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Deut.xvii. 2, &c.

Levit.

xxiv. 16.

So fhalt thou put evil away from among

you.

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Just so in the case of idolatry and blafphemy. If there be found among you man or woman, that hath gone and served other Gods, and worshipped them thou shalt ftone them with ftones, till they die: fo thou fhalt put the evil away from among` you. He that blafphemeth the name of the Lord, Shall furely be put to death, and all the congregation fhall certainly ftone him.

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And no wonder that the punishment is the fame, when the offences are fo Ecclus iii. much alike. He that for faketh his father, is as a blafphemer.

16.

St. Paul too seems to acknowledge the affinity between these two vices by his

2 Tim. iii. arrangement of the offenders, blafphemers, difobedient to Parents.

2.

Is there need of more? The command

is

is exprefs; the sanction great, on both fides; the reward diftinguished; the condemnation dreadful, and yet equitable: The confcience even of the tranfgreffor cannot but approve of it. He that is hard-hearted to him that begat, and her that bare him, to whom will he be good? What crimes will he not in time commit, who begins with this? and what punishment may he not grow up to suffer? The eye that mocketh at his father, and de- Prov.xxx. fpifeth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles fhall eat it.

And in fact, what confeffion is more juft, or indeed more frequent, in those who are rought to an ignominious end, than this, That they begun their course of iniquity at home, in an obftinate ungovernable disposition, and disobedience to their parents? The progrefs after this was natural, through every vice to that fatal crime to be now expiated; and yet

per

17.

perhaps not expiated, even by their blood; through every danger to this awful moment, when they find Almighty God faithful at least in his threatenings. They are fnatched away in the midft, in the beginning often of their days; gathering thus the first bitter fruits of difobedience, and looking for the full vintage hereaf ter in eternal death.

SER

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CHILDREN, OBEY YOUR PARENTS IN
THE LORD; FOR THIS IS RIGHT.

A en

S the duty of children to parents is enjoined in the cleareft manner, and under the strongest fanctions by the Law of God; fo it is alfo required by, what is indeed the Law of God too, the voice of Nature, Reafon, and Humanity.

You obferve how the young of Animals appear to be committed by Nature to the care and protection of their parents: They have continual recourse to

them

them in their wants and fears, and conform inftantly to every intimation of fuch lawful guides and governours. The parents accordingly, on the other hand, are in a moft wonderful manner both disposed to undertake this truft, and enabled to execute it.

These ties, we fee, are first formed by the hand of nature: and the child, that endeavours to break loose from this regular dependance and fubjection, oppofes the order inftituted by providence, and the course of things. He can find no example in any other species, to counte nance his unnatural wilfulness; and the voice of every creature upon earth cries out against him, and condemns him.

But Reason also in the Human species is on the fame fide, and strengthens the ties of nature. Regard to the publick and our own welfare will prefcribe the fame conduct, to which we are already prompted

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