Questions on Chapter 11.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 11.

QUESTION 1. Under what circumstances did the conjugal relation originate?

2. By what do the propriety and obligation of this relation appear?

3. Is the obligation to enter upon this relation universal?

4. By what circumstances may this obligation be annulled?

5. What are some of the benefits of this relation?

6. What are the prominent duties connected with it?

7. What is the Bible testimony respecting polygamy?

8. What is the voice of nature on the subject?

9. In what respect is marriage a divine, and in what sense a civil, institution?

10. What is embraced in the law against adultery?

11. How is the marriage relation illustrated by St. Paul?

12. What are the reciprocal duties of husbands and wives? CHAPTER 12. — OUR DUTY TO OUR NEIGHBOR —

APPLICATION OF THE LAW TO SPECIAL CASES AND

CONDITIONS — PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

WE next consider the relation subsisting between parents and children. This is another domestic relation, intimately connected with the one already examined, pertaining to husband and wife.

I. DUTIES OF PARENTS TO THEIR CHILDREN.

Although some of these duties grow so naturally out of the relation itself that they may be partially discovered by the mere light of nature, and all of them, when correctly understood, may be corroborated by human reason, yet as revelation, our only all-sufficient and infallible guide, is full and explicit upon this important question, we appeal directly to that more ample and authoritative source.

1. Protection and support are duties of parents to their children. That these obligations were recognized under the patriarchal dispensation is evident from Scripture. Jacob said to Laban: “For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming; and now, when shall I provide for mine own house also?” Genesis 30:30. St. Paul says to Timothy: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” 1 Timothy 5:8. The plain duty of parents, to protect and exercise a tender care over their children, and to provide for their comfortable support, is abundantly taught in the scriptures adduced. It is not only a dictate of nature, taught by the love of parents for their offspring, and enforced even by the instinctive regard of the inferior animal creation for their young, but it forms so essential an element in Christian character that he who neglects or disregards it is denounced as having “denied the faith,” and being “worse than an infidel” — that is, he is to be contemned as unworthy the Christian name; hence every parent is bound to the full discharge of this obligation, to the extent of his ability. While he is not allowed by Christianity to lavish upon his children superfluities, or to deal his bounty toward them with an extravagant or wasteful hand, yet he should use his utmost diligence and industry to furnish them all necessary protection, support, and comfort.

2. Love is another important parental duty.

This duty is not only enforced by one of the strongest dictates of nature, but it is frequently referred to in Scripture. The prophet exclaims: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” Isaiah 49:15. And the Psalmist says: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Psalm 103:13. Again, the same idea of the tender compassion of the parental heart is thus expressed by the prophet: “And I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Malachi 3:17. Again, how forcibly does our Saviour refer to the strength of this parental affection, when he demands: “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?’ etc. Luke 11:11.

That the Scriptures do not so much command the duty of parental affection, in express words, as refer to it as a matter whose existence is not to be questioned, renders the obligation but the more palpable, and marks the crime of a parent who may fail in the discharge of this duty as one of the deepest dye.

3. The next duty of parents to their children which we shall notice, is that of their training and education.

That God, under all dispensations, holds parents to strict responsibility for the training and education of their children is evident from the Scriptures. In the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, Abraham is highly commended of the Lord for the strict religious discipline by which he commanded and controlled “his children and his household after him.”

In delivering the law to the Israelites, Moses enjoined upon parents the duty of attending rigidly to the training of their children. His language is: “And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart; and thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Deuteronomy 6:6, 7. In attestation of the importance of this duty, the wise man has given us this proverb: “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6.

St. Paul enjoins upon parents to bring up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4.

The religious training of Timothy, traced back first to his mother Eunice. and then to his grandmother Lois, is referred to by St. Paul as a great blessing (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:15).

