SERMON XXXVII.

GALATIANS iii. 24.

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

IN prosecuting the relative duties required by the fifth commandment, we have considered already the family-relations of parents and children, and of masters and servants; so we come now, in the

Third place, to speak to the relation subsisting between husbands and wives, and the duties of both. Two or three observations will pave a way to the clearer apprehension of this subject.

First.-Marriage is purely and wholly a divine institution. Though natural propensities must needs have led those of either sex to hold intercourse one with the other; yet it was only the appointment of God which could beget that special relation between a man and woman, by which their persons, circumstances, and interests, are mutually regarded as one. So we find, though God made Adam and Eve, yet, by a distinct and par ticular act afterwards, he joined them together in marriage. He brought her unto the man ;' that is, to be his wife. And Adam said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.

Secondly. The design of this institution was God's glory, in the preserving the chastity of our minds in the procreation of children; and in such a religious dwelling together of the parties as might best tend to the pious education of those children, as well as to the great comfort and also spiritual profiting of the parties themselves, together with the influence they should now have on others as a family.

Thirdly. That in order to these ends God has bound up the parties respectively by his own express authority; giving such commands to both and to each as have the plainest tendency to effect them. Thus seeing one end of marriage is the preservation of chastity in the procreation of children, he hath guarded the marriage-bed by the most direct prohibitions. And seeing the other end of it is family-government, by which the pious education of children is provided for, he hath put authority upon the man over the woman; yet so restrained by the obligations of love and tenderness, that while there should be submission on the one side, there should be no tyranny on the other. Government supposes inferiority; and the pre-eminence in the matrimonial union is apparent from the very order and manner of their creation, as St. Paul observes, 1 Tim. ii. 13, where the apostle sufficiently intimates with which of the two the authority should remain.

Fourthly. It can only be in a religious regard to these ends, which infinite Wisdom had in view in the institution of marriage, that God can be glorified by persons in this relation. This is the plain consequence of what had been advanced. For if marriage be simply and only an institution of God for the preservation of chastity, and for the blessings of family-government to the parties themselves and to their children; and if such ends cannot be effected but by the observance of such rules as God has given in the case on the one part and the other; then the transgression of these rules must be the subversion of God's design, and sinning against his institution. Wherefore,

Fifthly. The inquiry is, What are these rules which God hath prescribed to persons in the state of matrimony, for the preservation of chastity, and for the maintenance and furtherance of his glory in the good order of family-government, by which the children are religiously educated? My answer is this. You have a comprehensive view of matrimonial duties, in that which is signified and represented by a state of marriage; namely, the spiritual marriage and unity that there is betwixt Christ and his Church. And here,

First. Of the duties common to both husband and wife. Betwixt Christ and the Church there is union and communion.

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This is a great mystery," saith the Apostle; the union between Christ and believers, who are so strictly united together as to be one. We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.' And out of this union of course springs communion. Christ's things are the believer's things, and the believer is Christ's, to hold, use, and enjoy at his will. But though there be a great mystery in the spiritual union and communion betwixt Christ and the Church, the figure which represents it, marriage, is plain enough. By God's institution the man and woman in marriage are made one; as one they must regard themselves. The man is the woman's; and the woman is the man's. The man is the woman's in such manner, as to let no other have a part in him as a husband; and so the woman is the man's in such sort, as to belong wholly to the man in quality of a wife. Consequently, by the act of marriage there is a surrender made of the person mutually by the one to the other. And out of this grows communion; whatever is the woman's becomes the man's, and what is the man's becomes the woman's, jointly to use and enjoy. Wherefore,

First. It is the duty of married persons to regard each other as one for Christ and the Church are one; and the husband and the wife are one. They must regard themselves as parts one of another. And this regard must be very tender and affectionate. A man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.' They must regard each other as one flesh. But do they so when they are selfish, making as it were separate interests, and each so caring for self as to have little care for the other? Do they regard each other as one flesh when they fall to sinful contentions and brawlings, the man tyrannically using his superiority in violence and bitterness, and the woman making up her want of strength by anger and fury, to the destruction of family-peace, to the very great hurt and hinderance of their children, and to the wounding their own souls by the violation of matrimonial obligations? Do they regard each other as one flesh, when they have no liking to each other's company, when home is worse than a prison to the husband, and the wife is never easy but when he is out of her way?

