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PART FIRST.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY, OR DOMESTIC CIRCLE; INCLUDING ITS VARIOUS CONNEXIONS AND PECULIAR SANCTIONS; THE MORAL POWER OF WHICH IT IS SUSCEPTIBLE; WITH THE DANGER AND VANITY OF INTERFERENCE.

Reduce things to the first institution, and observe wherein and how they have degenerated; but yet ask counsel of both times: of the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

BACON.

Persons are elements of families; families are the elements of which both Churches, and Kingdoms, or Commonwealths, are composed and made up: and as the one sort of these is purely civil, the other purely sacred, that which is elementary unto both must be both. HOWE.

PART FIRST.

SECTION FIRST.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

The state of Judea at the period of the Messiah's Advent, conveyed to us in terms illustrative of the domestic Constitution, and the extreme degeneracy of the Nation.

AMONG the various remarkable eras, to which the attention of man can be directed, there is not one to be compared, in point of interest or importance, with that in which the Saviour entered our World. The state of all nations, in remote or immediate connexion with this mysterious event, may be and should be investigated; but the sources from whence information can be drawn, though not vague or uncertain, are open chiefly to the learned and the studious. The moral and religious condition of that peculiar people, among whom He condescended to appear, is however not so veiled in obscurity; nay, it is remarkable that, to infinite wisdom, it seemed meet to foretell minutely, not only the time and circumstances of the Saviour's appearance, but the precise state of the Jewish nation at the moment of his advent. The

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volume of prophecy teems with references to this period: even the close of the Old Testament is intended to describe the opening of the New; and the very last words of the last of the prophets, direct the eye to the harbinger of the Sun of Righteousness:-He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.

The phraseology adopted by Malachi, on this occasion, is certainly of a peculiar character; and it deserves more attention, from its being intended to describe the melancholy state of the Jewish nation, immediately preceding our Saviour's actual appearance in it. On the general complexion of society, it looks very hard; and even as though it were intended, by a master-stroke of the prophetic pencil, to depict wherein the greatest demoralization of a nation consists,-the dissolution of the Family compact. At the same moment, however, it points out the only way in which the tone of society may be restored; the only way in which, under such sad and degenerate circumstances, a general improvement may be attained, or at least an effectual one, so far as it goes.

But why, it may be inquired, adopt such a phraseology? Why not fix upon some of the other links in the chain of being; some of the other relative connexions? Why not have said, He shall turn the heart of the masters to the servants, and the heart of servants to their masters,-the heart of kings, or of governors, to their subjects, and the heart of subjects to their rulers? If the general prevalence of religion throughout a nation be the object, would not this be a much more effectual method, and more likely

to produce a permanent and public change? To all this I reply, without hesitation, in the negative. The precise terms of divine revelation are of great moment, and for them, as well as for the order in which these terms are introduced to our notice, the strongest arguments may, in numberless cases, be adduced, and so it seems here.

1. Such a phraseology most effectually embraces the body of a nation. Indeed, whatever may be the civil, the moral, or the religious condition, it at once fixes the mind on the broad surface of human society all over the world. The proportion of individuals who sustain neither of these relations is comparatively insignificant, while nearly the whole of human existence in this world is also embraced by the terms employed. How short, in almost all instances, is the period in which man sustains neither of these endearing relations! Suppose a man to be miserable first as a child, in consequence of the misconduct of his parents, and then miserable as a parent, in consequence of the misconduct of his children, and with him what a small proportion of the wick of 'life's poor shallow lamp' has burned brightly! Such a man may be said, 'never to have eaten with pleasure;' for so small is the space which you have left him to enjoy, that you may almost close the account by adding," all his days are sorrow, and his travail grief."

2. The terms employed by Malachi have the advantage of presenting the individuals of any, or of every nation, and especially the Jewish people at that

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