:1 ); perhaps not till the godly parent has been laid in the grave.†8 Yet the fruit, though late, will not be the less sure. (Hab 2:3 .) The child may depart when he is young. But when he is old — in after years, smothered convictions will bring back the power of early impressions. The seeds of instruction will burst forth into life.†9 He will find it "hard" in a course of sin "to kick against the pricks." (Act 9:5 .) The Scriptures, fastened on his memory, will force themselves upon him with many a sharp and painful struggle. Conscience will disturb his pleasures, and embitter the sweetness, which he had found, or fancied that he had found, in his sins. The remembrance of his father’s house brings the prodigal "to himself," and he comes home with shame in his face, tears in his eyes, and godly sorrow in his heart. (Luk 15:17-20 .)

If then the promise is not fulfilled, it is because the duty is not performed. Never does God give a command, but he will give his sincere servant grace to obey it. The duty is not therefore to lie down in despondency, or even in heartless prayer, but to "go forward" (Exo 14:15 ) in painful obedience. With such a plain promise — the promise of "him who cannot lie, or repent," and who will be true to every tittle of his word (Num 23:19 ) — need we ever be cast down? — "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Gen 18:14 .) Cultivate then the exercise of parental faith; trusting, not to what we see, but to what God has engaged; like our father Abraham, "against hope, believing in hope." (Rom 4:18-20 .) Expect the fulfillment of the parental promise, as confidently as any other free promise of the gospel.†10 Exercise faith in the full energy of Christian diligence, and in the patience of Christian hope. Leave God to accomplish his own gracious will. If his Sovereignty reserves the time and means to himself, his faithfulness secures the promise to us, which is, and ever must be — "Yea, and Amen" — "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee. I will pour out my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring."†11

This is the reward of faith to those, who make the salvation of the soul the primary object of education. But the mass of mankind deal with their children, as if they were born only for the world, with nothing to look to after death. Wholly leaving out the mighty question — the great end of life — ’How this or that matter affects their soul’ — the only thought is — ’Must they not be like others, to make their way in the world?’ Thus they fearlessly bring them into contact with the evil around them, set their feet in the "broad road of destruction," and bid them go on with the rest. In all important matters they educate them consistently for time, not for eternity. They concentrate their grand interest on matters, in which the soul has no concern; accomplishments or scholarship, not godliness; refinement of taste and manners, not soundness of faith. Need we say, that this is an education without God, without his promise, without rest? The parents of such children, and the children of such parents, are alike objects of compassion. Eternity will bring a solemn account to both.

Footnotes:

†a All commentators by their different versions admit the significance of the original term. Imbue - Schultens, Geier - ’Give it the first dip, die, seasoning.’ Initia - Begin the first instruction - Lay the groundwork - the first stone. Instrue - This is substantially the marg. catechize - like Abraham’s servants - instructed (catechized, marg.) alike in the art of war and in the fear of God. Gen 14:14 ; 18:19. The word elsewhere conveys the idea of dedication to the service of God. (Compare Deu 20:5 ; 1Ki 8:63 ; 2Ch 7:5 ; title to Psalm 30 [1 ¶ A Psalm; a Song at the Dedication of the House. A Psalm of David.].) In this view a judicious expositor illustrates it - ’As a house, altar, or temple, newly built, and not yet profaned, is fitted by certain rites and sacrifices for its future use; so a child, as a newly-formed edifice, is fitted by a certain course for the service and the church, and his heart is made meet as an habitation of God, and the temple of the Holy Ghost.’ - Geier.

†1 2Ti 3:15 . Compare the wise man’s own training, Pro 4:3-4 .

†2 South’s Sermon on the text, vol. i.

†3 Heb. See Schultens and the general voice of critics.

†4 Mr. Locke does not hesitate to affirm, ’that of all the men we meet with, nine parts out of ten are what they are, good or bad, useful or not, according to their education.’ Thoughts concerning Education. The heathen moralists seem well to have understood the subject. Horace, after alluding to the early discipline of the colt and the hound, applies it -

-- Nunc adbibe puro

Pectore verba, puer; nunc te melioribus offer.

Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem

Testa diu. - Epist. lib. i. ii. 67-70.

’-- Adeo in teneris consuescere multum est.’ - Virg. Georg. ii. 272.

’Udum et molle lutum es; nunc, nunc, properandus, et acri

Fingendus sine fine rotâ.’ - Persius, Sat. iii. 23, 24.

†5 Ecc 11:6. Isa 28:9-10 . Lam 3:27 .

†6 Abp. Tillotson’s Sermon on Education.

†7 1Sa 1:28 ; 1Sa 3:20 ; 1Sa 12:2-3 . Psa 92:13-15 .

†8 2Ch 33:11-13 . ’It is no small mercy,’ said Mr. Flavel, alluding to this case, ’to have thousands of fervent prayers lying before the Lord, filed up in heaven for us.’ - Fountain of Life, Sermon xx.

†9 Timothy was instructed as a child, but not converted till adult age. Compare 2Ti 3:15, with 1Ti 1:2 .

†10 Such as Joh 6:37 - couched in the same grammatical terms - a promise connected with a duty, as the encouragement to the duty - "Him that cometh - he that traineth; - no wise cast out - will not depart." Yet the latter is often considered a general promise, admitting of various and indefinite exceptions. The other is "Yea and Amen." But we might ask - How can we loosen the ground of one promise, without shaking the foundation of all? And do not admitted exceptions in the educational promise give occasion to many an exercised Christian to find his own exception in the Gospel promise? We fully concede, that here the ground is more clear to the exercise of faith. We have the demonstrable certainty of the work of the Son, the faithfulness of the Father, and the agency of the Spirit, drawing the "given to come" - the compact of the Eternal Three unchangeably fulfilled. In this parental promise the manifestly imperfect training of the parent, and the wanton rebellion of the child, clouds the ground of faith to our vision. But this touches only the apprehension of the ground, not the ground itself. If the performance of the parent’s duty in the one promise were as certain, as the work of God in the other, would not the assurance of the promise in both cases be equally firm? We cannot indeed anticipate an universal fulfillment of the promise. Yet, as believers in the inspiration of Scripture, we are bound implicitly to receive it. Is it not far safer and more satisfactory to take all the promises of the Bible upon the same ground? The cases that appear to contravene the educational promise may be fairly explained. The promise is not falsified, but the Lord’s time of fulfillment is not yet come. Or - has not some important element of education been omitted? Has not some disproportion of one or other part of the system hindered the efficiency of the whole? Have instruction and discipline been always accompanied with prayer and faith? Or has prayer been always confirmed by consistent practice? Do not man’s indolence, self-indulgence, unbelief, unfaithfulness to the conditions implied, wither the blessing? While Abraham, training up his family for God, shall find him "faithful that hath promised" (Gen 18:19, with Heb 10:23 ) the Elis and the Davids - good men, but bad parents - (1Sa 3:13 ; 1Ki 1:6 ) shall know "God’s breach of promise." (Num 14:34 .) It is too deep for man to reconcile the absolute election of God with weak, imperfect, unfaithful fulfillment of duty. Nevertheless in all cases - "Let God be true, and every man a liar." (Rom 3:4 .)

†11 2Co 1:20 . Gen 17:7 . Isa 44:3-5 .

Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

train up a child

See, Eph 6:4; 2Ti 3:15.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

v. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go, carefully imparting to him the instruction which he needs for the right formation of pious habits, the method of instruction following the age and the peculiarity of the child; and when he is old, he will not depart from it, his moral habits having been established by constant and proper training, he will naturally conduct himself always in a manner becoming a Christian.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Train a child According to what you teach a child and train him in matters, either for good or bad, even when he grows old, he will not turn away from it.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.