earn from the first to look up to God with love
and trust, that it dare not tell the child that God can destroy and
punish, before it has told him that God is a Father and a Maker; the
Father of spirits, who has made him and all the world. It dare not
tell him that mankind is fallen, before it has told him that all the
world is redeemed. It dare not talk to him of unholiness, before it
has taught him that the Holy Spirit of God is with him, to make him
holy. It tells him of a world, a flesh, and a devil: but he has
renounced them. He has neither part nor lot in them; and he is not
to think of them yet. He is to think of that in which he has part
and lot, of which he is an inheritor. He is to know where he is and
ought to be, before he knows where he is not and ought not to be:
he is to think of the name of God, by which he can trample world,
flesh, and devil under foot, if they dare hereafter meddle with his
soul. In its God-inspired tenderness and prudence, it dare not
darken the heart of one little child, or tempt him to hard thoughts
of God, or to cry, 'Why hast thou made me thus?' lest it put a
stumbling-block in the way of Christ's little ones, and dishonour
the name and glory of God. It tells him of the love, before it
tells him of the wrath; of the order, before it tells him of the
disorder; of the right, before the wrong; of the health, before the
disease; of the freedom, before the bondage; of the truth, before
the lies; of the light, before the darkness; in one word, it tells
him first of the eternal and good God, who was, and is, and shall be
to all eternity, before and above the evil devil. It tells him of
the name of God; and tells him that God is with him, and he with
God, and bids him believe that, and be saved, from his birth-hour,
to endless ages. It does not tell him to pray that he may become
God's child; but to pray, because he is God's child already. It
does not tell him to love God, in order that he may make God love
him; but to love God because God loves him already, and has loved
him from all eternity. It does not tell him to obey Jesus Christ,
in order that Christ may save him; but to obey Christ because Christ
has saved him, and bought him with his own blood. It does not tell
him to do good works, in order that God's Spirit may be pleased with
him, and come to him, and make him one of the elect; neither does it
tell him, that some day or other, if he is converted, and feels
certai