Their Glory

Their Glory.

Children and numerous progeny is accounted a glory to people. That in which they do much glory, in (Proverbs 17:6): "Children's children are the crown of old men" — the Seventy say, "are the glory of old men." Parents use to glory and pride themselves much in their children; (says one) Oh! lovely pride of the Mother! So it may be said of many sons and daughters of children, Oh! the delightful pride of the Father and the Mother in such and such children.

They accounted it their glory, for,

1. By their children themselves are multiplied. And,

2. They see what excellency soever there is in the child, they look upon it as their own, as themselves the cause of it; and men and women love themselves much, and because they are pieces of themselves therefore they glory in them. And,

3. They have some hope of continuation from generation to generation in their children; and this is their glory.

But let parents learn to give God the glory of their children, and to bring them up to the glory of God, then they may rejoice in them indeed as a great mercy of God. In (Proverbs 10:1): "A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is heaviness to his mother." Why is a wise son said to be the gladness of the father? Why? Does not a mother rejoice in a wise son too? And why is a foolish son said to be the sorrow of the mother? Why? Does not the father sorrow and mourn for a foolish son? The Holy Ghost not without reason does express himself thus: a wise son makes the father glad.

First, because the father usually has a more strict hand over his son in his education to bring him to wisdom more than the mother; ordinarily mothers are tender over their children, and they cocker them and so make them fools — some they cannot endure that they should suffer any hardship, and hence their children proves foolish and fit for nothing, and great sorrows to them.

And secondly, a wise son is fit for employment abroad in the world, therefore rejoices the heart of his father; but a foolish son is fit for nothing but to be at home in the chimney corner with his mother, and as he grows up grows stout and stubborn against her there. And if children be a glory to their parents, they should labor to be such as they may be a glory and not a shame to them indeed. There are many which instead of a glory to their parents are a great shame to them, as it was said of Augustus Caesar, he had three daughters that were wicked, and he used to call them his three impostumes, and his three cankers upon his body. And so children that should be the glory of their parents, and the glory of a family, many times they are but the very impostumes and cankers of it, and the shame to their parents, every time they come abroad in the world. And if you expect that your children should be a glory to you, you must not be a shame to them; sometimes children are a shame to their parents, and sometimes parents are a shame to their children. It follows.