season. Convinced of this, we enter with great pleasure on the consideration of our relative duties ; that is, of the duties,
I. Of husbands and wives —
It is worthy of observation, that, not in this place only, but in all other places where the Apostles speak of the relative duties, they mention those of the in- ferior first. The reason of this seems to be, that the duties of the inferior arise solely from the command of God, and are totally independent of the conduct of the superior ; so that no neglect of duty on the one part can justify any neglect of it on the other. Agreeably therefore to the Apostolic plan, we shall notice the duty,
1. Of wives —
[To you are assigned obedience and subjection; partly, because you were created after man, and for the sake of man ; and partly because you were first in the transgression, and were the means of bringing ruin upon man and upon all his posterity3. The extent to which obedience to your husband is required of you is indeed exceeding great : it reaches to every thing that is not contrary to the will of God : it is, if I may so speak, co-extensive with the obedience which the Church owes to the Lord Jesus Christ; and your obedience is due to your husband, as to the Lord himself. I am aware that this expression is very strong ; but I conceive it is not at all stronger than the declarations of St. Paul. True, in the text it is only said, " Submit yourselves, as it is jit in the Lord :" but in the Epistle to the Ephesians he draws the very parallel that I have drawn, and shews that your duty to your husband corresponds exactly with the Church's duty to the Lord Jesus Christ : " Wives, submit yourselves to 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 thingh." (Of course, this will be understood of obedience only, and not of dependence ; for that were absurd and impious in the extreme.) In the whole of this obedience, she must feel that it is due to him by God's special appointment : that he is her head, and her lord, whom she is bound, not only to obey,
a 1 Tim. ii. 11—14. with Gen. iii. 16. b Eph. v. 22 — 24.