fary, they do not fhine: they are too common to ftrike: they procure no celebrity: "the wife, the mother fills no historic page:

our privations, our confinements, our "wearifome days, our interrupted, our fleepless nights, the hours we have hung " in anxious watchings over your fick and dying offspring"

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Behold a fecond motive. It is derived from the dignity of the wife as a mutual. taker of the privileges of the gospel.-No inequality reigns here. It is a "common "falvation." Are you, O 66 man, an HEIR "of the GRACE of LIFE?" So are they— heirs TOGETHER WITH YOU-in the fame degree-having the fame claims-the fame hopes the fame reverfions. "There is "neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither "bond nor free, there is neither male nor

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female, for ye are all one in Chrift Jefus." -A woman an infidel!-What felf-degradation. Need she be told HER obligations to christianity? What has raised her fo high in the scale of importance? What system has done fuch juftice to her claims? In what country have the provifions of legiflation loft fight of the distinction of male, and female; looked at both with the fame afpect, rendered the one as perfonally refpon

fible as the other, and entitled them equally to the fame rights and privileges?—When a woman fteps on this facred ground, she becomes free-she is her own; she is a party, fhe treats for herself. Here, my fifters, your reproach is rolled away. We fee one of your fex bringing forth " IMMANUEL, "GOD with us." We fee the angels of heaven bringing you meffages, and performing for you miracles. We fee JEHOVAH liftening to your fupplications, and maintaining your caufe. We fee you "the DAUGHTERS of the LORD ALMIGHTY." We see you. redeemed with an infinite price-destined to poffefs a "far more exceeding and eter"nal weight of glory," and hastening away to partake of a resurrection in which they "neither marry nor are given in mar"riage, but are as the angels of GOD in "heaven."

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A third reason is drawn from those devotional exercises which cannot be properly performed where relative duty is not ob served---" that your PRAYERS be not hin

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dered." It is impossible for a christian to live without prayer. He prays alone, and he prays with others. The field, the temple, the closet, the family, are all with him places "where prayer is wont to be made."

How neceffary is prayer in the marriage ftate, and O, how does focial devotion fweeten focial life! It obtains strength for its duties, and fuccour for its trials. It gives a direction to the mind, by which we escape numberless snares; an elevation by which we rife above a thousand vexations. How it fanctifies our comforts! how it prepares the foul for disappointment or fuccefs! how it calls down the bleffing of heaven to "at"tend the labour of our hand!" How it attracts the divine presence, and places Him within our reach" who is nigh unto all "them that call upon him; to all that call 66 upon him in truth"-How glorious is this place! "this is none other than the house "of GOD, and this is the gate of heaven!" "The voice of rejoicing and of falvation is "in the tabernacles of the righteous." O happy manfion! where all the members of the family" dwell together in unity"-living with each other here, as those who expect to be affociates for ever; maintaining a friendship, the centre of which is religion, the duration of which is eternity, the bonds of which are "faith and love which "are in Chrift Jefus." Guard therefore against every thing injurious to the service of Gon in your families-let nothing hin

der its exercise-let nothing prevent its fervour-let nothing deftroy its freedom-let nothing frustrate its efficacy-let nothing limit, or even delay its fuccefs. Let your whole conversation be consistent with devotion, or preparatory to it; avoid whatever renders an introduction into the divine prefence less easy, or lefs delightful. Keep open a paffage wide enough to advance together to the throne of grace; go hand in hand agree, touching the things you shall afk, " and it fhall be done for you of our heavenly Father."

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;

Reviewing the fubject, I would befeech you, my dear hearers, to remember-That those who make light of moral and relative duties contemn the will of God.

fary to him.

"He

"knows what is in man," and what is necefEvery condition lies open to his view. He fees how things blend, and how they iffue; how they oppose, or how they aid each other. Though invisible to us, he fees the worm that lies at the root of our focial happiness: we wonder at the effect, he fees the caufe, and would remove it. He has condefcended to speak: we have His judgment relative to every station, and relation in life. He fpeaks as a fovereign who has authority to command, and

he speaks as a friend who confults your welfare, and "takes pleasure in the profperity of his fervants."

Again; We have reason to lament that there is fuch a general deficiency among profeffors of religion, with regard to those duties which they owe to each other. Many, to shew their love to the gospel, testify their abhorrence of the law. Numbers are too orthodox, or too devotional, to be moral. This is below their faith, or their raptures. rious things their system has taught them; but one thing it has not taught them, one thing it does not require them to learn

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to deny all ungodlinefs and worldly lufts, "and to live foberly, righteously, and god"ly in the prefent world." Shall ministers, by their filence, be acceffary to this corruption of manners, this awful perversion of religion?-Let them "affirm, conftantly, "that they which have believed in GoD, "must be careful to maintain good works: "these things are good and profitable unto "men."

Let those who ftand already in the mar riage relation be willing to know and to practise the duties which fpring from it.Enter, my brethren and fifters, the temple of revelation-bow before the divine oracle