In this audio message, Scott Brown discusses the lives and impact of the Mather family. He first begins by discussing the lives of 3 generations. He then gives us six lessons about family life that we can learn from their lives. Their family was an example of generational faithfulness. This is a demonstration of how fathers passed down a godly heritage to their children.

Psalm 24:5-6 (NKJV) - "He shall receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face. Selah"

Well, welcome. Thank you for coming. We get to spend some time looking into the multi-generational vision of the Mather family, how three generations cried out for a rising generation. Now, there's so much to say about the Mathers and the drama that was unfolding all around all three generations of Mathers. We could talk about the political, the philosophical, the educational conflicts and propositions that this family was bringing to New England, but that's not really our focus here in this session.

Our focus will really be exclusively on matters of family life, so we're going to ignore lots of things about the matters and zero in on this one matter of family life. I'd like you, if you have your Bibles with you, to open to John chapter 15, because I think John 15, in the verses I'm going to read, really exemplify the hopes that burned in the souls of all the Mathers. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples. I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give to you these things I command you, that you love one another." This passage of Scripture does so sum up what the Mathers hoped to accomplish in the bearing of fruit through the members of their family, through their churches, and also in their nation. I'd like to tell you where I'm going here briefly, just to give you a sense of the outline.

I'm, first of all, going to speak of the three generations of Mathers. First of all, Richard, then Increase, and then Cotton Mather. After that, I want to loop back around and bring to you six lessons to learn and apply from family life. And then I want to take you really to a deathbed and the perspective of that deathbed of one of the Mathers. Well, George Washington said that the Mathers were the true founding fathers of America.

But what they are here for us in this session is really a beacon of light for families. How families exist in their homes, in their churches, and in society is so pivotal for everything. Churches are weak because families are weak. Nations are weak because they're founded on the shifting sands of corrupted family life. So it's so critical that we lay down a testimony for what it means to be a family that's really ordered by God.

And That's really the secret to the Mather experience. Here's the secret. They desired that everything be brought into obedience of Scripture. That their family life would become a living picture of what the scriptures communicate. And so as a result, they were a they were a fractious amalgamation of so many hot pursuits in their lives, in intellect, in spirituality, in duty, and of course, in family life.

And they thought, they preached, they built churches for one reason, because they wanted to find out what was pleasing to the Lord their God. And All three of the generations of the Mathers believed that every ounce of every person in the family ought to be dedicated to fruitfulness for the glory of God. All three of these generations had a sense of destiny beyond their own lives. In that sense, they had a multi-generational understanding of life. All three of them embraced one of the most important principles in all of life.

Can you guess what it is? Honor. All three of these generations so cried out for the rising generation to honor. They understood the power of it, but you know what they did? They actually lived it.

They honored their fathers and their mothers. And it's so inspiring. How is it that such a family can become the intellectual and political center of a community? Well, one reason is because God gave them a platform. I believe partly because of the prosperity that came to the family as a result of their honoring their fathers and their mothers.

All three of the mother generations that we're focusing in on today believed in the pivotal role of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and how a family ought to exist in the midst of church life. They were family men, they were churchmen, and they were civic men. And as we see this range of the Mathers here. We see a hundred year span of a man's scope in his life. And it's such a mirror really of what you read about in Psalm 78 and in Deuteronomy chapter 6.

The pattern of you, your son, and your grandson all the days of your life. And that's really the essence of their lives. Here's something else that we need to understand about the Mathers. The Mathers did not sit around asking, who am I? They knew who they were.

They knew what their job was. They knew the particular roles they should play in the various spheres of life. They knew what the objectives were that God had ordained for them. They knew who they were. Why?

They knew who they were because they looked to Scripture and to scripture alone. William Bradford, who was one of the founders of Plymouth Colony, one of the original pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock, feared what would happen in the future. And What happened in the future is what the Mathers experienced. What William Bradford feared the Mathers had to deal with. Here's what Bradford said in 1654, when I think on what I have read, how when the elders and Joshua were dead and had seen those great works and them could tell what God had done and wrought for Israel.