Ephes. iv. 32.

tv. 30.

1 v. 31.

Secondly. If man and wife are one, as Christ and the Church are one, they must not only regard each other as one, but also endeavour to promote the present and eternal happiness of each other to their power. They must labour to please one another, and make their lives mutually comfortable; yea, and especially to work for the spiritual profiting one of the other. It is an ill token of their regarding each other as one flesh, when they do not study to please and be agreeable the one to the other, but are continually thwarting, as if they came together to be a mutual vexation. It is a much worse token, when instead of helping they are an hinderance to each other's souls; seldom or ever a serious word passing between them, never warning each other against whatever sinful tempers or practices any further than their own respective ease or humours are crossed by them, and leading such careless and ungodly lives as mightily tend to quench any little measures of seriousness there might be in either of them, and to harden one the other into a total forgetfulness of God.

Thirdly. If man and wife are one, they must especially help to bear each other's burdens. It was a sad part in Job's wife, when God's hand was against him, to be against him too. She of all his family was left to comfort him, but she proved a poor comforter; instead of supporting him, she comes with her peevish counsel, Curse God, and die: when all was gone already but God's favour, she would needs he should wilfully throw away that too. Desperate counsels and angry reproaches are, I fear, the too-frequent consolations ministered from one to the other in the calamities attending a married state. Elkanah's conduct to his wife Hannah in their common affliction is an excellent pattern of matrimonial tenderness. • Hannah, why weepest thou? And why eatest thou not? And why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better unto thee than ten sons ?'*

Fourthly. If husband and wife are one, they must exercise much patience and forbearance one with the other. It is an unnatural thing for a man to be angry with his own flesh. And what good can come of it if he is so? Yet in this state there is much occasion for patience for infirmities and sins there will be in both, cross accidents in the family of greater or less import

* 1 Sam. i. 8.

ance, loss and disappointment in worldly business, with many other things which will be apt to stir up the heart of the one against the other, and to breed uneasiness. Nevertheless they two are but one flesh, and should not tear and devour one the other; laying the fault each upon the other, as they commonly do when anything goes amiss. This is all contrary to matrimonial union, by which the parties are joined together as they are; not two angels met together in the matrimonial state, but a son and a daughter of sinful Adam, from both of whom must be expected infirmities, frailties, imperfections, passions, and provo

cations.

And, lastly, If man and wife be one, even as Christ and the Church are, then they must be faithful the one to the other. They must be faithful to the marriage-bed. It is a capital sin against the institution of marriage, that either party should in any wise separate from the matrimonial vows and obligations in this respect; and, however the world thinks of it, it is as great a crime in the man as the woman; a crime which, however it may be artfully concealed from the eyes of men, yet it is noted by the eye of God, who hath declared, that Whoremongers and adulterers he will judge in the last day. They must be faithful in respect of family-concerns, neither the husband idle and unthrifty, nor the wife prodigal and slothful; but having regard to their common happiness and welfare as being alike interested. Nay, they must be faithful to each other's secrets. There should be much freedom of heart between them; as they are one, they will be likely to keep little to themselves, and what they intrust one to the other should be kept with a becoming prudence and

secrecy.

The duties I have now been reckoning under this first head, as they evidently rise from the matrimonial union, so do they regard both the husband and wife. I come now,

Secondly. To speak of those that are special to each of them. And these I think are very discernibly plain, on the one part and the other, from the conduct of Christ and the Church, one towards the other, which is represented by the state of marriage. Whatever is the temper and conduct of Christ to the Church, such is the duty of the husband toward the wife; as, on the other side, the duty of the Church to Christ marks out the