Be Fruitful and Multiply
CHILDREN
Christian education vital:
There is little hope of children who are educated wickedly. If the dye have been in the wool, it is hard to get it out of the cloth.
JEREMIAH BURROUGHS
This is the difference between religion and atheism, religion doth not grow without planting, but will die even where it is planted without watering. Atheism, irreligion, and profaneness are weeds that will grow without setting, but they will not die without plucking up.
WILLIAM GURNALL
It is common sense to put the seal to the wax while it is soft.
ARTHUR JACKSON
In spite of disappointments:
What if some prove naught that are well brought up? It is not the generality of them. Will you say that Noahs family was no better than the drowned world, because there was one Ham in it; nor Davids because there was one Absalom; nor Christs because there was one Judas?
RICHARD BAXTER
A motive for parental solicitude:
Children are their parents heirs, the mercies of God are not the least part of the parents treasure, nor the least of childrens inheritance, being helps for their faith, matter for their praise and spurs to their obedience. Our fathers have told us what work Thou didst in their days, in the days of old. Indeed as children are their parents heirs, so they become in justice liable to pay their parents debts. The great debt of the saint at death is that which he owes God for His mercies. Therefore it is but reason that parent should tie his children to the payment thereof.
WILLIAM GURNALL
A motive for filial regard:
So must the son please him that begot him, that he displease not Him that created him.
THOMAS FULLER
Let others boast their blood and their parentage, and reckon up a long row of monuments and ancestors: if they have been wicked, lewd and ungodly, but thine virtuous and the sincere servants of God, they possibly may be the last of their family, and thou the first of thine: howsoever know that it is far more noble to be born of those that have been born of God, than to be the grandchildren of the devil. Thou hast better blood running in thy veins, even the blood of them whom Christ hath judged worthy to be redeemed and washed with His own blood, whose name are written in heaven in the Lambs book of life: a greater honour and dignity than if they were written in the worm eaten pages of idle heraldry. And if thou followest their good examples, thy relations and portion too are greater and richer, for thou hast God for thy father, Christ for thy brother, and the whole heaven of stars for thine inheritance.
EZEKIEL HOPKINS
What a mercy was it to us to have parents that prayed for us before they had us, as well as in our infancy when we could not pray for ourselves!
JOHN FLAVEL
Note well:
It is easy to observe that none are so gripple and hard fisted as the childless; whereas those, who, for the maintenance of large families, are inured to frequent disbursements, find such experience of Divine providence in the faithful management of their affairs, as that they lay out with more cheerfulness what they receive.
JOSEPH HALL
Related Links
M.A.D.D. Mothers Against The Devil’s Devices
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