Complete. From the “Holy State.”

HE reverenceth the person of his parent, though old, poor, and froward. As his parent bare with him when a child, he bears with his parent if twice a child; nor doth his dignity above him cancel his duty under him. When Sir Thomas More was Lord Chancellor of England, and Sir John his father one of the judges of the King’s Bench, he would in Westminster Hall beg his blessing of him on his knees.

  He observes his lawful commands, and practiceth his precepts with all obedience. I cannot therefore excuse St. Barbara from undutifulness and occasioning her own death. The matter this. Her father being a Pagan, commanded his workmen building his house to make two windows in a room; Barbara, knowing her father’s pleasure, in his absence enjoined them to make three, that seeing them she might the better contemplate the mystery of the Holy Trinity. (Methinks two windows might as well have raised her meditations, and the light arising from both would as properly have minded her of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.) Her father, enraged at his return, thus came to the knowledge of her religion, and accused her to the magistrate, which cost her her life.

  Having practiced them himself, he entails his parents’ precepts on his posterity. Therefore such instructions are by Solomon, Prov. i. 9, compared to frontlets and chains (not to a suit of clothes, which serves but one, and quickly wears out, or out of fashion), which have in them a real lasting worth, and are bequeathed as legacies to another age. The same counsels observed are chains to grace, which, neglected, prove halters to strangle undutiful children.

  He is patient under correction, and thankful after it. When Mr. West, formerly tutor (such I count in loco parentis) to Dr. Whitaker, was by him, then Regius Professor, created Doctor, Whitaker solemnly gave him thanks before the university for giving him correction when his young scholar.

  In marriage, he first and last consults with his father; when propounded, when concluded. He best bowls at the mark of his own contentment, who, besides the aim of his own eye, is directed by his father, who is to give him the ground.

  He is a stork to his parent, and feeds him in his old age; not only if his father hath been a pelican, but though he hath been an ostrich unto him, and neglected him in his youth. He confines him not a long way off to a short pension, forfeited if he comes into his presence; but shows piety at home, and learns (as St. Paul saith, I. Tim. v. 4) to requite his parent. And yet the debt (I mean only the principal, not counting the interest) cannot fully be paid, and therefore he compounds with his father to accept in good worth the utmost of his endeavor.

  Such a child God commonly rewards with long life in this world. If he chance to die young, yet he lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived, but lost. Besides, God is better than his promise, if he take from him a long lease, and give him a freehold of better value. As for disobedient children,

  If preserved from the gallows, they are reserved for the rack, to be tortured by their own posterity. One complained that never father had so undutiful a child as he had. “Yes,” said his son, with less grace than truth, “my grandfather had.”

  I conclude this subject with the example of a Pagan’s son, which will shame most Christians. Pomponius Atticus, making the funeral oration at the death of his mother, did protest that living with her threescore and seven years, he was never reconciled unto her, se nunquam cum matre in gratiam rediisse; because (take the comment with the text) there never happened betwixt them the least jar which needed reconciliation.