"Children in the Hands of the Arminians" -- B. B. Warfield on the Salvation and Proper Nuture of Christian Children
B. B. Warfield (1851-1921) is widely hailed as one of America's greatest theologians. I certainly think so. His books have remained in near-continuous publication since his death in February, 1921. Although dead for one hundred years, Warfield remains a theological force with which to be reckoned.
As professor of polemical and didactic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary--a fancy title, which translates into "if it is worth discussing or needs to be refuted, go for it"--Warfield published 781 book reviews over his long and exceedingly productive career. This is an amazing feat when one considers that many of these reviews are often quite substantial and the book under review often times was a German, French, or Dutch publication.
Some of Warfield's reviews are published in his collected works, while many are not. There are a number of gems from the "Lion of Princeton" that remain hidden away in obscure journals and publications. One of these gems is Warfield's "Review" of The Child as God's Child, by Rev. Charles W. Rishell, Ph. D., Professor of Historical Theology in Boston University School of Theology. New York: Eaton & Mains. Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham (1904).
Warfield's review of Rishell's book was originally published in vol. xvii of the Union Seminary Magazine, 1904. Warfield entitled his review, "Children in the Hands of the Arminians.
It is well worth our consideration. The text of Warfield’s essay is indented, my annotations follow.
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Prof. Charles W. Rishell, of Boston University, has written a very interesting little book on the relation of little children to Christianity and to the Christian Church [see bibliographical details above]. The object he has set before him is the very laudable one of pleading for the religious education of children. In order to give force to his pleading he argues the possibility of religion in children of the tenderest years. He insists on the importance for them of religious instruction and example. He demands of the church recognition of their church membership and provision for their care and development as children of God with the same right to the privileges of God's Church as other members. As he expresses it, he pleads with the Church "to count the children in, not out."
The inclusion of children in Reformed worship is a near-universal practice. Children of believers are considered to be baptized members, but not professing members of the church as are their parents. Often times Reformed churches provide nurseries or "cry-rooms" for those little ones still too young to sit through an hour long (or longer) worship service. As soon as children are physically able, they should be included and involved when the people of God assemble for Lord's Day worship. This includes their participation in the singing of God's praise, the hearing of God's word, and corporate prayer. They should also witness (until they are properly catechized and make a credible profession of faith) the members of the church participating in the Lord's Supper.
One of the most unfortunate practices found throughout today's evangelicalism is to exile children to "children's church" (or similar). This is done, we are often told, so they do not disrupt the worship service. I once heard a prominent local pastor complain that the presence of children in worship interferes with the Holy Spirit's work. He claimed the noise and confusion generated by children make evangelism or "getting into the Spirit" nearly impossible. I fully agree with Dr. Robert Godfrey, when he refers to the noise and sound of children in worship as "sounds of the covenant."
Warfield agrees with Rev. Rishell's stress upon church's role in reaching children in "their tenderest years." We can only imagine what BBW would say in response to today's wide-spread practice of excluding children from Lord's Day worship.
The significance of the book is that it emanates from Arminian circles and reasons from Arminian postulates. This is its significance; and this is its weakness. There is no other system of belief of widespread influence in the churches to which it is not a commonplace and mere matter of course that children are capable of religious life from their very earliest years, and ought to be recognized from their infancy as members of Christ's Church and brought up in its fold and under its fostering care. There is no other system of belief of widespread influence in the churches to which these principles are logically so unconformable. Professor Rishell has undertaken a most important task in pleading for them in Arminian circles. He has undertaken a task difficult to the verge of impossibility in pleading for them on Arminian principles.
Elsewhere, Warfield describes the Arminian language of "allowing the Holy Spirit to work upon the heart, say, as one employs a carpenter to do work for you" as terribly problematic (see Warfield's "Review" of L. S. Chafer's "He That Is Spiritual"). Warfield appreciates the author's candor in approaching the topic from his Arminian perspective, which, as Warfield chides, is an almost impossible task upon Arminian presuppositions, for reasons spelled out below.
