Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A33522
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A fruitfull and usefull discourse touching the honour due from children wherein both the respective duties of children to parents and of parents to children are cleared from Scripture, together with what may either further or hinder the same ... / by Thomas Cobbet.
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Cobbet, Thomas, 1608-1685.
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1656
(1656)
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Wing C4777; ESTC R29964
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162,603
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256
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formall Pharisaicall Honour of Parents there is an Honour of Parents common not alone to Hypocrites but to very Pagans also who from meer naturall principles have done much this way in Honour of Parents and have been very eminent and famous therein But to passe them by at present and instance in others Paul before his conversion was an exact Moralist touching the letter of the Law and so of the 5th Commandement he was blamelesse Phil. 3. 6. So that young man in his sense had kept all and o the 5th Commandment according to the letter of it Mark 10. 19 20. Yet a meer unregenerate person Now if persons in the relation of Children rightly honour their Parents it may be discerned Marks of due honour of Parents by such markes as these 1. If Conscience to God and to his command 1. If from a good conscience hath the greatest stroak in the Honour given to Parents by their Children If rightly honoured they are honoured in the Lord as in that branch of this Honour it is said Eph. 6. 1. Children obey your Parents in the Lord. So it is true in Honour in generall or in any other particular of Honour due to Parents they must be respected reverenced and recompenced c. in the Lord. Or so as it be from a good Conscience and may stand with a good Conscience 1 Tim. 1. 5. the end or scope of the Commandement even of the whole Law specially that of the second Table and particularly this of the fifth Commandement also is Love to whom Matth. 22. 37 38 39 40. all the duties of the Law are referred as to their head out of a pure heart and a good Conscience and faith unfeighned True it is the Law of nature and Nations also may and must have a strong hand in the Honour of Parents by their Children but must not have the chief hand therein respect may and must also be had to the blessing of life and that it may be well with us Eph. 6. 2 3. Honour thy Father and Mother that thou maist live long and that it may be well with thee We may and must aime at this that it may be well with us in our souls bodies estates names occasions relations changes prosperity adversity life death and after death but yet conscience to God and his command together with chief respect had to the glory of God must be the great wheel which carrieth us on in this good way Paul thought to gain eternall life by his Morall Righteousness that set him so hard to this and other works of the Law Ph. 3. 6 7. The yong mans question intimateth what was uppermost in his heart in all his keepings of the Law namely the getting of eternall life onely Mark 10. 17 19 20. And therefore these were notright in any of their acts of obedience to this fifth Commandement or to any of the rest of the ten Commandements Now if this Honour to Parents be indeed from a good conscience it will be also from faith unfeigned This is discerned if from Faith for they are joyned 1 Tim. 1. 5. When the interest which children have in the Lord and in his gracious covenant and promises is a main ground of the Honour of Reverence or of any other Honour which persons as in the Relation of Children do give unto their Mother or to their Father this is suitable to Gods mind Levit. 19. 3. Ye shall fear every man his Mother and every man his Father why so or what should move them to that it followeth I am the Lord your God Because they believe him to be their blessed Covenant Father in the Messiah they are therefore the rather to put all the Honour they can upon the Image of his Father-hood in their Parents Now it is as God would have it So when persons as in If from love of God the relation of Children do respect prise and love their Christian Parents the more because they love the Lord who requireth this at their hand now it is well a so or when an holy fear attendeth them lest not alone their good Parents hearts If from fear of Sin but lest the Lord also and his Spirit should any way be grieved or displeased by their expressing or carrying it towards them in any way contrary to due Honour of Parents they are afraid to carry it irreverently disobediently disrespectfully or ingratefully towards them even when some way tempted thereto lest the eyes of Gods glory should thereby be provoked now also it is well Or when at any time they espie any dishonourable If kindly broken and Abased when the contrary in them is discerned thought or stirring in their minds or spirits or take notice of some speech or carriage of theirs savouring of dishonour to Father or Mother and this melteth their hearts kindly before the Lord and maketh them ready to confess the same ingenuously to living Parents as well as to the Lord and that in all the aggravations thereof yea when a very shadow of such dishonour of Parents or the remembrance of any passages savouring thereof though past long ago and possibly before God touched their hearts effectually as well as since that these also are matters of heart Abasings breakings and bitter complaints before the Lord this argueth a good conscience in this particular also When they also do watch their spirits and hearts to keep them to the Rule as well as over If watching over their spirits also so that end their speeches gestures and actions to keep them as close as may be to that rule Honour thy Father and thy Mother this also argueth Honour of Father If there be no outward thing frighting or chiefly drawing to it and Mother from a good conscience In a word when there is no other thing of an inferiour nature either to affright and force them to it or on the other hand to bribe them to it as say riches preferments patrimony or the like humane Attractives and yet they are inwardly moved and strongly and prevailingly carryed out in a way of Honour of Parents All these do undoubtedly evince that now at least there is a blessed Spirit and habit of Honour of Parents wrought in such Children by the speciall efficacy of the Holy Ghost from which such do now at least Act in matters respecting their Parents Honour and that now at least a good conscience and conscience to God and to his Command doth set them about this blessed work The clearing of this first mark which indeed is the main of all might satisfie us but for further help in this discovery let us adde three or four marks of Honour rightly given to Parents A second mark then hereof is when Children 2. If holding up Parents Honour when aged and decayed are conscientiously carefull to hold up Parents Honour when they are Aged yea and when through infirmity Parents some way miscary As Sem and Japhet were cordially
