bent duty; and influence others, by our example, to the like moderation, and strict regard to their refpective offices.

In the third chapter our author proceeds to a particular confideration of relatives duties; and as the matrimonial relation is the root of all others, he begins with the duties of the married state, treating firft of thofe of the husband. But as it is impoffible to know what his duty is, or what fort of behaviour may reasonably be expected from him, without fixing in general, what rank he holds, what character and office in fociety; he endeavours to state this matter diftinctly, in a chain of connected and dependent propofitions, and then proceeds to explain his duty, to the wife, more distinctly, reducing all the chief branches of it to the following heads, viz. love; fidelity; convenient and decent accommodation, according to his rank and circumstances in life; refpect; defence against injuries; the improvement of her mind, as far as there are opportunities for it, in religion and virtue, and the knowledge which is best suited to her character; and inviolate union. All these branches he largely confiders, and fully explains.

Before the doctor enters upon a distinct confideration of the duties of the wife, he takes notice of several bad difpofitions that are obftacles in the way of our receiving inftruction, of our acquiring juft notions of the principles, and fulfilling the obligations of focial and relative duties. One of these is, our treating points of morality, for the most part, as subjects of mere amusement and curiofity. And the more important the duties are, says he, and especially, if they are any way of a nice and fingular kind, or but rarely difcuffed, the ftronger are the workings of this fatal habit of vain curiofity; the greater afcendency does it gain over the mind, the more does it captivate and inflave it, 'till by degrees, it grows to be the chief principle that directs its views, and fufpends, if it does not utterly deftroy, the impreffion of every juster and more ingenuous motive.

And this is no more, than what we find by experience, to be the prefent course of nature, in all other parallel cases; with refpect, I mean, to wrong habits, and paffions indulged to excefs; where the ftronger is always getting head, and extending its encroachments upon the weaker principle, till the latter is wholly swallowed up, and centered in it. The application of this remark is very eafy to be made, to the particular fubject, which I am now explaining: and the neceffity of reftraining this idle trifling temper, and being governed by more rational and worthy views (if we would

either improve in the knowledge of our duty, or find ourfelves properly disposed, upon all occafions to practise it) must be obvious to every common understanding.'

He observes likewife, by way of introduction, that there is fomething very remarkable in the manner in which the new teftament states the reciprocal duties of husbands and wives, as well as in the copiousness and strength, with which they are recommended and enforced. St. Paul, he tells us, in explaining the duty of the husband, infists chiefly on love and its attendant offices, but when he fets before us a fummary of the duties of wives, love is not diftinctly mentioned in it, and feldom, if at all, inculcated in direct terms, in any paffage of the new Teftament; though it be an unalterable tie of nature, and ever binding on the wife, as much as on the husband. The reasons of preffing the duty of love fo ftrongly upon the husband, the Doctor tells us are plain; because generally, the affections of men are not so easily and ftrongly engaged, as thofe of the other fex; and, if they do not enter into marriages merely from prudence, and worldly confiderations, are fooner apt to decline, and fink from their firft height and ardour, into a more indifferent and cool regard; and because, while there is a cordial and lively affection in the husband, all the other parts of his conjugal duty will follow of course.

There was little occafion, he obferves, to inculcate the duty of love upon wives, it being a point in which they are not fo liable to fail; but that there were very fubftantial reafons for enforcing submission as the capital and leading article of their duty; not fo much as it is the root of all others, but as the foundation, on which objections and difficulties may arise, and breaches of mutual affection. He refers us to experience as a proof that fubjection is irkfome and grievous to both fexes, who are not only fond of an univerfal equality, or at least each, of being brought on a level with all others, that are nearest their own fituation and rank of life, but afpire, through vanity and immoderate felf flattery, to a prebeminence. To prefs fubmiffion, therefore, as the chief duty of the fubordinate part, and love, to temper the authority and rigour of the fuperior, he fays must be proper in all moral fyftems, and efpecially in inftitutés of divine morality.

After this preliminary introduction, he proceeds to dif courfe more largely on the feveral branches of the duty of wives, which he reduces to the following heads, viz. Submiffion, love, fidelity, prudence, frugality, meeknefs, and

modefty.

modefty. What is advanced on the head of fidelity, both as it is a duty of the husband and of the wife, is well worthy the perufal of every reader that would have his mind impreffed with a becoming sense of the malignity of adultery, the most infamous and cruel of all immoralities. Our worthy author has diftinctly specified the peculiar aggravations that attend this crime, both on the fide of the husband and that of the wife. The chief things, fays he, which enhance and fwell the guilt of a violation of conjugal fidelity, in the female fex, are those which follow.

First, that the gracious parent of the whole family of mankind (for both males and females are equally his offfpring and the care of his indulgent providence) that he, I fay, in the cafe of the woman, has been pleased to implant, and temper with her very conftitution, an ingenuous modely, that is fhocked at the thought of all indecent freedoms, and grofs impurities; and particularly by and fearful (more fo here, than in most other refpects) of any attacks, that may be made either on her virgin chastity, or conjugal honour. In confequence of her greater modefty, nature has alfo endued her, with a more quick and lively fenfe of fhame. And from this root it is, that she feels more bitter agonies of confufion and remorfe, in the first profpect of being publickly expofed, than is generally found to fpring either from the principle of honour, or the paffion of fhame, in men. Add to this, that these, as to their degree at least, peculiar ingredients in female natures, are affifted, ftrengthened, and guarded yet more, by the manner of their education: which, when it is careful and prudent, is more close and referved, and more restrained to all, even the lowest, points of decency, than is for the moft part, that of the

other fex.

