"
But some one will say, You profess to be speaking to parents, and this
command is given to children. True, friend, but the duty required of
children implies a corresponding duty on the part of parents. Who shall
teach children to reverence that father and mother in whose character
there is nothing to call forth such a sentiment? "Though children are
not absolved from the obligation of this commandment by the misconduct
of their parents, yet in the nature of things, it is impossible that
they should yield the same hearty respect and veneration to the unworthy
as to the worthy, nor does God require a child to pay an irrational
honor to his parents. If his parents are atheists, he cannot honor them
as Christians. If they are prayerless and profane, he cannot honor them
as religious. If they are worldly, avaricious, over-reaching,
unscrupulous as to veracity and honest dealing, he cannot honor them as
exemplary, upright, conscientious and spiritually-minded."
If parents only say, like Eli, in feeble accents, "Nay, my sons; for it
is no good report that I hear. Why do ye such things?" they will not
only have disobedient and irreverent children, but often, if not always,
they will be made to understand that their sin is grievous in the sight
of God, and he will say of them also, "I will judge his house forever
for the iniquity which he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile
and _he restrained them not_.
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