Most of this was | great irreligion to despise and lessen the name of God, which is the instrument and conveyance of our adorations to him, by making it common and applicable to trifles and ordinary accidents of our life. He that swears often, many times swears false, and, however, lays by that reverence which, being due to God, the Scripture determines it to be due to his name: his "name is to be loved and feared." And therefore Christ commands that our "communication be yea, yea," or "nay, nay ;" that is, our ordinary discourses should be simply affirmative or negative. In order to this, Plutarchh affirms out of Phavorinus, that the reason why the Greeks forbade children, who were about to swear by Hercules, to swear within doors, was, that by this delay and preparation, they might be taught not to be hasty or quick in swearing, but all such invocations should be restrained and retarded by ceremony: and Hercules himself was observed never to have sworn in all his is forbidden, but all swearing upon a slight cause. St. Basil upbraids some christians, his contempo sense of this commandment to be, "to call God to witness to a lie." And this is to be understood only in promises, for so Christ explains it, by the appendix out of the law, "Thou shalt perform thy oaths:" for lying in judgment, which is also with an oath, or taking God's name for witness, is forbidden in the ninth commandment. To this Christ added a further restraint. For whereas, by the natural law, it was not unlawful to swear by any oath that implied not idolatry, or the belief of a false god, (I say,) any grave and prudent oath, when they spake a grave truth; and whereas it was lawful for the Jews in ordinary intercourse to swear by God, so they did not swear to a lie, (to which also swearing to an impertinency might be reduced by a proportion of reason, and was so accounted of in the practice of the Jews,) but else, and in other cases, they used to swear by God, or by a creature, respectively; for," they that swear by him shall be commended," saith the Psalmist ; and "swearing to the Lord of hosts," is called "speak-lifetime but once. 2. Not only customary swearing ing the language of Canaan." d rescinded; Christ forbade "all swearing," not only swearing to a lie, but also swearing to a truth in com-raries, with the example of Clinias the Pythagorean, mon affairs; not only swearing commonly by the name of God, but swearing commonly "by heaven," and "by the earth, by our head," or by any other oath only let our speech be yea, or nay; that is, plainly affirming or denying. In these, I say, Christ corrected the license and vanities of the Jews and gentiles. For as the Jews accounted it religion to name God, and therefore would not swear by him, but in the more solemn occasions of their life; but in trifles they would swear by their fathers, or the light of heaven, or the ground they trod on: so the Greeks were also careful not to swear by the gods lightly, much less fallaciously; but they would swear by any thing about them, or near them, upon an occasion as vain as their oath. But because these oaths are either indirectly to be referred to God, (and Christ instances in divers,) or else they are but a vain testimony, or else they give a divine honour to a creature, by making it a judge of truth and discerner of spirits; therefore Christ seems to forbid all forms of swearing whatsoever. In pursuance of which law, Basilides, being converted at the prayers of Potamiæna, a virgin-martyr, and required by his fellow-soldiers to swear upon some occasion then happening, answered, it was not law-fantastically, and by vain and imaginary conseful for him to swear, for he was a christian; and many of the fathers have followed the words of Christ in so severe a sense, that their words seem to admit no exception. 19. But here a grain of salt must be taken, lest the letter destroy the spirit. First, it is certain the holy Jesus forbade a custom of swearing; 8 it being c Psalm lxiii. 11. d 1 Sam. xx. 17. Isa. xix. 18. • Απλᾶ γὰρ ἐστι τῆς ἀληθείας ἔπη.-ÆscHYL. Οπλων κρίσις. Ecce negas, jurasque mihi per templa Tonantis. Non credo, jura, Verpe, per Anchialum, id est, per Elohim Hebræorum.-MART. lib. xi. Ep. 95. Vide Harmenopulum in Plin. lib. v. c. 27. et Scalig. de Emend. Temp. in Append. Libror. Μὴ προπετῶς κατὰ τῶν θεῶν ὀμνύειν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τῶν πρOOTVYXаVÓνTWv. - Interp. in Hom. EUSEB. lib. vi. Hist. cap. 4. who, rather than he would swear, suffered a mulct of three talents. And all the followers of Pythagoras admitted no oath, unless the matter were grave, necessary, and charitable: and the wisest and gravest persons among the heathens were very severe in their counsels concerning oaths. 