§. 52. IT may perhaps be censured an impertinent criticism in a discourse of
this nature to find fault with words and names that have obtained in the world.
And yet possibly it may not be amiss to offer new ones when the old are apt to
lead men into mistakes, as this of paternal power probably has done, which
seems so to place the power of parents over their children wholly in the
father, as if the mother had no share in it; whereas if we consult reason or
revelation, we shall find she has an equal title, which may give one reason to
ask whether this might not be more properly called parental power? For whatever
obligation Nature and the right of generation lays on children, it must
certainly bind them equal to both the concurrent causes of it. And accordingly
we see the positive law of God everywhere joins them together without
distinction, when it commands the obedience of children: "Honour thy
father and thy mother" (Exod. 20. 12); "Whosoever curseth his father
or his mother" (Lev. 20. 9); "Ye shall fear every man his mother and
his father" (Lev. 19. 3); "Children, obey your parents" (Eph. 6.
1), etc., is the style of the Old and New Testament.
