SERMON VII.
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT: HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER.
"By honoring father and mother, in the literal or natural sense," says the Doctrine of the New Church, "is meant to honor parents, to obey them, to be attentive to them, and to be grateful to them for the benefits which they bestow. These benefits are, that they feed and clothe their children, and introduce them into the world, that they may act their part in it as civil and moral persons; also, that by means of religious instruction they lead them to heaven; providing thus both for their temporal prosperity, and for their eternal felicity: doing all these things from the love which they derive from the Lord, whose place they fill. In a secondary sense, the command to honor father and mother implies the honor due by wards to their guardians, in case the parents are deceased. In a wider sense, it means to honor the king or magistrates, since these provide for the common good, as parents do for the good of their children.
