270 QUESTIONS ON THE FOURTH PRECEPT. 553. What account have we in the Scriptures of the origin and date of the Sabbath? 554. As an institution, of how many parts does the Sabbath consist? 555. What is said respecting the date of this institution? 556. Was the Sabbath intended to be observed by all men, or by the Jews only? 557. What objection made to this view of the subject is first noticed? 558. What reply is made to this objection? 559. What are some of the favorite proof-texts of the opponents of the Sabbath? 560. What things are unjustly assumed concerning these passages? 561. What is the real meaning of the passages under consideration? 562. What other passage is improperly adduced to prove that the Sabbath is an institution appointed for the Jews merely 563. How is this passage to be explained? 564. Can we produce any positive precept in support of such a change? 565. What facts are related in the New Testament, which show that the apostles and early Christians celebrated the first day of the week as the Sabbath? 566. How were the Jews required to observe the Sabbath? 567. Is the same strictness in the mode of keeping the Sabbath obligatory upon Christians? 568. What prominent purposes were to be answered by the Sabbath? 569. What kinds of labor, on the Sabbath, are clearly prohibited ? 570. What are the usual consequences of a flagrant violation of the Sabbath? 571. What particular testimony may here be referred to in proof? 572. How does it appear that the Sabbath, as a day of rest from worldly labor, is for man a wise and merciful appointment? 573. For what other class of beings beside man was the weekly Sabbath mercifully appointed? 574. What important medical testimony may be adduced in favor of the observance of the Sabbath, and, consequently, in proof of the wisdom and mercifulness of its appointment? 575. What important testimony is given by Lord Chief Justice Hale, to the value of a regular and strict observance of the Sabbath? 576. What testimony has God himself given of his displeasure against a Sabbath-breaking nation, and against Sabbath-breaking individuals? 577. What inference may be justly drawn from these remarks concerning the legislative action of our government? 578. What class of persons are particularly addressed in the Fourth Commandment, and especially charged with the responsibility of promoting its observance, beside observing it themselves? 579. What would be the consequences were the Sabbath universally abolished? 580. What is the nature of this duty? 581. Does the light of nature teach us the duty of prayer? 582. Is prayer inculcated as a duty upon all in the sacred scriptures? 583. What objection may first be noticed? 584. What answers may be returned to this objection? 585. For what reasons may prayer be required? 586. How is it shown that the divine goodness does not supersede the duty, or destroy the utility of prayer? 587. What other objection is advanced for the discouragement of prayer? 588. What answer does Dr. Paley return to this objection? 590. Where may we obtain all the information that is needful to the right and acceptable performance of the duty of prayer? THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 591. Who are proper subjects of prayer? 592. How may prayer be distinguished? 593. What prayers are acceptable? 594. Whence results this duty, and what does it imply? THE SECOND TABLE OF THE LAW. FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 271 "Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." WE enter now upon the consideration of the Second Table, or Tablet, of the law, prescribing our Duty to Man. It is, in fact, our duty to God, because he enjoins it; but it is called our duty to man because he is the immediate object of it. I. General Design of the Fifth Commandment. 595. It prescribes the duties of superiors and inferiors, while the remaining four precepts of the law relate to men considered as equals. It may be regarded as the Law of Relative Duty: the duty of one of the relations of life being taught as a representation of the rest. Though the duty of the inferior only, the child, is here brought to view, yet, according to rules of interpretation already explained, the corresponding duty of the superior, the parent, is implied. 596. Some of the relations of society are founded in nature; others in mutual compact. Men are, by nature, related universally to each other, as they are descended from one common stock, for " God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth." They are more particularly related, as they are descended from the same immediate or remote ancestors. There are other relations, which, although agreeable to nature, or to the constitution, circumstances, and wants of man, are yet founded on mutual compact: of this description are the relations of husband and wife, masters and servants, magistrates and subjects. The duties resulting from these relations are of so much importance to the order and happiness of society, that they are made, in this commandment, the subject of positive prescription. 272 DUTY OF CHILDREN TO PARENTS. The School-Boy. 597. A late writer observes :-"I knew a little boy at school whose father was dead. He was one day writing a copy in his book, 'Honor thy father and thy mother;" he wrote a few lines, and then laid down his pen and began to weep. He began again, and wrote a few lines more; but his memory was at work recalling to his mind the happy days he had passed with his dear deceased father, and he wept anew. He could not go on, but sobbed aloud. 