“False natural love blinds parents so that they have more regard for the bodies of their children than they have for their souls… It is of the greatest importance for every married man to pay closer, more thorough, and continuous attention to the health of his child’s soul than to the body which he has begotten, and to regard his child as nothing else but an eternal treasure God has commanded him to protect, and so prevent the world, the flesh, and the devil from stealing the child away and bringing him to destruction. For at his death and on the Day of Judgment he will be asked about his child and will have to give a most solemn account.”

Martin Luther, “A Sermon on the Estate of Marriage” (from Nick Roark)

“Let your own example teach your children that holiness, and heavenliness, and blamelessness of tongue and life, which you desire them and to learn and practise. The example of parents is most powerful with children, both for good and evil. If they see you live in the fear of God, it will do much to persuade them, that it is the most necessary and excellent course of life, and that they must do so too; and if they see you live a carnal, voluptuous, and ungodly life, and hear you curse or swear, or talk filthily or railingly, it will greatly imbolden them to imitate you. If you speak never so well to them, they will sooner believe your bad lives, than your good words.”

Richard Baxter, “The Duties Of Parents Toward Their Children,” A Christian Directory

“If your children are kept from wrong-doing only by the fear of you,—if they only do that which they are bidden to do because they are afraid to do otherwise,—you will have a very poor form of obedience; and you will have, at the same time, an abundant crop of deceit springing up; for, when your child has done wrong, his fear of punishment will drive him to a falsehood, and perhaps lead him from one falsehood to another, and falsehoods may become so common with him that, at last, it shall be as natural to him to tell a lie as to speak the truth; and I think every parent must know that all the faults a child can commit, if put into the scale together, are not equal in criminality and in injury to his spiritual constitution to a lie. The power to tell a lie is one of the most hideous powers to which a man can attain, and some children are kept in such a state of terror that they naturally learn to do it.”

C.H. Spurgeon, “Two Ancient Proverbs”