duty of wives towards their husbands. Now the temper wherewith Christ governs the Church is love, using his dominion for God's glory with all gentleness. And what of his conduct comes within the present representation seems to fall under the three heads of direction, provision, and forbearance. Christ uses his authority for the glory of God in directing, providing for, and bearing with the Church. And so the Church's duty, on the other part, is with affectionate submission to obey Christ's direction, to improve his provision, and to be thankfully sensible of his forbearance. So we have here before us the special duties of husbands and wives; namely,

First.-Husbands must love their wives, and wives must reverence their husbands.

Secondly.-Husbands must direct, and wives must obey them. Thirdly. Husbands must provide, and wives must prudently manage that provision.

Fourthly.-Husbands must bear with their wives, and they in return must lovingly help them.

The first of these special duties is, husbands must love their wives, and wives must reverence their husbands-Husbands must love their wives. This is the temper of Christ toward the Church his spouse. He doth not exercise his authority but for the glory of God and for her welfare. And accordingly this is the pattern set out to husbands to walk by. Husbands, love

your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church." And again, Love your wives, and be not bitter against them.'+ Do not use your authority to exalt yourself, but to the glory of God; nor be a tyrant instead of a husband. This would be a strange abuse of God's design in putting authority into your hand. Yet it is such an abuse as the heart of man is directly liable to; which is ever ready to forget the design of God in the use of the things received from him, and to turn them all to licentiousness. Perhaps in few cases is this more frequent than in that before us. Husbands will have their will, because they will; without any regard to God, or respect to his gracious purpose in the appointment of family-government: as if power were given them to gratify their pride, and others were ordained of God to be their slaves. Such a temper is intolerable ⚫ Ephes. v. 25. + Coloss. iii. 19.

SO

even towards the meanest servant; but how much more toward the wife of a man's bosom? Why, you churlish Nabals, when you married your wives, did you or they mean and contract that they were to be indeed slaves to you; that they were to tremble at every look of you, never to hear a kind word from you, and to be dealt with as those over whom you were licensed to rule with a rod of iron? They cannot easily help themselves, it is true, but must bear all your ill treatment: nevertheless, God will help them; he will certainly reward on your heads so horrid an abuse of that authority he has put into your hands. All you, therefore, that are husbands, or have been so, consider with what temper you have conducted yourselves in that relation. Have you not more or less behaved rashly, and roughly, and unkindly? Have you loved your wives? always loved them? never been bitter against them? But more, have you held and used your authority for God's glory, and the good of those in subjection to you? The question is not simply, have you been kind to your wives? but have you exercised your authority with kindness as Christ doth his ? A mere fond kindness, growing out of constitution or animal affection, a kindness for quietness-sake, will not answer God's demands. The point is, whether you have endeavoured to preserve and execute the authority God put into your hand? and whether you did it with love? As Christ does not lay aside his government over the Church, but uses it in all gentleness and tenderness of affection.

On the other side, the temper of wives toward their husbands must be reverence. Let the wife see that she reverence her husband.'* Wives must consider God's authority in the person of their husbands as the proper ground of a religious reverence. It will stand upon nothing else but this. For if the reverence of the wife to her husband do rest on his station, or sense, or knowledge, or piety; take all these away, and she will have no reverence for him at all. She must reverence him as her husband, for that consideration solely, because he is her husband; that is, because God hath put authority upon the husband in regard of his wife, and she by her own consent in matrimony hath put herself into this relation. However, therefore, matters prove after marriage, she must bear reverently upon her heart

* Ephes. v. 33.

the sense of her being in subjection to that man as a husband; and that reverential sense of his authority must be shown in all her conduct toward him. If therefore at any time she despises him in her heart, because of any supposed or real weakness, infirmity or sin, as did Michal, Saul's daughter, respecting her husband David, when in her judgment he made himself a fool by dancing before the ark,* she sins. Nay, you say, but he is indiscreet; rash; or, perhaps you will say, he abuses his authority, and treats me unkindly this, and a great deal more, may be true; he may be poor withal, and despised in the eyes of the world: yet the answer still returns, he is your husband, and in that capacity bears God's authority toward you; upon which account your reverence is due to him, and is not suspended upon other accidental circumstances. When therefore you have behaved irreverently towards your husband in thought, word, or deed, upon any, whether imaginary or real provocation, you have sinned against God's authority. But now is this reverence consistent with those sullen peevishnesses, furious countenances, angry speeches uttered with vehement indignation and clamorous voice, that are too often found in the conduct of wives? Surely here is not the least footstep of reverence. If ever there was any, it is all swallowed up by that pride of self-will, which insists on equality at least, if not pre-eminence. Cast up now your accounts on your parts, and see if there be no charge against you on the score of irreverence toward your husbands. Possibly you have seen them deficient in the duty of love; examine now if they have not, yea, rather, if God hath not, seen you defective on your part in the duty of reverence: for that husbands love their wives, and wives reverence their husbands, is the express command of God, for the transgression of which both the one and the other must be answerable.

