A Letter sent to Master A. B. from the most godly and learned Preacher I. B. In which is set forth the authority of Parents upon their children, for giving of correction unto them.  
With an addition of a Sermon of Repentance annexed thereunto.  
Anno Domini. 1548.   

To his loving Friend and Cousin, Master A. B.  
GRace and peace in our Lord and Saviour jesus Christ, be with you and all yours. I am very much grieved, to hear of those afflictions of mind, which do so greatly trouble and appassionate you, and my dear Cousin your wife, for the disobedience of your son towards you. And specially for that you stand in some doubt with yourself, in respect of his riper years now, whether you should give him such sharp correction, as without which, there is little hope of his good reformation: he being now entered into the age of twenty and above. Truly you must take this, to be a just punishment sent from God unto you: in that you have heretofore, so carlessly let fall the reins of his government out of your own hands, and laid the same so loosely in the neck of your youthful son, permitting him without chastisement, to do what he would: and to follow the lewd affections of his own rash will and pleasures. I did always much fear and mistrust, that this your overmuch sufferance, would breed and bring forth at the length his great hindrance, much discomfort to yourself, and heaps of sorrow to all us your faithful friends & kinsfolks. For who seeth not, that in all things it is most plain and evident, both to men of judgement and learning, but chiefly to men of wisdom and experience, that youth and young things, always have been, be, and ever willbe such and the like, as in and by their education they are taught and framed. Yea, it is most commonly and in manner continually seen, that nature by the power and strength of education, is oft times utterly changed and altered to the contrary, the history of Socrates doth approve it: the memory of Balenus doth throughly confirm it: and even in our own time and age, it is so fully witnessed, as it needeth no great argument to set forth the same. I myself have seen a very apparel Cur, trained up and made to the hurt Dear, so excellent, so perfit and so good, as that he was bought and sold for xx. angels between two brethren. This did education put into him against nature. Again I have seen a most fair and beautiful hound, and even of the best kind, being bred and brought up to sleep and lodge in a knight's Chamber, and to wait upon him there: hath utterly refused to hunt, or to follow the chase according to his kind, yea, though he was beaten unto it from his masters heels right sharply. It is beyond all belief, what a wonderful great force and power in all things hath education. So it is most certain, that if there be due care and diligence had and used, that virtuous and good behaviour be taught and lovingly cherished: and lewd and lose demeanour forbidden and sharply punished: the child which is always sure, to taste and receive the great pleasure of the first, and not to escape for no cause the bitter pains of the second, will always no doubt gladly embrace the one, and willingly fly the other. Wherefore I conclude, that if you had brought up your son with care and diligence, to rejoice in the fear of God, to take pleasure in meekness and humylity, to delight in obedience towards his Parents: and on the other side to be afraid to do evil, to shun disobedience, and to fear the smart of correction: you should then have felt those comforts, which happy Parents receive from their good and honest children: and never have known those sorrows, which now oppress your heart, for the grief of your unruly son. But will you know the root and cause of all this? Alas even yourself, and my seely Cousin your wife, carried on with a fond love and a foolish affection, which evermore falleth out to be the child's utter destruction: you both have suffered him, to pass on pleasantly in his own delights: you have permitted him, to run the course of his own will: you have foolishly forborn, to spend the sharp rods of correction, upon the naked flesh of his loins: you have fond pyttied, to spill some blood of his body, with the sharp stripes of chastisement: & what have ye wrought thereby? you have preserved his skin from breaking, his blood from spilling, and his loins from smarting. A three halfpenny matter, yea though his skin had been broken in pieces, though his blood had run down in streams, and though his scourged loins had smarted forty days after. For now by forberaunce of this which is nothing, you have put your son in hazard of utter confusion: you have heaped your own discomfort and lamentation: yea, you have endangered your utter deep damnation. For be you most assured, that before the Lord you shall give account of such careless and negligent bringing up of your children, so much to their own destruction, and when they