Yet they did soon forget and turn aside, and in his truth and ways did not abide, but in the next age did degenerate. I wish this may not be New England's fate." And as we get to the Mathers, we find that this actually was New England's fate, and William Bradford's poem was having to be grappled with in their own time. So let's first begin with Richard Mather. Richard Mather came to New England in 1635. He came to protect himself.

He came to protect his family and to establish a true church there. And after coming to England, after serving 34 years there, the main focus of his life really was preaching. And Richard had an interesting childhood in England. Richard's father almost sent his son to be educated by a group of Catholic merchants. They saw his giftedness.

They saw the keenness of his mind. And they coveted it, and they desired to finance his education. And his father came just this close from giving his son to be educated by Roman Catholics. But the tide turned and he didn't and it made all the difference in the world. You might just consider the importance of this matter of education, how pivotal it is, what is poured into your brain comes out of your soul.

It defines your life. And so we have to be very careful how we engage this matter of education and to recognize the dangers that are there in every society. And the dangers that we see in our own society in these great pagan institutions that pour paganism into the brains of our children and pickle them there, what we recognize is this has always been a problem. And it was a problem for Richard Mather's father as well. Well, Richard was a great preacher.

And there were four things that he attempted to do whenever he picked up the holy word of God. Number one, to read the text and to explain it. He would drop back and elucidate the doctrine that that text was communicating. And then he would make propositions about it. And then, fourthly, he would practically apply it.

He was a classic Puritan. Puritans were so good at applying scripture. If you read old Puritan sermons, you will hear them give 25 applications in this one area of life. Oh, but we're not done there. There are 13 more for this area of life.

Oh, but we're not done there. They spent an enormous amount of time in applying scripture in their preaching, and Richard Mather was no different. And the other thing about Richard that really set the course for all the members of his family is that he believed that the church was central and that the church was critical for the reformation of society. We also see that he was very intentional. He's very proactive in his thinking as a father.

And one of the things that you find him speaking about in his writing is the laying down of Ebenezer's monuments to enter into a period of life, come to the end of it, and then lay down principles for that life. To explain what just happened. Fathers have this function in the world to speak of the things that have happened, to explain to their children the goodness, the beauty of it, well, or maybe the ugliness of it, or the lessons that are there. This was the kind of father this man was, and so he spoke regularly of this matter of laying down Ebenezers. He would also write down prayers and answers to prayers and he did it for a reason.

He says this, he says that that his sons after him might see by their father's example what it is to walk before God. He desired to lay down a record. You know, all the Mathers were writers. Of course, when we get to Cotton Mather, he writes over 450 books. But all the Mathers had this same impulse in their souls to categorize and compile the things that they were experiencing.

And this multigenerational purpose was communicated in so many ways through the things that they would say. For example, he was giving a charge to his sons on his deathbed. And he says this when he was close to death, a special thing which I would command you is care concerning the rising generation in this country, that they may be brought under the government of Christ in his church. He said that to his son, Increase, who would succeed him. Because he was one of those men whose hearts yearned for the rising generation and the spiritual children that were coming out of the families and out of the churches.

And he exhorted his son to do the same thing that he did, to cry out for that generation. These men were men of prayer. Here's what his son, Increase, says about the ways that he prayed. He was in much prayer, especially in his study, where he oftentimes spent whole days with God ensuing for a blessing upon himself and his children and upon the people whom he was related, and upon the whole country where he lived. Here was a man, a father, who was buffeting the gates of heaven, not just for his own children, but for the rising generation that were coming on the scene.

Indeed, the fractious blessing of having all his sons become faithful ministers and his flock to continue in orthodoxy, which was increasingly declining, really can be attributed to this great prayerful warrior that we have in Richard Mather. Richard Mather was blessed to be the father of four ministers. Two of them were in England and two of them were in America. So there you have it, Richard Mather, the first in line of three great generations. A man of prayer, a man who cried out for his sons, a man who so desired to bear fruit in his generation.

But not only that, that fruit would continually be born from one generation after another. This is the challenge of Richard Mather. Let's go to Increase Mather. Increase Mather, his son, 25 years the pastor of Old North Church, he viewed the state of New England in terms of Israel and especially the apostasy of Israel. And so he was a man of the prophets.

One of the things that's true about most people alive today is they don't know that much about the prophets. Well, increased Mather was not that kind of man. He had combed the pages of the testimony of the prophets in order to discern the patterns of God and the ways that God brings both blessing and judgment to his people. And Increase Mather was so concerned about the onslaught of wickedness in his society. And here's what he wrote about New England.

Oh children, beware of degenerating from the godliness of our ancestors. Ah, New England, we fear, we fear there is a pace fulfilling on thee that word that there arose a generation after them which knew not the Lord." He's quoting, of course, the experience of the children of Israel going into the promised land and the first generation in Joshua 2 is recorded to not know the Lord. Why? How could that possibly happen? It really happened because of one reason.

The fathers of Israel did not teach their children as they were sitting in their houses, as they were walking by the way and lying down and rising up. That was the fundamental problem. And he warned that what he called this noble plant was becoming a degenerate plant. He said, save New England from the set of degenerate grandchildren. You know, God has no grandchildren.

He only has children. And this was the issue that was before him. This was his great issue. In 1677, he wrote a tract called Discourse Concerning the Danger of Apostasy, and he explained his concern, and he uses the term generations in that work and in many other works, this for him was a watchword in his sermons, the term generations. And it had to do with the continuity of God's people from one generation to the next.

That there is a certain time period in which you live, your generation. And the status of that generation was something that he was very concerned about. He said, he quoted regularly, there arose another generation. To him, it really took on a double meaning and it applied to his own time. When he would quote, there arose another generation, he meant my generation.

He meant my children, my grandchildren's lives are on the chopping block here before the works of the devil. This was his greatest concern. You know, in 1721 when he was 84 years old, nearing the close of his days, he gathered a group of ministers to preach a series of sermons on Thursdays on early piety. I actually have a first edition of these sermons in my library here. And these sermons are so fantastic.

What Increase Mather did, with the help of his son Cotton, was to gather the critical ministers who could speak to the issue, and they delivered sermon after sermon on Thursday afternoons on this whole matter of early piety. That was really the issue that was before them. Let me just read you something. This is Cotton Mather's first message. He speaks of what the pious parent wishes for.

Blessed and hopeful children, and what comforts to their parents that are made partakers of such a blessing. Oh, blessed and joyful parents that may see such a blessing obtained for their own children. Early piety is the glorious blessedness. A pious mind is that perfect heart which we may have in perfection." And he's speaking about these two matters. First of all, a happy parent, a happy parent full of the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven, a happy parent who is so thankful, so joyful at the goodness of God that that parent constantly rises up and speaks of the goodness of God.

This was the kind of parent that increased mather desired to see replicated in his generation. In the introduction to these sermons, this is what he writes, I complain that there is a grievous decay of piety in the land and a leaving of the first love, and that the beauty of holiness are not to be seen in our churches as they once were. A fruitful Christian grown too rare a spectacle, Yea, too many are given to change and leave that order of the gospel to set up and uphold which was the very design of these colonies. Nothing will contribute so much to avert the evil tokens at which they who dwell in the wilderness may be afraid as a revival of piety, even of early piety in the rising generation." Early piety in the rising generation was the watchword of these sermons that were given. His son Cotton would lead the charge and Increase would write the introduction to this work.

And here he was at the end of his life crying out to God for the rising generation. And what was the essence of these sermons? Here was the essence. It was an all or nothing call to believe in the true gospel, to repent and believe, and to see the fruits of righteousness. It was a call to parents to take enormous energies to disciple their children.

It was a call to children to honor and obey their parents and to fill their minds up with the knowledge of God by seeking him early. And he so advocated for early conversion, early piety as he called it. One of the lectures spoke of Proverbs 23, 26. My son, give me your heart. Thomas Prince, one of the prominent ministers in Boston, said it this way in his message on early piety.

You must give up yourselves and all you have entirely to Him in your early days. You must give up your bodies and all its parts and members, especially the tongue, to God. You must give up all your senses to Him, your strength and vigor, and your health and beauty. You must likewise give up your spirit, temper, and all of your various appetites and passions to Him." Can you imagine this New England pastor pleading to the young people, looking at them in the eye throughout the crowd, asking them, give up every part of your soul, every synapse of your brain, every cell of your body. Give it all to the Lord Jesus Christ.

This was the call of increased mather to the rising generation. It was a call to belief in the true gospel, and Thomas Prince captured it so beautifully. Benjamin Wadsworth, another one of the ministers in the sermons on early piety, coming off of Psalm 34, verse 11, which says, Come ye children, hearken unto me. I will teach you to fear the Lord. Here's what he said in his sermon.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Prize your Bible as the best of all books. Prize it above gold, above much fine gold. Esteem it sweeter than honey or the honeycomb. How much time is misspent, thrown away, lost in reading playbooks or filthy and profane writings?

But seriously and diligently to read and study the Holy Bible is one good means to make us wise to salvation, holy in time, and happy in eternity." Benjamin Wadsworth. If he were alive today, he would say, children, put away all of your profane music. Put away your ridiculous YouTube videos. Put away all this time saturated, lost in a world that isn't actually your world. Live in your world with your Bible and seek the Lord while he may be found.

One young minister at the age of 26 tells his followers, I feel a trembling anxiety for the youth of the present generation. Well, this was the heartbeat of the message of Increase Mather. Increase Mather was active on so many fronts. He would travel to England and plead with the King of England. He was a remarkable man.

Now let's turn to Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather was marked by many things in terms of family life, particularly his hunger for the Word of God. Cotton Mather would read 15 chapters of the Bible every day. He would read five in the morning, five in the afternoon, and five at night. And by the time he was 14 years old, he was spending whole days in prayer and fasting in order to seek the Lord with all of his heart and to cry out to God for his will.

He joined his father very early in the pastoral leadership at Old North Church. At age 16, actually, he also founded a society for young men, and it was to those young men that he preached his first sermon. But at age 14, something happened to them. Something happened to him. He was severely hazed and abused by some other young men.

And it had a defining impact on his life. One of the impacts was he became a stutterer. And he stuttered for many years and really didn't shake it off until he had preached many, many sermons after he became a pastor there at Old North Church. But there he was serving alongside of his father, Increase Mather, together with the same concern burning in their hearts of the rising generation. And So together, a father and a son team diligently served this continually growing parish.

And they together watched the demise of New England. Here's what Cotton Mather said. The devil goes ranging, raging, roaring about the world, and young men are those whom he is first concerned for the catching and spoiling of." And so Cotton Mather was having a front row seat and watching the vision fall apart as he watched the young men aping the styles of the day and how they would not testify to the grace of God because they did not have the grace of God in their hearts. Cotton Mather also experienced significant sadness. Of his first nine children, only four of them lived past the age of five.

In his own words, he said, five times given to his maker the dearest thing, five times taken away." Cotton Mather had a great love for his children. And he gave his children sweet nicknames, my little pretty nanny, my lovely daughter, Nibi, my dear Katie. He was a father who had the puritan view of children living in his soul. And He spoke so sweetly about them and to them. And he wrote about them so much.

One of his greatest tragedies occurred after 16 years of marriage when his wife Abigail became ill. And after only a year, she finally perished. So he knew death. He saw the passing of his children before his eyes. And he also saw the passing of his spiritual children in his generation.

