The Duties of Children to their Parents, by Cotton Mather (1700)

Come, Ye Children, Hearken to me; I will tell you, what you shall do, that your Parents may be Happy in you, and that your own Happiness may be secured and increased. Oftentimes the Fathers have the Wisdom to keep up their Authority, and keep themselves above the Contempt of their Children. But the Mothers do more frequently by their Fondness, and Weakness, bring upon themselves, the Contempt of their Children, and Lay themselves Low, by many Impertinencies. The Fifth Commandment stands in the Front of all Six, upon the Second Table of the Law. Children, If you break the Fifth Commandment, there is not much Likelihood, that you will keep the rest; No, there is Hazard, that the Curse of God, will give you up to break every one of them all. Undutiful Children soon become horrid Creatures, for Unchastity, for Dishonesty, for Lying, and all manner of Abominations: And the Contempt which they cast upon the Advice of their Parents, is one thing that pulls down this Curse of God upon them. They who sin against their Parents, are sometimes by God given up to Sin against all the world beside. Mind the Most Scandalous Instances of Wickedness and Villainy; You'll ordinarily find, they were first Undutiful Children, before they fell into the rest of their atrocious Wickedness.Death; Yea, an Early Death, and a Woeful Death, is not seldom the Curse of God upon Undutiful Children for their being so. It is the Tenour of the Precept, Honour thy Father and thy Mother, that thy Days may be long upon the Land. Mind it, Children; Your Days are not like to be long upon the Land, if you Set Light by your Father or Mother. Undutiful Children are Unnatural Children; And the Curse of God sometimes gives over Unnatural Children to commit the most Unnatural Murders. They have Murdered themselves, and been Self-Destroyers: As they have Sinn'd against Nature, so they Die the most against Nature, that can be. The Ungodly Youths in the Town do horribly poison one another. These youths cry up an Indifferency in Religion, and say, 'Tis out of fashion for a man to be of one Religion more than another; that is, in reality to say, 'Tis out of fashion to be of any Religion at all. So they insensibly draw one another on, to deride Seriousness in Religion, and the most Serious and Lively Preachers of it; Until they become Idle, Profane, Sottish Debauchees, and betimes Ripe for the Fiery Indignation of God.