3. But there are some cases in which the interests of kingdoms and bodies politic, peace and confederacies, require the sanction of promissory oaths; and they whom we are bound to obey, and who may kill us if we do not, require that their interests be secured by an oath and that in this case, and all that are equal, our blessed Saviour did not forbid oaths, is certain, not only by the example of christians, but of all the world before and since this prohibition, understanding it to be of the nature of such natural bands and securities, without which, commonwealths, in some cases, are not easily combined, and therefore to be a thing necessary, and therefore not to be forbidden. Now what is by christians to be esteemed a slight cause, we may determine by the account we take of other things. The glory of God is certainly no light matter; and therefore, when that is evidently and certainly concerned, not quences, but by prudent and true estimation, then we may lawfully swear. We have St. Paul's example, who well understood the precept of his Master, and is not to be supposed easily to have done any violence to it; but yet we find religious affirmations, and God invoked for "witness as a record upon his soul," in his epistles to the Romans, 8 Vide Ecclus. xxiii. 9, 11, 13. Dominus et Jacobus ideo prohibuerunt jusjurandum, non ut illud prorsus è rebus humanis tollerent, sed quia caveremus à perjurio non facilè jurando.-S. AUGUST. Ser. 28. de Verbis A post. * Ρωμαϊκκὴ ἐπίσχεσίς ἐστι τῆς πρὸς τὸν ὅρκον εὐχερείας καὶ ταχύτητος τὸ γινόμενον. ὡς Φαβωρίνος ἔλεγε τὸ γὰρ ὥσπερ ἐκ παρασκευῆς μέλλησιν ἐμποιεῖ, καὶ βουλεύσασθαι δίδωσι. Galatians, and Corinthians. But these oaths were only assertory. Tertullian affirmeth, that christians refused to swear by the genius of their prince, because it was a demon; but they sware by his health, and their solemn oath was by God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the majesty of the emperor. The fathers of the Ephesine council made Nestorius and Victor swear; and the bishops at Chalcedon sware by the health of their princes. But as St. Paul did it extra-judicially, when the glory of God was concerned in it, and the interest of souls; so the christians used to swear in a cause of piety and religion, in obedience, and upon public command, or for the ends of charity and justice, both with oaths promissory and assertory, as the matter required with this only difference, that they never did swear in the causes of justice or charity, but when they were before a magistrate; but if it were in a cause of religion, and in matters of promise, they did indeed swear among themselves, but always to or in communities and societies, obliging themselves by oath not to commit wickedness, robberies, sacrilege, not to deceive their trust, not to detain the pledge; which rather was an act of direct intercourse with God, than a solemn or religious obligation to man. Which very thing Pliny also reports of the christians. 20. The sum is this: Since the whole subject matter of this precept is oaths promissory, or vows, all promises with oaths are regularly forbidden to christians, unless they be made to God or God's vicegerent, in a matter not trifling. For, in the first case, a promise made to God, and a swearing by God to perform the promise, to him is all one; for the name of God being the instrument and determination of all our addresses, we cannot be supposed to speak to God without using of his name explicitly, or by implication and therefore he that promises to God, makes a promise, and uses God's name in the promise; the promise itself being in the nature of a prayer, or solemn invocation of God. In the second case, when the public necessity requires it, of which we are not judges, but are under authority, we find the lawfulness by being bound to believe, or not to contradict, the pretence of its necessity; only care is to be taken that the matter be grave or religious, that is, it is to be esteemed and presumed so by us, if the oath be imposed by our lawful superiors, and to be cared for by them: or else it is so to be provided for by ourselves, when our intercourse is with God, as in vows and promises passed to God; being careful that we do not offer to God goat's hair, or the fumes of mushrooms, or the blood of swine; that is, things either impious or vain. But in our communication, that is, in our ordinary intercourse with men, we must promise by simple testimony, not by religious adjurations, though a creature be the instrument of the oath. 21. But this forbids not assertory oaths at all, or deposing in judgment; for of this Christ speaks not here, it being the proper matter of another commandment and since (as St. Paul affirms) "an oath is the end of all controversy," and that the necessity of commonwealths requires that a period should be fixed to questions, and a rule for the nearest certainty for judgment; whatsoever is necessary is not unlawful; and Christ, who came to knit the bonds of government faster by the stricture of more religious ties, cannot be understood to have given precepts to dissolve the instruments of judicature and prudent government. But concerning assertory oaths, although they are not forbidden, but supposed in the ninth commandment to be done before our judges in the cause of our neighbour; yet because they are only so supposed, and no way else mentioned, by permission or