implicit obedience. The fifth commandment, however, concerns onr duty to our fellow-creatures. First in order and in impor tance is the duty of children to their parents, hence the general duty is embodied in the specific command, " Honour thy father and thy mother."
The Filial Relation.
When a child is born into the world it is entirely helpless and dependent. As it derives its existence from its parents, so it would immediately perish without their assiduous and constant care. The parents are not only its superiors in knowledge, in power, and in every other attribute of humanity ; but they are also the proximate source of all good to the child. They protect, cherish, feed, clothe, educate, and endow it. All the good be- stowed, is bestowed disinterestedly. Self is constantly sacrificed. The love of parents to their children is mysterious and immutable, as well as self-sacrificing. It is a form of love which none but a parent can know. A mother's love is a mystery and a wonder. It is the most perfect analogue of the love of God.
As the relation in which parents stand to their children has this close analogy to the relation in which God stands to his rational creatures, and especially to his own people, so the duties resulting from that relation are analogous. They are expressed by the same word. Filial piety is as correct an expression as it is common. Parents stand to their dependent children, so to speak, in the place of God. They are the natural objects of the child's love, reverence, gratitude, confidence, and devotion. These are the sentiments which naturally flow out of the relation ; and which in all ordinary cases do flow from it ; so that Calvin is jus- tified in saying that children destitute of these feelings, " monstra sunt non homines." This endearing and intimate relation be- tween parents and children (which cannot exist where monog- amy is not the law), binding all in the closest union which can exist among men, makes the family the corner-stone of the well- being of society on earth, and the type of the blessedness of heaven. The Church is the family of God. He is the Father, its members are brethren.
While the relative duties of parents and children must be everywhere and always essentially the same, yet they are more or less modified by varying conditions of society. There are laws on this subject in the Bible, which being intended for the state of things existing before the coming of Christ, are no longer binding
350 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
upon us. It was unavoidable in the patriarchal state of society, and especially in its nomadic state, that the father of a family should be at once father, magistrate, and priest. And it was natural and right that many of the parental prerogatives neces- sary in such a state of society, should be retained in the tempo- rary and transition state organized under the Mosaic institutions. We find accordingly that the laws of Moses invested parents with powers which can no longer properly belong to them ; and sustained parental authority by penal enactments which are no longer necessary. Thus it was ordered, "He that curseth (or revileth, Septuagint 6 /ca/coA.oywv, Vulgate • qui maledixerit ') his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." (Exod. xxi. 17.) In the fifteenth verse of the same chapter it is said, " He that smiteth his father or his mother, shall be surely put to death." (Compare Deut. xxvii. 16 ; Prov. xx. 20 ; Matt. xv. 4.) It may be remarked here, in passing, that our Lord's comment on this commandment given in Matthew xv. 4-6, shows that the honouring of their parents required of children, does not mean simply the cherishing right feelings towards them, but as well the ministering to their support when necessary. Christ said to the Pharisees, " God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother ; . . . . but ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift (consecrated to God), by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free." That is, the Pharisees taught that a son might evade the obligation to honour, i. e., to support his father or mother, by saying that his property was consecrated to God.
The Mosaic law also enacted that " If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them ; then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gates of his place : and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious ; he will not obey our voice ; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die." (Deut. xxi. 18-21.) ;
Fathers under the old economy had the right to choose wives for their sons and to give their daughters in marriage. (Gen. xxiv. ; Ex. xxi. 9 ; Judges xiv. 2 ; Gen. xxix. 18 ; xxxiv. 12.) Children also were liable to be sold to satisfy the debts of their