any turpitude is mingled with the action, it is no longer indifferent or subject to command."—And therefore we find Acrotatus commended among the ancients, because when his parents had required of him to do an unjust thing, he answered, I know that you are willing I should do that which is just; for so you taught me to do: I will do therefore that, which you desire I should; but what you bid me, I will not do.'

4. And yet if a father commands an unjust thing, his authority is not wholly nothing. For first, though it must not be obeyed, yet it must not be dishonoured, nor yet rejected but with great regard. "Quædam esse parendum, quædam non obsequendum," said some in A. Gellius: "Sed ea tamen quæ obsequi non oportet, leniter et verecunde, ac sine detestatione nimia, sineque opprobratione acerba reprehensionis declinanda sensim, et relinquenda esse dicunt, quam respuenda:" "What is not fit to be obeyed, must be declined and avoided, rather than railed at and rejected with reproach.""Etiam in bona causa filii apud parentes debet humilis esse oratio," said Salvian. "When a son denies his father, he must do it with the language of obedience." Such as was the answer of Agesilaus' to his father when he would have had him to give judgment against the laws; "A te, pater, à puero didici parere legibus, quamobrem nunc quoque tibi obtempero, cavens nequid faciam præter leges;" "Thou hast from my childhood, O father, taught me to observe the laws; therefore even now also I obey your command, because I take care not to break them." For whatsoever the command be, yet the authority is venerable; if the command be unholy, yet the person is sacred. "Liberto et filio semper honesta et sancta persona patris et patroni videri debet," said Ulpian; "The person of a father is always honest and venerable to the son, and so is that of a patron to his freedman."

5. Though the command is not to be obeyed in things dishonest, yet that then also, the father's authority hath in it some regard, appears by this,-that, if a son transgresses the law by the command of his father, his punishment is something the more easy upon that account, though the offence

Ε'Αγησίλαος ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς κελευόμενος κρῖναί τινα δικὴν παρὰ τὸν νόμον, Αλλ' ὑπὸ σου (έφη) πάτερ, πείθεσθαι τοῖς νόμοις ἐδιδασκόμην ἀπ' ἀρχῆς· διὸ καὶ νῦν σοι πείθομαι μηδὲν morein æafároμov.—Plutarch. de Vit. ver. Xyland. tom. 2. pag. 534. E. (J. R. P.)

be great". But if the offence be little, he is wholly excused, saith the law. Thus if a son, by the command of his father, marries a widow within the year of mourning, he does not incur infamy by the law, saith the doctors. "Velle enim non creditur, qui obsequitur imperio patris vel domini," saith the law; and "Venia dignus est, qui obtemperavit,” saith Ulpian; "If he did obey the command of his father, he is to be pardoned, it was not his own will;" that is, not his absolutely, but in a certain regard, and in a degree of diminution.

6. The father's authority hath this effect also upon children, that if the father does wrong, the son must bear it, as long as it can be borne: and therefore the son may not go to law with the father, and complain of him to the judge, without leave from both their superiors. For if, by any means, the son can make the father less than he is, it will destroy all duty, and dispark the enclosure, which nature and the laws have made with fear and reverence. But this hath a double consideration, the one in religion, and the other in laws.

7. In religion, we are to consider not only what is lawful in the precise question, but what is to be done in the whole complication and practice of it. For if the supreme can give leave, in some cases, for a son to complain of his father to a judge,—then, in some cases, it may be lawful to do it; that is, in those cases, in which the law hath specified and restrained the paternal power, in those things which the laws call excesses and injuries, and which, indeed, in themselves, are cruel and intolerable. For in such cases, the laws are a guard and defence to the oppressed son; concerning whom although it is supposed, that the father takes sufficient care to keep him harmless, yet if the father does not, the law does and the law does indeed allow the greatest power to fathers, because it presumes it will be for the child's good; but because there are some persons, whom no presumption can measure, who are wicked beyond all the usual temptations and infirmities of mankind, therefore, even in extraordinary cases, there must be some provision; and therefore it is not to be supposed, that it shall for ever be unlawful for

u L. fin. de Bon. Damn.

x L. Liberorum. sect. fin. et seq. de his qui no. infam.

sons to complain of their fathers to the prince. But what those cases are, we can be taught by nothing but by the laws themselves, and by our own natural necessities. We must cry out, when we cannot forbear; and we must throw off the burden, under which we cannot stand; only we must not throw it off, as a wild horse does his load, and kick it with our feet, but we must lay it down as gently as we can. Thus if a father refuses to give alimony to his son, who cannot be otherwise provided for,-the aid of the prince, or any superior that can rightly give us remedy, may be implored. If a father beats his child, till he lame or dismember him, or endanger his life, the son can be remedied, and, without breach of duty, can implore it. So long as a child is in his father's house, and under his father's power,-these are the only causes, in which he can be allowed legally to complain; because, in all other things, he is entirely under his father's power. But when he is emancipated, and quit from his direct authority, which the lawyers signify by the power of 'castigation,'-then the son hath distinct rights, and in them because he can be injured, there are more causes of difference. To this, therefore, the answer is,