intimation, therefore they are to be estimated by the proportions of this precept concerning promissory oaths: they may be taken in judgment and righteousness, but never lightly, never extra-judicially; only a less cause, so it be judicial, may authorize an assertory than a promissory oath; because many cases occur, in which peace and justice may be concerned, which without an oath are indeterminable, but there are but few necessities to confirm a promise by an oath. And therefore the reverence of the name of God ought not to be intrenched upon in accidents of little or no necessity; God, not having made many necessities in this case, would not, in the matter of promise, give leave to use his name but when an extraordinary case happens. An oath in promises is of no use for ending questions and giving judicial sentences; and the faith of a christian, and the word of a just person, will do most of the work of promises: and it is very much to the disreputation of our religion or ourselves, if we fall into hypocrisy or deceit, or if a christian asseveration were not of value equal with an oath. And therefore Christ forbidding promissory oaths, and commanding so great simplicity of spirit and honesty, did consonantly to the design and perfection of his institution, intending to make us so just and sincere, that our religion being infinite obligation to us, our own promises should pass for bond enough to others, and the religion receive great honour, by being esteemed a sufficient security and instrument of public intercourse.m And this was intimated by our Lord himself, in that reason he is pleased to give of the prohibition of swearing: "Let your communication be Yea, yea, Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more, cometh of evil :" that is, ὅρκου δεόμενος• Τῶν δικαίων ναί ἐστι ναὶ, καὶ οὐ ἐστιν οὐ, tritum est; ita scil. ut facta dictis respondere justorum sit. Κάλλιστον, καὶ βιοφιλέστατον, καὶ ἁρμοστὸν τῇ λογική φύσει τὸ ἀνώμοτον, οὕτως ἀληθεύειν ἐφ' ἑκάστους δεδιδαγ μένη, ὡς λόγους ὅρκους εἶναι νομίζεσθαι - PHILO. Verbum sacerdotis apud Christianæ ecclesiæ ministros etiam hodie manet loco juramenti. Ad eundem sensum apud antiquos fuerunt verba illa prætoris ex edicto perpetuo, "Sacerdotem Vestalem et flaminem dialem in omni mea jurisdictione jurare non cogam."-A. GELL. lib. x. c. 15. n Matt. v. 37. as good laws come from ill manners, the modesty of clothing from the shame of sin, antidotes and physic by occasion of poisons and discases; so is swearing an affect of distrust, and want of faith or honesty, on one or both sides. Men dare not trust the word of a christian, or a christian is not just and punctual to his promises, and this calls for confirmation by an oath. So that oaths suppose a fault, though they are not faults always themselves; whatsoever is more than yea or nay, is not always evil, but it always cometh of evil. And, therefore, the Essenes esteemed every man that was put to his oath no better than an infamous person, a perjurer, or at least suspected, not esteemed a just man and the heathens would not suffer the priest of Jupiter to swear, be- | cause all men had great opinion of his sanctity and authority and the Scythians derided Alexander's caution and timorous provision, when he required an oath of them: "Nos religionem in ipsa fide novimus, Our faith is our bond:" and they who are willing to deceive men will not stick to deceive God, when they have called God to witness. But I have a caution to insert for each, which I propound as an humble advice to persons eminent and publickly interested. : 22. First: That princes, and such as have power of decreeing the injunction of promissory oaths, be very curious and reserved, not lightly enjoining such promises, neither in respect of the matter trivial, nor yet frequently, nor without great reason enforcing. The matter of such promises must be only what is already matter of duty or religion; for else the matter is not grave enough for the calling of God to testimony: but when it is a matter of duty, then the oath is no other than a vow, or promise, made to God in the presence of men. And because christians are otherwise very much obliged to do all which is their duty, in matters both civil and religious, of obedience and piety; therefore it must be an instant necessity, and a great cause, to superinduce such a confirmation as derives from the so sacredly invocating the name of God; it must be when there is great necessity that the duty be actually performed, and when the supreme power either hath not power sufficient to punish the delinquent, or may miss to have notice of the delict. For in these cases it is reasonable to bind the faith of the obliged persons by the fear of God after a more special manner; but else there is no reason sufficient to demand of the subject any further security than their own faith and contract. The reason of this advice relies upon the strictness of the words of this precept against promissory oaths, and the reverence we owe to the name of God. Oaths of allegiance are fit to be imposed in a troubled state, or to a mutinous people; but it is not so fit to tie the people by oath, to abstain from transportations of metal, or grain, or leather, from which, by penalties, they are with as much security, and less suspicion of iniquity, restrained. "Curtius, lib. vii. P Qui non reverentur homines, fallent Deos.