perish for want of that rod of correction, which is committed unto you, and put into your hands, only to the end and intent, that you should use it for their chastisment and good, assuredly their death and damnation will be required at your hands, and you shall answer as well for their bodies, as for their souls, in that last day of judgement, before the Tribunal seat of GOD. But I hear, that now you weep and wail bitterly for that which is past: you find your own folly now: you repent you of your extreme fondness and foolish pity heretofore: and if your son were in his tender years again: you say that then you would chastise him with all severe scourges and castigation. Behold how one great folly doth accompany an other, and that greater than the first. Good Lord, how wonderfully are you blinded in that, which is more clear than is the light of the noon day. Your son is now of twenty years old and more: Is he therefore free from the rod of correction? Is he therefore now not subject to the stripes & scourges of his father? Is he therefore not to be stripped naked, & to be beaten and whipped, until you have broken even all the skin of his body, spilled the blood of his loins in abundance, and given him so many thousand scourges, as that he may neither lie nor sit without pain in forty days after? Nay he is nothing at all free from these things. For all this is most fit to be done, and he is to be haled home with violence, and whether he will or not to be taught to obey, by the smart of his loins, and to be trained to his duty by the pains of his scourges. For when gentle lenatives will do no good, to an old sore over long neglected: you know that corrosives are to be applied, & though always they put the patient to great pains, yet are they most sure Salves, to heal and cure the wound. Be not therefore abused, in believing that your child being above twenty years of age, ought not therefore most sharply for his faults to be scourged and punished. In former ages, the sons and daughters have been subject to the scourges of their Parents, even all their lives long. And by the laws of God, and of nations: it remaineth and aught to be so still. Doth not the law at this day, for divers faults, judge both the man and woman, even naked to be most grievously whipped, and that with the scourges of whipcordes knotted, some with a thousand stripes, some with more, and some with less, according to the quality of their offence? And is not think you, the authority of the parents upon the child, far above and superior, beyond all the laws positive, that man may stablish and make? You shall hear, what God himself hath set down and enacted in his sacred book, which is above all earthly laws and constitutions. And thereby shall you plainly perceive in how great and straight subjection, it is the express will of God, that children do stand and remain towards their parents. The text is thus. If any man have a son that is stubborn & disobedient, 
Deutr. 21.  which will not hearken unto the voice of his father, nor the voice of his mother, and they have chastened him, and he would not obey them: Then shall his father and his mother take him, & bring him out unto the Elders of his City, and unto the gate of the place where he dwelleth: and shall say unto the Elders of his City: This our son is stubborn and disobedient, and he will not obey our admonition: Then all the men of the City shall stone him with stones unto death. So thou shalt take away evil from among you: that Israel may hear it & fear. Here you see two things are to be noted. First that there be no years excepted: but if he be a son, (that is to say a child of his parent, for under that word son, both son and daughter are equally comprehended) he is fast bound to the duty of obedience. Let him be of what years so ever he may be, if he be at any time disobedient to the voice of his father, or of his mother, he is subject to their chastisement. The second note is, that this disobedience of the child to his Parent, is a thing so hateful to almighty God, as that he hath pronounced by his own mouth, that such a child shall die the death therefore. Let not parents than be doubtful or scrupulous, by the sharp chastisment of whipping and scourges to correct their children, to the uttermost: when by their power and authority over them, they may for their disobedience deliver them unto death. For if death be commanded to the disobedient child by God himself, O ye fond and foolish parents, will ye make any scruple pity or compassion, to strip him naked, to beat him, whip him, and scourge him, yea not with a thousand stripes, but even with many thousands and that most bitterly and sharply, when gentle admonitions and warnings given, will not prevail? For you know what is written in the book of God: 
prover. 13  He that spareth his rod, hateth his child, but he that loveth him, chastiseth him betime. And in an other place. 