The children certainly must be a source of gravest concern to a consistently Arminian reasoner. The fundamental principle of Arminianism is that salvation hangs upon a free, intelligent choice of the individual will; that salvation is, in fact, the result of the acceptance of God by man, rather than of the acceptance of man by God. The logic of this principle involves in hopeless ruin all who, by reason of tenderness of years, are incapable of making such a choice. On this teaching, all those who die in infancy should perish, while those who survive the years of immaturity might just as well be left to themselves until they arrive at the age of intelligent option.
Since Arminian theology is grounded in a supposed universal prevenient grace, Warfield points out the inconsistency in applying this notion to children not yet mature enough to respond to the gospel. Many in our time solve this dilemma through the invention of a mythical age of accountability, in which children must be considered "innocent" before God until they reach that moment of maturity and spiritual development in which they can take advantage of this prevenient grace and then decide for themselves whether or not to "follow Jesus," and accept him as one's personaLordandSavior.
But if children are not "innocent" because they participate in Adam's fall with its guilt and corruption, then they must be in grave peril of eternal loss until the presumed age of accountability (whatever that might be) is reached. The problem Arminians face is that saving grace is not universal and potential, but human sinfulness and guilt are. Here is the dilemma--if salvation depends upon an act of the human will, how can children be expected to "choose" Jesus during these "tender years?" The only recourse is to delcare them "innocent." But if they are not, then what?
As he is apt to do, Warfield fleshes this out further by pressing the Arminian to be faithful to the consequences of his or her position.
Let no one suppose that we are insinuating that our Arminian brethren live on these principles. They are far from doing this. They people heaven with infants who die in infancy; infants who are saved by the sovereign grace of God operating quite independently of co-operation on their own part. Infants dying in infancy certainly cannot "improve grace." And that is to say, those who die in infancy, if they are saved at all, must be saved on the Calvinistic principle of monergistic grace. And it is not to be believed that our Arminian brethren neglect the religious training of their children more than other Christians.
The Armianian who suffers the tragic loss of a child will do as all Christians do--trust the grace and Mercy of God (specifically, the merits of Jesus) to save their children. While thankful for it, Warfield points out the striking inconsistency. Rev. Rishell too senses the tension here and urges Arminian parents to devote themselves to the instruction of their children--apparently an issue in the churches with which he was affiliated.
It must be confessed, however, that Professor Rishell brings grievous charges against what, from his representations, may be a considerable party in his church. He charges that they prosecute the religious training of their children with some degree of listlessness, on wrong presuppositions, and, in wide circles, with no firmly-grounded expectation that it will bear particularly rich fruit.
Thankfully, many evangelical parents are faithful in their efforts to instruct their children in the Christian faith. Sadly, too many Reformed Christians are not. But Warfield's reminder of the inconsistency in the Arminian system means (as we will see) that children ought to be "counted out," until "they count themselves in." When Arminians treat their children as church members and participants in the covenant they do not have the proper theological categories to do so. No wonder Rev. Rishell laments the widespread neglect of the spiritual development (catechesis) of the children of believers.
Warfield in his academic gown
Warfield contrasts the logical consequences of the Arminian "indifference to the religion of childhood," with those whom Warfield identifies as "sacerdotalists"--i.e. the Roman Catholic notion that the saving grace of God is mediated through the sacraments of the Roman Church--(see B. B. Warfield. Plan of Salvation, 52-69).
This much, at least, must be allowed: that in no other than Arminian circles could such indifference to the religion of childhood, or to the recognition by the church of the membership of Children in it, as is here charged, intrench itself in the recognized principles of the system. The sacerdotalist holds that in baptism God has placed in his hands the instrument by which the child of the tenderest years may be incorporated into the church and into Christ. Failure to baptize any child to whom he could obtain proper access would be to him a crime against humanity and against the love of God. Failure to recognize all baptized children as members of the mystical body of Christ would be to him blasphemy against the holy ordinance and the power of the Spirit of God which works through it.
