foppery and effeminacy in drefs, inftead of drunkennefs, lewdnefs, fwearing, and quarrelling, would ufe their utmoft endeavours to erect on the firm foundation, early laid in their hearts, the noble fuperftructure of profitable and ornamental knowledge, of manly arts, of humanity and kindness to all men, of honour and integrity unfhaken in all trials, and of undaunted bravery in the fervice of their king and country. This, and every thing of like kind, they would do, as knowing no other accomplishments capable of recommending them to an happy match, and as knowing also, that these could hardly fail to give them the heart and hand of any woman they should think fit to ask.

And as to the other sex, were real merit alone permitted to fix their titles to good husbands, an eternal adieu would be bidden to almost all the prefent arts of catching men. It would no longer be the fole bufinefs of their lives to learn, nor exhauft, as it now does, the whole care of their mothers, to teach them alluring looks and airs, to enquire after the newest fashions, to ftudy the colours beft fitted to disguise or set off their complexions, to hold long confultations with the undertakers of beauty about the best fort of washes, and to spend one half of every day in the deep myftery of fetting pins. No, religion, in all it's most beautiful and affecting colours, would be prefented to the first dawnings of reafon and fenfibility in their minds. Humility, modefty, fweetnefs of temper, and a thorough command of their paffions, would be next introduced, and practifed into habits; and the last ftage of their education would be filled with maxims of prudence, with materials for entertaining and profitable converfation, and with the rules of good œconomy. From a courfe like this they would come forth into the world, not, as now, ridiculous compounds of pride and affectation, contemptible pageants of drcis and fashion; but adorned with angelick graces, fpark

ling with native jewels of their own polishing, and dreffed for an affembly in the new Jerufalem.

Now these methods would neither shorten the ftature of the men, nor darken the complexion of the women. All the natural advantages of face and perfon would ftill be preferved; and I will venture to say, due regard being had to neatness and cleanliness, set off to infinite advantage by the majefty of the more manly virtues in the one fex, and by the delicacy and sweetness of the female graces in the other.

Here is a picture but imperfectly sketched, which nevertheless I wish you would impartially compare with the despicable trifles and pernicious arts, wherewith the fexes labour to please, to enfnare, and impose on each other in this artificial world. What a glory diffuses itself round that! what a ridicule! what a fatyr on mankind grins from a bare mention of this! If you have eyes to fee, behold the infinite difference; and God give you understanding in all things, particularly this, through Chrift Jefus our Saviour, to whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all might, majesty, dignity and dominion, now, and for evermore,Amen.

DIS

VOL. IV.

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DISCOURSE XXIII.

How to be Happy, though Married.

EPHES. V. 31

A man fball leave bis father and mother, and be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesb.

HAT is here faid, was intended for, and

WT

is as true, with a meer verbal alteration, of a woman. She alfo will leave her father and mother, that is, her nearest and dearest relations, in order to find a yet closer and more beloved relation in a hufband. Neither however would do this, did they not hope, on grounds apparently promifing, for more fatisfaction and happiness in a new ftate of their own choice, than in the old, to which they were introduced by their birth, and wherein they cannot expect to continue, but for a fhort and uncertain part of their lives.

Their hopes are not likely to deceive them, if, on both fides, due care and circumfpection have been employed in making and fixing the choice; if they are good in themselves; and in perfon, temper, prin

ciples, and schemes of living agreeable and fuitable to each other. But requifite as this fuitableness is, forewhat further is neceffary to their happiness. Their notions of matrimony ought to be the fame; and to be fo, ought to be taken from the real nature of that, and the account given of it in the word of God, by no means from prejudices or imaginations of their own.

As to the nature of that ftate, it will be fufficient to apprehend, that it is a fociety of two perfons, who, while it continues, ought to have but one intereft, and pursuant to that, one only fcheme of life, calculated, agreed upon, and uniformly purfued by both, in or der to one and the fame fort of happiness, whereof both are to be equal partakers; and likewife of the reverse, as often as troubles or afflictions shall occur, whether the occafion of happiness or affliction fhall vifit them both at once, or begin with the one, or the other. They are to enjoy each other's comforts, to fuffer each other's forrows, and even to be well and fick of each other's health and diftempers. All this arifes from the very nature of an alliance, founded on fameness of intereft, and on the highest degree of love which the parties are capable of entertaining. Now, it is not in the nature of things, that either fuch an intereft or fuch a love, fhould fubfift in a fociety of more than two, and therefore polygamy, though practifed by many nations, is a monfter, abhorred by nature, a monster, made up of a fingle head and a plurality of bodies, ever neceffarily at variance among themselves.

This natural notion of matrimony is confirmed and enforced by the word of God in that remarkable paffage, from whence my text is borrowed, wherein the infpired apostle reprefents the union between Chrift and bis church by the union between an bufband and bis wife, and this again, by the union between the head and the members in a natural body. Chrift loves, provides for, and governs his church, juft as the good husband does his wife, and he again loves, provides for, and governs Gg 2

his

his wife, juft as a wife and careful head does the rest of the body. Invert this order, and you will fee a good wife loving and obeying her husband, as a found body does in regard to it's head, and as the church does in regard to Chrift. Here a fameness of intereft and happinefs is clearly fet forth as neceffary to matrimony, that the husband and wife may know themselves to be but one, one body or flefb; and the fubjection of the wife to her husband is as plainly laid before us, that, if differences fhould arife, they may find an eafy and speedy determination, without the interpofition of a third perfon, which feldom leaves the conteft it was called to, in a better state of agreement, than it was before. Were human nature as it fhould be, the husband's right to govern would always lie by as a dormant title, and the happiness of the married state would be fufficiently provided for on the footing of unity alone, the firft and most lovely foundation whereon it is built by the holy fcriptures. But whereas our nature is corrupt, and more or lefs ill-difpofed in the very best of mankind, the fecond, which enjoins the fubordination of a wife to her husband, is there alfo added, that peace at last may be recovered, when love is loft, or in danger.

It is true, that, in nature and reafon, the right of governing ought to go with the fuperior understanding, whether placed in the hufband or wife. But then, in regard to each particular couple, who fhall decide it's place? Of all points this is the laft to be determined by a contending hufband and wife. Nor can any third perfon poffibly do it for them, both for want of knowledge and authority. All he could do, would be to decide in particular caufes of difference, which, befides that it would be endless, muft, by adjudging the fuperiority of reafon in this inftance to the one party, and in that to the other, leave the general merits of their understandings refpectively, as much in the dark

as ever.

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