Mothers as of Fathers and all Duty towards them You must Love your Parents constantly sincerely and eminently Your Father must not be despised when poor nor your Mother when she is old Prov. 23.22 Nor either of them when they rebuke you for sin Pro. 29. Your Love must be pure and not mercenary for gain from them As Absolom's was for all his Flattery 2 Sam. 14. And it must be eminent 'T is unnatural to Love a Father or Mother no more than we Love the most beneficial of our Friends in the World Nature and Justice give Parents the Preheminence 2. Honour your Parents most highly Next unto God most highly In your Thoughts Words and Behaviours Honour them Fear to think an ill thought of them Their faults forget and cover this is praiseworthy Shem and Japheth are Blessed and Cain's posterity Cursed Gen. 9.22 to 28. Let every Speech unto your Parents be expresly Reverent Rachel's to Laban was so Let not my Lord be displeased Gen 31.35 'T is unnatural when it is not so Mal. 1.6 A Son honoureth his Father that is naturally Sons do Break a bone as soon as omit to bow it to your Parents Irreverent gestures of body are wicked most scandalously Solomon bowed to his Mother 1 Kings 2.19 Joseph bowed himself with his Face to the Earth unto his Father Gen. 41.12 Where I see not this threefold Reverence in you to your Parents I cannot think you other than ignorant despisers of God and your Parents 3. Obey your Parents most absolutely I mean in the Lord as the Scripture speaks Where God forbids not do what they bid you and because they bid you though it be against your own minds and wills For this is God's most Wise and Holy Will Col. 3.10 Children obey your Parents in all things for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Where is the honour required in the Fifth Commandment without this Read Prov. 13.1 Prov. 1.8 9. Prov. 30.17 Children Rebecca and Rachel kept Sheep at their Parents command Gen. 24. Gen. 29. Jesus Christ himself was subject to Joseph and Mary in their mean employment Luke 2.57 Matt. 13.15 How wonderoufly yielded Isaac to Abraham see Gen. 22.9.10 And the Rechabites to their Father Jer. 35.5 6 7 to v. 11. He that says I will not do what my Parents would have me he therein saith also I will not do what God would have me Unless he can say therefore do I disobey my Parents because I should otherwise sin against God A good Childs heart speaks thus Whatever I can do without sin let my Parents command and spare not 4. Requite your Parents most Zealously 1. Tim. 5.4 Let them learn with Piety at home to requite their Parents for that is good and acceptable toward God The Honour in the Fifth Commandment includes Recompence which is called Honour Numb 22.37 1 Tim. 5.17 Children had you Kingdoms to give your Parents they would not pay your Debt unto them You must all your lives long be paying of it you will never have paid the sum total Never come out of your Parents debt Therefore always according to their needs and your abilities you must be paying your Thank-Offerings A Child is a servant Mal. 3.17 As thee his son that serveth him Phil. 2.22 As a son with the Father hath he served with me You must ever promptly serve them to your power in every innocent matter And if they fall into want you must supply them readily as ever they supplied you and as liberally and more richly too if you are able You must in many cases spare from your selves to give them Yea you must lay out the less upon the Worship of God too to bestow on them To withdraw from Parents even for God's Worship was an abominable fault of the Pharisees condemned by our Saviour Mark 7.9 10 11 12 13. In a word 't is not enough if you do nothing to grieve your Parents You sin if you omit any thing in the power of your hands to comfort them and to make their Loyns bless you Blessed are the Josephs that nourish their Parents and Brethren Gen. 47.12 5. Behave your selves so that you may be high Honours unto your Parents I mean so Holily toward God so Righteously toward Men so Temperately toward your selves So as may make for the Honour of your Parents The Honour of their granted prayers and their blessed pains took for you So as may make both Town and Countrey have your Parents in more Notice and Reputation for you This Counsel comprehends all O what a World should we have if it were followed Children come on and begin and set to mend this World You cannot doubt but this my Counsel is certainly commanded in the Fifth Commandment You must needs know he cannot Honour his Father and Mother that is a reproach and shame to them Whose whole life casts disgrace on their Persons Families and Names Yet so do theirs do that observe not this Counsel See Prov. 17.25 A Foolish son is a grief to his Father and bitterness to her that bare him Come unless you will say plainly ye will be Atheists that your Conversion shall never make joy in Heaven take this day my advice Say just now If prayers and pains will prevail I will make glad my Father and Mother that ever they had me given unto them I will learn diligently every Truth they teach me I will pray hard for every Grace they commend I will perform seriously every Duty they set me I will resist every Lust and Temptation they warn me of I will imitate all the good I see in them God I will know His Gospel-Covenant I will enter and live by My Holy Baptism I will know and keep The Lords Table I will prepare for and hasten to Holiness I will industriously perfect in the fear of God No Man living shall say henceforth that I wrong him wilfully or do him right unwillingly And neither of my Parents shall be able with truth to say that I do so much as seem to forget my debt to them and its depth When this is truly said and with full purpose of heart you then first begin to be good Children and dutiful Then you may be called the Crown and Honour of your Fathers as Prov. 17.6 and their very Glory as it is Hos 9.11 Such as make them not ashamed but honoured in the Gate or in all company as Psal 127.4 5. And until you thus resolve and declare you are the clean contrary For you are Fools And he that begeteth a Fool doth it to his sorrow the Father of a Fool hath no joy 'T is no joy save to a Fool to beget and breed up Slaves for the Devil and Fuel for Hell And this Holy Parents do know if you not sc That A wicked Child of Godly Parents is one of Earths uglyest burthens and without wonderful Grace intervening one of Hells certainest Fire-brands More particularly I now Exhort You. 1. Be it for Conscience
sake still that you Honour your Parents Be sure it be your desire to please and your fear to offend God that makes you fear to offend and desire to please your Parents Read heedfully Lev. 19.3 Ye shall fear every Man his Mother and his Father and keep my Sabbaths There 's the Precept I am the Lord your God that is you else offend me who am God and your Covenant God There is the Motive Charge your Consciences to be your daily Remembrancers of this that the true Honouring of Parents is a Fruit whose Root is the true Honour of God 2. Be it as you would receive and lay up Gold that you receive and lay up the Advice your Parents give you Have and shew that you have as true a pleasure in taking the one as the other from them Convince their hearts that they do delight you when they do instruct you That would be an advantage to them and you too beyond the expression Make them to see that what is imparted unto you is not lost And that you treasure up their sayings as the Sons of Cassius did his Books When it was threatned their Fathers Books should be burnt they answered Then must you burn us too for we have his Books in our hearts Prov. 6.20 21. My Son keep thy Fathers Commandment and forsake not the Law of thy Mother Bind them continually upon thy heart and tye them about thy neck 3. Convince your Parents that you much delight in their presence That you love to be near them to hear their Wisdom Even little Children are tainted when they like better to be in the Kitchen with the servants than in the Parlor with their Parents More grown ones be poysoned when they think themselves then best when farthest from holy Parents Observation and Counsel Neither do love their persons or their piety if they love not their company The Prodigal when he had wandred from his Fathers House is said to have been dead and lost Luke 15. Holy Joseph bid his Brethren tell Jacob Thus saith thy Son Joseph come down unto me tarry not Thou shalt be near unto me thou and thy Children and thy Childrens Children Gen. 45.9 10. And Ruth who lost nothing by it said to her very Mother in Law Intreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee for whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge where thou diest will I die Ruth 1.16 17. God ordered that the advanced Captive should for a months time bewail the loss of her Father and Mothers converse Deut. 21.13 But 4. Let all the house see that your Parents Friends be yours and your choicest ones That your affection is swayed by theirs and you cannot but love such as they love Prov. 27.10 Thy Fathers Friends forsake not In loving my Parents God and Men do shew me love and my Parents love of both directs and excites me to the love of both I am a Child unnatural If I love not both the better for their loving and being beloved of my Parents Hear Moses Exod. 15.2 The Lord is my strength he is my God my own I will therefore prepare him an habitation my Fathers God and therefore I will exalt him Remember this Children and observe ye well 't is made an extreme aggravation of your sin that it is sinned against the God of your Fathers That is against the God that was very kind to them and was by them Honoured and Worshipped Judg. 2.12 They forsook the Lord God of their Fathers and the anger of the Lord was hot against them So Deut. 32.17 't is a dreadful charge They Sacrificed unto Devils to new Gods that came newly up whom their Fathers feared not 5. Joy your Parents joys and grieve their griefs Let Sympathy shew your Unity Let one joy of theirs make you forget six troubles and seven of your own And one sorrow of theirs unsweeten as many comforts of your own Jacob's Sons and Daughters all rose up to comfort him 37.35 And Judah professed he was not able to see his Father in superadded trouble How shall I go up to my Father and the Lad be not with me lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my Father Gen. 44.34 q. d. Rather had I be thrown in Irons my self and live and die in Slavery than add to the sorrows of my Fathers gray hairs So Reuben before when Joseph was lost in the dread of his Father's sore aking heart bittterly cries out The Child is not and I whither shall I go Gen. 37.30 Hark also how Saul speaks 1 Sam. 9.5 Come let us return lest my Father take thought for us 6. Sleep not under your Parents displeasure If you any way raise it use presently all means to lay it Be it a just or unjust Flame shew you that 't is one you are grievously tormented in Eat not Drink not Buy and Sell not till it be quenched At least till you have humbly offered all possible means for quenching it I mean all that you can do without offending God for pacifying them Next to God's wrath I would deprecate my Parents And next unto his Blessing I would desire theirs Numb 12.14 If a Father spit in a Childs face should not the Child be ashamed seven days Very Esau himself finding his Father's Blessing gone from him could not bear it but cried with tears Bless me even me also O my Father Gen. 27.13 And as for Heavenly Joseph when he heard his Father was sick he makes his utmost speed to him with his Sons also carried that he might not miss of his Blessing Gen. 48. 7. Bear patiently and bless God heartily for your Parents rebukes and corrections Very often do the best Children need both And it is of pure and greatest kindness that good Parents do give both Following them with holy prayers for Divine Blessing Go you therefore as oft as you are chastised and say to this purpose O sin sin I hate thee Had I avoided thee I had escaped this correction My tender Parents punish themselves in punishing me Thou O my sin hast now troubled them and me Much rather had they have seen my Duties than heard my Out-cries God bids them strike and not spare for my crying Yea and tells them they hate me if they scourge me not Prov. 19.18 Prov. 13.24 Children of all Creatures they are most miserable that are incorrigible and most incorrigible that are impatient of reproof and most impatient of reproof that cannot bear it from Parents See Heb. 12.9 8. Make your Parents in all things your Privy-counsellers Acquaint them with your Secrets which are of any weight Ask their advice in matters of any difficulty This will speak your esteem of their Wisdom Faithfulness and Affection And convert all of them unto your use and benefit O think of Sampson's words Judg. 14.16 I have not told my Father nor my Mother and should I tell it thee As if he had said
Of all Man-kind my Parents Breasts be the Treasuries of my thoughts What I do not communicate unto them I am not like to communicate to any Souls living Children take your Parents advice as to your Trades your Matches and all things of Moment And as far as their words do agree with God's word closely follow them If ever you repent it upon me be shame and your curse 9. Pray and beg others prayers for the conversion of your Parents if they be unregenerate Abraham did all he could to help his Father Terah out of his Idolatry Compare Acts 7.3 4. with Gen. 11. latter end and 12.1 and Josh 24.2 3. In this City I have the request of several pious Children to pray for their prophane Parents Conversion And to send Letters and Books to some of them 10. Praise and imitate all that is good in your living Parents and decently honour them at their death It is said of the Vertuous Woman Prov. 31 28. Her Children rise up and call her Blessed Every Godly Parent speaks to his Children in words much like the Apostles Phil. 4.9 The things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace shall be with you Happy the Children that obey that charge Abrahams Sons buried him honourably Gen. 25.9 So also did Isaacs Sons bury him Gen. 35.29 As for Jacob it is said that Joseph went up to bury his Father and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh the elders of his house and all the elders of the Land of Egypt And all the house of Joseph and his Brethren and his Fathers house There went up with him both Chariots and Horsemen and it was a very great company Gen. 50.7 8 9. Some observe that Isaac mourned the space of three years for his Mother Sarahs death He is then said to have been comforted against his trouble when he took Rebecca to Wife Gen. 24.67 And they make it three years after the death of his Mother that he Married In a word the Children that quickly forget Parents when they are Dead did never overload them with honour when they were Alive And 't is a wonder if they themselves do not both live undesired and dye unlamented Now the Lord make the following Considerations to be indeed Motives And of good significancy unto as many Children as shall read them C. 1. Parents do most of all represent God unto their Children Their Generation shadows forth his Creation Their Education his Propriety Government and Love To contemn Parents is to contemn God in his most lively Representatives unto Men. C. 2. Parents are under God the greatest of Benefactors unto Children By them God conveighs his Spiritual and Temporal Blessings unto Children Rom. 11.28 The Children are beloved for the Fathers sakes Prov. 20.7 The just man walketh in his integrity his Children are blessed after him Undutifulness to Parents is the lowest pit of ungratitude toward Mortals C. 3. Parents are next unto God the principal Owners and Rulers of Children God the sole Proprietor hath made Children most eminently theirs He gives his Servants Children for Rewards Psal 127.3 God the supream and universal Rector hath made Parents his special Vicegerents To Teach Rule and Judge Children Whosoever therefore resisteth Parents resisteth the Ordinance of God and is most aggravatedly Felon and Traitor C. 4. Sins against Parents are most prolifical sins Such as do bear all sort of sins against God Men and our selves If a Child honour not his Father and Mother whom he hath seen how shall he honour God whom he hath not seen If he Curse his Father and do not Bless his Mother that gave him his being how shall he as to others Bless and Curse not Ezek. 22.7 In thee Jerusalem have they set light by Father and Mother The Hebrew word is directly opposite to that used in the fifth Commandment The word there used for Honour signifies weightily and in extraordinary measure to honour Here in Ezekiel the word used signifies to lighten and to abate weight and measure The fifth Command would be read thus Load with Honour thy Father and Mother But it is said here that in Jerusalem Children had took off that load They had made great abatements of the due honour of Parents Well and what then Why then Hell broke loose then Bloodshed then Oppression then Profaneness then Sabbath-breaking then Adultery and Fornication and what not He that allows himself in sin against Parents must not pretend to disallow any sin Or if he does he must not be believed to be other then an absurd Pretender C. 5. Sins against Parents are threatened with the most and worst of Judgments Disobedient Children are branded for Fools Prov. 15.5 A Fool despiseth his Fathers instruction but he that regardeth reproof is prudent And for Bruits Prov. 12.1 Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge but he that hateth reproof is brutish They are told they shall come to a shameful end Prov. 20.20 Whoso curseth his Father or his Mother his Lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness To an infamous death and terrible Prov. 30.17 The Eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother the Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out and the young Eagles shall eat it Of old God commanded the Civil Magistrate to put them to death Exod. 21.17 And he that curseth his Father or his Mother shall surely be put to death Lev. 20.9 For every one that curseth his Father or his Mother shall be surely put to death He hath cursed his Father or his Mother his blood shall be upon him 'T is certain therefore if ye Honour not your Parents you Fear not him that is able to destroy both Soul and Body C. 6. Sins against Parents very long persisted in are a token of utter Desertion by God 'T is seldom they return that long walk in disobedience to Parents O what words do I read 1 Sam. 2.25 They hearkened not unto the voice of their Father because the Lord would slay them Child Child stay and read over this ten times together If God give thee not Grace to hearken obediently unto thy Father thou must look for nothing from his hands less then slaughter C. 7. Childrens sins are Parents sorrows and stains in the World Prov. 17.25 A foolish Son is bitterness to her that bare him Parents need no proofs of this Lev. 21.9 If the Daughter of any Priest profane her self she profaneth her Father she shall be burnt with fire She profanes her Father that is she exposes his Person Ministry and Religion unto contempt Hear me Children Under the Gospel true Christians are all and every one of them Priests And if you are profane you see what you do And you may see more Tit. 1.6 The scandal of riotous Children and unruly do make a Parent unqualified for the Ministry If you will be Impious your poor Parents must be Infamous in a measure with you The Father
World and make but a jeast of Religion And this before they know themselves who are the best and wisest and who the most miserable people and foolish Scarcely one of an hundred is ever reduced from the fatal errour so early swallowed and blindly 9 Make their Recreations to deserve their name I mean to be such only as do indeed Recreate and Whet and Sharpen Such as do make for Health of Body and for Chearfulness of Mind and leave them more fit and not less fit for Business then they found them One of our Holy Martyrs repented his having played at Chess Bishop Vsher betimes left the use of Cards as finding them an ensnaring Game All I say is this Games that do not exercise the Body and do much stretch the sinews of the Mind and do exhaust great summs of Time these do bear the Superscription of Satan For in them Play becomes a very work And the Gamester doth as a Mower who should spend all the day in whetting his Sithe 10. Observe carefully each Childs peculiar Temper The difference is very great And the need to know it is great For how shall you else suit your dealings unto it You must never expect to obtain your end by unsuited means If you are very rough with some Children you frighten them not unto their duties but out of their wits Others will scarcely learn any thing unless they be taught like the men of Succoth with briars and thorns And only a middle way with sweetness and severity immixed will reach others Besides as every Man so every Child has some one or other supream sin that supports all the rest and being deposed the rest would soon be mortified Now the Childs temper being found this King-sin of his would not be long to seek And this being well watched and resisted great would be the hopes of the Childs desired Salvation I conclude with a few Motives or moving Considerations Do but remember them and neglect what is foresaid if ye dare C. 1. Your Children are Gods Children by Creation and Redemption and committed to your Tuition O think what you would do for the Kings Child if you had one of his to educate C. 2. Your Children are your selves Very parts of your selves And is it no shame for you that are Men and Christians to neglect or but slightly care for your selves C. 3. You are Baptized and have had your Children Baptized and at their Baptism you engaged to do all this In your Baptism you were bound to do all I have named You saw your Children in their Baptism bound to obey the whole Gospel And you then Promised to do all you could to help them to do it Is all this very nothing C. 4. You have more Advantages to do all then all the World beside hath You best love and are best beloved by your Children You are nighest to them You have greatest power over them C. 5. Your Honour Pleasure and Profit is most concerned in your Childrens good More then other Mens is More than your own is in ought beside except your own Souls Salvation C. 6. You are they that have done your Children most hurt You propagated or derived Adams sin to them through you they received the Infection And by your own sins you make sad work for them too Who should help to save them if not you C. 7. You know too do you not that 't is by ill Education next to Original Corruption that the World is made such a Hell as ' t is And will you nevertheless give your Children no better Education Oh be not so unmerciful You begat them not Beasts oh do not breed them as such Mercy mercy have mercy on the Souls that must be Blessed or Miserable for ever And whose Life or Death seems next to Gods own hand in yours Help oh help poor Babes so weak And do not stay till your Help is nothing worth or much less then now To murder Souls and your own Childrens is fitter work for Divels then for you O lay not out Pounds for their Bodies for every Peny you lay out for their Souls O Pray O Labour O Wait till God say to each of you I will pour my Spirit upon thy Seed and my Blessing upon thy Off-spring They shall spring up as among the Grass as Willows by the water courses One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and sirname himself by the name of Israel Isa 44.3 4 5. Be it known to as many as will not thus do they are notorious enemies of God the Church and the World And of their rotting names their Children will be forced to speak Lies or Nothing or Evil things The Speeches Laws and Actions of many Heathens which I may not here repeat shall one day shame them But I conclude with Prayer O God turn the Hearts of English Fathers to the Children and do not come and smite us with thy Curse Children exhorted to their Duties unto their Parents General Duties and Particular Motives to both In Prisons and upon the Gallows poor Miscreants do often exclaim that their ruin began in disobedience unto Parents Nor can it be doubted but Hell rings with the same complaint Hear the words of your Life dear Children Read ye these Lines as though they had been written with the finger of God before your eyes And you were called to by name in every Paragraph As sure as they are any words they are Gods word And his word unto you to all and every one of you And his word designed and qualified to help you keep all his whole word The fifth Command is a directory for keeping all of both Tables 1. Love your Parents most dearly Honour imports Love When Husbands are bid to give Honour to Wives as weaker Vessels they are bid to be tenderly affectionate towards them All do so construe it 1 Pet. 3.7 And when you are bid to Honour your Parents you are bid to Love them And so Love them as those to whom you are most engaged next to God himself You must love God much more If they put you upon any thing displeasing to God you must then shew that in comparison of God you do hate them Luke 14.26 That for Gods sake you can forget your Fathers House leave it and be glad to be out of it Psal 45.10 That in God's Cause you have Levi's courage read it Deut. 33.9 You must equally Love your Mothers and Fathers Fathers are put first Exod. 19. Mothers are put first Lev. 19.2 Ye shall fear every Man his Mother and his Father Both must be Loved best The Mother is the Fathers Inferior some ways but she is his equal as to their Children She is a Parent as well as he and much more painfully so God commands that she should have the same Love as he And the self-same Reward is promised to the Love of