§. 67. The subjection of a minor places in the father a temporary government
which terminates with the minority of the child; and the honour due from a
child places in the parents a perpetual right to respect, reverence, support,
and compliance, to more or less, as the father's care, cost, and kindness in
his education has been more or less, and this ends not with minority, but holds
in all parts and conditions of a man's life. The want of distinguishing these
two powers which the father hath, in the right of tuition, during minority, and
the right of honour all his life, may perhaps have caused a great part of the
mistakes about this matter. For, to speak properly of them, the first of these
is rather the privilege of children and duty of parents than any prerogative of
paternal power. The nourishment and education of their children is a charge so
incumbent on parents for their children's good, that nothing can absolve them
from taking care of it. And though the power of commanding and chastising them
go along with it, yet God hath woven into the principles of human nature such a
tenderness for their offspring, that there is little fear that parents should
use their power with too much rigour; the excess is seldom on the severe side,
the strong bias of nature drawing the other way. And therefore God Almighty,
when He would express His gentle dealing with the Israelites, He tells them
that though He chastened them, "He chastened them as a man chastens his
son" (Deut. 8. 5) — i.e., with tenderness and affection, and kept
them under no severer discipline than what was absolutely best for them, and
had been less kindness, to have slackened. This is that power to which children
are commanded obedience, that the pains and care of their parents may not be
increased or ill-rewarded.
