To fhew how fit it is to comply with and obey our parents, God calls himself, throughout the Holy Scripture, our father, and from that title and relation calls for our obedience; and therefore ftubborn, headstrong, difobedient, and rebellious children, ought to think upon thefe things; to confider all the ties and obligations they have to be obedient to their parents; the reafona. bleness, the pleasure, the fecurity of being fo, the approbation of all good people, and the bleffing of God that goes along with it; and on the other hand, the grief and trouble of mind, the forrow and repentance at home, the fhame and infamy from abroad, and the difpleasure of Almighty God, that attend and follow difobedience to parents. But because there are a great many cafes, in which the children plead exemption from this rule, in which they do not actually obey their parents commands, and yet defend themfelves as no tranfgreffors of this law: it may be of fome ufe to fee in what particulars they are obliged to obey without referve, and in what they are at liberty; that the duty of children, and the juft authority of parents, may be both of them fecured. It has been obferved, that in the great affair of marriage, a strict obedience to the will of parents is required. Indeed it is not exprefsly faid in Scripture, that children fhould not marry without the confent, or against the will of their parents, but it is exprefsly faid, that they fhall honour and obey them; and it will be hard to reconcile marrying against confent, with honouring the parents, or marrying against command, with obeying them; and generally speaking, the inftances and examples of marriages, in Scripture, are fuch as fhew the parents had the chiefeft hand in making them up. The file was ever thus: "That fuch a one gave his fon or daughter to fuch a one in marriage; wherefore the law being given particularly to the Jews, and this being the general practice among them, it is not unreasonable to think they held themfelves bound by this law not to marry against their parents parents will or confent. But whether obliged by this law, or no, the custom was fuch, that it was feldom otherwife, and that not only among the Jews, but even among the Greeks and Romans, two of the wifeft and most civilifed people of the world. There would be no end of citations to this purpofe, out of their books; they are all full of them: and tho' there must be many examples to the contrary, yet there are no rules or precepts in favour of the childrens liberty; but when they take it, it is ftill with blame. This difpofal of children by parents, is not only a matter reasonable, fair, and approved by wife and good men among them, and ftrengthened by cuftom uncontrouled and immemorial, but it paft into laws and ftatutes. They reckoned there was no marriage without the confent of the parents, and the children were all accounted baftards. Chriftianity for a great while made no alterations in the matter: The civil laws of Chriftian Emperors confirmed the opinion of the ancients, and the fentence of the church went along with them: the canons, and the judgment of the beft writers, are all on this fide; they ftill make the confent of parents effential to the contract. The law's of our own nation take no notice of confent of parents: they truft it, I believe, to the reafon of the thing itfelf, and to the wifdom of all ages, and to the cultom and example of almost all nations: but the canons of our church dare not venture that; they pofitively require confent of parents; they tell us that it is not lawful for any children, unless arrived to the age of 21, to make any marriage contract without the confent of their parents, or, in cafe they are dead, of their guardians and governors; and that is one good end the church propoles in publishing the banns of matrimony, that the parents and people concerned may know whether they think fit to agree to their childrens choice or no. And that this end may not be defeated by the fecrecy of licences, it is required, that one of the parties fhould depofe on oath, tha: confent of the parents is not wanting, before you you can obtain the licence. This care our church takes, tho' much in vain, which fufficiently fhews her opinion of the matter, how far the reckons the confent of parents neceffary. It is but reafonable, however, that we fhould hear and confider what may in this cafe be answered by the children. Marriage is certainly a flate and condition on which the happinefs of life does very much depend, more than indeed most people think on beforehand. To be confined to live with one perpetually, of whom we have no liking and efteem, muft certainly be a moft uneafy ftate. There had need be a great many good qualities to reconcile a conftant converfation to one, even where there is fome fhare of kindnefs and affection; but without love, the very best of all good qualities will never make a conftant converfation easy and delightful; and whence proceed thofe endless and innumerable domeftic miferies, that plague and utterly confound fo many families, but from want of love and kindness in the wife or hufband? From whence comes their neglect and careless management of affairs at home, and their profufe and extravagant expences abroad? In a word, it is not eafy as it is not needful, to recount the evils that rife abundantly from the want of conjugal affection only; and fince this is fo certain, a man or woman runs the most fearful hazard that can be, who marries without this affection in themselves, and without good affurance of it in the other. And fince it is impoffible for any one to love with another's affe&ions, but with their own, the parents must confider this, efpecially how they engage their children to marry, where at least a hopeful profpect of this love does not appear, left while they are endeavouring to make their children happy, they make them of all creatures the moft miferaule, and that irremediably fo. If there be reason that young people fhould be left in any thing to themfelves, and to their own liberty, it feems to be in the choice of those with whom they are to live and die, with whom they are to venture being happ unhappy all their days. It is without doubt in not fo neceffary as in marriage. Do you not know, fay of old, that marriage belongs to us ourselves, and be matter of our choice. Our affections are our ters, not our fervants: And you cannot by all power and might, nor by your frequently reiterated ders and commands, caufe me to love or hate w you fhall fix. Then is marriage like to be laftingly py, when both agree in loving each the other; and th fore fince I am to have a wife or husband the par of my bed, and of all the joys and forrows that are li ly to befal me while I live, I muft feek for one th can like, I think, for ever. I do not fay that this is as reasonable as it fhould be, but there is reason eno in it, to make the parents very careful and confideri that they urge not their authority too far in conftrain their children to marry not only where there is no visi averfion, but where there is great likelihood that th will not be a good agreement. I do not fee. what it would avail any one to obj against this, the great power given by the laws of the cient Greeks and Romans to parents over their childre Thofe laws that gave them power not only to fell the children for flaves, but even to put them to death, d doubtless impower to difpofe of them in marriage, a bitrarily and without confulting the inclinations of the children. But the laws of Chriftians, which free us fro the bondage of the Mofaical law, fet the liberty of chi dren on a larger bottom than it stood on in antiquity I fee no reafon to think, that parents are by natu -maflers of the freedom and life of the children. An nature is the main rule of command and obedience i parents and children. Thofe nations that made such se vere laws against children, had reafon for it, which pro bably ceafe with us; befides there is no inferring tha the children of other nations, where no fuch laws ar in being, are obliged to the fame obedience; and there -for fore though the people of other kingdoms had fo abfo-. lutely the command of their children, as to difpofe of them in marriage how and where they pleafed; yet is. not their example fufficient to juftify a parent in doing, the like, any further than the thing is otherwife fit,. among us. And it is very difficult to meet with a cafe. where the thing fhall be otherwife fit, when the child cannot love nor like the perfon whom the parent would. force him or her to marry. Children are not tied to this Atrict obedience in this fingle point, only because the children of the Jews, or Greeks, or Romans might be.. And regard is also to be had to the customs of the country. The Jews, as all the people of the east, fpeaking. generally, did not fuffer the women to go abroad as ours. do. They went to vifit a relation or near friend, and.. that fparingly, and mixt not with common company; which, with the modefty peculiar to that fex, deprived them of the opportunity of difpofing of themselves, fo that their parents only muft or could difpofe of them; and when they were once married, they kept very much at home, and faw but little ftrange company. The Greeks and Romans feem to have had more liberty, but yet not near fo much as ours have: This, I take it, ought to make fome little difference; for if the cusloms of the country allow the women liberty to fee and to be seen of all, both before and after marriage, they make it fomewhat more reasonable for them to chocfe their partners with whom they are to live, not in confinement, but at liberty, that they may not afterwards diflike them, nor be betrayed by fuch their liberty into new liking, and defires of thofe they can never obtain. And there is yet more reason that the fons of thefe old people fhould be entirely at the difpofal of their parents, rather than the daughters, becaufe marriage was not half fo grievous to them; for they were allowed more wives than one. Divorces were cheap and eafy, and they took great liberties befides with whom they could; and therefore if they liked not the condition or perfon of a wife, they |