If the Arminian's theology logically leads to an "indifference" in the spiritual development of children (who must reach an age when they can personally appropriate the grace of God), the sacerdotalist goes to the opposite extreme. Since God's sacramental grace actually and truly incorporates every baptized child into Christ and his church, then the very thought of delaying baptism until the child can grow to sufficient maturity to "choose" Christ and be baptized as an act of obedience, is tantamount to denying that God's grace is applicable to children.
The Reformed view--grounded in the covenant of grace--categorically rejects both the Arminian and sacerdotalist view of children.
The Reformed Christian, suspending salvation for all alike upon the sovereign grace of God alone, operating in accordance with God's covenanted purposes of mercy, points with confidence to the terms of the promise, "To you and to your children." He enjoins parents who trust in the covenanted mercy of God, therefore, to present their children, on the credit of this promise, to the Lord in baptism, and to bring them up in His nurture and admonition. And he enjoins the Church to recognize them by means of this holy ordinance as God's children, heirs of all the promises; and to take order for their training as such, that they may adorn in life and conduct the Gospel by which they are saved. Failure to recognize them as the children of God would be to him treason against that very covenant in whose terms he finds all his own warrant for hope and peace.
The Reformed view sees children of believers as members of the covenant to whom the sign and seal of the covenant (baptism) ought be applied. The condition is the parent's "trust" in God's promise--i.e., "the covenanted purposes of mercy," knowing that God's grace in election, not the act of baptism, is the ultimate ground of salvation. Nevertheless, that Christian parent who presents their children for baptism are to view them as members of Christ's church (which they now are), and who thereby assume the joyful responsibility of raising these children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
But, says Warfield,
The Arminian, on the other hand, strenuously contends that all that God has done, or does, looking to the salvation of man has been done with reference to the mass; and that the salvation of the individual absolutely depends, therefore, on his own improvement of the universal provision. He is under constant temptation, therefore, to look upon the individual as outside the Church - the company of God's people - until by his own act of choice of Christ as his portion he has incorporated himself into it. This means, of course, an inherent tendency in the logic of the system "to count the children out."
On the Arminian scheme, as we have seen, children must be "counted" outside the church until they can include themselves. The Arminian logic dictates that children remain outside the covenant, and therefore outside the church. Such a view, no doubt, explains the wide-spread sentiment among today's evangelicals that Lord's Day worship is for adults only, that children should be excluded from the ordinary Lord's Day service. Children are not to be welcomed into worship (though "children's church" is often provided), until capable of "adding themselves" to the people of God.
Warfield points out the fundamental problem with the Arminian view.
If the incorporation of the individual into Christ and therefore into His Church depends on his own voluntary act of intelligent choice, how, indeed, can children as yet incapable of choice be "counted in"? One would think it tolerably clear that they would be "counted out" until they arrive at such years that they may intelligently and voluntarily "count themselves in."
Given the Reformed understanding of children as baptized but not yet professing members of Christ's church, Warfield is pleased with Dr. Rishell's efforts to include children in the church. But Dr. Rishell must live with an obvious theological inconsistency to do so:
Dr. Rishell's effort to correct this sad state of things among our Arminian brethren must, of course, meet with the deepest sympathy of every Christian heart. Only we cannot say that he goes about his task in a very hopeful way. Obviously, the root of the difficulty lies in the Arminian doctrine of the function of the human will in salvation. But Dr. Rishell does not attack the problem by seeking to correct this error. From all that appears he is himself firmly holden in it, and would think of nothing so little as commending to his brethren a frank abandonment of their fundamental postulate of autosoteric [Greek: self-saving] Christianity.
Warfield points out and then addresses Rishell's proposed solution to the problem deeply inherent within in his Arminian theology.
[Dr. Rishell] elects to approach the problem, therefore, from another angle, and seeks to meet the difficulty by bringing into prominence another doctrine of at least Evangelical Arminianism. This is a doctrine which, as Dr. Rishell suggests, has fallen somewhat into the background in the mind of the average Arminian - as well, indeed, it might, seeing that it clearly stands in direct contradiction to the fundamental Arminian postulate that in the salvation of the individual everything depends upon his exercise of his own power of free choice. This doctrine is that postulate by which the Wesleyans have sought to cure the pelagianizing tendencies of original Arminianism by declaring, to put it somewhat roughly, that all men come into the world already saved. That at least is the way the old Evangelical Arminianism put it, though no doubt a new Arminianism - which is much the same as the old Rationalism - may prefer to phrase it that all men come into the world "safe."
Since universal grace is potentially available to all (providing a sort of "safe zone"), one must willfully reject Christ to remove oneself from that sphere where grace operates. To put it crudely, "you have it in you to take advantage of what is possible--the possession of the merits of Christ through faith--if only you do not reject it."
The idea of a universal prevenient grace becomes Rishell's basis then for seeing children as coming into the world as already "saved" and to be treated as such. What they need, in Rishell's estimation, is training by the church to ensure they stay saved. The goal of the church is to foster their "innocence" by helping to preserve that which they already have--the universal, if merely potential, grace of God.
This doctrine, it seems, has, in its more evangelical form, stood in the thought of Arminianism heretofore rather as a theoretical postulate saving its theoretical evangelicalism, than as a practical principle of thought and action. Dr. Rishell proposes to bring it out of its position of "innocuous desuetude" [a state of inactivity] and to make it the basis of recognizing children as the children of God, demanding recognition and treatment appropriate to that condition. The fundamental proposition of Dr. Rishell's book becomes thus the hitherto, as it seems, somewhat neglected Arminian doctrine that all children are born into the world in a state of salvation. His contention is that, this being the case, children are not to be looked upon as subjects who are to be saved. They must not be dealt with therefore as subjects who are to be trained for salvation. They are rather to be thought of as already saved; and are to be treated as needing to be trained only to preserve intact the salvation of which they are already possessors.
This, you have no doubt noticed, is nothing but older terminology for the now common evangelical doctrine of an "age of accountability," wherein children are to be considered "innocent" before God until they are capable of subtracting themselves.
Warfield calls attention to the price Dr. Rishell must pay to think of children like this; to reject the universal guilt of original sin, as well as the inherent corruption which passed upon our entire race via the Fall of Adam.
He spares no emphasis or reiteration to make this fundamental proposition plain. And he omits no effort to give it validity - in his entire conception of the work of the parent and child in child-training. Children, having no guilt of original sin, need no forgiveness. Being already in a state of grace, they need no conversion. They are at least as free from corruption and as well-placed in every respect as adult converts (see e.g., pp.34, 37, 38, 41, 43, etc.). They ought not to be taught, therefore, that they require a Savior. They ought not to be told that they are to repent of their sins, and to rest on the Savior in faith, and faith only. They ought rather to be instructed that they are in a state of grace, and that they need only to preserve intact that good thing that has been committed to them.
Instead of seeing themselves as sinners in need of a Savior, or seeing themselves as needing to "add themselves" to the people of God (on consistent Wesleyan-Arminian terms), rather children need to be told they have already been added to Christ, and it merely remains for them to stay "added."
This, of course, depends upon the notion that grace is universal but merely potential (not effectual), and thereby subject to human determination. We can choose to either add ourselves, or subtract ourselves from Christ through sin and apostasy. Rishell's solution--"don't tell children to add themselves, tell them they have already been added." The catechesis of the church which believes this becomes "teaching them not to subtract themselves," which almost always leads to an emphasis upon moral conduct--"be nice Christian children."
