Worse Than Children

Thankfully, this is not true of many mature and godly young men and women, but it's too often true and has been so through the ages. From Thomas Manton's excellent letter of introduction/dedicatory to the Westminster Confession of Faith: [HT. Pastor Niell]


"But now they come to us with aged self-conceitedness, being past children, and yet worse than children still; having the ignorance of children, but being overgrown the teachableness of children; and think themselves wise, yea, wise enough to quarrel with the wisest of their teachers, because they have lived long enough to have been wise, and the evidence of their knowledge is their aged ignorance; and they are readier to flee in our faces for Church privileges, than to learn of us, and obey our instructions, till they are prepared for them, that they may do them good; like snappish curs, that will snap us by the fingers for their meat, and snatch it out of our hands; and not like children, that stay till we give it them."