David’s Digest: As a Child

[1.] A weaned child is taken off from the breast and its natural food; so when the Lord is pleased to withhold from us what we expected, and to keep us in a low and afflicted condition, we must patiently submit to God’s will and pleasure, and be contented to be what God will have us to be. Oh, how well were it for us if we were weaned from the world’s breasts! Certainly then temptations would be plucked up by the roots. How easily should we please God, and press on to everlasting glory, worldly and fleshly lusts [desires] mortified! By some bitterness or other the weaned child is driven from the breast, and it useth it no more.

Oh, that a christian were as soon weaned from the world, and might grow dead to the honours, riches, and pleasures of it! and could say with the apostle, ‘I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me,’ Gal. vi. 14.

Few are taken off from the dug [udder, teat] by the bitterest wormwood that can be laid upon it; they are still sucking here, though they suck but wind; and, after many disappointments, still return to the love of the world, as their natural milk. It is a prodigy for a child to keep sucking till thirteen or fourteen years; we are as greedy at fifty or sixty years as we were before. The world by nature is sweet to us; the bitterness of affliction doth not wean us from it; and after all the warnings that we cannot love the Father if we love the world, 1 John ii. 15, yet we love the world still. In death it is made bitter to us, for then the world passeth away, and the lusts [desires] thereof; then we cry out on the world, how it hath deceived us, and tempted this rebelling flesh to neglect God and higher duties. But then it is questionable whether we are weaned or driven from the dug [udder, teat]. Surely it becometh us to be weaned sooner.

[2.] The weaned child can do nothing for itself, but is provided for by the care of another; so should we look upon ourselves as a most feeble and impotent child, able to do nothing of ourselves; but after we have weaned ourselves from our natural affections and desires, wholly be sensible of our necessities, emptiness, and weakness to shift [move, even slightly] for ourselves, leaving all to God: Ps. xl. 17, ‘I am poor and needy, but the Lord thinketh upon me.’ We may be despised of the world and contemned of the world, but that doth not make us loathsome to God. Yea, the lower we are brought, the more is his care engaged for us. The empty, the destitute, who have not the dug [udder, teat] to live upon, are devolved upon the Lord, that he may take care of them.

[3.] Though the weaned child have not what it would have, or what it naturally most desireth, the milk of the breast, yet it is contented with what the mother giveth; it rests upon her love and provision. So are we to be content with what providence alloweth us: Heb. xiii. 5, ‘Let your conversation [behavior/life] be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have;’ and Phil. iv. 11, ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.’ Whatever pleaseth our heavenly Father should please us.

The child that is put from the breast to an harder diet is yet contented at last. The children of princes know not what the swelling of pride, the honour of the world meaneth. The child doth not prescribe what it will eat, drink, or put on. They are in no care for enlarging possessions, heaping up riches, aspiring after dignities and honours, but meekly take what is provided for them.

[4.] The child, when he has lost the food which nature provideth for it, is not solicitous, but wholly referreth itself to the mother, hangeth upon the mother. So for everything whatsoever should we depend upon God, refer ourselves to God, and expect all things from him: Ps. lxii. 5, ‘My soul, wait thou upon God; my expectation is from him.’ With such a simplicity of submission should we rest and depend upon God.

Let us take heed of being overwise and provident for ourselves, but trust our Father which is in heaven, and refer ourselves to his wise and holy government.