-CICERO pro Roscio. 23. Secondly: Concerning assertory oaths and depositions in judgment, although a greater liberty may be taken in the subject matter of the oath, and we may, being required to it, swear in judgment, though the cause be a question of money, or our interest, or the rights of a society; and St. Athanasius purged himself by oath before the emperor Constantius: yet it were a great pursuance and security of this part of christian religion, if, in no case, contrary oaths might be admitted, in which, it is certain, one part is perjured to the ruin of their souls, to the intricating of the judgment, to the dishonour of religion; but that such rules of prudence and reasonable presumption be established, that upon the oath of that party which the law shall choose, and, upon probable grounds, shall presume for, the sentence may be established. For, by a small probability, there may a surer judgment be given, than upon the confidence of contradictory oaths; and after the sin the judge is left to the uncertainty of conjectures as much as if but one part had sworn; and to much more, because such an oath is, by the consent of all men, accepted as a rule to determine in judgment. By these discourses we understand the intention of our blessed Master in this precept: and I wish by this, or any thing else, men would be restrained from that low, cheap, unreasonable, and inexcusable vice of customary swearing, to which we have nothing to invite us that may lessen the iniquity, for which we cannot pretend temptation, nor allege infirmity, but it begins by recklessness and a malicious carelessness, and is continued by the strength of habit, and the greatest immensity of folly. And I consider that christian religion, being so holy an institution, to which we are invited by so great promises, in which we are instructed by so clear revelations, and to the performance of our duties compelled by the threatenings of a sad and unprofitable eternity, should more than sufficiently endear the performance of this duty to us. The name of a christian is a high and potent antidote against all sin, if we consider aright the honour of the name, the undertaking of our covenant, and the reward of our duty. The Jews eat no swine's flesh, because they are of Moses, and the Turks drink no wine, because they are Mahometans; and yet we swear, for all we are christians, than which there is not in the world a greater conviction of our baseness and irreligion. Is the authority of the holy Jesus so despicable? are his laws so unreasonable, his rewards so little, his threatenings so small, that we must needs, in contempt of all this, profane the great name of God, and trample under foot the laws of Jesus, and cast away the hopes of heaven, and enter into security to be possessed by hell-torments for swearing, that is, for speaking like a fool, without reason, without pleasure, without reputation, much to our disesteem, much to the trouble of civil and wise persons with whom we join in society and intercourse? Cer 4. Οὐ γὰρ πίστεως τεκμήριον πολυορκία, ἀλλὰ ἀπιστίας ἐστὶ, παρὰ τοῖς εὐφρονοῦσι.-Patto in Decal * Αλλ' οἵπερ πρότεροι ὑπὲρ ὅρκια δηλήσαντο So that tainly hell will be heated seven times hotter for a customary swearer, and every degree of his unreasonableness will give him a new degree of torment, when he shall find himself in flames for being a stupid, an atheistical, an irreligious fool. This only I desire should be observed, that our blessed Master forbids not only swearing by God, but by any creature; for every oath by a creature does involve and tacitly relate to God. And therefore, saith Christ, "Swear not by heaven, for it is the throne of God;"s and he that sweareth by the throne of God, "sweareth by it, and by him that sitteth thereon." So that it is not a less matter to swear by a creature than to swear by God; for a creature cannot be the instrument of testimony, but as it is a relative to God; and it, by implication, calls the God of that creature to witness. although, in such cases in which it is permitted to swear by God, we may, in those cases, express our oath in the form of advocating and calling the creature; (as did the primitive christians swearing by the health of their emperor, and as Joseph swearing by the life of Pharaoh, and as Elisha swearing by the life of Elias, and as did St. Paul, protesting "by the rejoicing he had in Jesus Christ," u and as we, in our forms of swearing in courts of judicature, touch the Gospels, saying, So help me God, and the contents of this book;" and in a few ages lately past, bishops and priests sometimes swore upon the cross, sometimes upon the altar, sometimes by their holy order;) yet we must remember that this, in other words and ceremonies, is but a calling God for