tions, follies, and miscarriages, they invite contempt: This is very bad management. And We fhew love to our parents, when we take such courses as will increase our mutual affection, and decline

Love.

all things that may leffen the fame; which love must be expreffed by our endeavours to do them all the good in our power, abhorring whatever may feem to grieve or in any wife trouble them, and praying for them. It is fo natural and reasonable to love our parents, that few will own the want of it, even when they know they do not love them. And this love and affection will appear to be founded on the principles of common gratitude, because the parental love is The reafons hourly exerting itself in all the beneficial acts it for this love. can invent; fupplies all the wants of helpless infancy; fecures from all the hazards of heedlefs childhood and unthinking youth; fhapes the body, preferves it straight and upright, and keeps the limbs in order, and fits them for their natural ufes; bears with many troubles and hardships and though these matters appear fo flight, and are feldom thought upon, yet the miferies that arife where this love is abated, are not inconfiderable; fome of them have an influence on us as long as we live. Befides, this affection informs the mind, and regulates the manners, trains up the reason, exercises the memory, inftructs them to argue and understand their little affairs; and educates and fits them for greater matters: this brings them first to God in baptifin, and keeps them after in the ways of religion, by inftilling into them virtuous principles; by remembering them of their several duties; by encouraging them in good, with favours and rewards and by reproving and correcting them, when evil, and deterring them from vice. These are the ways parents take to make their children happy; not to mention thofe endless and innumerable labours and troubles that confume their whole life, to make them happy with the good things of this world; fo that if benefits can be the foundation of love in children, they must love their parents, who bestow fo many upon them. But fuppofing the parents endeavours after happiness fhould not fucceed to their wishes, as very often they will not; yet if there is no want of love, e obligation is the fame on the child: how therefore can

we account for the wickedness of those children, who dare curse their parents either openly or in their heart? They, who curfe them to their face, fhould dread the sentence of the Lord, who fays, He that curfeth father or mother, let him die the death. And whoever wifheth the death of their parents, through impatience of their government, or covetous defires of their poffeffions, fhould dread to meet with an untimely death from an all-feeing God, as a punifhment of fo heinous a crime.

Obedience.

The next duty that children owe to their parents is obedience: Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right and well-pleafing unto the Lord. This is a certain principle; whilft children want understanding to direct their choice and will, they should have no will but that of their parents; and therefore should obey, till arrived at a more found judgment. Parents must be allowed to difcern what is most proper for their children; and tho' they be now and then mistaken, yet it is always fafeft to follow their commands and inftructions, whofe main end and purpose is to do them good. Nothing can be plainer, than that parents love their children dearly, and without defign, and are older, wifer, and more experienced; and therefore the fittest to command, and to be obeyed by their children: and for this reason God, to fhew us how fit it is to obey our parents, calls himself our Father, and from that relation calls for our obedience likewife. Let then ftubborn, headstrong children confider the ties they have to be obedient to their parents, and they will find both pleasure and fecurity in being fo: the approbation of all, and the bleffing of God goes along with it; whereas nothing but trouble of mind, forrow, fhame, infamy, and the difpleasure of Almighty God, attend disobedience to their good and wholesome commands. But, if the command of a parent is to do evil, or If the comrequires his child to lye, or fteal, or to do any o- mands be ther act, by which the laws of God are broken, reasonable. he muft prefer his duty to God: for we must obey God rather than man. The commands of parents must not cause them to do what God our heavenly Father forbids, or to neglect what he commands; because the authority of God is first and greatest: nothing is to ftand in competition with it. But O 2

even

And not

contrary to

even in this cafe the commands of God must be plain and evident; not a doubtful or difputed thing. In like manner, We are not to obey our parents, when they command things contrary to the laws of the land; the publick good being to be preferred to private inclinations. the laws of But then, even when we difobey, we must do it with great modesty and tenderness; not with upbraidings and reproaches, not with high and fcornful refufals, but by declining and avoiding fuch commands, with all the gentle arts and methods of fubmiffion poffible; for, even in a righteous caufe, the language of children must be humble to their parents.

God, &c.

