knowledge, with the wife, that is, each with his own wife, as being the weaker vessel." Let the husband dwell with his wife. Let him dwell with her according to knowledge. What is the meaning of these expressions? The expression, let the husband dwell with his wife, seems naturally to suggest the idea that, in the apostle's estimation, each family should have a separate habitation; that they should not only dwell in the same house, but that as every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband, every man and wife should have their own house. The son, when he becomes a husband, should "leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” 1 This is the arrangement dictated by nature and reason, an arrangement seldom disregarded without uncomfortable consequences. Different households should have in all ordinary circumstances different houses. Many dishonorable things among the Gontiles, originated in the neglect of this arrangement. But this, though apparently included in the injunction, does not exhaust its meaning. It plainly implies, that not only should the husband and wife have the same and a separate house, but that the husband as well as the wife should ordinarily, habitually, dwell in that house. Wive are, no doubt, peculiarly bound to be "keepers at home." That is their principal and all but exclusive scene of duty and usefulness; but husbands, too, are bound, in all ordinary circumstances, to make their house their home. "It is absurd," as has been justly said, "for those who have no prospect of dwelling together, to enter into the marriage state; and they who are already in it, should not be unnecessarily abroad." Circumstances may occur which may make absence from home, even for a considerable time, a duty on the part of the husband, but these are exceptions from the general rule. There is much force in the inspired apothegm, "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place." "Those persons," says Baxter, "live contrary to the nature of this relation, who live a great part of their lives asunder as many do, for worldly respects: when they have several houses, possessions, or trades, and the husband must live at one, and the wife at the other, for their commodity sake, and only come together once in a week, or in many weeks. Where this is done without great necessity, it is a constant violation of their duties. And so it is for men to go to trade or live beyond sea, or in another land, and leave their wives behind them; yea, though they have their wives' consent, it is an unlawful course, except in a case of mere necessity or public service, or where they are able to say that the benefits are likely to be greater to the soul and body than the loss. The offices which husbands and wives are bound to perform for one another, are such as for the most part suppose them dwelling under the same roof, like the offices of the members of the body for each other, which they cannot perform if they are dismembered and divided." How can a man from home discharge his duties to his household? Family devotion, family instruction, family discipline, must all, so far as he is concerned, be neglected. There are husbands who are seldom from home in the sense now Gen. ii. 24. • Prov. xxvii. 8. explained, who yet are very deficient in the duty here enjoined, dwelling with their wives. Though never from home in one way, they are but seldom at home in another Their leisure hours are spent abroad. They seem fonder of almost any society than the society of their wives. It is a shrewd remark, which observation but too fully confirms, "when a married man, a husband, a father, is fond of spending his evenings abroad; it implies something bad, and predicts something worse."! To dwell with the wife is to associate with her as the husband's chosen companion and confidential friend. There are some husbands who never consult their wives, and even leave them to learn from a third person matters in which they are deeply concerned. This is not as it should be. He who enters into the spirit of the apostle's advice, will, amid the occupations of the day, please himself with the thought of enjoying his wife's society in the evening, as the best refreshment after his toils. Her presence will make his own mansion, however humble, far more agreeable to him than any other which he may occasionally visit. The anxieties and cares attendant on her maternal and domestic character he will endeavor to soothe and relieve. When she is happy he will be happy: when she is afflicted he will be afflicted. He will rejoice with her when she rejoices, and weep with her when she weeps. His heart will safely trust in her, and, by a constant interchange of kind offices, he will increase both in her and in himself that entire confidential esteem and love, which makes all relative duties easy and pleasant. This is for the husband to dwell with the wife. 2 But what are we to understand by dwelling with her "according to knowledge?" These words may mean, Let the christian husband, in his intimate and habitual intercourse with his wife, conduct himself like a well-instructed christian man, who knows the law of Jesus Christ, and the powerful motives by which it is enforced. We rather think, however, that the meaning is, Let him conduct himself intelligently, wisely, prudently. There is no prescribing particular rules in a case of this kind. "Wisdom