witness; and he that swears by the cross, swears by the holy crucifix, that is, Jesus crucified thereon. And these, and the like forms, are, therefore, not to be used in ordinary communication, because they relate to God; they are as obligatory as the immediate invocation of his holiness and majesty; and it was a Judaical vanity to think swearing by creatures was less obliging: they are just with the same restraints made to be religious as the most solemn invocation of the holy and reverend name of God, lawful or unlawful as the other: unless the swearing by a creature come to be spoiled by some other intervening circumstance, that is, with a denying it to relate to God; for then it becomes superstition as well as profanation, and it gives to a creature what is proper to God; or when the creature is contemptible, or less than the gravity of the matter, as if a man should swear by a fly, or the shadow of a tree; or when there is an indecorum in the thing, or something that does, at too great distance, relate to God for that which, with greatest vicinity, refers to God in several religions, is the best instrument of an oath, and nearest to God's honour; as * Ομνυμι δ' ἱερὸν αἰθέρ', οἴκησιν Διός.-SOPHOC. Menal. Qui per salutem suam jurat, Deum jurare videtur; respectu enim divini numinis jurat.-ULPIAN. J. C. Concil. Chalc. c. 25. 2 Kings ii. 2. u 1 Cor. xv. 31. Vide suprà, num. 19. Per tua jurares sacra, tuumque caput.-MART. Deut. xxx. 19. Isa. i. 2. Micah i. 2. S. August. Epist. ad Puolicolam; et lib. li. Duo Patroni, Sect. Si quis juraverit; et lib. Non erit, D. de Jurejurando. Tertul. ad Scap. Testor, chara, deos-teque, tuumque Dulce caput, magicas invitam accingier artes. VIRGIL. lib. iv. Æneid. ment. in christianity are the holy sacrament, the cross, the altar, and the Gospels; and, therefore, too great a distance, may be an indecency next to a disparageThis only may be added to this consideration; that although an oath, which is properly calling God or God's relative into testimony, is to be understood according to the former discourse; yet there may be great affirmations or negations respectively, and confirmed by forms of vehement asseveration, such as the customs of a nation or consent shall agree upon: and those do, in some cases, promote our belief, or confirm our pretensions, better than a plain yea or no; because, by such consent, the person renders himself infamous if he breaks his word or trust. And although this will not come under the restraint of Christ's words, because they are not properly oaths, but circumstances of earnest affirmation or negation; yet these are human attestations, introduced by custom or consent; and as they come not under the notion of swearing, so they are forms of testimony and collateral engagement of a more strict truth. The Fourth Commandment. 24. The holy Jesus having specified the great commandment of "loving God with all our heart," in this one instance of hallowing and keeping his name sacred, that is, from profane and common talk, and less prudent and unnecessary intercourses, instanced in no other commandment of Moses: but having frequent occasion to speak of the sabbath, for ever expresses his own dominion over the day, and that he had dissolved the bands of Moses in this instance; that now we were no more obliged to that rest which the Jews religiously observed by prescript of the law; and by divers acts against securities of the then received practices, did desecrate the day, making it a broken yoke, and the first great instance of christian liberty. And when the apostle gave instructions that "no man should judge his brother in a holy day, or new moons, or the sabbathdays," he declared all the Judaical feasts to be obliterated by the sponge which Jesus tasted on the cross; it was within the manuscript of ordinances, and there it was cancelled. And there was nothing moral in it, but that we do honour to God for the creation, and to that, and all other purposes of religion, separate and hallow some portion of our time. The primitive church kept both the sabbath and the Lord's day till the time of the Laodicean council, about three hundred years after Christ's nativity, and almost in every thing made them equal; and, therefore, did not esteem the Lord's day to be substituted in the place of the obliterated sabbath, but a feast celebrated by great reason and perpetual consent, without precept or necessary Divine injunc- | are dissolved, any act of direct religion to God, or of tion. But the liberty of the church was great: ease and remission to servants, or whatsoever else they found themselves disobliged from that strict is good in manners, or in piety, or in mercy. What and necessary rest which was one great part of the is said of this great feast of the christians is to be sabbatic rites, only they were glad of the occasion understood to have a greater severity and obligation to meet often for offices of religion, and the day in the anniversary of the resurrection, of the ascenserved well for the gaining and facilitating the con- sion, of the nativity