# A Fatherly Farewell, Testament And Very Careful Scriptural Instruction By Hendrick Alewijns To His Children. · Page 1 of 9

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ARTICLE I.

The paternal farewell, testament and an earnest
scriptural instruction from Hendrick Alewijns
to his children.

Hear me, your father, O my own, well-disposed,
dear and greatly afflicted orphans, my three motherless
and soon also fatherless children, of ten, eight,
and six years, deprived of me, and without property,
alas, O God! Once more I tell you, O my
dear children, from one dear mother I received and
kept you all; who most solemnly charged me at her
end, as also the holy Scriptures teach and enjoin me
concerning you, that I should, as becomes a father,
bring you up in divine instruction (Eph. 6:4), to be
good and orderly children and men of God, which
I have hitherto, as became me, done with great
carefulness and earnestness, but have not yet completed
it. And behold, now my labor is taken away,
and I cannot under these circumstances further fulfill
towards you my fatherly love and debt of discipline.
I have therefore now faithfully commended
you henceforward to the God of heaven and to my
fellow-believers, the friends; and I am fully confident
that you will be well, very well, taken care of,
out of love, for God’s sake and mine.

Be subject most obediently, as dear children, to
the friends, and you will endear yourselves to them
all. I have charged them with the guardianship
over you, as though they were your parents; hence
be very obedient; fear words, and you will not need
stripes. Otherwise you will have to be beaten and
chastised much, as the holy Scriptures require and
teach, of which I shall write more explicitly hereafter.

My dear little children, it is true, it is true I say,
you are yet too childish, the oldest as well as the
youngest, to understand the holy Bible, and also
that which I shall teach here; but I hope you will
delight in reading in it frequently, and to have others
read it to you. I also trust that your understanding
will increase from day to day and that you
will yourselves discern good and evil, and will wisely
learn to know who are the true believers, and who
the unbelievers; which are the children of God, and
which are the children of the devil and the world;
who bear the name of Christ justly, and who unjustly.
I therefore write in this hope, and to acquit
myself of the duty of fatherly instruction, which is
still to be discharged towards you, and to the fulfillment
of which much is lacking on my part, since
I am taken away from you too soon, fully to discharge
it. Nevertheless, I cannot forbear, through
love, to offer and send you this from afar, my dear
children, if peradventure I must shortly go with
David the way of all this mortal earth. 1 Kings 2:2.
Hence I instruct, enjoin, and counsel you after my
departure, as many patriarchs and holy fathers did
to their children, that you will be of good cheer and
courage in patience, and that you will follow the
720
ways, commandments, laws, and ordinances of the
Lord, and do his whole will. Always do what is
right and good; love honesty, modesty, courtesy,
shame-facedness, virtue, praise (Phil. 4:8); and
whatsoever is Christian-like and of good report, that
do and think on it, and you will be holy and Christians.
Then you shall have everlasting life and the
beautiful heaven, that you may be with God and
his angelic host, with all the elect of God, in eternal
rest and joy of your souls; and you shall then not
have to fear the second death, the fiery lake, eternal
fire, the wages of sin, disinheritance from Christ’s
kingdom, or exclusion by Christ. Matt. 25:10.

My dear children, lay this to heart. As soon as
your little understanding can comprehend it, think
of returning from the old rebellious man into the
new man (Matt. 18:3); of the heavenly regeneration
of water and of the Spirit (John 3:35); of the
grace of God and improving the right time (2 Corinthians
6:1,2); of living peaceably with all men,
if it be justly possible and lying in you (for the other
half of peace lies with the other party); and also of
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord,
or enter into Christ’s kingdom. Rom. 12:18; Hebrews
12:14.

This, my dear children, is my careful counsel and
command to you, after my decease.

ARTICLE II.

The first foundation of virtue, or instruction concerning
the beginning of wisdom in childhood.—Government
of children.

Behold, my dear children, since you are still children
in understanding, young in years, and little
fitted for the knowledge of God, I now show you
for the first, how you may attain to the foundation
of virtue, and the beginning of wisdom, that is:
Give good audience, and cry earnestly for wisdom,
and ask for it; and gladly receive all good instruction
from those who advise you for the best. For,
behold, thus Sirach teaches: Keep only with such
as fear God, whom thou knowest to keep God’s
commandments, who are minded as thou art, who
have compassion on thee, if thou stumble; and abide
by their counsel (he says, abide by their counsel),
for thou shalt find no more faithful counsel, and
such an one can often see something better than
seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower.
Sir. 37:12. Again: The true beginning of wisdom
is the desire of discipline. Wis. 6:17. And again:
Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he
that hateth reproof is brutish. Prov. 12:1. Again:
The ears that heareth the reproof of life abideth
among the wise. And he that refuseth correction
despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof
getteth understanding. 15:31,32. Moreover: He
is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he
that refuseth reproof erreth. 10:17. Again: A reproof
entereth more into a wise man than an hundred
stripes into a fool. 17:10. Behold, my dear
children, open your ears, and receive instruction,
and you shall become wise and honorable; if not,
you must remain unwise, ungodly, worldly and in
error, as follows here: Poverty and shame shall be
to him that refuseth instruction; but he that regardeth
reproof shall be honored. 13:18.



## Original source

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