The Puritans view of life was God-saturated and focused on His glory as the chief end of all things. This is due primarily to their adherence and embracing of Reformed Theology. They held firmly to the sovereignty of God in all of life, as He has foreordained all things that come to pass, and what we consider the “doctrines of grace.” But the under girding of the doctrines of grace that really forms their attitudes toward children and parenting is the concept of the covenants[1]: the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, and the covenant of grace. The covenant of works was the covenant that God made with Adam in Eden that if Adam would obey all of God’s commandments, he would have eternal life. The covenant of redemption is that covenant that God the Father made with Christ that if Christ would remain in obedience to the Father , the Father would give Him a people to redeem for Himself. The covenant of grace is the covenant that God makes with every believer and their children upon faith that He will give them eternal life and be their God. Although these covenants may not be clearly outlined in Scriptures, nonetheless the Puritans used this as their grid or system through which to view the rest of Scripture.

Such theology produced a few different attitudes toward children. As covenants included both blessings and cursings, so children were seen as mixed blessing.[2]  John Robinson said that “[Children] are a blessing great, but dangerous.”[3]  They would affirm Psalm 127, that children are a blessing from the Lord, but that they also bring heartaches physically and spiritually from their birth until eventual marriage. This impressed upon them, though, the importance of their responsibility to their children as belonging to God: “Puritan attitudes toward children were rooted in the conviction that children belong to God and are entrusted to parents as a stewardship.”[4]  Thus they owned their children just as they own any other earthly thing, as a stewardship from God. The difference in “owning” their children with owning any other thing is, however, that their children’s souls are eternal and that is what they were accountable to God for. Also, they were not to love any other thing they owned the way they loved their children. They tried to keep a balanced view of loving their children. Excessive affectionate smothering, or “doting”, of their children was looked down upon.[5]  They observed that even apes killed their young with hugging.[6]  They did not want to be cold toward their children but rather impartial.[7]

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[1] “The essence of a covenant is the idea of contractual obligation. The framework of covenant theology increased rather than decreased the Puritans’ sense of parental responsibility for their children.” (Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints, p.79).

[2] This idea is perceived best by Daniel Doriani: “Children are a potential blessing in the eyes of godly brethren but the final evaluation of their status depends on their spiritual qualities, not their number or health…The “potential blessing” theme most often occurs in passages where preachers exhort parents to perform their moral and spiritual duties.” (“The Godly Household in Puritan Theology”, 1560-1640, p.391).

[3] The Works of John Robinson, Boston: Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, 1851, Vol. 1, p.244

[4] Ryken, Worldly Saints, p.78

[5] “The extreme in the excess is too much doting upon children: as they do who so unmeasurably love them, as they make reckoning of nothing in comparison of children.” (William Gouge, Of Domestical Duties, Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Ltd., 1976 [Facsimile, published earlier in London: J. Haviland, 1622], p.500).

[6] ibid.

[7] “Wherefore remember that the parently love must be extended equally to your children. Do not like eagles, which turn some out of their nest, and bring up other some.” (Paul Bayne, An Entire Commentary upon the Whole Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians, Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1866, [published earlier in London: M. F., 1643], p.361