Warfield continues to address the questions raised by Rishell's universalism -- children come into the world "saved" (not just "innocent"), and the church is to regard them as such.
As one reads on, from page to page, he is appalled by the extremity to which Dr. Rishell pushes these contentions. What he says, it is to be observed, is not that the children of believing parents are to be presumed, on the strength of the covenant promise, to be the children of God, and are to be treated accordingly. This is a Reformed doctrine; and we could only wish that Dr. Rishell and all our Arminian brethren were not only almost but altogether such as we are, in it. What he says, he says of all children that come into the world, without exception.
As Warfield points out, the Reformed notion of the covenant is grounded in God's covenant promises to be God unto us and to our children. But Rishell's notion is quite different. Since children are born "saved," they have already "been added" to the church. Thus, he argues, children ought to be baptized because they are saved and came into the world that way. This notion completely changes how the church treats its little ones.
[Rishell] formally bases a doctrine of universal baptism of children upon this postulate. Since all children are born saved, they all without exception have an indefensible right to the temporal as well as to the eternal gifts of God to His people. Nor does he say that we should treat children as presumably the objects of God's mercy, present them to God in faith, and seek the gifts of grace for them. He says that they are already - all of them - the possessors of God's saving grace; that they have, all of them, already been born anew, as truly and as effectively as any adult convert; that they, all of them without exception, begin life on this high plane, and that their only concern is to preserve the salvation they already, all of them, enjoy, and to keep the grace they, all of them, possess.
In other words, since the children are already "in," the goal of the church's nurture of its little ones is to keep these already saved children in the same condition into which they were born. On the Reformed view, membership in the covenant does not equal election, which is why children of believers who are in the covenant are to be baptized, then catechized and instructed by their parents and their church in the Christian faith. Christian parents trust God's promise that their children will eventually make a personal profession of faith and then become communicant or "professing" members of Christ’s church.
But the very possibility raised by Rishell's view that "saved" children can "fall from grace," moves a Christian parent from trusting in God's covenant promises to a morbid sense of fear that our saved children can remove themselves from their saved status from the very first moment of consciousness!
One is dismayed as he thinks of the vigor of the doctrine of "falling from grace" which is here involved. Every mother's son of the children of the heathen throughout the world; the large majority of the children born in Christendom; even a considerable portion of the children of Christian parents - forthwith "fall from grace" on the first motions of conscious life! And so serious is this fall that, as Dr. Rishell tells us, only sixty per cent of the "Christian children" who attend Sabbath school, for example, ever find their way even into the Church as an external organization, to say nothing now of finding their way to Christ!
So serious is this problem, Dr. Rishell believes, that all the non-Christians unsave themselves immediately, while 40% of saved Christian children cease to be saved the very first moment they can unsave themselves, and then never find their way back to the church! But is this not where consistent Arminianism takes us--a universal atonement which supposedly saves all until they "subtract themselves" (to follow Rishell's logic)? All non-Christian people do this, Rishell believes. Fully 40% of Christian children manage to "unsave" themselves from the first moment of consciousness! Hard to believe, but the common evangelical notion of an age of accountability wherein the children are born "innocent" (rather than already but precariously "saved") is a tenuous improvement of a very untenable understanding of God's grace.
In this state of the facts, surely, whatever may be its theoretical value in evangelicalizing the Arminian system, the practical value of the postulate that all children are born in a state of grace is as nothing; and we cannot wonder that our Arminian brethren have neglected it and have diligently sought to save their children. Born saved or not, they are no longer saved when they come under our observation; and every Christian heart will be zealous to secure or recover, as we choose to call it, salvation for them.
The logic of this leads to the following quandary, which Warfield is only too happy to point out.
