The father's
empire then ceases, and he can from thence forwards no more
dispose of the liberty of his son, than that of any other man:
and it must be far from an absolute or perpetual jurisdiction,
from which a man may withdraw himself, having license from divine
authority to leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife.
Sec. 66. But though there be a time when a child comes to
be as free from subjection to the will and command of his
father, as the father himself is free from subjection to the will
of any body else, and they are each under no other restraint, but
that which is common to them both, whether it be the law of
nature, or municipal law of their country; yet this freedom
exempts not a son from that honour which he ought, by the law
of God and nature, to pay his parents. God having made the
parents instruments in his great design of continuing the race of
mankind, and the occasions of life to their children; as he hath
laid on them an obligation to nourish, preserve, and bring up
their offspring; so he has laid on the children a perpetual
obligation of honouring their parents, which containing in it
an inward esteem and reverence to be shewn by all outward
expressions, ties up the child from any thing that may ever
injure or affront, disturb or endanger, the happiness or life of
those from whom he received his; and engages him in all actions
of defence, relief, assistance and comfort of those, by whose
means he entered into being, and has been made capable of any
enjoyments of life: from this obligation no state, no freedom can
absolve children.
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