These excerpts are taken from the book "From the Library of Charles Spurgeon, Selections from Writers Who Influenced His Spiritual Journey", compiled by James Stuart Bell.
The Duties of Parents to Their Children, by Cotton Mather
"Parents, is it your hearts desire that your children be saved? Let it also be your prayer.
Prayer for salvation of any sinners avails much. How much may it avail for the salvation of our sinful children? Much availed that prayer of David in 1 Chronicles 29:19: "Lord, give unto my son a perfect heart, to keep Your commandments." Parents, make such a prayer for your children. "Lord, give to my child a new heart, and a clean heart, and a soft heart, and a heart after Your own heart."
We have been told that children were brought unto our Lord Jesus Christ, for Him to put His hands upon them; and He put His hands upon them and blessed them. Oh! Thrice and four times blessed children! Well, parent,bring your children unto the Lord Jesus Christ; it may be, He will put His blessing, and healing, and saving hands upon them. Then they are blessed, and shall be blessed evermore!
Pray for the salvation of your children, and carry the names of every one of them, every day, before the Lord with prayers, the cries whereof shall pierce the very heavens. Holy Job did so! Job 1:5 "He offered according to the number of all his children; thus did Job continually."
Address heaven with daily prayers, that God would make your children the temples of His Spirit, the vessels of His Glory, and the care of His holy angels.
Address the Lord Jesus Christ with prayers like them of old, that all the maladies upon the souls of your children may be cured, and that the evil one may have no possession of them. "Lord, let this child be Your servant forever."
If your prayers are not presently answered, be not disheartened; remember the Word of the Lord in Luke 18:1, "That men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Redouble your importunity, until you speed for your child, as the poor woman of Canaan did. Join fasting to your prayer; it may be the evil in the soul of your child will not go out without such a remedy. David sets himself to fasting, as well as prayer, for the life of his child. Oh, do as much for the soul of your child!
Wrestle with the Lord. Receive no denial. Earnestly protest, "Lord, I will not let You go, except You bless this poor child of mine and make it your own!" Do this until, if it may be, your heart is raised by a touch of heaven to a particular faith that God has blessed this child, and it shall be blessed and saved forever.
But is this all that is to be done? There is more. Parents, pray with your children, as well as for them. Family prayer must be maintained by all those parents that would not have their children miss of salvation, and that would not have the damnation of their children horribly fall upon themselves. Man, your family is a pagan family, if it be a prayerless family. And the children going down to the place of dragons from this your family will pour out their excretions upon you in the bottom of hell, until the very heavens have no more.
But, besides your family prayers, oh, parents, why should you not now and then take one capable child after another alone before the Lord? Carry the child with you unto your secret chambers; make the child kneel down by you, while you present it unto the Lord, and implore His blessing upon it. Let the child hear the groans, and see the tears, and be a witness of the agonies wherewith you are travailing for the salvation of it. The children will never forget what you do; it will have a marvelous force upon them."
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