The Christian’s relationship with his family is inseparable from personal sanctification, according to the Puritans. The Scriptures set forth the ways in which we are to live righteously, and since the Bible takes great pains to teach how parents and children should relate to one another, these relationships are an index of sanctification. So it is of primary importance that Christians recognize that holiness begins at home and then extends to all of life. Puritan pastors spent much time teaching fathers how to exercise spiritual leadership in the home. They also advised Christian mothers of their role in the biblical pattern, and they taught children to show proper respect for parents in service to God. In this family emphasis, they aimed to follow only the Bible, for, as they said, the Bible presents the family as the fundamental unit of human society.¹

The Bible tells us to glorify God by raising children for Him for the well-being of society, the church, and the family itself. As Richard Baxter puts it, “It is no small mercy to be the parents of a Godly seed: and this is the end of the institution of marriage.”²According to Isaac Ambrose, parents have the task of “erecting and establishing Christ’s glorious kingdom in their house.”³The Puritans, both in writing and by example, provide us with the ideal Reformed Christian home, bequeathing it to us in a direct and substantive way. This article (the first of two) shows how they did that.

Children Are Gifts of God⤒🔗

While most Puritans believed that the primary purpose of marriage was companionship, they also believed that having children was an expected consequence of marital love. Children were seen as blessings of the Lord. And apparently they were blessings that the Lord bestowed frequently and abundantly. Puritan families were large, with an average of seven or eight children. The infant mortality rate was also very high, however. Typically, of all the children born in a family, less than half reached adulthood.

Though they tended to have large families, Puritan husbands did not procreate without due concern for their wives. According to Allen Carden, it was common practice to space children — in many cases, two years apart — over a period of up to twenty years, with siblings varying widely in age.⁴The Puritans were also keenly aware that children were a tremendous responsibility. Viewing their families as nurseries for church and society, parents were expected to do every­thing possible to make sure their children conformed to biblical norms and precepts.

Authority in the Family←⤒🔗

The Puritans regarded the headship of husbands and fathers as a biblical command. They expected a man to exercise spiritual, social, and educational leadership for his wife and children, and to provide adequate support for his family.

Though a wife was expected to submit to her husband’s authority, the husband’s hierarchical headship did not imply that the wife was his servant.⁵Furthermore, the Puritans believed in spheres of responsibility in a family. The husband could delegate authority in some of these spheres to his wife, particularly in matters dealing with the children and household servants. According to Samuel Willard, “She is invested with an authority over them by God; and her husband is to allow it to her, for though the husband be the head of the wife, she is an head of the family.”⁶

In areas where the wife was more capable than her husband, such as in managing family finances, it was common for him to delegate such responsibilities to her.⁷Also, the headship principle did not prevent a woman from religious teaching or spiritual admonition of a man. “Women may and must privately and familiarly exhort others,” Samuel Torshell writes in The Woman’s Glory. “They may also privately admonish men and reprove them.”⁸Nicholas Byfield says the wife is not subject to the husband “in matters of her soul and religion when his will is contrary to God’s will.” He adds, “She is not so subject but she may admonish and advise her husband with certain cautions, if she be sure the thing she speaks against be sinful and hurtful.”⁹

Even though, in the final analysis, the husband was the head of the family, the husband and wife shared the authority for the day-to-day oversight of the family, Leland Ryken says.¹⁰For example, the Puritans believed that the father bore the primary responsibility for the education of children, but because this duty was seen as the task of both parents, he often delegated much of that authority to his wife. An excellent summary of the mutual task and authority of Puritan parents toward their children is contained in the 1677 church covenant from the congregation in Dorchester, Mass., which required parents to vow “to reform our families, engaging ourselves in a conscientious care to set up and maintain the worship of God in them and to walk in our houses with perfect hearts in a faithful discharge of all domestic duties: educating, instruct­ing, and charging our children and our households to keep the ways of the Lord.”¹¹

The Puritans extended the parent-child relationship to all of society, based on the fifth commandment (see Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 124-133). As a child is to honor his parents who are placed in authority over him by God, so employees are to honor employers, students are to honor teachers, citizens are to honor magistrates, and church members are to honor church office-bearers.

Each person must know his place — either of submission or authority — in every sphere of life. And all those in authority must exercise that authority in accord with the Bible and therefore under God, who gives the Scriptures and His Son, to whom the Father gives all authority in heaven and on earth.