prover. 19  Chastise thy son while there is hope: and let not thy soul spare for his murmuring. This text doth very well forewarn those fond and foolish parents, that willbe moved, to pity the cries or lamentations, of their corrected children, for this is as much as if he had said: whether thy child mumur, or mutiny against his correction, whether he resist or set himself against thee: whether he make moan or lamentation unto thee: yea, though he speak never so fair to entreat thee: whether he weep or wail, cry or exclaim: Finally, whatsoever mean or moan he make unto thee, to move thee to that fond or foolish pity or compassion: let thine ears be still deaf unto him: and let not thy soul spare, lustily to lay on the sharp stripes of correction, even with all the might and power that thou canst give them. For again he saith: 
prover. 20  The blueness of the wound doth serve to purge the evil: and the stripes within the bowels of the belly. This teacheth us to whip and scourge, not only till the blood run down, but even till we have left wounds in the flesh: and this doth plainly prove, that the scourgings of disobedient children, aught to be with knotted whipcordes, and not with rods of byrche, which God knoweth unto a shrewd boy, is but a simple chastisement: and in a few days after, is soon recovered and forgotten. But this text sayeth, that the stripes should be such and so severe, as they should pass and enter even into the very bowels of the belly: that is to say, even the very heart and soul of the disobedient child, that lies within the bowels, should feel the sharpness of his correction, it ought and should be so great unto him. And why? marry to save himself from shame and confusion, and his soul from damnation. And therefore in an other place it is said: 
prover. 23  Withhold not correction from thy child: for if thou smite him with the rod, he shall not die. Lo, here is a blessing promised to that child, whom the parents do smite with the rod of correction: and that even the greatest blessing of all blessings: which is eternal salvation. And is it not also likewise emplyed think you by this text? that if this child be not smitten with the rod of correction by his parents, that he is then in danger of eternal damnation? ye, no doubt it is. For in an other place, the same is plainly confirmed to be so, where he saith thus: Thou shalt smite him with the rod, 
prover. 23  and shalt deliver his soul from Hell. And after this he sayeth: Correct thy son, 
prover. 29  and he will give thee rest, and will give pleasures to thy soul. Lo how he saith, that it shall be rest and pleasure to the soul of the parents, to correct their child. So as we ought to take pleasure in their sharp correction: because it is so much for their sweet good and behoof: and ●o greatly for their own comfort. And there is no doubt, but that if either we be negligent, and reck not: or moved with fond pity, and will not give that sharp and severe punishment that we ought: assuredly the fall and confusion of that child, shall be required at our hands in the day of the Lord: and our soul shall pay the price of his destruction. And therefore we ought, not only to correct them, but also to instruct them, and teach them. For all their whole life, rule, order, disposition, and government, dependeth upon us. And therefore it is written in Ecclesiasticus: If thou have sons, instruct them, 
Eccle. 7.  and hold their neck from their youth. The meaning is, keep their neck always under the yoke of obedience and chastisement. And again it followeth: 
Eccle. 30.  Give him no liberty in his youth, and wink not at his folly. And after again: 
Eccle. 30.  Bow down his neck while he is young, and beat him on the sides, lest he wax stubborn and be disobedient to thee, and so bring sorrow to thine heart. And likewise again: He that loveth his son, 
Eccle. 30.  causeth him oft to feel the rod: that he may joy of him in the end. And after this again: 
Eccle. 30.  He that chastiseth his son, shall have joy in him, and shall rejoice of him among his acquaintance. And in like sort again: 
Eccle. 30.  Chastise thy child and be diligent therein, lest his shame grieve thee. And after this again: 
prover. 29  The rod and correction give wisdom, but a child set at liberty maketh his mother ashamed. And last of all it is written thus. 
Eccle. 30.  He that flattereth his son, bindeth up his wounds, and his heart is grieved at every cry. Whereby he doth plainly teach us: That good and discreet fathers and mothers, they should not flatter nor moon their sons and daughters: for though their loins be never so much scourged, and though their bodies be never so bloody beaten: yea, though their sides be full of wounds, yet sayeth Ecclesiasticus: Flatter him not, bind not up his wounds, be not moved with any cry or compassion that he can make unto thee: but let him 〈…〉 child: you shall also deliver your own soul, from the heavy burden of conscience, by which you are bound even upon pain of damnation, to see his faults & offences most severely chastised and corrected. The Lord power upon him his grace, and send him to live in the love and fear of him: and then shall all things prosper with him, even to your great comfort and rejoicing, which GOD grant. Amen.  
FINIS.