To spare the rod in the first clause being opposed to chastening in the second, by the rod must be meant not only that particular instrument of punishment, but everything besides that may prove the means of our correction and amendment. And by chastisement is here intended every means of correction, every means of effecting what we intend by chastening, whether it be reproof, restraint of liberty, disappointment of our children’s wills, or corporal punishment. By loving and hating is not here meant the exerting actually those passions in the heart, for then the text would be untrue, but the acting agreeably to the reason, and not the blindness of those passions; the producing such effects as are in God’s account, and in wise men’s too, and in our own when freed from partial prejudices; the consequences and fruits of love and hatred acting regularly, such as are commonly esteemed the effects of those two causes, whether they indeed proceed from them or no. For if we are to reckon of love or hatred by the effects, then it is easy to discern when parents hate their children, namely, when, through neglect or fondness, they permit them to enter on a course of ruin, and so let them fall into such miseries as the utmost hatred of their inveterate enemies could neither wish nor make them greater, whatever love there may be at the bottom. A mother is as much a murderess who stifles her child in a bed of roses as she that does it with a pillow-bear (pillow-case). The end and mischief is as great, though the means and instrument be not the same.—Bishop Fleetwood.
He that spareth the rod from his son maketh him to be his rod, wherewith he whips himself, and wherewith God whips both of them. It is better thy son should feel thy rod than thou feel the sorrow of his wicked life. And do not hate him in not correcting of him, lest he hate thee by thy not correcting of him, and God shew His hatred against both by His wrath upon you.—Jermin.
The Koh-i-noor diamond, when it came into the Queen’s possession, was a mis-shapen lump. It was very desirable to get its corners cut off and all its sides reduced to symmetry; but no unskilful hand was permitted to touch it. Men of science were summoned to consider its nature and capabilities. They examined the form of its crystals and the consistency of its parts. They considered the direction of the grain, and the side on which it would bear a pressure. With their instructions, the jewel was placed in the hands of an experienced lapidary, and by long, patient, careful labour, its sides were ground down to the desired proportions. The gem was hard, and needed a heavy pressure; the gem was precious, and every precaution was taken which science and skill could suggest to get it polished into shape without cracking it in the process. The effort was successful. The hard diamond was rubbed down into forms of beauty, and yet sustained no damage by the greatness of the pressure to which it was subjected. “Jewels, bright jewels,” in the form of little children, are the heritage which God gives to every parent. They are unshapely and need to be polished; they are brittle and so liable to be permanently injured by the pressure; but they are stones of peculiar preciousness, and if they were successfully polished they would shine as stars for ever and ever, giving off, from their undimming edge, more brilliantly than other creatures can, the glory which they get from the Sun of Righteousness. Those who possess these diamonds in the rough should neither strike them unskilfully nor let them be uncut. . . . Prayer and pains must go together in this difficult work. Lay the whole case before our Father in heaven; this will take the hardness out of the correction, without diminishing its strength.—Arnot.
Correction is a kind of cure, saith the philosopher (Arist. Ethic. lib. ii.), the likeliest way to save the child’s soul; where, yet, saith Bernard, it is the care of the child that is charged upon the parent, not the cure, that is God’s work alone.—Trapp.
In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must, with children, proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it; but the subjecting of the will must be done at once, and the sooner the better; for, by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever conquered, and not without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child. I insist upon the conquering of the will betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, a child is capable of being governed by the wisdom and piety of its parents till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind.—Mrs. S. Wesley.
It is his rod that must be used, the rod of a parent, not the rod of a servant.—Henry.
main homiletics of verse 25.
Want and Satisfaction.
I. The limited truth of the assertion in relation both to the righteous and the wicked. Read in the light of personal experience, and in the light of history, it is found true, and is found not true in the case of the righteous. Elijah ate to satisfaction beside the brook Cherith, while many of his idolatrous countrymen suffered want. But Paul was often in hunger (2 Cor. xi. 27), while Nero lived in luxury. Christians have died from hunger, and others have had all their bodily wants supplied all their lives, and sometimes by most remarkable providential interpositions. Godliness is often profitable in this sense for the “life that now is” (1 Tim. iv. 8), but not always, and wickedness often brings a man literally to the condition of the prodigal when he would “fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat;” but many a wicked man, like him of the parable (Luke xvi. 19), have “fared sumptuously every day” from their cradle to their grave. To take our text as absolutely true of material food would be to contradict the testimony of Scripture itself.
II. Its absolute truth in relation to both characters. 1. That wickedness gives a man no real satisfaction is a fact of experience. Men have testified over and over again that while they lived in sin they knew nothing of real heart-satisfaction and rest, and have borne witness to the words of St. Augustine, who spoke from experience when he said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, and the heart is restless till it finds rest in Thee.” A man who feeds upon unwholesome food is always in want, because that upon which he feeds is not suited to meet the demands of his physical frame, so it is with the soul of a godless man. 2. The history of the world testifies that it is so. The unrest of the ungodly is the explanation of much of the ambition, of many of the selfish schemes of some men, as well as the voluntary asceticism, the self-imposed sufferings of others. The key to both is that they have spent “money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not” (Isa. lv. 2). The teaching of Christ confirms it. Want was the condition of the prodigal; he wanted the bread which his father’s home and table alone could supply. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you” (John vi. 53). On this subject see [Dr. Arnot’s remarks] on verse 12 in the comments on that verse. 3. That there is satisfaction in sainthood is declared by Christ, and testified to be true by all His followers. The bread upon which a renewed man feeds is the Divine Word—the thoughts of God in the abstract, and the personal thought or word Jesus Christ. “As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me shall live by Me” (John vi. 57). And life is but another word for satisfaction. “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John vii. 38). Millions of men and women in all circumstances, both poor and rich in worldly wealth, have set their “seal that God is true” (John iii. 33) when He invites men to “hearken diligently unto Him, and eat that which is good, and let their souls delight themselves in fatness” (Isa. lv. 2).