Principles of Child-Rearing←⤒🔗

Although much of the writing about Puritan ideas of child-rearing seems familiar to us, some of their ideas were revolutionary at the time. Here are just a few of their contributions that promoted biblical child-rearing:

• Child-rearing begins at conception←↰⤒🔗

Prospective parents had two major tasks before a child was born. First, they were to pray daily for the salvation of their child, since the child was conceived in sin (Ps. 51:5).¹²They also were to pray daily for the protection of both mother and child. Richard Adams writes, “Whilst it is yet but an embryo, there is not only requisite prayer, with thanksgiving for the sanctifying (of) the fruit of the body, as Jeremiah and John were (1 Tim. 4:5; Jer. 1:5; Luke 1:15), but also a tender care for the preservation of life.”¹³Second, since miscarriages were common, the health of the mother was to be carefully protected. Husbands were expected to tenderly help their wives during pregnancy and childbirth. If they failed to do so and the baby was lost, they were regarded as “guilty of the sin, and liable to the judgment.”¹⁴Pregnant mothers were not to run or ride horseback. They were to watch their diets closely, not eating what was harmful, and not eating too much or too little. If through carelessness a woman contributed to the miscarriage of a baby, she was reckoned “guilty of the blood” of their child, “at least in the court of conscience before God.”¹⁵Parents who aborted a child were guilty of “wilful murder” and were to be judged guilty and “revenged” both in the court of God and the court of man.¹⁶

• Mothers have the major role in caring for newborns←↰⤒🔗

The Puritans stressed that a mother’s responsibilities included breastfeeding, which ought not be delegated to a midwife or nanny. William Gouge wrote ten pages on why it was important for the mother to breastfeed, answering twelve objections along the way.¹⁷Husbands were to encourage their wives to breastfeed and to offer what help they could in caring for the infant.¹⁸

• Baptizing infants is part of parents’ covenant obligations to God←↰⤒🔗

Puritan childrearing was rooted in the conviction that children belonged to the covenant God makes with believers (Acts 2:39; 1 Cor. 7:14), evident in baptism, which, being a sacrament, is a visible sign and seal of God’s invisible grace. Just as the believing Israelite had to circumcise his son in the old covenant, so, in the new covenant, believing Christians are to baptize children to confirm their inauguration into the covenant of grace. Baxter says that God “ordained baptism to be used as a solemn initiation of all that will come into his church, and enter into the covenant of God.”¹⁹In baptism, Christian parents assume covenant responsibilities on behalf of their children. God, therefore, claims these children as His own; parents are stewards of their children on God’s behalf. Thomas Watson goes so far as to say that Christian parents “will endeavour that their children may be more God’s chil­dren than theirs.”²⁰

Believing that their children belonged to God did not mean that the Puritans believed their children were saved from birth. Rather, they believed that all children, whether elect or not, entered the world in a depraved state. They were lost in sin until brought to faith in Christ. Thus, children were in, but not necessarily of, the covenant. They lived under the promises of the covenant, but they still needed to appropriate these promises through faith, evidenced by repentance, faith in Christ, and a holy walk.

They believed, however, that God uses parents to bring their children to a personal conversion experience. Parents were regularly taught in sermons to bring up their children so that the covenant promises given them at baptism might be fulfilled and realized in their lives. The New England Puritan Thomas Cobbett writes, “The greatest love and faithfulness which parents as covenanters can show to God and to their children, who in and with themselves are joint covenanters with God, is so to educate them that the conditions of the covenant may be attended by their children and so the whole covenant fully effected.”²¹

• Children must be trained early in the nurture and admonition of the Lord←↰⤒🔗

The salvation and godliness of children is the main purpose of their education. That goal can be realized only through the Spirit’s blessing of the Word of God (Rom. 10). The Puritans made it a law that parents must teach their children to read so that they could read the Bible and other religious material for their spiritual welfare.²²Gaius Davies sums up the Puritan approach to teaching: “Education should begin as early as possible, and though it should be thorough, godliness is more important than learning, and schoolmasters must be chosen with this in mind.” ²³

Reading opened the world of doctrine to children. Even Puritan reading tools themselves, such as the New England Primer (1683), conveyed theology. From this primer, the theological ABCs were taught: from A, “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all,” to Z, “Zacchaeus, he did climb the Tree, his Lord to see.”²⁴These tools worked hand in hand with catechetical instruction. The Puritans taught their children catechism as soon as possible; most fathers catechized each child for one hour per week. To help them, Puritan pastors wrote books that explained fundamental Christian doctrines by means of questions and answers supported by Scripture.²⁵Fathers explained the theological content of the questions and answers of these catechism books by illustrating them with Bible stories and dialoguing with their children.²⁶

