The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Children, Obey Your Parents...

The fifth commandment is peculiar in closing with a promise to encourage it’s observance. "That of the thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." The first recipient of the promise was the Nation, and it may be national permanency which is pledged. But the Apostle applies it (Eph. 6:2), to Christian children, after Israel was cast out. This authorizes us to give it a personal application. As a long life spent in adversity would be no blessing, this promise is obviously understood as one of "long life and prosperity." We understand it to give us that encouragement which is also presented by the established connection welfare; Rebellious neglect of those duties, and especially of the of causes and effects in God’s providence, where the faithful and general performance of the duties of inferiors and superiors, and especially of parents and children, ensures, as far as any earthly means can, general health, peace, prosperity and temporal parental and filial duties, plunges every society into violence, disease, disorder, misery, and premature death. [color:"blue"]We do not understand God’s promise in this commandment as absolute and universal[/color]. To claim this would be to claim that God should work for dutiful sons a continual miracle, in suspending the mutual influences of men on each other’s welfare, by which the virtuous especially when few, share the calamities procured by the more prevalent crimes of the wicked. The first promise is given to a society (as to Israel) in the aggregate. The general performance of the duty is necessary to ensure the happy result. If there is a general neglect of the duties, as in our day, it must result in calamities, and some of the most dutiful of our sons may fall...