In recommending parents and the Church to reverse their methods, to cease to seek the salvation of their little ones, and to treat them consistently as all already by virtue of their very nature saved, or at least safe, we fear that Dr. Rishell has "pressed beyond the mark"; and if his teaching were universally adopted, we very greatly fear we should soon find that the quotation would need to be filled out to its bitter end. We shall not benefit the children by teaching them - or by teaching those who have their spiritual good in charge - that their part in salvation is so of nature that the "faithful saying" that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" has but a modified application to them.
If Jesus came into the world to save sinners, why are children who are born saved, in need of Christ's salvation? Rather, Rishell contends, we seek to keep them from severing themselves from Christ and his covenant promises by making some dreadful choice (which is in their power) with eternal consequences. Warfield commends Rishell where he can, but chides him for his inconsistency.
There is much in Dr. Rishell's book about the duty of Christian parents and of the Christian Church to their children which it is well to say, and which is well said. Perhaps the whole of it might be read with profit by an Arminian parent who is imbued with the terrible notion - Dr. Rishell is our authority for fearing it may exist among our Arminian brethren - that children must be left untrammeled to exercise their own free choice as to salvation when the choosing time comes. As against such a dreadful idea he rightly pleads the duty and profit of Christian nurture, and seeks to put on the hearts of his readers the Biblical precept, Train up a child in the way he should go. . . . But the whole of Dr. Rishell's counsel is so vitiated by his fundamentally false postulate that its universal adoption would be as noxious as, perhaps more noxious than, the abuse which he seeks to correct.
The result is that on this scheme children come into the world "safe" at worst, and "saved" at best. If the children do not need to be saved, then they do not need to hear the promises of the gospel, and then place their personal trust in the Savior into whose covenant they are members by virtue of God's covenant promise ratified by their parents in baptism?
We have spoken of the postulate as finding its best expression in popular speech in the assumption that all children are born saved. But we have also spoken of it as, perhaps; more accurately expressed by declaring that they are all born safe. The difference of expression marks the difference between the Evangelical Arminian and the Pelagianizing, or, to use a more modern term, the Rationalizing Arminian. The difference is a purely theoretical one; it has no practical significance. In either case every child is presumed to come into the world in no need of saving. In either case the problem with the whole human race is not to save it, but to keep it from getting lost. So to state the problem is, to a believer in the Scriptural revelation, already to dismiss it.
For Warfield, Rishell's operating assumptions are biblically flawed--hence the terrible inconsistency. The entire world is born saved until that salvation is lost. This virtually echoes the Muslim claim that humans are universally Muslim, until they renounce Islam.
Surely the Bible does not think of the world as a saved world, which needs only to be kept saved; but as a lost world, which needs saving. To say that this lost estate in which the world is found is for every generation purely post-natal may be an easy rejoinder for those who are determined to support a theory and are careless of the props used. But it can convince nobody. Everybody knows in his heart of hearts that the world is by nature a lost world, and that he himself has been born a child of wrath, even as the others. To tell him that this is not true is to him the prime absurdity; and it will matter little whether he is told he is born saved or safe. The difference between the two answers is, in fact, a difference of tone rather than of principle. The one reveals a deeper sense of dependence on Christ for all the goods of this life and the next: the other reveals a stronger feeling of self-dependence. Arminianism and Rationalism - how close they lie together! The human soul is too much of a unit, and its "faculties" too little separable entities, for a strong feeling of autonomy in the one sphere of its operations to fail to work its way through all.
Warfield ties rationalism (that is, religion is grounded in human reason, not revelation) and Ariminianism ogether which, in this case, seems to operate without proper appeal to any biblical categories, such as the nature of human sin and the person and work of Christ in saving sinners born into a lost and fallen world, and who have no hope of salvation until called, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and given faith through the preached gospel. Warfield notes elsewhere (in his "Review" of Methodist Theologian John Miley's Systematic Theology," that human freedom is the foundation of all Arminian theology. Warfield applies that same argument here.