The goals of catechizing were to make sermons and the sacraments more understandable for covenant children, to prepare them for confession of faith, and to teach them how to defend their faith against error.²⁷Then, too, children were taught that truth must be loved and lived. As the Puritan ministers’ catechism books and sermons show, children were told the truth about matters such as the fall in Adam, sin, and condemnation, as well as salvation in Christ, His righteous­ness, and everlasting bliss. They also were invited, via appeals to their wills and hearts, to flee to Christ with their sins.²⁸The ultimate goal was not simply a well-stocked head, but also a warm appreciation of the truths of God in mind and soul so that the child would lead a holy life.

Parents were to nurture and train their children in godly ways not only by teaching, but, what was more important, by example. Richard Greenham writes, “Experience teaches us that children learn more by countenance, gesture, and behaviour than by rule, doctrine, precept, or instruction.”²⁹Likewise, it was recognized that a bad example would cause great harm. As Greenham says: “If parents would have their children blessed at church and at school, let them beware they give their children no corrupt examples at home by any carelessness, profaneness, or ungodliness. Otherwise, parents will do them more harm at home than both pastors and schoolmasters can do them good abroad.”³⁰

• Family worship is the most powerful means for childrearing←↰⤒🔗

Puritan families gathered for worship once or twice each day.³¹The Westminster Directory for Family Worship (1647), written by Puritans, states that “family worship, which ought to be performed by every family, ordinarily morning and evening, con­sists in prayer, reading the Scriptures, and singing praises.”[1]³²

Typically, Puritan family worship included several ele­ments. First, there was prayer. The Puritans believed that God would pour out His fury on families that did not call on His name (Jer. 10:25). Family prayer was both a domestic obligation and a privilege. Puritan fathers normally prayed for five to ten minutes. They aimed for simplicity without being shallow. They strove to glorify God in their prayers while being specific in their petitions. They confessed family sins, asked for family mercies, and offered family thanksgivings. Their prayers, which were natural yet solemn, often consisted largely of bringing God’s own Word back to Him.³³

Second, there was reading of Scripture. This was usually done by the father as head of the household, though some fathers delegated parts of it to family members who were capable of reading. The family usually read straight through the Bible, out of the conviction that God gave a whole Bible to make a whole Christian. On special occasions, such as the Lord’s Supper, the death of a loved one, or a national day of prayer and fasting, the father would select an appropriate Scripture reading.³⁴

Third, there was instruction from Scripture. In accord with Deuteronomy 6:6-7 and 11:18-19, the Puritans believed that the father should interact with his family about sacred truth on a daily basis by means of questions, answers, and teaching. Fathers should undertake this exercise diligently and with passion, the Puritans believed. The Directory for Family Worship provides insight into how they were to do this:

The holy scriptures should be read ordinarily to the fam­ily; and it is commendable, that thereafter they confer, and by way of conference, make some good use of what hath been read and heard. As, for example, if any sin be reproved in the word read, use may be made thereof to make all the family circumspect and watchful against the same; or if any judgment be threatened or mentioned to have been inflicted, in that portion of scripture which is read, use may be made to make all the family fear lest the same or a worse judgment befall them, unless they beware of the sin that procured it: and finally, if any duty be required, or comfort held forth in a promise, use may be made to stir up themselves to employ Christ for strength to enable them for doing the commanded duty, and to apply the offered comfort. In all which the master of the family is to have the chief hand; and any member of the family may propose a question or doubt for resolution.³⁵

In leading the devotional time, the father aimed to remain pure in doctrine, relevant in application, and affectionate in manner. He asked and encouraged questions and, at times, lovingly examined the spiritual well-being of his children. Byfield says there are eight topics appropriate for family instruction: the fear of God, the meaning of the sacraments, the law of God, the consideration of God’s judgments, God’s great works on behalf of His people, how to hope in God, the general meaning of the Scriptures, and the reinforcing of what was preached in church.³⁶Recent sermons (on which family members took notes), providential occurrences in the family, church, or nation, and pertinent illustrations were fertile fields for the father to plow as he sought to bring home to his family the truth about sin, Christ, grace, spiritual life, holiness, and scores of other doctrines and issues.

