Another Word for Parents

How may a parent provoke his children to wrath?

(1) By giving them opprobrious terms. 'Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman,' said Saul to his son Jonathan. 1 Sam 20:30. Some parents use imprecations and curses to their children, which provoke them to wrath. Would you have God bless your children, and do you curse them?

(2) Parents provoke children to wrath when they strike them without a cause, or when the correction exceeds the fault. This is to be a tyrant rather than a father. Saul cast a javelin at his son to smite him, and his son was provoked to anger. 'So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger.' I Sam 20:33, 34. In filium pater obtinet non tyrannicum imperium, sed basilicum [A father exercises a kingly power over his son, not that of a tyrant]. Davenant.

(3) When parents deny their children what is absolutely needful. Some have thus provoked their children: they have stinted them, and kept them so short, that they have forced them upon indirect courses, and made them put forth their hands to iniquity.

(4) When parents act partially towards their children, showing more kindness to one than to another. Though a parent may have a greater love to one child, yet discretion should lead him not to show more love to one than to another. Jacob showed more love to Joseph than to all his other children, which provoked the envy of his brethren. 'Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, and when his brethren saw that, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.' Gen 37:3, 4.

(5) When a parent does anything which is sordid and unworthy, which casts disgrace upon himself and his family, as to defraud or take a false oath, it provokes the child to wrath. As the child should honour his father, so the father should not dishonour the child.

(6) When parents lay commands upon their children which they cannot perform without wronging their consciences. Saul commanded his son Jonathan to bring David to him. 'Fetch him to me, for he shall surely die.' I Sam 20:31. Jonathan could not do this with a good conscience; but was provoked to anger. 'Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger.' I Sam 20:34. The reason why parents should show their prudence in not provoking their children to wrath, is this: 'Lest they be discouraged.' Col 3:21. This word 'discouraged' implies three things. Grief. The parent's provoking the child, the child so takes it to heart, that it causes premature death. Despondency. The parents' austerity dispirits the child, and makes it unfit for service; like members of the body stupefied, which are unfit for work. Contumacy and refractoriness. The child being provoked by the cruel and unnatural carriage of the parent, grows desperate, and often studies to irritate and vex his parents; which, though it be evil in the child, yet the parent is accessory to it, as being the occasion of it.

(7) If you would have honour from your children, pray much for them. Not only lay up a portion for them, but lay up a stock of prayer for them. Monica prayed much for her son Augustine; and it was said, it was impossible that a son of so many prayers and tears should perish. Pray that your children may be preserved from the contagion of the times; pray that as your children bear your images in their faces, they may bear God's image in their hearts; pray that they may be instruments and vessels of glory. One fruit of prayer may be, that the child will honour a praying parent.

(8) Encourage that which you see good and commendable in your children. Virtus laudata crescit [Goodness increases when praised]. Commending that which is good in your children makes them more in love with virtuous actions; and is like the watering of plants, which makes them grow more. Some parents discourage the good they see in their children, and so nip virtue in the bud, and help to damn their children's souls. They have their children's curses.

(9) If you would have honour from your children, set them a good example. It makes children despise parents, when the parents live in contradiction to their own precepts; when they bid their children be sober, and yet they themselves get drunk; or bid their children fear God, and are themselves loose in their lives. Oh if you would have your children honour you, teach them by a holy example. A father is a looking-glass, which the child often dresses himself by; let the glass be clear and not spotted. Parents should observe great decorum in their whole conduct, lest they give occasion to their children to say to them, as Plato's servant, 'My master has made a book against rash anger, but he himself is passionate;' or, as a son once said to his father, 'If I have done evil, I have learned it of you.'

~~Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity.