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SEventhly, Another cause of decay of Families, are foolish Children; for, if Families be carried on in their Succession, by Children supplying the departures of Parents, and the introduction of one Ge∣neration upon the cessation of another;
then children that are wicked and impro∣vident, are never like to maintain or aug∣ment the glory of their Ancestours, who were wise and pious: For, since glory and Gods blessing of enduring is the reward of his fear and grace in them, so recom∣pensed upon them, their virtue not being in their children, Gods reward to them wil not be hereditary to them, this the Pro∣phet Iob, for so his Spirit testifies his en∣dowment to be, exemplifies to us, in Ch. 5. v. 3, & 4. I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation; His children are farr from safety, and they are crushed in the gate; neither is there any to deliver them. So Chap. 20. v. 10. His chil∣dren (speaking of the wicked) shall seek to please the poor: so Chap. 12. v. 17. How oft is the Candle put out; and vers. 19. God laieth up his iniquity for his children; that is, God punishes his unjust dealing with pro∣digal and loose children, who shall riot∣ously waste his injurious leavings, and ren∣der themselves children of fools, children of base men, vilder then the earth, as the words are. Chap. 30. 8.
These foolish, because wicked, children, the Holy Ghost reproaches in the notion of his wayward Israel, whom he calls children of rebellion, Isa. 1. 2. corrupters of them∣selves,
v. 4. lying children, Chap. 30. 9. chil∣dren of transgression, Ch. 57. 4. backsliding children, Ier. 3. 14. sottish children, Chap. 4. 22. forsakers of God, Ier. 5. 7. children of whoredoms, Hos. 1. 2. children of iniquity, Hos. 10. 9. children of the Aethiopians, Amos 9. 7. children of disobedience and wrath, Ephes. 2. 2. covetous cursed children, 2 Pet. 2. 14. and can these children, who are thus ingrain'd in wickedness, be expected to be within Gods care and blessings; or will he build up those who so pull down his glory in their hearts and lives? Indeed, children are not onely a blessing, but the best of earthly blessings, because the con∣tinuers of Families, Names, and Ages, in which regard they are not said to be mans, but Gods delight, Children, and the fruit of the womb, are his delight, Ps. 127. 3. but then they are good and gracious chil∣dren, that hear instruction, Prov. 4. 1, children of obedience, children that ap∣ply their hearts to Wisdom; they that are old in understanding, when young in years, and are grave in their toys, and sober in their extravagancies, that speak and do as those whose age and wit will give each other the lie, and are reconciled by no∣thing less then a miracle; such children as have their fortunes in their heads, their
preferments in their faces, and their buck∣lers in ther tongues, such as like Alfius Fla∣vius in Seneca, who when a Lad, spake with applause,* 1.1 and so settled to Cestius, no puisne Advocate, that he not onely commended, but feared the force of his eloquence; who was eloquent above eloquence, and did what∣ever he did, not onely above others, but (as it were) above himself; such Sons (causing their deceased father, to live afresh in the gratulations of men to their memo∣ry, for being causal of blessings to Ages and Nations by the production of them) are honours and enlargements to Families,* 1.2 who by them are clarificated and Sydney∣zed, but to have children that shame their Genitors, and dislustre their Stocks, is a sore curse, better never be generatively viril, than to beget children to be Boutefeau's and earthquakes to Ages, how much rather would pious Predecessours have wished they had died uncontinued in their Male line, then to leave Sons Unthrifts of their Patrimony, careless of their honour, for∣ward in vice, intent on villany, engaged in confusion. 'Twas a serious profession of renowned King Iames to his Son Prince* 1.3 Henry, I protest before that great God, I had rather not be a Father, and childless, than be a father of wicked children. 'Tis a sad up∣braid
that a father gives his unfortunate Son, as the father of that Roman did, to whom, taking part with Catiline in the conspiracy against the Common-wealth of Rome,* 1.4 he said, I begot thee (sirrah) for the Common-wealth, not for Catiline, and had I thought thou would'st have proved a Rebel, I would never have ventured for thy being and birth, nor when thou hadst been born have thus educated thee; chil∣dren, that like Simeon and Levi are bre∣thren in that evil which makes their fa∣ther stink in the nostrils of the people of their land; children that are born for the fall and fate of Ages and Governments, that rave and rage till they have con∣founded Heaven and Earth, and dis∣influenced, as much as in them lies, the good influences of both, such Attila's, whose gloryings are, that they are scourges and devastations to well constituted settle∣ments and habitations of order and wealth; such Herods as make nothing of the heads of Iohn Baptists, to gratifie a rash oath made to a vain Mistress: Such children, who are grievous, wicked, stu∣pid, disobliging, do not bless the womb that bears them, and the paps that give them suck, but curse and traduce them; For, as to separate the Rays from the Sun is to de∣prive
the Sun of light,* 1.5 and the River from the fountain, is to render it drie; and the Bough from the Tree, to dead it; and the Member from the body, to perish it: so to se∣ver a Son from his Father in similitude to him in true qualities dignificative of him, is to make him appear of a Son of a wise and good father, a colleague of them that are of their father the Devil, as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Temps, H. 3. wrote to H. 3. And the reason why this is, is because, as a wise Son maketh a glad Father, so a foolish Son proves heaviness to his Mother, Prov. 10. 1. and, as Wisdom is said to build her house, so Folly is branded with the demo∣lition of it, and that with both hands, Prov. 14. 1. which warrants the Position, That foolish children are the bane and minoration of a Family, and that because Folly harkneth not to the precepts of Wis∣dom, which are preventive of ruine, as well as inductive of endevour, such as are heark∣ning to Counsel, Prov. 13. 1. avoiding va∣nities, which are a grief to the Father,* 1.6 Prov. 17. 25. embracing the fear of the Lord, Prov. 24. 21. observance of the Law, Prov. 28. 7. acceptance of correcti∣on and instruction, Prov. 29. 17, 21. all which declined, the curse of God comes upon a Person and Family to root it out,
which caused the sonne of Syrack very gravely to advise, Dèsire not multitudes of unprofitable children, though they multiply rejoyce not in them, except the fear of the Lord be with them. Eccles. 16. 1, 2. For by one that hath understanding shall the City be replenished, but the kindred of the wiked shall speedily become desolate.
Semper com∣mendabat elo∣quentiam ejus aliqua res ex∣••ra eloquenti∣am, in puero eloquentiae la∣trocinium eras ingenii aetas, Controv. lib. 1, decl. 1.
Raymundi Co∣mitis Provin∣ciae Phocensis quatnor filiae, quatuor summis regibus Christi∣ani Orbis nup∣t•• erant. P. Aemilius, lib. 7. Licaon secun∣dus Arcadum Rex filios ha∣buit 26. omnes clarissimarum Vrbinm sunda∣••ores. Pausan. in Arcadicis.
Epist. to Basili∣con Doron.
Te Reipub. non Catilinae genui
Avelle à sole solis radinm, & non elucet, ri∣vum a fonte, & arescit, ramum ab arbore, & siccatur, mem∣brum a corpo∣re, & putrescit, separa filium a devotione pa∣terna, & jam non est filius sed frater & collega eorum quibus dicitur vos ex patre Di••bolo estis, apud Petr. ••le∣sens. Ep. 47.
Educantium saelicior laus est de filiorum probitate lau∣dari, Alatha∣ricus Rex, Epist 2••. lib 8. variar. Cas∣siod.