'What is the matter, my boy?' said his teacher. 'Oh Mr. Blake, I cannot write this copy; for my father is dead. Please give me another page, and cut this leaf out. I cannot write it.'" That little boy's conduct, in honoring his parent, may serve to prepare us for a consideration of the duties of the Fifth Commandment. II. Duty of Children to Parents. 598. Under the term honor, are included many particulars. Children are hereby required to love their parents; to reverence them in their hearts, and treat them with outward respect; to obey their lawful commands; to conform to the regulations which they establish in their families; to entertain a grateful sense of all the care and kindness which they have experienced from them; to acknowledge them in any important step that is contemplated; to assist and support them according to their ability, if they are in such circumstances as to be dependent upon them; and to continue their good offices during the joint lives of themselves and their parents. 599. The duty of love involves the following particulars:- (1.) It is the only state of mind from which all the other duties that we owe them arise. We should guard most carefully against prejudice, and not allow an unfavorable impression in regard to them to be made upon our minds. (2.) Love will cause us to delight in their company, and to take pleasure in being at home with them. (3.) It will prompt us also to strive in all things to please them. If we are careless whether we please or displease any one, it is obviously impossible that we can DUTY OF CHILDREN TO PARENTS. 273 have any affection for them. A CHILD'S PLEASURE SHOULD BE TO PLEASE HIS PARENTS. (4.) Love to parents implies a desire of their good opinion. Children should be desirous, and even anxious, to stand high in the opinion of their parents, and nothing can be a more decisive proof of a bad disposition in a son or a daughter, than their being quite indifferent what their parents think of them. 600. The duty of filial reverence has respect to feelings, words, and actions. Honor thy father, and thy mother, is the command. (1.) This implies high thoughts of their superiority, both natural and instituted (as placed by God over us), and a submission of the heart to their authority, in a way of sincere and profound respect. (2.) Our words should correspond with the reverential feelings of the heart. When speaking to them, our address, both in language and in tones, should be modest, and respectful; for they are not our equals, but superiors. When differing from them in opinion, our views should be expressed not with the flippancy of disputants, but with the meek inquisitiveness of pupils. Should they reprove, and even more sharply than we think is due, we should neither answer again nor show resentment. In their company there should always be a restraint upon our speech. We should never talk of their faults to others. We should not speak of them in a jocose or familiar manner, nor say anything that would lead others to think lightly, or to suppose that we think lightly of them. Their reputation, if attacked, is to be defended with promptitude, so far as truth will allow. (3.) Reverence should extend to all our behavior toward our parents. The utmost deference and respect is to be paid, not only when we are observed by others, but when no other spectator is near. Duty of Children with respect to the Regulations of the Family. 601. (1.) In every well ordered family, things are not left to chance, but regulated by fixed laws: there is a time for everything, and everything in its time; a place for everything, and everything in its place. Meals, prayer, going to bed, and rising in the morning, are all in their appointed season. M 274 FAMILY REGULATIONS. To these rules it is the obvious duty of every branch of the family, older, as well as younger, to submit, even though they may consider the rules too strict. It is enough that the parent has enacted them. (2.) It is the right of parents, also, to decide what visitors shall be brought to the house; and it is in the higher degree unbecoming, for a child to introduce, or even wish or attempt to introduce, any companion, contrary to the known will of a parent. (3.) The same remark will apply to recreations: parents must determine this point, and no child that has the proper feelings of a child, would desire to set up any amusements which the taste, and especially the conscience, of a father or mother forbids. Instances have occurred of young people inviting such friends, and joining with them in such diversions, in the absence of their parents, as they know to be decidedly contrary to the law of the house. This is an act of base and wicked rebellion against parental authority, and such an unprincipled disregard to parental comfort, as language is too weak to characterize. (4.) Even the books which are brought into the house, must be in accordance with the domestic rule. If the parent forbid the introduction of novels, romances, or any other books, a child, in most cases, should forego his own predilections, and yield to an authority which he cannot resist, without opposing the institute of nature and religion. Duty of Children in Regard to Misconduct of Parents. 602. 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, overreaching, unscrupulous as to veracity and honest dealing, he cannot honor them as exemplary, upright, and conscientious. If they are intemperate and abandoned, he cannot honor them as sober and virtuous, nor truly speak of them as such. But a child is particularly obliged to think as |