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subserve the purposes of family order and good economy, and support at the same time that it adds a lustre to the social and domestic virtues.

Further, the husband is bound to allow his wife a decent and honourable accommodation, according to their rank and circumstances. She has a right not only to all the necessaries but to all the conveniences, comforts, ornaments of person, etc., that are suited to her station and degree in life. And there are, I think, but two limitations that can here be admitted. The first is, that what the wife requires must be real conveniences, and real elegances, and not the excesses of luxury and vanity; which false taste, the more it is indulged, is found by experience, to be more and more insatiable. The other limitation is, that no such ostentation or expense can reasonably be desired, or reasonably consented to, as would hurt the interests of the family in general. Within these bounds, it will have the air of tyranny to deny; beyond, it would be cruelty to grant.

The last thing that I mentioned was the duty of husbands in not separating from their wives, but for reasons which virtually dissolve the contract itself, as being inconsistent with the very nature and end of it. This I thought it necessary just to hint at, because though divorces are

generally regulated in all well-established societies, separations are not. And the husband has this step more in his power, as the common property is more immediately vested in him; and if he be of a singular or variable, of a proud or too resentful, temper, will, upon this very account, have stronger temptations to commit this enormity.

But I choose not to enlarge on this topic, because enough has been said by writers, who have treated of it more professedly, than falls within my general design; and that I may not be thought so invidious, by censoriousness and illnature, as to have in my view any particular

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THERE are scarcely any of the branches of Christian morality, or any of the particular duties of social life, so frequently and strongly inculcated in the New Testament, as those of married persons towards each other. And for this, there is an obvious reason in the very nature of things; because there are but few duties that are of equal importance for the establishment of universal harmony and benevolence, and of consequence, to the well-being of mankind in general. And, besides, the experience of all times concurs in attesting this as an undoubted, though a most melancholy truth, namely, that these offices, which are indeed of most sacred and eternal obligation, and indispensable parts of all true religion, are too commonly regarded as things, but slightly, and more remotely connected with the essentials

of virtue, and especially with a religious charac. ter. And even many good Christians, as they would fain persuade themselves to think they are, neither condemn their own conduct, nor censure that of others, with half the severity, for being stern, morose, tyrannical husbands, or profuse, stubborn, untractable wives, as for offences of much inferior guilt; or, perhaps, for mere failures with respect to outward forms of piety, and the rigours and excesses of party zeal.

The persons, more immediately concerned, seem often to have as little, nay, perhaps much less, considered the duties that properly belong to their character, and which result from the most strict and inviolable of all human relations, than many who are quite disengaged; to whom they are distant and future, or at most, but probable ties. They are apt, likewise, on both sides, to be chiefly intent on observing, how the other contracting party discharges its peculiar obligations; every neglect here, their partiality and pride aggravate, and represent as unpardonable, as want of virtue and decency, heinous abuse and insult. As if they were united together in marriage to seek out faults, but not to amend them; to vent their spleen and dissatisfaction in reproaching each other for breaches of their duty but neither to practise it; neither to endeavour

to remove the ground of these mutual upbraidings, by acting as becomes their character, and the part which they severally sustain.

Another thing, which I have often observed with great concern, as a sure mark of the decline of true religion, and even of manly virtue and reflection, is, that points of morality of the utmost moment are considered and treated by the generality, as subjects of mere amusement and curiosity. And the more important the duties are, and especially if they are any way of a nice and singular kind, or but rarely discussed, the stronger are the workings of this fatal habit of vain curiosity; the greater ascendency does it gain over the mind; the more does it captivate and enslave it; till by degrees, it grows to be the chief principle that directs its views, and suspends, if it does not utterly destroy, the impression of every just and more ingenuous motive.

And this is no more than what we find, by experience, to be the present course of nature, in all other parallel cases, with respect, I mean, to wrong habits and passions indulged to excess; where the stronger is always getting head, and extending its encroachments upon the weaker principle, till the latter is wholly swallowed up and centred in it. The application of this remark is very easy to be made to the particular sub

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