of our blessed Saviour, and of version of the Jews, and for the honourable sepulture the descent of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. And of the synagogue, it being kept so long, like the all days festival to the honour of God, in rememforty days' mourning of Israel for the death of their brance of the holy apostles, and martyrs, and defather Jacob; but their liberty they improved not parted saints, as they are with prudence to be chosen to license, but as an occasion of more frequent as- and retained by the church, so as not to be unnesemblies. And there is something in it for us to cessary, or burdensome, or useless; so they are to imitate, even to sanctify the name of God in the be observed by us, as instances of our love of the great work of the creation, reading his praises in communion of saints, and our thankfulness for the the book of his creatures, and taking all occasions blessing and the example. of religious acts and offices, though in none of the Jewish circumstances. 25. Concerning the observation of the Lord's day, which now the church observes, and ever did, in remembrance of the resurrection, because it is a day of positive and ecclesiastical institution, it is fit that the church, who instituted the day, should determine the manner of its observation. It was set apart in honour of the resurrection; and it were not ill if all churches would, into the weekly offices, put some memorial of that mystery, that the reason of the festival might be remembered with the day, and God thanked with the renewing of the offices. But because religion was the design of the feast, and leisure was necessary for religion, therefore to abstain from suits of law and servile works; a but such works as are of necessity and charity, (which, to observe, are of themselves a very good religion,) is a necessary duty of the day; and to do acts of public religion is the other part of it. So much is made matter of duty by the intervention of authority: and though the church hath made no more prescriptions in this, and God hath made none at all; yet he who keeps the day most strictly, most religiously, he keeps it best, and most consonant to the design of the church, and the ends of religion, and the opportunity of the present leisure, and the interests of his soul. The acts of religion proper for the day are prayers and public liturgies, preaching, catechizing, acts of charity, visiting sick persons, acts of eucharist to God, of hospitality to our poor neighbours, of friendliness and civility to all, reconciling differences; and after the public assemblies a Feriis jurgia amovento, easque in famulis operibus patratis habento. CICER. de Leg. lib. ii. b Quippe etiam festis quædam exercere diebus Fas et jura sinunt; rivos deducere nulla Religio vetuit, segeti prætendere sepem, Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres, Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri. VIRGIL. apud Macrob. De ferocia Tiberii dedit testimonium Tacit. lib. iii. Annal. his verbis: Quemne diem vacuum pena? ubi inter sacra et vota, quo tempore verbis etiam profanis abstinere mos esset, vincula et laqueus inducantur? Ἑορτὴ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἔστιν ἢ τὰ δέοντα πράττειν.-THUCYD. lib. i. Εκαστος ὑμῶν σαββατιζέτω πνευματικώς, μελέτῃ νόμου χαίρων, οὐ σώματος ἀνέσει, δημιουργίαν Θεοῦ θαυμάζων, οὐχ ἕωλα ἐσθίων, καὶ χλιαρὰ πίνων, καὶ μεμετρημένα βαδίζων, καὶ ὀρχήσει καὶ κρότοις νοῦν οὐκ ἔχουσι χαίρων.-S. IGNAT. Ep. ad Magnes. The Fifth Commandment. 26. "Honour thy father and thy mother." This commandment Christ made also to be christian, by his frequent repetition and mention of it in his sermons and laws, and so ordered it, that it should be the band of civil government and society. In the decalogue God sets this precept immediately after the duties that concern himself, our duty to parents being in the confines with our duty to God, the parents being, in order of nature, next to God, the cause of our being and production, and the great almoners of eternity, conveying to us the essences of reasonable creatures, and the charities of Heaven. And when our blessed Saviour, in a sermon to the Pharisees, spake of duty to parents, he rescued it from the impediments of a vain tradition, and secured this duty, though against a pretence of religion towards God, telling us that God would not himself accept a gift which we took from our parents' needs. This duty to parents is the very firmament and band of commonwealths. He that honours his parents will also love his brethren, derived from the same loins, he will dearly account of all his relatives and persons of the same cognation; and so families are united, and of them cities and societies are framed. And because parents and patriarchs of families and of nations had regal power, they who, by any change, succeeded in the care and government of cities and kingdoms, succeeded in the power and authority of fathers, and became so, in estimate of law and true divinity, to all their people. So that the duty here commanded is due to all our с |