A Body of Practical Divinity

Use II. Exhort. First Branch. Doth God Command, Honour thy Father and thy Mother? Then let it exhort Children to put this great Duty in Practice, be living Commentaries upon this Commandment. Honour and Reverence your Parents; not only obey their Commands, but submit to their Rebukes. You cannot honour your Father in Heaven, unless you honour your Earthly Parents. To deny Obedience to Parents entails God's Judgments upon Children. 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 Eagle shall eat it. Eli's Two Disobedient Sons were slain, 1 Sam. 4.11. God made a Law that the Rebellious Son should be stoned; the same Death the Blasphemer had, Lev. 24.14. Deut. 21.18. If a Man have a stubborn and rebellious Son, which will not obey the voice of his Father or the voice of his Mother, then shall his Father and his Mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the Elders of the City, and all the Men of his City shall stone him with Stones that he die. A Father once complaining, Never had Father a worse Son than I have. Yes, saith the Son, my Grandfather had: A Prodigy of Impudence that can hardly be paralleled. Manlius, when he was grown old and poor, and had a Son very rich, the old Father desired some Food of him, but the Son denied him Relief; yea, disclaimed him from being his Father, and sent him away with reproachful Language. The poor old Father let Tears fall, (as Witnesses of his Grief.) But God to revenge this Disobedience, struck this unnatural Son with Madness, of which he could never be cured. Disobedient Children stand in the place where all God's Arrows fly.

Vse II. Exhort. First Branch. Doth God Command, Honour thy Father and thy Mother? Then let it exhort Children to put this great Duty in Practice, be living Commentaries upon this Commandment. Honour and Reverence your Parents; not only obey their Commands, but submit to their Rebukes. You cannot honour your Father in Heaven, unless you honour your Earthly Parents. To deny Obedience to Parents entails God's Judgments upon Children.