It is a matter of vast importance that we have correct views in reference to the nature of that education and training which it is the duty of parents to bestow upon their children. Education implies the development and culture of our physical, intellectual, and moral powers. When its benefits are fully realized, the utmost attainable perfection and fruition of our complex nature are secured. In the common mode of speech, education is understood to relate almost exclusively to the scientific and literary training derived from schools. But while we would by no means depreciate that species of education constituting the principal part of academic and collegiate instruction, it must be admitted that it can be but secondary to moral and religious culture. Science, in the common import of that term, is chiefly, if not solely, valuable as being a handmaid to religion. It is the lesser light borrowing, like the moon from the sun, her paler rays from revelation; and should be pursued as tending to promote religion, and so pursued that it may tend in that way.

In our original creation, the hand of God hath stamped upon the constitution of our nature the deep impress of immortality. This tenement of clay is ever tending to dissolution and the tomb, but the soul kindles with the glowing pledge of its immortality. This life is but the commencement of our existence. Compared with the immense expanse of eternity, it is far less than the mote which floats in the sunbeam. It is but a microscopic speck amid the boundless universe. Can it be wisdom to attend to the present short-lived moment, the transient now, to the neglect of the infinite future? to become dazzled and overwhelmed with the gewgaws of a moment, while all that is truly great, or noble, or real, or lasting, or good, is overlooked or despised? It is our great business in this life to prepare for happiness in a future and eternal state. Our chief end is “to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.”

But what, we inquire, is the character of that training essential to the attainment of this glorious consummation? The answer is at hand. It is mainly the training of the heart. It relates to the principles, the experience, and the practice of true religion. By this we mean not a mere culture of the head, but also a purification of the heart and regulation of the life. If we fail in securing this culture, what training soever we may receive beside, we are only trained up for the society of fiends, and the wailings of the finally lost. On the other hand, if we secure this moral and religious culture in its proper and full senses, whatsoever training we may lack beside, the grand purpose of our being will be realized, the high birthright of our nature — a blissful immortality — will be secured.

In proportion to its intrinsic and acknowledged importance, Christian parents generally are far more deficient in attention to the moral and religious culture of their children than in any other department of their education. In this respect, Christians of the present day were far excelled by the ancient people of God. Around the family hearth the pious Jew from night to night assembled his offspring, while he read from the book of the law, expounded the sacred institutions of the true religion, and taught them the worship of the true God. The Jewish child was trained up to know “the God of his father,” and to revere his religion.

If we search the records of pagan antiquity, or examine the history of modern idolatrous worshipers, they too, in their unfailing and rigid attention to the religious training of their children, may shame the Christian world. It is painfully humiliating to be constrained to believe that, with many Christian parents, while great concern is evinced that their children be well educated in the sense in which a vain, ungodly world understands the subject, that the intellect be stored with mere scientific knowledge, so little pains are taken to secure their moral and religious culture. If they would secure for their sons or daughters distinction and preeminence, in reference to this world, they spare neither time, nor money, nor effort; but, if their children are ever to become illustrious in the sphere of moral and religious influence, in many cases it must be independent of all parental exertion — the heart of the child is left a moral waste, while the parent, it would seem, expects his offspring to become religious by intuition. The great practical question before us is: By what means may the proper religious training of the children of the Church be secured? Some may suppose that, as we have the Sunday-school among us, it will serve the purpose of religious training better than any thing else to which we can resort. If all the children of Christian parents were regularly in the Sunday-school, as those schools are generally conducted, their religious training would even then be far from being properly secured. The Sunday-school is a noble, a Heaven-blest institution; but still it cannot supersede an efficient, general system of religious training. But what is the particular kind of training needed? and by what means may it best be secured? The Holy Bible is unquestionably the volume to which we must appeal. Within its sacred lids are contained the lessons which are able to make us “wise unto salvation.” This is the foundation on which we must build for all real happiness here, and for eternal felicity hereafter. It is Heaven’s directory to man for the cure of moral evil. It contains the only authentic antidote against sin, and the only accredited pledge of God’s love to the world. But how may we succeed in imbuing the minds and hearts of the rising generation with the important facts, the pure precepts, and the sublime doctrines of revelation?

