Little Children Invited to Jesus Christ

Samuel Davies preached this sermon in colonial Virginia during the height of the Great Awakening, addressing a congregation that included both children and their parents. As one of the leading Presbyterian ministers in the South and a future president of Princeton, Davies confronted the widespread practice of delaying serious religious instruction until adulthood. The sermon emerged from his pastoral concern that children were being excluded from meaningful participation in the spiritual life of the church, treated as too young for genuine faith while simultaneously being considered old enough to sin.

Davies builds his argument on Christ's own words in the Gospels, particularly the declaration that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as children. He systematically dismantles objections to childhood conversion, arguing that children possess both the capacity for genuine faith and the urgent need for salvation. The sermon moves through careful theological reasoning about the nature of sin, the accessibility of divine grace, and the particular advantages children possess in approaching God with simple trust. Davies emphasizes that children's natural humility and dependence actually position them closer to the posture required for authentic faith than the self-sufficiency that often characterizes adults.

This sermon became influential in shaping evangelical approaches to childhood religious education and conversion, helping establish the theological foundation for treating children as full participants in spiritual life rather than mere observers. Davies's careful balance of Reformed theology with pastoral warmth provided a model for addressing young people with both doctrinal seriousness and age-appropriate sensitivity.

Pastors and parents seeking theological grounding for children's ministry will find Davies's biblical arguments compelling and practically applicable. Those interested in the history of childhood in American Christianity will discover how evangelical convictions about human nature and divine grace shaped approaches to young people's spiritual development.