Luke 1:6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. It is not in the power of parents to traduce holiness to their children; it is the blessing of God that feoffs them in the virtues of their parents, as they feoff them in their sins. There is no certainty, but there is a likelihood of a holy generation when the parents are such. Elisabeth was just as well as Zachary, that the forerunner of a Saviour might be holy on both sides. If the stock and the graft be not both good, there is much danger of the fruit. It is a happy match when the husband and the wife are one, not only in themselves, but in God; not more in flesh than in the Spirit. Grace makes no difference of sexes; rather the weaker carries away the more honour because it has had less helps. (Bishop Hall.)It may or may not carry benediction with it to be born into a household historically and by hereditary office renowned; but, coeteris paribus, it is a beatitude to have both father and mother "righteous" as before God, and "blameless" as before the world. How mournful to very tragedy is falsification of such a godly lineage, words are poor to tell I It is to set the whole home-life to sweetest music to have husband and wife, father and mother, agreed in religious faith and character, as it is to introduce inevitable discords when both are not so — when, perchance, children and servants see the husband (father) living "without God," and the wife (mother) bearing an aching heart as she enforcedly goes alone to "the sanctuary," and alone has "prayer" in the household. (Dr. Grosart.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. |
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