We would recommend the following plan: Let the children in each family be formed into a Bible-class; give them appropriate books; assign to them suitable lessons, and let them be examined and instructed by the parent once or twice each week — let the time now wasted in idleness, or devoted to unprofitable conversation or vain amusement, be consecrated to the study of the sublime principles of our holy religion — let each “preacher in charge” see that the children of his pastorate are regularly classed, and diligently instructed, in Bible truth — let a senior Bible-class, for the edification of the members, be organized in each society — let the Sunday-school superintendents, teachers, and more advanced scholars, be included in this class — let them meet once a week, under the direction of the preacher, or some suitable person selected by him. By the adoption and diligent prosecution of this course, our churches will be filled with an intelligent membership, who will read, and study, and think, and do, as well as feel. Our Sunday-schools will always be abundantly furnished with well-qualified teachers. Thus, every minister may enter upon a field the most interesting and promising, and, at the same time, the most favorable to his own improvement; and become, according to the primitive custom of the Church, a practical teacher of religion, having his disciples and catechumen under his charge.

Thus every child may be taught, not only the geography of his State, but the geography of the kingdom of Immanuel — not only the grammar of his mother-tongue, but the grammar of the Holy Ghost — not only the philosophy of nature, but the philosophy of grace — not only the history of the United States and other countries, and the biography of Cesar, of Bonaparte, of La Fayette, and Washington; but also the history of the Jewish and Christian Churches, and the biography of Abraham and of Moses, of David and of Daniel, of Paul and of John, and of the blessed Saviour of the world.

Once more: Let the Bible be introduced as a textbook, and its sacred truths taught as a science in all our schools and colleges. Text-books are introduced, and classes formed, and diligently instructed and daily examined on the sciences of history, mythology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, etc.; but why not on the science of theology? Where is the book comparable to the Bible? Where is the science so valuable as that whose principles it embodies? As a history, the Bible is worth all the other books in the world. It carries us back to the commencement of time, and records the birth of creation — it narrates the circumstances of the Fall, and unfolds the redemption of man — it describes the manners and customs of the most ancient and most remarkable people, and exhibits the wonderful interposition of God in their protection and deliverance. As a system of doctrines, it reveals the most sublime and important truths, and presents the clearest and most impressive illustrations. As a code of morals, it transcends all human effort. It teaches us what we are, whence we came, and what we should be — it unfolds both our duty and destiny — it pours upon our dreary pathway through life a heavenly illumination to direct our footsteps, and cheers our anxious hearts with the hopes of a blissful immortality.

And what good reason, we ask, can be offered in opposition to thus teaching the Bible in schools? Are the minds of the young to be carefully and diligently stored with all science but that which is divine, and all knowledge but that which comes from God? Must the fabulous legends of Homer, the obscene pages of Horace, the blood-stained commentaries of Cesar, be the every-day study of our youth? but the annals of Moses, the epic of Job, the pastorals of David, the sublime poems of Isaiah, the irresistible logic of Paul, the angelic ethics of John, and the divine philosophy of Jesus — are these to be interdicted? Must they be thrust aside, or only brought incidentally to view? Is it right to teach heathen philosophy and pagan mythology in our schools and colleges? but is it wrong to introduce Christian philosophy and Bible theology? Surely the Christian parent must feel that he is bound, by all the sacred obligations of religion, to train his children, not only for this world, but also for the next — not only with a knowledge of human science, but with a knowledge of God and of religion.

4. It is the duty of parents to govern their children.

This parental obligation is necessarily implied in the Scripture injunction: “Children, obey your parents.” Thus it is not only founded, on divine precept, but is necessarily inferable from the relation subsisting between parents and children. The helplessness and dependency of the child render it incapable of governing itself; and both nature and revelation designate the parent as the appropriate person for the performance of this duty. In considering the character of parental government, the following particulars may be noted as matters of importance:

First. It should commence in early childhood.

As soon as reason dawns, or the child is capable of understanding a command, it should be taught to obey. Commencing at this period, and with watchful solicitude persevering with a constant and undeviating course, the obligation and habit of obedience may be easily impressed and secured; and, unless the child be first taught the lesson of strict and unvarying obedience to its parents, there can be little hope of success in teaching it any thing else that is good.

