2. It is alone, which in some respects exceedeth that we owe to our parents and other near relations : Gen. ii. 24, ' Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife.' The bond of natural affection, which bindeth fast parents and children, is wonderful strong and near ; it is an adamantine chain, more strong than iron. We see this love and natural affection is very great and forcible, even in dumb creatures, which are led thereunto by instinct of nature ; and if it should not be in men endued with reason, they would be worse than beasts. Moses would have them stoned to death, Deut. xxi. 21 : and Solomon saith of such unnatural children, that 'the ravens of the valleys shall pick out their eyes, and the young eagles shall eat it,' Prov. xxx. 17 ; that is, they shall lie unburied. But though this bond be so strong, yet God preferreth the bond of marriage before it. They may leave father and mother, that is, be divided from them in habitation and daily conversation, which is not permitted to man and wife. Dutiful affection to parents is never to cease, and upon all emergent occasions we must be helpful to them. But for cleaving to one another, not only by a firm and constant affection, but daily and pleasing converse, tliis is peculiar to this rela- tion. Father and mother are nearest in respect of nature, of whom we came, and whom we ought to serve ; but as to inseparable converse, father and mother must be left for the wife's sake. Not that it is law- ful for us to forsake our parents who brought us forth and bred us up.
470 SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. [SeR. XXX.
or to set light by them ; this is brutish disobedience. God's rule, non extinguit affectum sed ordinal, doth not free us from our duty, but dispose it aright. Kather forsake father and mother than forsake the wife. It is God's will that the bond of love between married folks should be perferred before all other bonds, that the knot of marriage might be more surely knit, and the delight of love thence resulting should be the greatest and most perfect.
3. It carrieth it higher yet. They ought to ' love their wives as their own bodies ; for he that loveth his wife, loveth himself,' ver. 28. There is an innocent self-love which is at the bottom of all our labours : Prov. xvi. 26, ' He that laboureth, laboureth for himself ; for his mouth craveth it of him ; ' that is, bodily necessities being urgent upon us, require that we should be exercised in some honest function, calling, or course of living, that we may have for the sustenta- tion of the body, A man loveth his cliildren tcmquam aliquid sui, as part of himself ; but he loveth his wife tanquam semet ipsum,EiS him- self, for they twain are one flesh. How so ? Not only jictione juris, in supposition or account of law, as a man and his wife are reputed one person ; nor only one flesh by matrimonial conjunction, as 1 Cor. vi. 16 ; nor only one flesh in their issue, in which the substance of both parents concurreth to make up the body of the child ; but one flesh by inseparable union, which during the lives of the married persons cannot be dissolved but in case of adultery, and the malicious desertion of the unbelieving party ; therefore a man is bound to love her as him- self.
4. As Christ loved the church. The husband for his pattern of conjugal love is referred to Christ, partly for the degree of his love, and partly for the kind of it.
[l.J The degree. Christ expresseth that love to the church than which greater cannot be expressed. The wonder of his condescending love is the great argument of the gospel, and the great means to re- concile the alienated and estranged world to God. Therefore if the husband would have the wife obedient unto him as to the Lord, he must love her as the Lord doth the church. It was a bold and blunt speech of Luther, Nihil video in hoc C'hristo, nisi prodigalitatem quandam amoris — I see nothing in Christ but a prodigality and excess of love. This is that which we christians admire, and for which we shall adore God and bless him to all eternity ; even for Christ, and the great love wherewith he loved us. All this is commended to the husband as his pattern of love and tenderness to the wife.
[2.] The kind of it. The degree would be enough pressed if the apostle should say no more but ' He loved the church and gave him- self for it;' but the kind is also intended, for he am})lifietli it in the 26th verse : ' He gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it, by the washing of water through the word.' Christ's love was a sanctifying love. Surely when he was upon the cross he wanted not wisdom, nor love, nor merit. Not wisdom to choose, nor love to in- tend, nor merit to purchase the greatest blessings for us. Not wisdom to choose ; for he that is the wisdom of the Father knoweth how to value things according to their order and proportion ; and he thought 110 blessing greater or fitter for us than holiness, which is the glory of