Cotton Mather was also one of those men who was very concerned about industry and productivity. On his 56th birthday, he preached on Ecclesiastes 9-10, Whatever your hand finds you to do, finds to do, do it with all your might. Now, that verse may well have been the life verse of all the Mathers, because they so desired increased productivity. Whatever you have, do it with all of your might. This just ran through everything that they did and said.

And Cotton Mather, he really communicated it beautifully. Communicated it beautifully. His maternal grandfather, John Cotton, taught that a child should enjoy, quote-unquote, lawful recreation until about age seven. That's it. After that, lawful recreation is pretty much over for a child and he says and then more serious pursuits should replace the games and toys at age 12.

But after age 12, you were a man. And Puritan children went to work at about age seven, slowly putting away their times of childhood. And by the time they were 12 years old, they were supposed to be ready for a career. They had already been stepping in their industry and had been trained in craftsmanship and various other kinds of meaningful labors. This was the way that the Puritans operated.

We need to recover that today, where we not just recover early piety, we recover early productivity. Well, guess what? They're probably related. And this order in industry and integrity were themes that he continually pounded away at for the rising generation. But he also preached very, very clearly and specifically in order to strengthen families.

And He understood that families were the basic elements of the church and of society. And so he preached and he wrote to strengthen families. And here's what he said. Families are the nurseries of all societies and the first combinations of mankind. Well-ordered families naturally produce a good order in other societies.

When families are under an ill discipline, all other societies being therefore ill disciplined, they will feel the error of the first concoction." And of course he meant in the family. In delivering a sermon on the duties of children to parents, Cotton Mather says, yea our little ones are no little part of the assembly. He's talking about the church. In other words, the little ones are not a small part of the church at all. And very many of these are children of pious parents, the children whose piety has therefore been fervently desired and required by parents.

Come, ye children, hearken to me. I will tell you what you shall do, that your parents may be happy in you and that your own happiness may be secured and increased." Here's what he's saying. Parents, Your children belong in the church. This is where they need to be. They need to hear the preaching.

You know, a Puritan church is very much like some of your churches where all the little children are there. You know, some of the sweetest things come from that. People often say, how much can a child really learn in church? Hearing sophisticated preaching and listening to elaborate prayers and things like that. What can they really get out of it?

Well, I'll tell you a story out of our own family life. About 13 years ago, we started a church. And one of the families in the church was having a lot of children. And my wife offered to hold one of their babies in the service just to give the mother some relief. And so for a period of two years my wife held that child.

And it was about a month ago I was over at their house and I went to that girl who's now 12, almost 13 years old. She's 13 years old. And I said, tell me, what do you remember from that time when your Aunt Deborah used to hold you? Because they have a very tender and sweet relationship that just goes back to those formative times as they were together in church. And without stopping for a second, she said, oh, what I remember the most was whenever the preacher said something that Aunt Deborah loved, she would say, hmm, amen.

What can a child get out of church? And then she said, and I started doing the same thing. That's what she said. And so whenever there was a prayer, whenever there was a word of preaching or a song, my wife does this. She says, mm, amen.

And that entered into the soul of that child. Well, the Mathers believe that children were part of the meetings of the church as well. He makes this observation in Joshua 8. There were the little ones in that congregation. It is not amiss that there are so many little ones in the great congregation here come together and unto them especially am I now being to bring that warning from God." In other words, he's warning parents to have their children among the assembly and not leave them at home.

In Cotton Mather's sermon on the duties of parents to their children, he quotes Richard Baxter in saying, if parents did their duties as they ought, the word publicly preached would not be the ordinary means of regeneration in the church. But only without the church among infidels. God would so pour out his grace upon the children of this people and hear prayers for them and bless endeavors for their holy education that we should see the promises made good unto our seed." What he's saying is that if only parents did their duties, the preached word would have so much more power to it, and it wouldn't be the only thing standing. Cotton Mather gave many instructions to parents to fulfill their duty before God. I'm going to give you four of his charges.