Children have nothing to give Parents to be a temptation to bribe their affections to them nor are they of any power to curb them any way to enforce respects to them and so they are more pure Whereas in both these regards Childrens respects to Parents may be leavened Yea Parents as Parents are instruments in Gods hands of their Childrens Souls being in their bodies and so of the faculties of their Souls and so of their naturall affections in them and of that affection of love and fear amongst the rest and therefore they may well chalenge the honourable improvement of them to themselves so far as God alloweth the same To conclude Children will never honour Parents with the honour of Reverence Obedience or Recompence or the like unlesse they give the honour of respect love due to them therefore give them this their due Now that Children may be helped and furthered in doing this Helps to it 1 Dread of the vile sin of unnaturalnesse 1. Possesse your hearts with a deep sense and dread of the heinous nature of the sin of unnaturalness which is wont to be accompanied with the vilest sins against God and Man as by comparing Rom. 2. 28 29 30 31 32. and 2 Tim. 3. 2 3 4. may be discerned Such persons who are without naturall affections commonly proving Blasphemous against God ingrateful to God and men unholy truce and Covenant-breakers whisperers back-biters false accusers of others they are commonly given to uncleanness and wantonness they are fierce and furious of a cruell Salvage unmercifull implacable spirit they are despisers of those that are good they are even haters of God they are haters of other men of a spightfull malicious quarrelsome and envious Spirit in a word They are full of all unrighteousnesse and deceit themselves and inventors of evill things evill opinions evill practises ringleaders in sin authors of sin to others If sundry of these scandalous persons in old and new England were closely search'd into they would be found to be persons who have been are unnaturall to their Parents 2. Take heed of any leading causes which breed and feed unnaturalness and undermine naturall 2. Avoiding causes of unnaturalnesse of affection as 1. Ignorance affection to Parents such as are 1. Ignorance of God and of his word and of the matters of Religion Rom 1. 31. without understanding without naturall affection if without understanding what wonder if without naturall affection 2. Self-love for they that are so full of self-love 2. Self-love have never a due proportion of love left for God or man for Parents or others 2 Tim. 3. 2. For men shall be lovers of themselves and verse 3. without naturall affection 3. A worldly covetous Spirit ibid. Covetous 3. Covetousnesse without naturall affection a Spirit of the love of the world will eat out as the love of the Father of our Spirits John 2. 15. so that of the Father of our flesh also whose Fatherhood is an Image of that in God Such if they shew respect to Parents it is but for their own advantage and gaine and if the respect to them may not stand with their gain or must be to their outward losse then adieu respect to Parents 4. A proud Spirit 2 Tim. 3. 3 4. Without naturall affection high-minded Absolom who was so Pride high-minded what wonder is it if he prove so unnaturall to his Father 5. A Voluptuous Spirit ibid. Without naturall affection lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God Voluptuousnesse They that respect their pleasures so much they never respect God as they shold nor their parents Esaus inordinatenesse of affection to his hunting brings him to that Gen. 25. that he despiseth his birth-right as his Fathers eldest Son and therein virtually despiseth his Father and his voluptuous desires after the Canaanitish women make him carelesse of grieving his Father and Mother and so far unnaturall to them Gen. 26. 3. Getting their hearts truly turned to the Lord. 3. Labour to get your hearts turned to God effectually and in love with him as a Father and then whatsoever alienations of heart there were in you from your Parents before yet then Childrens hearts will be also turned fully to your good Parents Ma. 4. 6. Jo. Baptist its said by the blessing of grace upon his Ministry turning persons to the Lord to the faith to the wisedome of the Just as Luke hath said it Luk. 1. 17. he shall turn the hearts of the Children to their good Fathers which whilest the Children were wicked they could not well abide to be controuled reproved curbed and corrected as they were by them and so their good Fathers also whose hearts were much taken off from those Children for their vilenesse should be turned towards their Children or as some say the unnaturall distances bred betwixt Parents and Children by many sects and opinions too rife among the Jewes when by sound doctrine they were brought to rights and to the truth those alienations should be healed Only Cautions about Childrens love to Parents 1. Not such as to approve sin in Parents in the love of Children to Parents let these cautions be observed 1. Look that it be not such as to approve of the evill saiyings principles or practises of your ungodly or of your seducing or seduced Parents It s blamed in them Psal 40. 13. their posterity approve their sayings Jer. 7. 18. The Children gather wood and the Fathers kindle a fire and the women knead the dough to make Cakes to the Queen of heaven 2 King 15. 13. Asaph loved his Mother well as his Mother but he hateth her Idol he destroyeth and burneth it Abraham loveth his Father Terah well but will not go after his way of Idol-worship Josh 24. 2 3. God commendeth it in the Son who seeth all his fathers sins and considereth and doth not such like Ezek. 18. 14. 2. Let it not be such as to follow their evill Of 2. Such as to follow their sinfull Counsell Counsel in any thing as Ahaziah who walked in the waies of Ahab for his Mother was his Consellour 2 Chron. 22. 3. And as Herodias who being before instructed of her Mother said to Herod give me here John Baptists head in a charger Mat. 14. 8. 3. Let it not be so as to keep their dangerous Or 3. Such as to keep their sinfull Counsel and wicked Counsel in any way of wickednesse but rather seasonably to reveal it Michol Sauls Daughter did well in this to tell her husband David of her Fathers Sauls bloody design against him so that he escaped 1 Sam. 19. 11 12. The like did Jonathan to David Cap. 20 3 4. 4. That it be not so as when you are called of Or 4. Not to bear seasonable witness against their evils God to it then not to bear seasonable witnesse against their sin as in case of Parents seducing Children from the Lord and his