Rev. Asa Mahan, D.D.

Chapter 9

BABY CHRISTIANS.

BY H. E. FRAURE, D.D.

WILL you come and see our little one?" Thus accosted, yesterday, I was brought by a sorrowing father to a cradle where his youngest daughter was laid. That daughter had reached the age of 25 years, the younger of twin sisters, the elder of whom was a strong and healthy maid in the full bloom of womanhood. The younger, who laid dead before me, of stunted growth, had passed her quarter-of-a-century on her mother's lap, in the cradle, perambulator, or babychair. A poor, helpless little thing, she could neither walk, nor talk to any about her. Yet, though the parents are not in affluent circumstances, never had a child been more fondly tended. Never had a complaint escaped the mother's lips, on account of all her trouble and anxious care of her helpless offspring.

This poor toll-keeper's daughter was in no respect responsible for her backwardness; but can any Christian, who still finds his daily experience depicted in the seventh of Romans, honestly say before, God that it is not his own fault that he has not got beyond this stunted babyhood? Every page in the blessed Word of God tells us that God has placed at our disposal every needful grace whereby we may "grow up to the perfect man," "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," that "we be no more children." Paul certainly charged it to the account of the Corinthian believers, that he could only "feed them with milk and not with meat," that they were carnal (under the power of the flesh), that among them were envying, and strife, and factions, and calling themselves after Christ's servants, instead of acknowledging Him only as Lord and Master. Hence it was distinctly their own fault that they were not full grown, but mere "babes in Christ." The Spirit of God was at their disposal, but by their carnality they were grieving Him all the time; had they made the same use of the Spirit as our Blessed Lord, they also, as He did, would have "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

How aptly, on the other hand, does that elder sister, blooming in health and full-developed womanhood, strong to do, to endure, and to receive and digest "the strong meat of the word," represent that other class of believers, who, when "babes in Christ" "desired the sincere milk of the word," and did "grow thereby," and thus "out of weakness were made strong," and are now "able to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ." It is an infinite shame that in the presence of the super-abounding provisions of grace there should be in any of our churches any stunted believer, "any sickly and feeble ones," that "he that is feeble among us is not as David,'' an all-conquering prince of God, while "the house of David," the leaders of the Sacramental Host, are not "as God, as the Angel of the Lord before Him."

How aptly, I remark, finally, do the patience and enduring love of those parents towards that sickly, and ever feeble child represent the eternally enduring patience and exhaustless love of Christ towards those multitudinous stunted believers who abound in our churches, believers who never grow, and who for so many long years remain unspiritual, carnal, "babes in Christ." Why does He not come upon them in their carnality, worldliness, and sin, and cast them out of His Church as He cast out "those who bought and sold" in "His Father's House?" Because "His ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts." If you, reader, are among the number who have long thus "grieved " your Saviour and God, permit me to admonish you, that "it is now high time to awake out of sleep." "Reprobate silver men MAY call you, because the Lord hath forsaken you."

Doesburgh, Netherlands,

16th April, 1878.