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he is worse than an infidel;* the Scripture plainly tells him in so many words. Yet how common a character is this! such husbands are to be found in every part. They marry to gratify their carnal inclinations; which done, they have evidently no concern about their families, nor love for their wives, would gladly leave them to the wide world were it not through fear or shame (indeed many such ungodly spendthrifts do this, to the great burden of others), and are very content to see them starving, while themselves can riot with their drunken, abominable companions. It is not easy to conceive a more brutal character than this. Yet how common! What! among the lower sort only? Truly no. There are those of higher station, who consume their substance in idle riotous living, neglect all their concerns, mind nothing but gaming, or company-keeping, or pleasure, and reduce their families to beggary by their own sinful extravagance. Let the wife be what she will, all must come to ruin in such circumstances. And I have always thought such wives the first among all the objects of compassion; especially because their condition, though bad enough, is made worse by the unkind and brutal treatment which their husbands too commonly add to all the misery they have brought them to by their idleness and extravagance. It is the husband's duty therefore to make provision for the family; and then it is also the wife's to manage it in the house with care and decency. The wife must not squander what the husband earns; must not, through a vain affectation of making a figure, spend more in the family than he can prudently afford; must not always be calling, Give, give, but must manage and order according to his abilities. There is much mischief of this kind done also by the heedlessness and other evil qualities of wives. They have not many times a due regard to their place and calling, which is to look after the house; are idle, are too proud to submit to such employment, have an eye to nothing, and let all go as it will, do not keep at home,† as the Apostle advises, but behave so unprofitably in their calling, that, let the husband provide what he can, all shall not be sufficient. His gains are like sand thrown into a sieve, all goes through.-Whether husbands and wives have not somewhat to answer for on this head, I leave themselves * 1 Tim. v. 8. + Titus ii. 5.

to determine; while I just observe there is another extreme, when the husband will not afford what is sufficient, or the wife will not use it, through distrust of God's providence and desire of vain glory.

Fourthly, and lastly.-It is the duty of husbands to bear with their wives, and of the wife to help them with all loving affection. The Apostle calls the wife the weaker vessel,* and, as such, enjoins that honour should be given her. Christ bears with the Church, and so must the husband do with the wife. Forbearance is the duty of the head; the office of the inferior is submission. Now as Christ manifestly sees innumerable faults, blemishes, and miscarriages in the Church, yet doth not for that come to hasty terms with his spouse, but, affectionately loving her, doth wait upon her with meekness, and is continually doing her good; so herein is an example for husbands, though they see many defects in their wives; they must be gentle toward them, and, if they have more knowledge, must use all kind and gracious methods to do them service, and to bring them off from any wrong courses. Nothing can vindicate the husband in using any violence toward his wife; it is as if a man should tear and rend his own flesh. 'He must nourish and cherish her, as Christ does the Church.' He must consider his own sins, and see how God bears with him; and hereby he must be wrought up to such a kindness and sweetness of temper and conduct, as is most likely to effect the reformation of whatever is amiss in his wife. This duty requires, as much as it forbids that roughness, wherewith many husbands are wont to come upon their wives for every indiscretion. Mean time, the wife must not take advantage of the husband's gentleness to grow upon him, but must study to reform whatever contrary to God's word he disapproves, that she may keep and increase the love of his heart toward her; than which nothing should be more the object of her concern and care. Love in matrimony is a tender thing, jealous, and such as will wear out if it be not continually fed by kind endeavours on each part. So that both must look to it, that they do not lose the heart one of the other, than which nothing should be more deeply dreaded; because, if this once be the case, nothing but vexation may be expected, and it will + Ephes. v. 29.

* 1 Pet. iii. 7.

be no easy thing to regain the lost affection. So that wives must not presume on their husbands' kindness, but study to please and be agreeable to them, by conforming to their lawful inclinations, helping them in their cares, and partaking with them in their griefs. Such kindness in the man and amiableness in the woman will mightily knit their hearts together, and abundantly contribute to their helpfulness one to the other in all concerns spiritual and temporal. To the enlargement of which matrimonial love, it will behove them especially to pray with and for each other for it is God's blessing alone that can make them comfortable partners, their affairs prosperous, and above all their souls to thrive in this matrimonial estate, in such manner that, by their godly living together in this world, in the world to come they may have life everlasting.

I have reckoned up now the principal duties of the married state; by which I doubt not there hath been found much miscarriage one way and another in those that are or have been engaged in it. This indeed is the less to be wondered at, because of the undue motives upon which matrimony is usually undertaken. If there be no eye to the glory of God in the choice of the person; or if that aim be but a secondary one, taken in by the way, whilst interest or inclination are allowed to have the first place; if the approaches toward this state be not sanctified by prayer, the good husband and wife sought out from the Lord;

if the duties of the married state and its difficulties be not considered beforehand, and the heart prepared for them by grace; if there has not been also a prudential regard to tempers and circumstances if all these needful steps have been neglected, and people rush into matrimony unadvisedly, lightly, and wantonly, to satisfy their carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding;' I beseech you, can it be any wonder that they ill perform the duties of the matrimonial relation, and that such state proves uncomfortable to them, and full of disappointment in respect of what they hoped for in it? Wherefore, as ever we would expect God's blessing on that state, we must enter upon it in a religious and godly manner: grace must direct us principally in our choice, nor must we corrupt the minds of those we purpose to marry by fulsome flattery and vain expectations. A prudent wife,' saith So

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lomon, is from the Lord," and at his hands she must be obtained.

Put the whole now together and see if you are not guilty respecting the matrimonial duties now laid before you. And if you are, (as who in this relation is not ?) you will easily see how the number of your sins increases upon you. . Who can tell his iniquities?" you may well say. It will be well if your desires after Christ, and value for his salvation, increase with the discovery made of your sins; else my labour and your attention shall be in vain. You do not attain the end of the law mentioned in the text, and are not schooled home to Christ. But if the law have already wrought this effect upon you, and you have taken shelter under the Redeemer's wings, then your conformity to what has this day been set before you, though it be abundantly imperfect, will graciously prove that you have not believed in vain. In such case be thankful, and labour to go on unto perfection, for the glory of God, and your own greater reward.

Prov. xix. 14.

SERMON XXXVIII.

GALATIANS iii. 24.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

As the law of God can be the only rule of our conduct, so departure from it must needs bring us under his displeasure; and the sense of the one and the other ought to engage us seriously and penitently to seek for mercy in the way God offers it to us. This is the use we are bid by the text to make of the law; and I supposed that a more distinct explanation of the law, in its several commands and prohibitions, might serve by the blessing of God to this desirable end. In these views I have already submitted to your inquiry an explanation of those parts of the law which relate immediately to God. And, in pursuit of the same design, I am now treating of those duties which God requires from us one toward another; which are either relative, arising from particular circumstances in which we are placed, provided for by the fifth commandment; or general, and such as we owe to all men, concerning which the will of God is declared in the five last commandments.

It must be observed that all the commandments stand upon the same footing of divine authority, and to break one of them is as much an insult offered to God's government as to break another. Indeed, respecting temporal effects, there is a difference in the transgression of one commandment and another, according to the differing nature of each commandment. Thus we variously injure others by breaking the commandments against murder, adultery, theft, and false witness: but in either of these sins we alike disregard the authority of God. You see therefore it is as great a sin against God to break the fifth commandment as the sixth or the eighth. Yet it is not so account

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