His former respects, first,
themselves, and then their children, as part of themselves. As it is
necessary that they should believe the promise to themselves, in order
that they may enjoy it; so they must believe the promise respecting
their children, in order that the children may enjoy the blessing. And
as they must prove the reality of their faith in the promise which
respects themselves by their works, so they must prove the reality of
their faith in the promise which respects their children by the faithful
discharge of the duties which they owe to God in their behalf. Fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. Train up a child in the way he should go, and
when he is old he will not depart from it.
A soldier is not trained for the service of his country or the field of
battle by a few lectures on the art of war. He must be drilled,
practiced, in the very things which he must do upon the field of blood.
So the children of believers, who are to take the places of their
fathers and mothers in the grand warfare against Satan, the world, and
the flesh, must be practiced in these very truths, and graces, and
duties which they must labor and do, that they may be saved and be
instrumental in extending that kingdom which is righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Ghost, to the end of the earth and to the end of
time.
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