If therefore this command, “Honour thy father and mother,” concern political dominion, it directly overthrows our author’s monarchy: since it being to be paid by every child to his father, even in society, every father must necessarily have political dominion, and there will be as many sovereigns as there are fathers: besides that the mother too hath her title, which destroys the sovereignty of one supreme monarch. But if “Honour thy father and mother” mean something distinct from political power, as necessarily it must, it is besides our author’s business, and serves nothing to his purpose.

“The law that enjoins obedience to kings is delivered, says our author, in the terms, Honour thy father, as if all power were originally in the father,” O. 254: and that law is also delivered, say I, in the terms, “Honour thy mother,” as if all power were originally in the mother. I appeal whether the argument be not as good on one side as the other, father and mother being joined all along in the Old and New Testament wherever honour or obedience is enjoined children. Again our author tells us, O.