is profitable to direct;" and as it is profitable, so is it necessary. In every department of relative duty, wise consideration, prudent tact, is necessary; in none more than in the conjugal department. The peace of the family, the comfort, and even the spiritual improvement both of the wife and of the husband, depend on this holy discretion. This knowledge, or wisdom, will enable him to form a just estimate of his wife's character, of her talents, her acquirements, her temper, her foibles, and will lead him to act accordingly. Christian husbands should act "circumspectly, not, as fools, but as wise." It is the more necessary that such wisdom be exercised, from the difficulty of guarding equally against a foolish fondness, which suffers sin on the object of affection, and a forbidding harshness of demeanor, which disheartens and discourages. The wife is not a servant who can be dismissed; not an ordinary friend, who, if found unsuitable, can be quietly parted with. She is joined to thee by a bond which, in ordinary cases, nothing but death can dissolve. She is the mother of thy children; regard to her, regard to them, regard to thyself, all require thee to dwell with her ac 1 Jay. 2 Stennett. cording to knowledge. Act wisely, and the results will be unspeakably advantageous. Act foolishly, and there is no saying what the consequences of this, even in one instance, may be. Beware of in any way injuring her; beware of in any way being injured by her. Seek to bless her, and to make her a blessing to you, to your children, to all with whom she is connected. The apostle notices particularly one reason why the husband should dwell according to knowledge with the wife. She is "the weaker vessel." The word translated "vessel" seems here to mean framework or fabric. Both man and woman are a framework or fabric formed by God. Both are weak; but the woman is the weaker. Both in body and mind some women are stronger than some men; but, in ordinary cases, the female, in the human as in other species of living creatures, is weaker than the male. In delicacy of apprehension, both intellectual and moral, and in capacity of passive endurance, the woman's mind is often, I apprehend, far superior to the man's. But, generally speaking, the woman is the weaker fabric. She has a feebler corporeal frame; and her mental constitution, especially the sensitive part of it, is such as to require cautious, kind, even tender treatment from those about her. Therefore it is meet that her husband should sustain her weakness, and bear with her infirmities. It is foolish and productive of mischief, to treat wives as if they were children. It degrades them in their own estimation, and prevents their improvement; but it is wise, and productive of the best consequences, to treat them as what they are, women, beings of keener sensibilities and feebler frames than ours; and to have a kind consideration for their peculiar privations and sufferings, their wearisome days and sleepless nights, their anxieties and sorrows, their watchings over our sick and dying children, and their angel-like ministrations to ourselves in the season of affliction. The feebleness of their frame should keep husbands in mind of the insecure tenure by which they possess them, and lead them to dwell with them, as they will wish they had done, when they must dwell with them no longer. The apostle does not suppose a christian husband can be intentionally unkind to his wife; but he supposes that from want of consideration, he may do injury in a degree he little thinks, to one whom he loves; and therefore he puts him in mind that his wife is the weaker vessel, and that it is his duty to dwell with her "according to knowledge." Very worthy men, not at all deficient in good sense or in good feeling either, but not distinguished by tact or sensibility, need the hint; and a great deal of suffering, not the less severe that it is not designed, and cannot be complained of, might be saved if it were but attended to. "It is well to mark how a passing word- 1 C. Fry. § 2.—“ To honor the wife as a fellow-heir of the grace of life.” The second injunction to christian husbands is, "Give honor to the wives as being heirs together," or joint-heirs " of the grace of life." Here, again, we have first the precept, and then the motive. The christian husband is to honor his wife. Some interpreters have supposed that the honor here spoken of is an honorable maintenance. There can be no doubt that the word "honor" is repeatedly used with this signification in the New Testament;1 and there is as little doubt that it is the duty of a husband to give to his wife all the comforts which his circumstances in life can afford, and provide for her both while he lives, and, in all practicable cases, after his death; but we cannot look at the close of the sentence without perceiving that it is not to this that the apostle refers. It is such honor as properly belongs to the wife as "an heir of the grace of life." It is quite plain that the christian husband is supposed to have a christian wife; and he is not to treat her as the heathen treated their wives, or even as the Jews treated theirs. He is to view her as spiritually standing on the same level with himself, being in Christ Jesus, "where there is neither male nor female," any more than Jew or Greek, bond or free. He is to esteem her as "a child of God," " a daughter