stances, and with a peremptory command, Honour thy father and mother. Behold, I charge thee so to do. I suppose there is much failure throughout the world with regard to this godly reverence; else we should not find so little an account made of parents, when they are no longer needed, and are grown old enough to be inconvenient or troublesome, or expensive; else children would not be answering so pertly, and disputing so saucily, and in all things behaving so stubbornly and frowardly as many do, filling their parents' houses with noise and clamour.

From this reverence will spring out many other dispositions, which are the duties of children toward their parents. For it is manifest, if God has put authority into the parent's hand for his glory in the religious education of children, that then it must be the duty of children humbly to acknowledge that authority, in every case to which it reaches. And so children must reverence their parents in all their instructions, discipline, corrections, disposals, and directions; in all which they must behave with an humble and cheerful compliance, not expecting to have their own will, but studying to please and obey their parents in all.

The second duty therefore of children is cheerfully and humbly to attend unto their parents' instructions. When parents are teaching their children the ways of God, examining into their conduct, showing them the sinfulness of their nature, and the danger of such and such wrong courses taken up by them; when they are warning them of the evil of certain sins they are most liable to, as stubbornness, self-will, idleness, pride, company-keeping, or love of pleasure, vanity in dress, or any thing else; when they are giving their children directions on these heads, and requiring their careful observance of them, they are acting in the character of parents; and it is the duty of children humbly to hearken, and carefully to observe such instructions. The word of God is express on this head,My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother." Nor do I understand that, in any advanced age of children, either they or the parents are discharged from this reciprocal duty as need requires. We find old

* Prov. i. 8.

Jacob sharply reproving the conduct of his two sons in the matter of the Shechemites;* and old Eli condemned for not restraining the impiety of Hophni and Phinehas,† when they were not only grown to be men, but were in the administration of the priesthood. The question therefore is, have children meekly heard and carefully observed the instructions of their parents, relating to religious conduct? Look back and see. Were not such lessons grievous and intolerable to you? When you were warned against certain companions or practices, were you never impatient? When you were reproved for your faults, were you never resentful, and even ready to fling away in a rage? your grown years, have you not thought, what have my parents to do with me? And when an affectionate mother may have offered you some serious counsel, have you not thought yourselves particularly entitled to laugh at it, and disregard it? perhaps behaved so irreverently to your parents, that they have been afraid to speak freely to you; and have incurred Eli's sin, through fear of displeasing you?

In

The third duty of children is cheerfully to submit to the parents' discipline. By this I mean the religious discipline or government of the family. When Joshua said, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,' he spake like one who had a proper sense of the authority God had put into his hands. He was resolved God should be served in his house, and it was the duty of his children duly to conform to the order and regulations he made therein. While the pious parent in the fear of God will allow no bad orders within his walls, expects all his dependents to attend the family-worship, and forbids all idle wanderings abroad on the Lord's day, the children must dutifully comply with the whole and every particular; and that however they may be advanced to riper years. Thankfully and cheerfully, in all such orders, they must submit to the parents' pleasure; and it will be a peculiar sin against their authority to slight or show any dislike of such religious regulations. Yet how often do children think this grievous! Have you not thought it a burden to be thus confined to religious exercises? a hardship, that your parents would not allow you such pleasures, as, you are ready to say, they themselves took when Joshua xxiv. 15.

Gen. xxxiv. 30. † 1 Sam. iii. 13.

they were young? Have you not thought it a hard thing they would not permit you to wander about and take your pleasure on Sundays? And have you not often undutifully deceived them by feigned pretences in one and another of these particulars ?

Fourthly. It is the duty of children cheerfully to submit to the corrections of their parents, and humbly to profit by them. By correction I mean any method the parent uses for restraining the vices of his children. And under correction it is

the child's duty,

I. To be humbled for his fault.

II. To be grieved for having incurred his parents' displeasure.

III. To submit to the reproof. And,

IV. To endeavour without delay to recover God's favour and his parents' also. And let me add, it is the duty of children thus to behave under the corrections of their parents, whether they be more or less severe, whether of the rod or the tongue, whether of father or mother.