Secondly. Parental government should be exercised with uniformity. Fickleness and unsteadiness on the part of parents will soon destroy their control over their children. To be strict or careless, severe or lenient, by turns, as whim, caprice, or humor, may happen to dictate, is the course for the parent to adopt if he would teach the child to despise all parental authority and control.

Thirdly. This duty should be exercised with discretion.

The parent should not make too many rules, or require too much. He should give advice, or counsel, when it is proper, and issue his command only when it is necessary. Parental government should be administered in love, and with reference to the good of the child.

A mild, gentle, and steady course, mingling reason and instruction with authority and command, if adopted by the parent, will seldom fail to secure the blessing of filial love and obedience; whereas, if parents manifest, in the control of their children, a severe, tyrannical manner, or a turbulent temper, they will thereby “provoke them to wrath,” instead of “bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

II. The duties of children to their parents will next be considered. This is expressly enjoined in the fifth commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Exodus 20:12. Our Saviour has repeated this commandment, and strongly enforced this duty (Matthew 15:4). St. Paul has also commented upon it, styling it “the first commandment with promise” (Ephesians 6:2) — that is, with a promise expressed; for, doubtless, a promise is implied in connection with each commandment. The term honor, as used in this precept, is to be understood in an enlarged sense, as embracing the entire duty of children to parents; indeed, it is generally construed, and properly so, we think, as covering the whole ground of the duties growing out of the relation subsisting between inferiors and superiors. And, in is extended application, it not only includes the duties of children to parents, but of parents to children, of masters to servants, and of servants to masters; and of those high in station or office to the humble and obscure, and vice versa.

We now, however, speak specially of the duties of children to their parents. As love is “the fulfilling of the law,” of course that term comprehends this entire duty; but it may be more specifically considered.

1. It implies gratitude.

As no duty of children to their parents can be conceived more rational and imperative than that of gratitude, so no crime can be more detestable, or is more severely condemned in Scripture, than that of filial ingratitude. In reference to this sin, our Lord, quoting from the law (Exodus 21:15-17), says: “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Matthew 15:4. What can be more unnatural or revolting to all the better feelings of humanity than for children to forget, or not cherish with deepest emotions of gratitude and affection, the remembrance of that parental care and solicitude which watched over the helplessness and dependency of their infancy and childhood? Filial ingratitude can only find room in a heart bereft of all lovely and virtuous emotion.

2. Another duty of children to parents is obedience.

The Bible precept on this subject is most explicit. St. Paul says: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right.” Ephesians 6:1. And again: “Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord.” Colossians 3:20. From these scriptures we learn that this requirement of obedience is universal, with but one exception — it is to be “in the Lord” — that is, the obligation to obey becomes void when the requirement is contrary to the law of God. In such cases, the apostolic maxim, “We aught to obey God rather than men,” should be observed; but this exception to the rule can only apply when children are of age and discretion to judge for themselves concerning the divine law. With this single exception, the obligation on children to obey their parents is universal and imperative; and this obedience should be rendered in a ready, docile, and cheerful spirit and manner.

Should parents, however, be so tyrannical and unreasonable as to require their children to engage in a matrimonial alliance with persons for whom they cannot have that esteem and love which the conjugal vow requires; or, should they so exercise authority over their children as to infringe upon that liberty of conscience on the subject of religion which is the scriptural birthright of children as well as parents — in such cases, as obedience to parents would involve disobedience to God, it ceases to be the duty of children.

The exceptions to the law requiring filial obedience are few, and of seldom occurrence. The child should never disobey the parent till, after mature consideration, and having counseled with judicious friends, the conviction is clear in his own mind that the parental command requires what is contrary to the command of God.

3. Reverence for parents is another filial duty.

This is clearly implied by the letter of the law itself: “Honor thy father and thy mother.” As nothing can be more unnatural, so no sin is more ignominious, in the view of all virtuous minds, than that of irreverence or disrespect for parents. This reverence for parents, however, should be distinguished from a servile fear or dread. It should be mixed with confiding esteem and love.

Children should be slow to observe the faults and infirmities of their parents. By kind, respectful words, by gentle and submissive behavior — indeed, in their entire demeanor — they should evince that they look up to