of the Lord God Almighty," " an heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ Jesus." He is to love her, because Christ loves her, and because she loves Christ. He is to respect her as a living image of the Redeemer, having received out of his fulness grace for grace. “The The apostle particularly notices, that the wives are to be honored as, equally with their husbands, heirs of the grace of life. grace of life." Grace is here favor, the favor of God; not in the sense of the principle in the Divine mind, but of some signal effect and manifestation of it. The grace or favor of life is that Divine grace or favor which consists in life. The "life" referred to is that eternal life which is "the grace to be brought to us at the coming of our Lord Jesus," "the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord," "the salvation that is in him with eternal glory." "Life is," as Leighton says, "a sweet word, but sweetest of all in this sense: That life above is indeed only worthy the name. This we have here, in comparison, let it not be called life, but a continual dying: an incessant journey towards the grave. If you reckon years, it is but a short moment to him who attains the fullest old age: but reckon miseries and sorrows, it is long to him who dies young." This life is the fruit of the Divine favor. It is the GRACE of life. "If we consider but a little," to quote the good Archbishop again, "what it is, what we are, that this is the grace of life, will quickly be out of question with us, and we shall be most gladly content to hold it thus, by deed of gift, and shall admire and extol that grace that bestows it. Christian husbands and christian wives are equally heirs of this grace of life; and no consideration is so much fitted to lead a christian husband to honor his wife as this. It has been finely said: "This is that which most strongly binds these duties on the hearts of husbands and wives, and indeed most strongly binds their hearts together, 1 Matt. xv. 6. 1 Tim. v. 17. Acts xxviii. 10. Tipais. and makes them one. If each be reconciled to God in Christ, and so heirs of the grace of life, and one with God, then are they truly one in God, each with the other, and that is the surest and sweetest union that can be. Natural love hath risen very high in some husbands and wives, but the highest of it falls very far short of that which holds in God. Hearts concentrating on him are most excellently one. That love which is cemented by youth and beauty, when these moulder and decay, as they do soon, it fades too. That is somewhat purer, and so more lasting, that holds in a natural or moral harmony of minds; yet these likewise may alter and change by some great accident. But the most refined, most spiritual, and most indissoluble is, that which is knit with the highest and purest spirit. And the ignorance or disregard of this is the true cause of so much bitterness, or so little true sweetness, in the life of most married persons, because God is left out; because they meet not as one in Him. Loath will they be to despise one another that are both bought with the precious blood of one Redeemer, and loath to grieve one another. Being in him brought into peace with God, they will entertain true peace between themselves, and not suffer anything to disturb it. They have hopes to meet one day, where there is nothing but perfect concord and peace. They will therefore live as heirs to that life here, and make their present state as like to heaven as they can, and so a pledge and evidence of their title to that inheritance of peace which is there laid up for them. And they will not fail to put one another often in mind of these hopes and that inheritance, and to advance and further each other towards it. Where this is not minded, it is to little purpose to speak of other rules. Where neither party aspires to this heirship, live they otherwise as they will, there is one common inheritance abiding them, one inheritance of everlasting flames; and, as they increase the sin and guiltiness of each other by their irreligious conversation, so that which some of them do wickedly here on no great cause, they shall have full cause for doing there-curse the time of their coming together; and that shall be a piece of their exercise forever. But happy those persons, in any society of marriage or friendship, who converse so together here as those that shall live so eternally together in glory.' The christian husband, when he realizes these truths, cannot but honor his christian partner; cannot but treat her with cordial respect, as one, equally with himself, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ; already blessed with many invaluable heavenly and spiritual blessings in Christ, standing in a most dignified relation to the great God our Saviour; animated by his Spirit and adorned by his image; and destined to be one day perfectly like him, their common life, when he appears in his glory, and to become an inheritor of that blessed world where they "do not marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God." 2 It is obvious that this is a motive, which in its full force can be felt only by a christian husband, in reference to his duty to a christian wife. But it suggests strong reason to the christian husband to do his duty, even in reference to an unconverted wife. She belongs to 1 1 Leighton. 2 Matt. xxii. 30. |