First. They must be humbled for their fault, whatever it be, whether lying, or swearing, or idleness, or company-keeping, or whatever else. They must not deny they have done amiss, and set about to excuse themselves; as if they could escape their parents' displeasure all were well enough.

Secondly. They must be grieved for having incurred their parents' displeasure. For that they must principally be grieved, and not for the correction they have brought on themselves.

Thirdly. They must submit to the chastisement; not be angry with their parents for doing their duty to them; but own their fault, and confess they deserve and need the correction. A hard lesson for a proud heart.

Fourthly. They must seek God's forgiveness and their parents'. Alas! how little is the former of these thought of by stubborn children! and how loth are they to conform to the latter! Instead of asking the parents' forgiveness, and taking every measure to express a hearty sorrow for being deservedly under the parents' displeasure, they grow sullen, appear dissatisfied, meditate revenge on those who may have given as they suppose information, and study rather how to bring their parents to

compliance than to make any themselves. Sometimes this grows up to an intolerable insolence; they will stay no longer in the house, not they; what care they for their parents? with a deal of such threatening wilful language behind their parents' back, if not to their faces; which shows a desperate pitch of wickedness, and a total loss of all reverence towards parents, or duty toward God. Of such it is said in Deuteronomy, 'If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother; and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city; and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.*'

Fifthly. - Have you cheerfully submitted to the disposals of your parents? This is another duty of children, to leave the management of themselves in the manner of their education to their parents' will. Children of the one sex must not affect any other schools or callings than their parents provide for them; nor those of the other such dress or pleasure as their parents do not see fit for them. And in these things they must study not only to submit to, but to please, their parents, showing all cheerfulness in doing as they are bid. There is no true reverence of parents if children want to have their own will in such matters; and though they submit, yet do it unthankfully, as we say. Jesus, you know, went down readily with his parents to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. It is really a graceless saying from a child to a parent, however innocently it may seem to be spoken, "I will not be of that trade or profession;" or "Why should not I do as this and that young person does ?" Dutiful children dispute nothing, but cheerfully submit to what their parents order; and that without making any questionings upon the matter. But I suppose this is not the common case of children. Too often young persons will be for taking the management of themselves out of their parents' hands as soon as possible, and when indeed they are utterly unfit to judge of what is proper for them; they will show themselves displeased with the dispositions their parents are making for them, and will try all the arts of stubbornness and fondness to bring their

* Deut. xxi. 18, 19, 20, 21.

parents to compliance. You may hear them talking already of what they will do when they are men and their own masters, and impatiently longing for that season. Meantime, as that advances, you may see disregard to parental authority advancing with it, and new liberties daily taken in self-government. And now the young head is wise enough to set up for itself, regards parents no further than according to the worldly expectations had from them, manages all things at its own discretion, and adventures into the most important passages of life without any respect to the authority or judgment of parents. What I chiefly hint at in these last words is the point of marriage; concerning which I would wish all young persons to be sensible, that to engage their affections so far as to put it out of their parents' power with any prudence to withhold their consent, and then to ask their approbation, is indeed at the most but to pay them a compliment, and that a coarse one too; and which they do not pay from any reverence, but through a sort of slavish fear, and because they cannot marry without their parents' assistance. To say the truth, as many parents regard their children as their property, considering them only as those with whom they may do what they will, so many children in their turn seem to have no other notion of their parents; they look on what their parents have as theirs, and that is all they mind; they take advantage of their parents' circumstances to dispose of themselves, and will think themselves hardly dealt with if their parents do not come into their measures: so indeed, as I have said, using their parents no otherwise than as their property.

Sixthly. It is the duty of children to submit reverently to the directions of their parents in all lawful things. I add this in the place of many other particulars that might be mentioned, and in order to make you sensible that the commandment is so large, as to require a reverent obedience to parents in every lawful

case.

There can be but this one exception, if the parents' directions should be contrary to conscience towards God: in all other cases the rule holds, Children, obey your parents in all things." See how large the rule is, in all things, great as well as little, and little as well as great. In things of greater importance the matter is clear, to disobey is to dishonour. But is it not so