6

I conclude for the morning with this observation of the Psalmist, exemplified in the case now under consideration, By thy commandments I get understanding.' So we easily may, as of the strictness and holiness of the law, so of the sinfulness of our depraved nature. Nor let us quarrel with the law for its We cannot but approve it, though it con

purity and holiness.

demns us so much, and though we find ourselves so utterly in

* 2 Sam. vi. 16.

capable of answering its demands. To what a blessed condition shall we be arrived when all that the law requires shall be found perfectly wrought into our hearts! that will not be yet. We must wait for another world for that perfection. But in the mean time let us thankfully receive that pardon, and diligently improve that grace, both which are purchased for us and offered to us by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Secondly. The next special duty is this: as it is the office of Christ to direct the Church, and the duty of the Church to obey his directions; so it is the office of the husband to order and dispose in the government of the family, and the duty of the wife to submit to such directions.-It is the duty of the husband to order in the government of the family. And it behoves him to do it with much advisedness; not consulting his own will, but God's glory, in that little society over which God has placed him. I say he must have in his eye God's glory, and be guided thereby in the whole discipline of the house, that the spiritual and temporal benefit thereof may be promoted. This I have mentioned already in a former discourse, and repeat here with a view of showing the true nature of the husband's authority over the wife in point of orders. It is true the husband's will is the wife's rule of duty, so far as there is no interfering with the law of God. But then also the law of God must be the husband's rule, from which if at any time he step aside in his injunctions, the wife not only may, but must refuse compliance in the spirit of meekness. God has laid it on the husband to govern; and at his hand God will require it, if he have made his own wilful humour, and not the glory of God and the benefit of the family, the measure by which he hath been guided. Indeed his charge here is very interesting; and he shall need sue with much importunity to the throne of grace, that his own will may be mortified; and that he may be directed himself to dispose all things within his house in the manner that shall best conduce to God's glory. In which good work, also, it is the duty of the wife to assist him by her prayers and counsels: but by no means to step into his place, and take the direction out of his hand. She is a subject in the family; and her duty is to be foremost in submitting to the directions given by the head of it; which also it is her business to observe, with a submission proportionable to

the importance of them, in the judgment of her husband. Yea, and even in lesser things, which seem not of much moment, her compliance will be both most satisfactory to her own mind, and most conducive to establish the governor's authority over children and servants. This latter consideration ought to have much weight with the wife; she should labour to establish and strengthen the husband's authority; the readiest way of doing which is by the strictness of her conformity to his directions; with which if she be found to take liberty, the inferiors will be very ready to do the same.

This in short is the duty of husbands and wives respecting government and submission; upon which every one knows the Scriptures lay much stress. Ye husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge.'* Now this is the very thing I have been speaking of; husbands must exercise their Christian authority with all wisdom. Ye wives, be in subjection to your husbands; and submit yourselves to them as it is fit in the Lord.' Let conscience therefore say whether this hath been wrought on the one part and the other. Hath the husband never been licentious in command, the wife lawless in submission; both misguided by their own will? Hath the latter at no time made compliance with sinful orders, to please or pacify her husband; nor the former given up his authority, and let things go as they will, to please his wife? In short, has the one always acted like a kind Abraham, the other like a submissive Sarah, in the matter of family dispensation?

Thirdly.-Husbands must provide, and wives must manage that provision with thriftiness and care. This regards their respective duties in the maintenance of the family. The care of getting lies on the husband. He must not be idle, but labour for the support of those who are his, in a decent manner, becoming their and his station. It is an ill husband that takes no pains about such a provision; cares not what becomes of the wife and family at home, so he may have wherewith to indulge his lusts abroad in rioting, drunkenness, and pleasure; never takes up a thought how his children and wife shall be supported when he is dead, but is an idle squanderer of what he has and what he gets. This is an ill, a cruel, an unnatural husband; † 1 Pet. iii. 1. Coloss. iii. 13.

1 Pet. iii. 7.