I agree with our author, that the title to this honour is vested in the parents by nature, and is a right which accrues to them by their having begotten their children, and God by many positive declarations has confirmed it to them: I also allow our author’s rule, “that in grants and gifts, that have their original from God and nature, as the power of the father,” (let me add, “and mother,” for whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder) “no inferior power of men can limit, nor make any law of prescription against them,” O. 158, so that the mother having, by this law of God, a right to honour from her children, which is not subject to the will of her husband, we see this, “absolute monarchical power of the father” can neither be founded on it, nor consist with it; and he has a power very far from monarchical, very far from that absoluteness our author contends for, when another has over his subjects the same power he hath, and by the same title: and therefore he cannot forbear saying himself that “he cannot see how any man’s children can be free from subjection to their parents,” p.

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