An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eleventh, twelfth, & thirteenth chapters of…

And then lastly, Seeing the tender care of God, like a Parent or a Nurse towards the Child, is made an engagement to their duty, and an aggravation of their sin, because they were not what they ought to be. As if the Prophet should have said, Oh! therefore you should have served and loved the Lord that was so gracious to you as to teach you, but you have not done so, and therefore your sin is greater. From whence the Note is,

That the love and tender care of Parents and Nurses in bringing ¹up children, and enduring much trouble with them, is a great judgment to children when they grow up to requite with duty and due respect their Parents and Nurses; and if they do not it's a great aggravation of their evil. You that are grown up from children, remember the care, remember the sorrow, remember the trouble of your bringing up, and be ashamed of your undutifulness; How is it that ²you have all your limbs, but from the care of your Parents and Nurses? you are to bless God for your Parents care, and the care of those to whom you were committed when you were children, and know that you owe due respect unto them for it. He is an Apostate to the great Law of Nature who Violates Charities due unto Parents and Nurses. I remember I have read of the Pisidians, a certain Heathen people, that when they were a Feasting at any time, the first fruit of all their Feast they ³would offer to their Parents, as thinking it unseemly for them to rejoice in the use of the Creature without showing due honour to their Parents from whom they had ⟨p. 37⟩their being and education; Heathens have ever condemned undutifulness in children to be unnatural and liable to punishment, and they have punished undutifulness; and the Law of God (we know) doth punish a stubborn child with death. But they knew not that I healed them.