Say that Arminianism is formally Thelematism [from the Greek for "will" - thelema] rather than Rationalism. It is certain that Thelematism will never escape the dangers of Emotionalism or of Rationalism, according as the temperament (or the temperature) of the individual opens this or the other channel for its extension. Professor Rishell's temperament appears to be that which is more inclined to the rationalistic side, and there is accordingly a very unpleasant tone of rationalism running through the whole volume. He makes visible efforts to keep true to current Methodist conceptions. The efforts are indeed too visible; too obviously needed. And the leaven of Rationalism is working throughout the whole discussion.
The biblical starting point is God's creation of all things as good, but now fallen and under the universal sway of sin, including its curse—"death." Fallen sinners need to be saved by Christ--they are not born saved by Christ! The Arminian starting point is grounded in human reason, and upon the assumption that humans are born saved unless and until they "unsave" themselves. This is, as Warfield notes, nothing but "will" worship, arising from a distorted view of natural revelation.
Next, Warfield zeroes in upon Rishell's unsupported assertion that proper Christian training from infancy will itself be sufficient to prevent the mature Christian from falling into the "evils of an unbridled appetite." Born saved, they just need to be taught to "stay saved." As Warfield sees it, this is another Pelagianizing assumption made by Rishell which cannot go unchallenged.
The very ideal of the Christian life as well as of Christian training suffers in consequence. Dr. Rishell sums up his appeal at the close of his volume, in some very beautiful words. "So to train a human being from infancy to maturity," he says, "as that he will never fall into the evils of an unbridled appetite; that he will lead a clean, pure, helpful life; that he will find in the service of God and the service of his fellow-man his chief joy; that he will gladly take his place by the side of Christ in the saving of other human beings - this is worth while." It certainly would be worth while. Can it be done? That is, not indeed the question, but a very important question.
In effect, what Rishell is asking Christian parents and their churches to do is to raise up the next generation of "rich, young rulers" (cf. Matthew 19:16-30). Perhaps, Dr. Rishell has not realized what he is seeking. Maybe he has--only his Arminian assumptions about human ability (will worship) prevent him from connecting the dots. Warfield connects them for him.
The question is whether, when it is done, all is done; or, indeed, in the deepest sense of the word, anything is done. We have been told of one for whom as nearly, probably, as in the case of any one who has lived on the earth, all this was done. The note of his character was expressed in the great declaration, "All these things" - all the things commanded by the law of God - "have I obeyed from my youth up." When he saw Jesus, with the natural impulse of one so trained and so richly endowed, he wished to take his place by His side: "Good Master," he called Him, and fell on his knees at His feet. "And Jesus, looking upon him, loved him." Surely here, if anywhere, may be found Dr. Rishell's well-trained youth.
If Rishell is correct, that such a child raised to maturity will "never fall into the evils of an unbridled appetite; that he will lead a clean, pure, helpful life; that he will find in the service of God and the service of his fellow-man his chief joy; that he will gladly take his place by the side of Christ in the saving of other human beings," then Rishell is denying any necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in applying God's saving grace to the whole of the Christian's existence--especially in regard to the matter of the creation of the faith which justifies, and which leads to sanctification.
Says Rishell, just give children the right instruction--moral instruction at that--and they'll be right beside Jesus. This might be a comforting image for nominally Christian parents, but it is not a comfort to a parent who understands that their children were born into the same original sin and guilt as were their parents.
Warfield takes up the blindness of the rich young ruler to what should have been obvious. If the truth were told, the young ruler had not kept the commandments even for one moment (cf. James 2:10), let alone obeyed sufficiently over the course of his life! Warfield makes this point, and then pounces,
Was there nothing lacking in his case? According to the judgment of our Lord, everything was lacking. Seeing him, and seeing his lack, seeing how difficult it was for him to perceive what he lacked and how impossible for him to supply it, our Lord was moved to deliver His great discourse on the human impossibility of salvation. And by this example we may see that Dr. Rishell's program of training for youth lacks everything to this point.