Fourth, there was praise in psalm-singing. Most Puritans believed, as did Philip Henry, father of the famed commentator Matthew Henry, that Psalm 118:15a (“The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous”) refers to daily singing in the tents of the Israelite families. By extension, Henry argues that the sound of rejoicing and salvation should rise from Puritan family homes through daily singing. In such singing, God is glorified and families are edified. It promotes devotion as it informs the mind and warms the heart. The graces of the Spirit are stirred up in us, and our growth in grace is stimulated (Col. 3:16). Singing must be biblical and doctrinally pure, and it must be done heartily and with feeling (Col. 3:23).³⁷

Daily family worship was a necessity and a privilege in the typical Puritan home. It was viewed as a powerful tool to help parents rear children. Love for the glory of God and the welfare of His church called for family worship. Failure to lead the family in worship was failure to be a father, for no father could neglect family worship and keep a good conscience. William Whately says that a father who does not lead his household in the ways of God through family worship “keeps an household of fiends, a Seminary for the devil, a nursery for hell, and the kingdom of death.”³⁸

• Discipline is an essential part of childrearing←↰⤒🔗

Bringing up children in the fear of the Lord included firm discipline, the Puritans said. Such discipline involved more than teaching and modeling proper behavior. “Doctrine and example alone are insufficient,” John Norton writes. “Discipline is an essential part of the nurture of the Lord.”³⁹

Reproof plus the rod gives wisdom, the Puritans said. When a child is disobedient, verbal reproof must be administered first. In this, the parent shows the child that he or she has committed sin against God and man, and must repent. If verbal reproof is ineffective, the rod must be used as “a means appointed by God,” Gouge says, “to help good nurture and education of children. It is the last remedy that a parent can use: a remedy which may do good when nothing else can.”⁴⁰Spanking must be measured according to the offense committed, and must be done in a timely manner, with love, compassion, prayer, and self-control.⁴¹Perkins warns against using excessive force in discipline, which will stir a child to wrath (Eph. 6:4), and against being too lenient, as Eli was with his sons (1 Sam. 2:23).⁴²

On the one hand, the child’s naturally evil will must be broken. “Train them up in exact obedience to yourselves, and break them of their own wills,” Baxter advises.⁴³On the other hand, the Puritans did not want to break a child’s spirit in the process of breaking his or her will, and they advocated that discipline be fair, gentle, and geared to the temperament of the child.⁴⁴Parents were to see that their children’s stubborn wills and selfishness were restrained and repressed, even as their attractive qualities were commended⁴⁵

Thus, the Puritans steered a balanced course between harshness and leniency. Despite their strong convictions about a child’s inner depravity, they were optimistic that God would save that child, for they believed that God ordinarily works to save His covenant seed.⁴⁶Cotton Mather says, “Young saints will make old angels; and, blessed be God, there are such young saints in the world.” Recalling his own childhood, he says, “The great care of my godly parents was to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: whence I was kept from many visible outbreakings of sin which else I had been guilty of; and whence it was that I had many good impressions of the Spirit of God upon me, even from my infancy.”⁴⁷

• Children should welcome their parents’ help in making major life decisions←↰⤒🔗

In the seventeenth century, young men and women prepared for a lifelong profession. The Puritans reasoned that God had foreordained a particular profession for every believer, through which he or she was to live and work to God’s glory. As young people entered their early teens, their parents were expected to help them determine what those professions might be. Adams summarizes their task well: “Christian parents are concerned not only to train-up their children for business in the world, but to do what they can to provide an honest, fit, and useful calling or profession, wherein they may serve their generation according to the will of God (Acts 13:36), and the abilities he hath bestowed on them, and the inclinations he hath implanted in them, whereby they may mostly promote the kingdom of Christ.”⁴⁸

Similarly, Christian parents were to help their young people select a suitable mate for life. There were at least five major criteria parents considered, in the following order of priority:

1. Would the proposed spouse walk with their son or daughter with wisdom and genuine godliness in marriage? Such qualities were necessary for the marriage to be “in the Lord.”
2. Would the proposed spouse fit the biblical description of what a marriage partner is to be? Does the proposed husband have good leadership skills and a loving demeanor? Does the proposed wife show submission and reverence to her own father? A biblical mindset about marriage and a character that reflected that mindset was of utmost importance.
3. Was the proposed spouse mature and properly motivated for entering into marriage? It was necessary to avoid marrying out of wrong motivations, such as the love of money or power.
4. Was the proposed spouse fairly equal to their son or daughter in terms of class and financial resources? It was necessary to avoid being “unequally yoked” culturally and socially, because people did not change classes often or easily three centuries ago.
5. Was the proposed spouse somewhat attractive in the eyes of their son or daughter? It was felt that there should be at least some romantic spark to begin with, though the Puritans taught that most romance would develop after marriage. Note that appearance was the last and least matter to be concerned about; marriages were built more on character than on appearance.⁴⁹

