Here is a marvelous reminder from J.H. Merle D'Aubigne (Swiss pastor, 1827):
But, my brethren, if the love of God be in your hearts, and if you feel
that, being bought with a price, you ought to glorify God in your bodies
and spirits, which are his, where do you love to glorify him rather
than in your families and in your houses? You love to unite with your
brethren in worshipping him publicly in the church; you love to pour out
your souls before him in your closets. Is it only in the presence of
that being with whom God has connected you for life and before your
children, that you can not think of God? Is it, then, only, that you
have no blessings to ascribe? Is it, then, only, that you have no
mercies and protection to implore? You can speak of every thing when
with them; your conversation is upon a thousand different matters; but
your tongue and your heart can not find room for one word about God! You
will not look up as a family to him who is the true Father of your
family; you will not converse with your wife and your children about
that Being who will one day, perhaps, be the only husband of your wife,
the only Father of your children!
And listen to this plea to parents...
Parents! if your children do
not meet with a spirit of piety in your houses, if, on the contrary,
your pride consists in surrounding them with external gifts, introducing
them into worldly society, indulging all their whims, letting them
follow their own course, you will see them grow vain, proud, idle,
disobedient, impudent, and extravagant! They will treat you with
contempt; and the more your hearts are wrapped up in them, the less they
will think of you. This is seen but too often to be the case; but ask
yourselves if you are not responsible for their bad habits and
practices; and your conscience will reply that you are; that you are now
eating the bread of bitterness which you have prepared for yourself.
May you learn thereby how great has been your sin against God in
neglecting the means which were in your power for influencing their
hearts; and may others take warning from your misfortune, and bring up
their children in the Lord! Nothing is more effectual in doing this than
an example of domestic piety.
They are not merely to be taught
out of some elementary book that they must love God, but you must show
them God is loved. If they observe that no worship is paid to that God
of whom they hear, the very best instruction will prove useless; but by
means of Family Worship, these young plants will grow "like a tree
planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season: his leaf also shall not wither."
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