amongst the people of God themselves: the Pfalmift tells us, Pfal. cvi. 38. They fhed innocent blood, even the blood of their fons and of their daughters, whom they facrificed unto the idols of Canaan. But God judged not of this by our author's rule, nor allowed of the autho rity of practice against his righteous law; but as it follows there, the land was polluted with blood; therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, infomuch that be abborred his own inheritance. The killing of their children, though it were fashionable, was charged on them as innocent blood, and fo had in the account of God the guilt of murder, as the offering them to idols had the guilt of idolatry.

§. 59. Be it then, as Sir Robert says, that anciently it was ufual for men to fell and caftrate their children, Obfervations, 155. Let it be, that they expofed them; add to it, if you please, for this is ftill greater power, that they begat them for their tables, to fat and eat them if this proves a right to do fo, we may, by the fame argument, juftify adultery, incest and fodomy, for there are examples of these too, both ancient and modern; fins, which I suppose have their principal aggravation from this, that they cross the main intention of nature, which willeth the increase of mankind, and the continuation of the fpecies in the highest perfection, and the distinction of families, with F 2

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the fecurity of the marriage bed, as necessary thereunto.

§. 60. In confirmation of this natural authority of the father, our author brings a. lame proof from the pofitive command of God in fcripture: his words are, To confirm the natural right of regal power, we find in the Decalogue, that the law which enjoins obedience to kings, is delivered in the terms, Honour thy father, p. 23. Whereas many confess, that government only in the abftract, is the ordinance of God, they are not able to prove any fuch ordinance in the fcripture, but only in the fatherly power; and therefore we find the commandment, that enjoins obedience to fuperiors, given in the terms, Honour thy father; so that not only the power and right of government, but the form of the power governing, and the perfon having the power, are all the ordinances of God. The first father had not only fimply power, but power monarchical, as he was father immediately from God, Obfervations, 254. To the fame purpose, the fame law is cited by our author in feveral other places, and just after the fame fashion; that is, and mother, as apochryphal words, are always left out ; a great argument of our author's ingenuity, and the goodness of his caufe, which required in its defender zeal to a degree of warmth, able to warp the facred rule of the word of God, to make it comply with his present occafion; a way of proceeding not unusual

to

to thofe, who embrace not truths because reafon and revelation offer them, but espouse tenets and parties for ends different from truth, and then refolve at any rate to defend them; and fo do with the words and fenfe of authors, they would fit to their purpose, juft as Procruftes did with his guests, lop or ftretch them, as may beft fit them to the fize of their notions: and they always prove like those fo ferved, deformed, lame, and ufelefs.

§. 61. For had our author fet down this command without garbling, as God gave it, and joined mother to father, every reader would have seen, that it had made directly against him; and that it was fo far from establishing the monarchical power of the father, that it fet up the mother equal with him, and enjoined nothing but what was due in common, to both father and mother: for that is the conftant tenor of the fcripture, Honour thy father and thy mother, Exod. xx. He that fmiteth his father or mother, shall surely be put to death, xxi. 15. He that curfeth his father or mother, fhall furely be put to death, ver. 17. Repeated Lev. xx. 9. and by our Saviour, Matth. xv. 4. Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, Lev. xix. 3. If a man have a rebellious fon, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother; then shall his father and his mother lay bold on him, and fay, This our fon is sub

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born and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, Deut. xxi. 18, 19, 20, 21. Curfed be he that fetteth light by his father or his mother, xxviii. 16. My fon, hear the inftructions of thy father, and forfake not the law of thy mother, are the words of Solomon, a king who was not ignorant of what belonged to him as a father or a king; and yet he joins father and mother together, in all the inftructions he gives children quite thro' his book of Proverbs. Woe unto him, that fayeth unto his father, What begetteft thou, or to the woman, What haft thou brought forth? Ifa. xi. ver. 10. In thee have they fet light by father or mother, Ezek. xxviii. 2. And it fhall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophefy, then his father and his mother that begat him, fhall fay unto him, Thou shalt not live, and his father and his mother that begat him, fhall thrust him through when he prophefieth, Zech. xiii. 3. Here not the father only, but the father and mother jointly, had power in this cafe of life and death. Thus ran the law of the Old Teftament, and in the New they are likewife joined, in the obedience of their children, Eph. vi. 1. The rule is, Children, obey your parents; and I do not remember, that I any where read, Children, obey your father, and no more: the scripture joins mother too in that homage, which is due from children; and had there been any text, where the honour or obedience of children had been directed to the father alone,

it

it is not likely that our author, who pretends to build all upon fcripture, would have omitted it: nay, the fcripture makes the authority of father and mother, in refpect of those they have begot, fo equal, that in fome places it neglects even the priority of order, which is thought due to the father, and the mother is put first, as Lev. xix. 3. from which fo conftantly joining father and mother together, as is found quite through the scripture, we may conclude that the honour they have a title to from their children, is one common right belonging fo equally to them both, that neither can claim it wholly, neither can be excluded.

§. 62. One would wonder then how our author infers from the 5th commandment, that all power was originally in the father; how he finds monarchical power of government fettled and fixed by the commandment, Honour thy father and thy mother. If all the honour due by the commandment, be it what it will, be the only right of the father, because he, as our author fays, has the fovereignty over the woman, as being the nobler and principler agent in generation, why did God afterwards all along join the mother with him, to fhare in his honour? can the father, by this fovereignty of his, discharge the child from paying this honour to his mother? The fcripture gave no fuch licence to the Jews, and yet there were often breaches wide enough

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