This expresses that very emphatically which many wise and good men feel
very sensibly, what a grievous vexatious thing it is to have a foolish
wicked child. See here, 1. How uncertain all our creature-comforts are,
so that we are often not only disappointed in them, but that proves the
greatest cross in which we promised ourselves most satisfaction. There
was joy when a man-child was born into the world, and yet, if he prove
vicious, his own father will wish he had never been born. The name of
Absalom signifies his father's peace, but he was his greatest trouble.
It should moderate the desire of having children, and the delights of
their parents in them, that they may prove a grief to them; yet it
should silence the murmurings of the afflicted father in that case that
if his son be a fool he is a fool of his own begetting, and therefore
he must make the best of him, and take it up as his cross, the rather
because Adam begets a son in his own likeness. 2. How unwise we are in
suffering one affliction (and that of an untoward child as likely as
any other) to drown the sense of a thousand mercies: The father of a
fool lays that so much to heart that he has no joy of any thing else.
For this he may thank himself; there are joys sufficient to
counterbalance even that sorrow.