piety, have acknowledged this great benefit with their latest breath, thanking God that they were not left to the folly and madness of treating parental counsel and authority with contempt!—It is your Interest then, children, to obey your parents. Your reputation, your health, your worldly prosperity, your comfort, your happiness-your happiness in this world and in that to come, all, under God, depend upon it.-From the law of Nature we proceed now, II. To urge upon you the express command of God. Honour thy father and thy mother, was one of those commands pronounced by the blessed God himself on Mount Sinai, amidst the solemnities of thunder, lightening, fire, and smoke a. It is the next in order to those which respect our duty to God, and takes the precedence of all the other duties required of us towards our neighbour. It is put in immediate connection with divine worship: Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, and keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God b. And indeed it is not imaginable, that such children as are not disposed to honour their parents, can be in a disposition to worship God c. The most tremendous judgments are denounced on those who violate this law. Under the Jewish economy, he that cursed his father or his mother, was to be put to death d. And the stubborn, disobedient, and rebellious son, having been convicted of these offences before the elders of his city, was to be stoned with stones that he die e. Among the curses to be pronounced on Mount Gerizzim this was one, Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother and all the people shall say, amen f. Solomon in the book of Proverbs holds the same language, Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness g. Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, it is no transgression; the same is the companion of a destroyer h. And again, The eye that a Exod. xx. 12. b Lev. xix. 3. c The whole body of the Athenian laws, in the early state of that people, was comprised in one line, "Honour your parents; Worship the gods; Hurt not animals.” And Plutarch says, Ουδ' αν παλιν μείζων επιδειξις αυτ8 γέγονε της περι γονεις ολιγωρίας και πλημμελειας. There is not a greater evidence of an atheist than in a man's despising and injuring his parents. d Exod. xxi. 17.-Lev. xx. 9. g Prov. xx. 20. e Deut. xxi. 18-21. h Prov. xxviii. 24. f Deut. xxvii. 16. 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 a. The prophet Ezekiel exhibits this, among many other heavy charges, against the Jews, that they set light by father and mother; and threatens them with very sore calamities on account of it b. And with these remarkable words the canon of the Old Testament scriptures is closed, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse c.' 6 What the moral law, by the lips of Moses and the prophets, thus enjoins, the New Testament confirms. Our Lord recognizes the duties of filial obedience, in his discourse with the Scribes and Pharisees, whom he severely reprehends for having mutilated the commandment of God respecting this matter, and made it of none effect by their tradition. 'God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and he that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition d.' And as he thus establishes the authority of the divine command, so he makes that affection which nature hath implanted in the breasts of children to their parents, and on which the duties of filial obedience are grounded, a measure by which every disciple of his is to estimate the genuineness and transcendency of his love to him: 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me e.' The apostles, too, particularly enjoin this precept on children. 'Obey your parents,' say they, in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord f.' If any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God g.' And among the many striking characters by which the degeneracy of the last times is strongly a Prov. xxx. 17. d Matt. xv. 4-6. g 1 Tim. v. 4. b Ezek. xxii. 7. c Mal. iv. 5, 6. f Col. iii. 20. marked, those of disobedience to parents,' and 'the want of natural affection,' are not the least a. But without citing any further authorities from Scripture, we shall content ourselves with recalling your attention to the words of the text. 'Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother, (which is the first commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.' The law of nature is the law of God. Whatever is fit and right, that God requires: obedience to parents is fit and right: that therefore God requires. This, you see, is expressly declared in the text. But more than this, the apostle refers us back to the decalogue, telling us that that is binding on Gentiles as well as Jews, upon us under the Christian as well as those under the Mosaic dispensation. It is God's command now as much as when he spoke those words himself on Mount Sinai, Honour thy father and mother.' Wilfully, therefore, to violate this law, is to offend against the express authority of God: and cursed is he who thus dares to affront his Creator. What then are they doing who trifle with the obligations they owe their parents? To all such impenitent sinners, the Jew first and the Gentile also, he will render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. But, in order yet further to enforce obedience to this command, the apostle holds up to our view the promise originally annexed to it. It is, he reminds us, the first commandment with promise—distinguished by a particular mark of the divine regard, and designed to be considered by us as the ground of all the other duties we owe to society. He that wilfully violates this precept, is in the direct road to the open violation of all the precepts that follow. And indeed it were easy to shew, both from the reason and nature of the thing, and from the history of mankind, that all those tremendous evils which shake the foundations of civil society, such as theft, murder, adultery, perjury, and the like, originate from the want of natural affection, and a failure in filial obedience. And on the contrary, it were as easy to shew, that all the social virtues comprehended in the general idea of love to our neighbour, naturally flow from this first and most important of them, dutifulness to parents. a 2 Tim. iii. 2, 3. There scarce ever was an affectionate obedient child who did not make a useful member of society. And how much it is the will of God that a universal attention should be paid to this precept, may be further argued from the promise itself of temporal blessings annexed to it. Honour thy father and mother, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. I mean not here to shew how filial obedience tends to promote worldly prosperity; that has been done already: but to consider worldly prosperity as actually promised to filial obedience. That the promise was so to be understood in reference to the Jews, none I suppose doubt. It was by temporal rewards and punishments chiefly that they were governed. And he who carefully examines their history, will find not a few instances of the fulfilment of this promise to persons eminent for filial piety. Some of them we shall have occasion to mention under the next head of discourse. But the promise, as appears by the use the apostle here makes of it, extends further than to the Jews. And if we will understand the phrases of its being well with us, and our living long on the earth, in a qualified sense, (as we certainly should, the state of Christians in civil society being different from that of the Jews) it will not be difficult to prove, that God is mindful of his promise now as well as formerly. There are few ages, and few countries, which do not furnish some remarkable instances directly in point to the matter before us. We ourselves have known persons, whose tender regards to their parents have been tried by very peculiar circumstances, and who have acquitted themselves in a manner as extraordinary: these persons, I say, we have seen emerge from low and obscure stations in life to situations of affluence and eminence, in which they have flourished to a good old age. So that it might be said of them in the strictest sense of the expression, that it hath been well with them, and that they have lived long on the earth. But admitting, with respect to many dutiful children, that an abundance of wealth, honour, and years does not fall to their share; yet if so much of this world's good is allotted them as it is for their real advantage to have, and if, having been useful and happy in life, they die in honour and peace, the words of our text may be said, in the general and substantial import of them, to be made good to them. And that this is a fact in regard of those who obey their parents in the Lord, that is, obey them from a sense of duty to God, is capable of clear proof. Such persons may be styled pious or godly, and we are assured that godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come a. It is the will of God then, children, that you obey your parents. Be persuaded, therefore, to your duty. You believe that there is a God, that he governs the world, that prosperity and adversity are at his disposal, that you must die, and that your happiness in a future state depends upon his favour. Will you then, dare you, be wilfully disobedient to so great a Being, who can make you miserable in this world, and who can destroy both soul and body in hell? But rather let me entreat you, by the mercies of God, to render a cheerful obedience to his will -by the mercies of a God, who, in the character of a tender and indulgent Father, deigns to pardon the numerous offences of us his undutiful but penitent children, for the sake of the obedience and death of Christ his only-begotten and well-beloved Son. And now, to all the arguments we have drawn from the law of nature, and the express command of God, I have only to add those which result, III. From Example. Here to illustrate is to persuade: to hold up to your view in stances of filial piety, is at once to instruct you in your duty, and to allure you to it. And, thanks be to God! degenerate as the world is, history, both profane b and sacred, furnishes a 1 Tim. iv. 8. b The character of Pius Æneas, which Virgil so repeatedly gives the hero of his poem, on account of his filial attention and duty to his father Anchises, cannot fail of giving pleasure to a reader of sensibility.-Epaminondas, the Thebean general, amidst the flattering applause he received on the victory he gained over the Spartans at Leuctra, said, "my joy chiefly consists in knowing, that my father and mother will hear of my victory."-By the tears of his mother Veturia, the brave Coriolanus was prevailed on to grant peace to Rome, though at the hazard of suffering the resentment of the Volsci, whose troops he commanded in the siege of that city. "Ah! my mother," said he, you dis arm me: Rome is saved, but your son is undone." Plut. in Coriol.-In the dreadful proscription that took place in Rome on the arrival of the Triumvirs, Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus, there was an Oppius who saved his old and infirm father, by carrying him on his shoulders to the sea-side, and escaping with him into Sicily: for which generous action he was afterwards raised to 66 |