And as our obedience to parents is to ceafe, where the authority of God, or the government has laid a prohibition; so it is fuppofed not to be required, where the thing under command carries an invincible antipathy to our inclinations.. The In cafe of common inftance of this kind is in the cafe of marmarriage. riage, which being a ftate and condition, upon which the happiness or mifery of life depends, cannot be enterprized with any hopes of felicity, without a real affection on the one fide, and a good affurance of it on the other. But now when a parent, overlooking all this, will injoin a child, upon mere motives of advantage, to marry, where there is no. foundation of love, nor profpect of content; it is hardly to be thought, that fuch inftances are to be complied with. Parents, indeed, are fuppofed to have a great hand in this affair: the examples in fcripture, as well as the laws of most nations, favour their direction in this cafe: and therefore they are to take all due care to fee their children well difpofed of, according to their age, quality, and tempers, and not let the profpect of fortune and eftate over-weigh all other confiderations of form and favour, birth and education, virtue and good qualities; and when they have done this, the children. are to obey as far as poffibly they can, and give up the little objections of fancy to the more mature deliberations of their parents. Under the law the maid that had made a vow was not fuffered to perform it without the confent of the parent.. And it is exprefsly faid, that they fhall honour and obey them; and to reconcile marrying against confent with honouring their parents, as marrying against command with obeying

them,

them, is vain, when there is a juft reafon for the parents refufal. But when, on the contrary, parents offer to their children what they cannot poffibly like, and what all wife and confiderate people cannot but difapprove, there is no doubt to be made, but that, in fuch a cafe, children may refuse; and if their refusal be made with decency and humility, that it will not fall under the head of finful difobedience. For, if the fon would marry against the confent of the parent, or the father obtrude a match on the fon, the plain refolution is in each case: the father and fon have feverally a negative; for, notwithstanding parents have a great authority, yet they may abuse it; they are not incapable of doing injury to their children, who are to be fubject to their parents, but not flaves to their paffions.

VI. He that suffers wrong may also be righted: the laws of God do not forbid this; and the laws of the May go to land are free and impartial: they make no differ- law. ence of perfons, know no relation; juftice is, in this refpect, to be blind: and a fon or a daughter may, without offence of God's laws, appeal to the laws of the land against their parents in fome cafes; as for matters of contract, eftate, inheritance, or money, when the child cannot live without it; but for a light injury, or a thing eafy to be borne, a child fhould not implead his parent: the hardship must be near intolerable, the injuftice great and preffing, when a man's confcience can permit him to go to law with his parent: it should therefore be plain that the parent is much in the wrong, violating the laws of nature, and putting off the parental love and tenderness, before a child fhould feek for justice. Nevertheless, this duty is fomewhat altered in the case of mothers, when they haften to second marriages prejudicial to the children of the former husband. The reafon of going to law with them will appear more urgent than with fathers, or with mothers continuing in the state of widowhood; because they have tranflated their affection and intereft to another family; and most of the comforts, arifing from such contested money, go to ftrangers, to whom the children have no obligation of parental duty. For, when a new affection intervenes, then the profpect is disturbed, and the new wife

manner.

is fuppofed to make herself acceptable to her new choice, by carrying with her all the advantages of fortune the can get, In 'at and in fuch cases often forgets her children and former love in this cafe, when the reason is manifeft, and the occafion juft, the suit may be commenced, but must be managed with all imaginable care and tenderness. Another instance of duty, which children owe their paMuft help rents, is to minifter to all their wants under the them infirmities of body, the decay of understanding, and the poverty of their condition. Supporting is a fcripture notion of honouring: as St. Paul diftinguishes this duty of fuccouring parents under their neceffities by the name of piety. Let children or nephews firft learn to thew piety at home, and to requite their parents; and the refufal to provide for thofe of his own houfe is loaded with heavy guilt. He hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. The wicked Jews indeed made the word of God of none effect by their vows and traditions, and cancelling this duty: but on the contrary, God will cause dutiful behaviour to parents to recommend us to the good opinion of others: there being nothing makes men more acceptable to others, than fuch obedient behaviour: it is an ornament of a rich and noble child, and the best recommendation of the poor to favour, pity, and relief, to be known that they are helpful to their diftreffed parents. The author of Ecclefiafticus, exhorting to be helpful to parents, tells the children they fhall find their account in fo doing: My fon, (fays he) help thy father in his age, and grieve him not as long as he liveth; and if his understanding fail, have patience with him, and defpife him not, when thou art in thy full ftrength: for the relieving of thy father fhall not be forgotten, and instead of fins, it fhall be added to build thee up; in the day of affliction it shall be remembered: which ought to be a daily remembrance to thofe children, who deny relief to their diftreffed parents, and will not part with their own exceffes and fuperfluitics, which are indeed their fins, to relieve the neceflities of thofe to whom they owe their very being; or, which is worse, in the midft of their pride, fcorn to own their parents in their poverty: This is fuch pride and unnaturalness as God will never let go un

punished;