parents and children, masters and servants. That of husband and wife, as existing before all others, is introduced first.
He specifies their duties —
[He specifies hers to him, and his to her. Her duty to him is comprised in reverence and subjection ; in reverence to him as her head ; in subjection to him as her lord. His duty to her comprehends unrivalled affection, and unbounded care. These were their respective duties, whilst yet they remained in innocence : for they arose out of the manner in which their union was formed. The man was first formed, the lord and governor of the whole earth. The woman was made after- wards, and taken out of the side of man as a part of his sub- stance ; and therefore was properly subject to him. She, too, was made for man, and not man for her: and, consequently, this put her still further under his controul. These duties, however, were still further extended after man had fallen : for the woman, having been first in the transgression, was doomed to weaknesses and pains which she would never otherwise have experienced, and was still more entirely subjected to her husband's rulee. But, in proportion as she needed his pro- tection, his obligation to extend it to her was increased, together with all its attendant sympathy and assiduities.]
He at the same time illustrates them by a compa- rison—
[The Apostle institutes a comparison between the mar- riage union and that which subsists between Christ and his Church ; and again and again reverts to it, in order to mark the correspondence between them in every particular. In speaking of the wife's duties to her husband, he says, " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord : for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church ; and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing f." Now, here the Apostle states, in the clearest and fullest manner, both the extent of her duties and the ground of them. All the sub- jection which the Church owes to Christ, she owes to her husband ; subordinate only to the paramount obligations which she owes to Christ himself: and she owes them to him for the very same reason ; namely, because her husband is her head and protector, just as the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head and Saviour of his whole mystical body, the Church. Next, in speaking of the husband's duty to his wife, he
e Gen. iii. 16. with 1 Tim. ii. 11 — 14. « ver. 22 — 24.