8. That in matters of contract, in little injustices, in any thing that is tolerable, in such things the suffering of which can consist with charity to ourselves, and piety to our relatives, if a son does contest with his father at law, it may be, it is no proper act of disobedience, and there is nothing of rebellion in it against his just authority;-but there is also as little of piety; especially if we consider, that such contests at law are extremely seldom managed with ordinary charity, and never without the greatest reproach on one side, and scandal on both; and if the son can secure that on his own part, yet whether that seeming undutifulness, and more than seeming want of pious and loving regard, may not exasperate the father into angry cursings, and evil thoughts, is a consideration of religion, which ought to be taken care of by all that would be innocent. There is not one of a thousand, that goes to law at all, but he runs into so many temptations, that it is very hard for him to do right, and to do nothing that is wrong but not one in ten thousand can justify his cause, and his person too, if he goes to law with a father. And he will for no cause suffer wrong at any man's hands,

that will take no wrong of his father; and he that does so, will give but an ill account of his Christianity.

9. And these things appear the more by reason of the open dislikes, which the law professes against such proceedings. For look at this thing in law, and we find that the laws express the son's obedience in universal terms; "Omnibus quæ pater imperat, parendum," "Sons must be obedient to their parents in all things."-Now if the dispute be betwixt our obedience to God, or to our parents, it is an ill case; we know whom we are to obey, but the dispute itself is not good; and the very making a question of either is a disadvantage to the honour of both and therefore the law, which never supposes a question to be between God and our father, does not think it fit to make this to be any exception to her indefinite terms; and therefore Tiberius said it without a limitation, "Filium non posse detrectare jussa patris;" and Turnusy against Tarquin said summarily and clearly, "Nullam breviorem esse cognitionem, quam inter patrem et filium, paucisque transigi verbis posse; ni pareat patri, habiturum infortunium esse,' "Between a father and a son the proceeding is short, and the case quickly summed up; either let the son obey, or let him be punished."-And the law accounts it a diminution of such supreme authorities, to have exceptions and reservations expressed in the first provisions of the law; and the very making God and the father to be the opposite and compared persons in the question, is to lessen them both. "In comparatione personarum inest læsio et injuria," say the lawyers; "There is some wrong done when you compare two eminences."-Therefore in this case, if ever any such thing does happen, without dispute we know what we are to do: but it is not good, that the laws should take public notice of it beforehand. But if the question be between the father and the son, the law is so great an enemy to all such questions, right or wroug, that the law judges for the person of the father, even when it does not like the cause. It does so in the case of all superiors in some degree, and therefore much more in the case of fathers. "Jus quod deprimitur, aufertur;" "If you lessen the authority, you take it away:" and then you do injury, though by doing of right. When Accia Variola questioned her father's

y Liv. lib. 1. cap. 50. Ruperti, vol. 1. pag. 71.

testament, because he had left immoderate legacies to her mother-in-law, the fathers of rich families were present in great numbers, and the sons of those families attended for the sentence in great and anxious expectations, looking which interest should get the advantage. But the judges very wisely left the case undetermined, because it was hard on the father's side; but they were resolved never to leave a precedent, in which the children should be, in any thing, superior to their fathers; or that as Death and Love changed their quivers, so old age should be reckoned as void of counsel, and wisdom and prudence should be the portion of young men.

RULE VIII.

It is not lawful for Children to enter into any lasting Course of Life, against the Will or Approbation of their Parents.

I. HIS rule contains two great cases. The first is concerning the states of religion; the other is concerning the states of civil life.

2. It is not lawful for children to take upon them any religious vows, or enter into any of those which are called states of religion, viz. to take upon them the state of single life, to be priests, monks, friars, hermits, or any thing of the like nature, without the consent of their parents.

3. Thomas Aquinas entered into the Dominican order, and became a friar without the consent of his parents: and that unjustifiable action begat a more unjustifiable doctrine2: "Post annos pubertatis posse liberos se voto religionis obligare, absque voluntate parentum;" "That after fourteen years of age or the first ripeness, it is lawful for children to take upon them the vows of religion, whether their parents be willing or unwilling."-And after his time, it grew into a common doctrine and frequent practice; and if a monk could persuade a young heir, or a pregnant youth, into their cloisters, they pretended to serve God, though certainly they served themselves, and disserved a family. The ground they went upon was, the pretence a of the great sanctity of the state

2. 2æ. qu. 88. art. 9.

▪ Bellar. lib. 2. de Monachis, cap. 36.