First, he urges parents to themselves be pious unless they are fakers in front of their children. He says seriousness, prayerfulness, watchfulness, and sanctification of the Lord's day is the critical matter that parents have in their hearts as they live before their children. His second charge, he exhorts them to consider the spiritual state of their children. He says, until they're regenerated, they're fools. Wild asses, cult, slaves of the devil.

In the third charge, Cotton urges parents to think more of the spiritual than the physical condition of their children, especially since it's through parents that children inherit their original sin. He understood the poison that was passed on from one generation to another. While you give your children life, you also pass on death. And what will you do? What will you do to offset the forces of the devil at work in their souls daily, daily when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise out, you cry out to them, you give them the beauty of the kingdom of heaven, you show them how good Jesus Christ is, what a wonderful and happy shepherd he is, What a good God there is in heaven.

This is what you do. The fourth charge to parents is a related one, namely that parents must plead God's promises for their children. He notes, Let the child hear the groans and see the tears, and be the witness of the agonies, wherewith you are travailing for the salvation of it. Children will never forget what you do. It will have a marvelous force upon them." Cotton Mather also urged parents to be vigorously engaged in that old Puritan practice.

You know what it is? After the sermon, rehearse the sermon with your children. That's what they did as they were walking back home from church or back in their houses. He says that heads of households are to bring the manna of the preached word into their homes and feed their children with it by helping them understand its content and practical applications. And he recommends breaking down the truths of the sermon by further explaining to his children in clearer terms, even down to the youngest.

This practice of building family life around the preaching of the Word of God in a church, I believe, is one of the most important things a father ever does. You who go to church and you ought to be in church is vigorously engaged. Make sure that your family is carefully studying the scriptures that your shepherds are bringing to the flock. Study them. Know them.

Have them in their souls. Let them know that their labors are not in vain. Don't just walk in cold on a Sunday and figure it out as you go. Bring your children in there knowing those texts. And then when that shepherd has finished preaching and you go home, review it.

Mine the gold. Squeeze the greatest amount of good out of that sermon. And cry out to God with your family and for your family. In addition to instruction like that, Cotton urges loving and firm discipline in families, that parents are not to spare the rod, but they're also not to use it out of passion and anger, that on the one hand to communicate the seriousness of their offense before God, but yet doing it when a spirit of love. He wisely says it like this, let not your authority be strained with such harshness and fierceness as may discourage your children.

To treat your children like slaves and with such rigor that they shall always tremble and abhor to come into your presence. This will be very unlike to your Heavenly Father. Our authority should be tempered with kindness and meekness and loving tenderness that our children may fear us with delight and see that we love them with as much delight." This was the way that the Puritans understood their relationships with their children, with tenderness, with loving kindness. You have this impression about the Puritans that they were so severe, they were so serious, they were so deadly, ugly to everyone. Absolutely not true.

If you read with the Puritans right, you cannot come to that conclusion. If you go to a university and read about the Puritans who typically do not quote much source documentation and don't read the whole story of the matter, you'll find that interpretation. But these were happy fathers and mothers. And this Puritan, Cotton Mather, preached so much for the happiness of parents, for the happiness of children. On a separate occasion, Cotton Mather wrote what I think is one of the neatest lists for fathers, a father's resolutions.

Here's a modern copy of it, a well-ordered family by Cotton Mather. And he lays out 21 resolutions a father ought to make. I'm just going to read them to you really quickly because even the heading is instructive. Even the heading is helpful. So number one, a father must resolve to, number one, do everything possible to ensure that his children may be in the Lord's truth.

2. To preach the Gospel daily to his children, telling them of the sufficiency of the Savior's death and their duty to live to Him, to turn from sin and embrace Him as their King, number three. To pray earnestly for their conversion, number four. To teach His children scripture stories and practically apply them to their souls while at the family table, number five. To have children memorize vital scripture verses so that they are hid in their hearts that they might ward off temptation and cleave to God's promises and derive spiritual profit.

To teach the law of God to one's children is the best inheritance a father can give them. Number seven, to teach his children the catechism and give them an understanding of it. Number eight, to teach them to pray, first in a specific form, but then from the heart in their own words. Number nine, to labor, to create a spirit of kindness in his children, both towards their siblings and towards others. They must always be willing to share, forgive, and refuse countenance of coarse language.

Number 10, to teach his children to read and write but to ensure that they do not stumble upon the devil's library. Number 11, to instill the principles of reason and honor in his children so that they shall fear to offend me but mightily love to see me and be glad of my coming home if I had been abroad a long time. Number 12, to speak of eternal things and set before them the delights of that heaven that is prepared for pious children and the torments of hell that is prepared for naughty ones. Number 13, to spend time alone with his children, inquiring about their souls, weeping with them over their sins, and agonizing with them for their salvation in prayer. Number 14, to watch over his children's companions and pull them out of bad company as brands out of the burning.

Number 15, to catechize his children after the public sermons so that their attention may be awakened by asking questions. Number 16, to instruct his children in the purpose of days of fasting and days of thanksgiving, and to inquire on their birthdays about the things they are thankful for and whether they have reconciled themselves with Christ. Number 17, to set before his children when they are sick the terrors of hell, which is eternal pain, and the glories of heaven, which sanctify even the most painful earthly trials. Number 18, to provide his children with a skill by which they may able to subsist themselves and get a livelihood. Number 19, to endeavor to have his children make use of their youth and not spend it in vanity.

Number 20, to require his children on occasion to spend time alone thinking about a question concerning their souls and the things of eternity. Number 21, to have his children married to Christ before they are of marriageable age, so that their earthly marriages may be for their eternal benefit. Cotton Mather was regularly warning the children of his congregation to stay away from other youth, particularly evil company, to walk with the wise. He spoke so passionately about that. Cotton Mather's New England was a New England of passionate appeals for correction in the face of apostasy.

The Mathers were known for upbraiding their congregations for lack of faith and to remember the founding generation, to remember that they had fallen away from the original founding principles that William Bradford and the others laid down. They saw the drift. They saw they were a fulfillment of William Bradford's fear. And they lamented it. Here are some of the sermons that were preached.

Samuel Danforth, a brief recognition of New England's errand in the wilderness and its sins. Benjamin Thompson, New England's crisis, increased Mather, day of trouble is near. Samuel Torrey, exhortation unto reformation. These were the kinds of sermons that Cotton Mather preached, just like his other brothers who were in his region. Cotton Mather said this, what?

Shall the grandchildren of Moses turn idolaters? And shall the children of Samuel become the children of Belial? Shall we forget the hope of our fathers? The very graves of those blessed men, every post, every stone upon their graves is a witness against us. Here Cotton Mather looked back at the graves of William Bradford and the others.

And he said, they're witnesses. They're witnesses against our idolatry. Cotton Mather published many of the founder's biographies and made them part of this massive book, Magnalia Christi Americana. This is an early copy of it. If you'd like to come look at it, you may.

His father, Increase, praised his son for doing this. And he called it a special act of obedience to the fifth commandment, to endeavor the preservation of the names and honor them who have been the fathers in Israel. That's what this book is really all about. It's really to honor those who went before, to tell the stories. There are so many remarkable stories in here, and it's a very powerful, powerful read with enormous significance.

Okay, I want to give you five lessons, six lessons to learn and apply. Lesson number one, be a family dedicated to the rising generation. Be a family dedicated to the rising generation. The Mathers were governed by this principle of honor, and if you look at what they wrote about it, you can see men who are clinging to the promise of God about honor. For example, at Increase's death, Cotton writes this about his father.

The Mathers didn't always agree about everything, by the way. They had very sharp disagreements about the halfway covenant and about the Salem witch trials. But even in the midst of it, they honored one another. And now as the time draws nigh, which Dr. Mather is to die, he grows old.

Yet what a green olive tree in the prosutia of his God." This was the culture of honor that dominated this family, despite the many differences. They famously disagreed. Cotton Mather writes this in a sermon, there is no point of religion more certainly and commonly rewarded with blessings in this world than that of rendering unto parents the dues that pertain unto them. A signal prosperity, even in this world, uses to attend these children that are very obedient or serviceable unto their parents. He understood that prosperity was tied to honor, and he lived it.

Number two, be a family, which has a clear vision of these three areas of life, your home life, your church life, and your family life, and your civil life. There's the intellectual part of family life. There's the commercial part of family life. There's the ecclesiastical part of family life. All these things are critical.

And be a family that understands how God wired the world, with the family and the church and the state. And live under the way that God has designed those governments to be a blessing to the world. Number three, be a family who knows the times and respond in practical, private, and public ways. This was the family that understood what was going on. They wrote about it.

They preached about it. They walked the streets of New England to correct the evils and to speak of both political and religious matters. And they were a family that stood up in very practical ways in their generation. It's not right for Christian families to hide in their homes, but to make something of their lives in this world, to take the place that God has given you and to make the most of it, to expand what He has given you in the place that He has planted you. Number four, be a family dedicated to the prosperity of the church.

They built their whole lives around the church. If there's no church, there's no revival. I hope we understand that. If there's no church, there's no voice in the culture. There's no mighty preaching in the culture, and it needs to be there.

This gigantic crisis, which Cotton Mather called a Goliath, was challenging the children of Israel to break out of Egypt. And this matter of being involved in local church life is so critical for that. Number five, be a family that strives to honor in the midst of disagreement. It's not very hard for families to disagree on critical matters, but what do you do with those disagreements? Does it cause you to sever?

It is true that the gospel does divide families, but let's not make everything divide the family. Number six, be a father who cries out for his sons like these mathers did. Oh, they did it. They had such a tender love for their sons and their daughters. And fathers need to cry out for their children.

To be like Job who cried out daily for his children, to be like David who cried out for his son Absalom, to be like the father Solomon in the book of Proverbs who cries out to his sons over and over again. Are you crying out? Are you praying? Are you fasting? It's a lot easier to correct your children than to kneel down and pray.

It's a lot easier to take action than to fall on your face before God, independence toward Him, and to fast and to labor in prayer. A lot of times, parents, they just want to do the quick thing rather than the thing that has the most power. And it's not enough just to cry out for them, but to walk beside them personally. Well, finally, I want to leave you with a deathbed perspective. Just before Cotton Mather died, his son Samuel asked him what word or what sentence he would have him think about constantly.

Imagine that for a minute. Your father is on your deathbed and your son comes to you and says, give me one word that I will hang upon for the rest of my life." That's what he said. And Cotton replied with one single word, Fructuosus, which in Latin means fruitful. In John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, For without me you can do nothing.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

This one last word, fratuosus, the defining word of a father on his deathbed. What an important word it is. And of course what he meant by that is that when you believe in the true gospel, it becomes a seed of fruit bearing in your life. When you truly repent of your sins, and you hate your lapses, and you long for heavenly things, And your desires change from desiring the filth of this world. Something happens in your soul, and you are fractious.

You bear fruit. It was really a call for the Gospel, but it was a call to dedicate every ounce of one's being to the bearing of fruit, to use every second for the glory of God, to do everything for the glory of God. This was the call. This was the legacy of the Mathers. Here's what I pray, that you and I are their spiritual children.

Would you pray with me? Oh, Lord, we thank you for setting before us a family to teach us the way in which we should go, to help us to think beyond ourselves, to see how a family applied your word, and for us to do the same, to cry out to you and to recognize a man can do nothing unless he receives it from heaven. Oh Lord, I pray for fructose-ness here, for such fruit-bearing, for such increase as the Mathers were. Amen. The Mathers, or Amen.