Excerpt from The Works of the Right Reverend Joseph Hall, Vol. 2: New Edition, Revised Who would not but have looked that seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines should have furnished Solomon's palace with choice of heirs, and have peopled Israel with royal issue? And now behold Solomon hath by all these but one son, and him by an Ammonitess. Many a poor man hath an house full of chil dren by one wife, while this great king hath but one son by many housefuls of wives. Fertility is not from the means, but from the author. It was for Solomon that David sung of old Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward. How oft doth God deny this heritage of heirs where he gives the largest heritage of lands; and gives most of these living possessions where he gives least of the dead that his blessings may be acknowledged free unto both, entailed upon neither As the greatest persons cannot give themselves children, so the wisest cannot give their children wisdom. Was it not of Rehoboam that Solomon said, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool yet he shall rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and showed myself wise under the sun. All Israel found that Solomon's wit was not propagated. Many a fool hath had a wiser son than this wisest father. Amongst many sons, it is no news to find some one defective Solomon bath but one son. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.