Because Rishell overlooks this embarrassing, but truly significant biblical point, he misses what Christian children actually need--the law and the gospel in their proper relationship as set forth, for example, in the Heidelberg Catechism under the headings of guilt, grace, gratitude (Q & A 1 and 2). Without the gospel--because, as Rishell assumes, children come into the world already saved until they "unsave themselves"--Christian children will never know the joy of being delivered from that sin into which they were born, despite Rishell's assumption to the contrary.
By this time, Warfield's frustration is palpable.
What is lacking in it is the whole evangelical note. There is lacking all sense of the joy of redemption from sin. What will Dr. Rishell make of the great declaration, "Verily I say unto you, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance?" Where in his whole scheme is there place for the joy of believing? Where for the fervour of love? Where for the inextinguishable bliss of redemption? Worth while so to train a child that he will "never fall into the evils of unbridled appetite"? Worth while to teach a child to live a clean life? Worth while to train a child to zeal in religious and humanitarian activity? Of course it is worth while. But there are some things that are much more worth while than these, great things as these are.
Christian ethics are surely important. But the moral life is not properly the "Christian life." The Christian life is a war waged upon personal and indwelling sin in which the Holy Spirit bears his fruit (Galatians 5:16-25). Children need to understand this inward struggle, and become confident of God's methods and aid in dealing with it. It is God who breaks the power of sin and molds his people into the image of Christ. This requires much more than training already saved children in the basics of Christian ethics. This requires teaching our children a Christ-centered gospel anchored in the grace and mercy of the Savior who loves sinners (including and perhaps especially children).
It is much more worth while to train a child to recognize the sinfulness of his heart and the amazing deceit and subtlety of its sinful movements. It is much more worth while to teach him to contemplate with ceaseless wonder the unspeakable love of God in the gift of his only begotten Son as a sacrifice for the sin of the world. It is much more worth while to lead him to this Savior's feet in humble trust in His blood and righteousness. It is much more worth while to implant within his soul a longing for the gift of the Spirit by whom, being born anew, he is led onward in the holy walk with God his Savior. Oh, certainly it is worth while to teach a child that he ought to be good; and to train him in good thoughts and good words and good deeds. But it is infinitely better worth while to teach him how he can become good.
To do this, Christian parents need a gospel which can deal with human sinfulness. A rosy and hopelessly naive notion that are children are born "safe" if not "already saved" widely misses the mark. What children need is Jesus--the Savior of sinners.
And no more now than at any other period of the world's life is there any other dynamic for goodness than just Jesus Christ. Now, too, as ever the great principle holds good, "Not out of works, but unto good works which God has afore-prepared that we should walk in them." "The frozen reason's colder part" - there may be some mild pleasure in that, surely; but "the joy of salvation" - nothing can take the place of that in any heart, young or old. Of course, if children do not need saving, there can be no need of bringing them to Jesus; or of teaching them to trust humbly in Jesus. Jesus in that case is not "Jesus" to them: for "they called His name Jesus because He should save His people from their sins." Only, we wonder then, why He took the little children in His arms and said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." And, then, these little children grow up; and did any one ever see one who had grown up and had no need of Jesus - not as one to whose side he might come to help Him save the world, but as One to whose feet he might flee to receive from Him the salvation of the soul?
When all has been said, Warfield can only lament the real impact of Rishell's program if ever implemented. Yes, children will learn good things if Rishell's plan were implemented. But they will learn the essential thing--they are sinners who need a Savior? Not likely.
It is a sad thing if there are any Christian parents anywhere who fail in their duty to give their children a full and rich religious training; we have to learn religion as we have to learn anything else It would be an infinitely sadder thing if any Christian parents anywhere should teach their children that they do not need salvation, and do not need to seek it diligently, and when they have found it to sell all that they have and purchase it.
The Children in the Hands of the Arminians
by Rev. B. B. WARFIELD
Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton