A Body of Practical Divinity

2. If you would have your Children honour you, keep up your Parental Authority over your Children; be kind, but do not cocker them: If you let them get too much Head, they will Contemn you instead of Honouring you. The Rod of Discipline must not be with-held. Prov. 23.14. Thou shalt beat him with the Rod, and deliver his Soul from Hell. A Child indulged and humoured in Wickedness, will be a Thorn in the Parents Eye. David cockered Adonijah, 1 Kings 1.6. His Father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so? And he afterward was a Grief of Heart to his Father, and was false to the Crown, ver. 7▪ 9. Keep up your Authority, and you keep up your Honour.

2. If you would have your Children honour you, keep up your Parental Authority over your Children; be kind, but do not cocker them: If you let them get too much Head, they will Contemn you instead of Honouring you. The Rod of Discipline must not be with-held. Prov. 23.14. Thou shalt beat him with the Rod, and deliver his Soul from Hell. A Child indulg'd and humour'd in Wickedness, will be a Thorn in the Parents Eye. David cockered Adonijah, 1 Kings 1.6. His Father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so? And he afterward was a Grief of Heart to his Father, and was false to the Crown, ver. 7▪ 9. Keep up your Authority, and you keep up your Honour.

3. Provide for your Children what is fitting both in their Minority, and when they come to Maturity. 2 Cor. 12.14. The Children ought not to lay up for the Parents, but the Parents for the Children. They are your own Flesh; and as the Apostle saith, No Man yet ever hated his own Flesh,