So that, when the wilfully degenerates, into the vile character of an adultrefs, the acts not only against the general dictates of nature, but against the more immediate principles and laws of her own conftitution. She renders herself, to a very high degree, infamous, odious to all the virtuous and chafte of her own fex, pitied and despised by the other; and in the eye of God, having broken through all the refraints which he kindly provided to check lawless paffion, and preferve her purity unfuilied, the muft, doubtlefs, appear, with very foul ftains of guilt upon her foul.

And it will be no wonder, as this is the point, in which, for the reafons above-mentioned, it was moft unnatural in her to err, if afterwards the be found to deviate ftill farther

and

and farther, from the firft implanted fentiments, and peculiar impulfes of her nature, and becomes in the end, utterly hardned against all sense of shame. Her native modesty was intended to be the chief ornament and loveliness (as it has, indeed, many irresistible charms and graces attending it) as well as ordained, for the defence of her fex's honour. This fhe muft have both inwardly felt, and have been convinced of from common experience and therefore, when by offering violence to nature, and fetting all decency at defiance, the breaks through this moft engaging and powerful tie, the guilt of her infidility must be hereby greatly heightened, and rendered more black and unpardonable.

Another aggravation, of the guilt of an adulterous wife, differing in kind from thofe already fuggefted, but derived, as they are, from the particular temperament of the female fex, is this; that they are, while uncorrupted, apt to be fooner moved, and more shocked, at barbarities, at all grofs acts of injuftice and outrage. And having this fingular reftraint, befides the common principles of humanity, and fenfe of right, is it poffible for them, without an uncommon naughtiness and pravity of heart, to be involved in a course of the moft vile and detefted injuftice? of complicated injuftice, injuftice not only to fingle perfons, but to whole families; by alienating eftates from the right heirs; confounding property; and by accidental discoveries, creating embarrassment in the titles to eftates, that have for a long time been peaceably, and without interruption poffeffed? As these last circumftances, by which the innocent muft neceffarily fuffer, are likely to be, oftner, the confequence of the wife's than of the husband's infidelity, they may juftly be reckoned, another of its heinous and special aggravations.

• Let me add farther, that the injury done, by this particular Fence, is perhaps, beyond that of all others (the case of murder only excepted) irreparable; and that even the confeffion, and ingenuous acknowledgment of it, will frequently encreafe and aggravate the injury, as it will add to the inconfolable affliction, and the piercing agonies of grief, which the kind and tender-hearted husband feels, by leaving him no poffible room to doubt of his difhonour, nor confequently the leaft dawning of hope, to palliate and relieve his mifery.

• These last indeed, are mischievous and dreadful circumftances, attending the crime of adultery univerfally; and ought to have the fame weight to deter the husband from the commiffion of it, as the other contracting party in marriage, to whom they have been directly reprefented. And

it

it is an undeniable branch of his duty, likewise, if this capital inftance of infidelity be an unpardonable act of guilt in the other fex, carefully to avoid every thing, that may be an inducement or provocation to it every thing that tends to create an averfion to his person, all ill usage that may gradually extinguish love, and infpire deep and fettled resentment. He fhould take care, to maintain a frict watch over all his loose and wandering paffions, that he may be a bright, and unexceptionable, example of pure uncorrupted fidelity. For if he violates his own folemn tie (though God may be righteoufly difpleafed, and will doubtlefs, feverely punish, and the world may juftly cenfure, the like inftance of corruption in the wife) yet he himself, without being quite impudent in vice, in exceffes of moft unbridled and licentious vice, cannot think that he has any right to complain.

But let him guard, with the whole collected force of his reason, against the fin and torment of causeless jealousy, ordained by the wife author of nature, to be a perpetual punishment to itself; because it is a feed, fruitful of every thing mischievous, and of irreconcileable difcord. A paffion, weak, ungenerous, and unmanly, in itself; the utmost dif honour and injury, that can poffible be offered to an innocent and faithful wife; and which may prompt fome of impetuous tempers, and not duly influenced by principles of virtue and religion, to meditate fuch wild fchemes of revenge, as in all probability, no other inordinate paffion would have ever engaged them in. It is, therefore, a wife caution, which is given by the son of Syrac in the book of Ecclefiafticus, Be not jealous over the wife of thy bofom, and teach her not an evil lesson against thy self.

• But let me remark here, before I conclude this head, that the paffage, juft cited, was only defigned to intimate, what may be, in fact, the fatal confequence of groundlefs jealoufy; but not in the least to vindicate, or excuse, fuch extravagant and unnatural resentment in the wife, for any abuse or wrong, which fhe may have unjustly fuffered : for though another fails in his duty, mine is ftill inviolable. Much lefs, can his doing me a leffer injury, justify my being hurried on, by an ungoverned tranfport, to the commiffion of a greater. Upon altogether as reasonable a ground, may defamation, and flander, provoke to fraud and robbery, or a violent affault upon my perfon, though without actual mischief, to premeditated murder itself; as jealoufy can urge to adultery,

The