Puritan pastors advised parents and children to avoid two extremes. First, parents were not to force their children into occupations and marriages to which the children were not attracted. “Though the match may seem meet (fitting) in the parents’ eye, yet he may not force his children thereto,” Gouge writes. “Though the authority of parents ought in this case to be inviolable, yet a middle course is so to be held, as the parties may willingly with a mutual consent join themselves together.”⁵⁰

Second, children were not to dismiss their parents’ advice because they were not immediately drawn to it. Rather, they were to seriously consider that their parents had their best end in view, were wiser than their children, and often knew what was best for them. When parental advice differed substantially from a son’s or daughter’s desire, the young man or woman was expected to pray about the advice and consider it seriously before, if necessary, politely and reverently telling parents that he or she could not in good conscience pursue the recommended spouse or occupation.⁵¹

Thorough Parental Involvement←⤒🔗

Many other notable tasks of Puritan parents — such as physical provision, recreational guidance, and preparing a will — cannot be addressed here. Suffice it to say that, from conception to marriage, parents were thoroughly involved in the lives of their children. In every area, the parental task was to lead children to God and to do His will. Puritan parents prayerfully awaited God’s blessing on their endeavors. Blessing was measured primarily by their children’s walking in communion with God, manifesting holiness in their lives, and exercising their gifts to the well-being of family, church, and society.

The Puritans scorned those who neglected the tasks of child-rearing, regarding them as fools and scoundrels. Puritan preachers frequently issued solemn warnings to parents who were neglectful in child-rearing. On the Judgment Day, Richard Mather says, there will be children who are condemned partly because their parents have neglected to bring them up in the fear of the Lord. These children will then accuse their parents in words like these:

All this that we here suffer is through you; you should have taught us the things of God, and did not; you should have restrained us from sin and corrected us, and you did not; you were the means of our original corruption and guilt, and yet you never showed any care that we might be delivered from it. Woe unto us that we had such carnal and careless parents, and woe unto you that had no more compassion and pity to prevent the everlasting misery of your own children.⁵²

With such warnings, Puritan parents generally performed their childrearing duties with great seriousness, taking a theological, objective, and uncompromisingly biblical approach rather than a theoretical, subjective, and pragmatic approach. The result was that many families became like miniature churches. In his 1646 tract The Character of an Old English Puritan, or Nonconformist, the Puritan John Geree says, “His family he (the ideal Puritan) endeavoured to make a Church, both in regard of persons and exercises, admitting none into it but such as feared God; and labouring that those that were born in it, might be born again to God.”⁵³

According to the Puritans, the well-being of the local church and society depends on what children learn in the family.⁵⁴Well-ordered families, Cotton Mather says, “natu­rally produce a good order in other societies.” He concludes, “Families are the nurseries for Church and Commonwealth; ruin families and you ruin all.”⁵⁵

That the ideas summarized in these articles are familiar to many of us is a testimony to the effect Puritan teaching had on later generations of educators. Ultimately, of course, their ideas were sound because they were drawn from Scripture. They were experts at combining personal piety with a comprehensive Christian worldview, one of the hallmarks of biblical Calvinism. Beginning with the premise that the Bible is a reliable repository of truth, they had a basis from which to apply their Christian faith to all areas of marriage and family life. Packer concludes that the Puritans are “the creators of the English Christian marriage, the English Christian family and the English Christian home.”⁵⁶

We need to recover their Calvinist vision, in the words of Philip Arthur, “by recovering their expectation that faithfulness to God in the commonplace things of life will be rewarded; that it is a high and noble aim to attempt the difficult balancing act of seeing that every relationship is honoured; that we meet our obligations to God, to the local church, community and Commonwealth, that we honour and serve spouse, parents, children, employers and employees, in other words that we do the ordinary things well in dependence on God knowing that he honours those who honour him.”⁵⁷Here is solid, honorable, practical Calvinism, worthy of emulation and sorely needed in our day of self-gratification and disrespect for authority, a day in which every man does that which is right in his own eyes.