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PART SECOND.

THE UNTRANSFERABLE OBLIGATIONS, AND PECULIAR ADVANTAGES, OF THE DOMESTIC CONSTITUTION.

By thee

Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities

Of Father, Son, and Brother, first were known.
Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets.

MILTON.

By this most astonishing connection, these reciprocal correspondencies, and mutual relations, almost everything which we see in the course of Nature is brought about. Things, seemingly the most insignificant imaginable, are perpetually observed to be necessary conditions to other things of the greatest importance.

BUTLER.

PART SECOND.

SECTION FIRST.

OBEDIENCE AND SUCCESS CONTRASTED WITH NEGLIGENCE AND RUIN.

Introductory remarks.-The inevitable consequences of obedience and neglect illustrated by reference to two of the most memorable instances in Scripture.

THROUGHOUT these pages, the object of the writer, with regard to the Domestic Constitution, is to arrive at the knowledge of "the thing as it is." Whether he succeeds, it will remain for others to determine; but the object is certainly of the first importance, not only to the kingdom of Christ, but to the state of society in general: for although God himself does not govern the world as he does the church, nor treat the individual Christian as he docs the unbeliever, still there are certain great fixed principles which, it seems, He owes to himself to his government-and to man, as man, inviolably to maintain. Thus, if Jehovah is "angry with the wicked every day," he also "judgeth the righteous" every day; and his judgments thus beginning with them in this life, though all

should be virtually converted into the chastisements of a Father, "who judgeth according to every man's work of what sort it is," still, such judgments or chastisements are intended to warn the unbelieving or disobedient, of what inevitably awaits him, both in time and eternity. "For if judgment must begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of them who obey not the gospel of God? and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ?"

At all events, whatever may be said in reference to some other subjects of investigation, the Domestic Constitution is one which, it appears, is regarded by its Divine Author, according to certain fixed and unalterable laws, such as we have already attempted to illustrate; and it will afford additional confirmation, if we again see the Almighty acting towards his own people on the same impartial and fixed principles which he has revealed for the guidance and monition of man, as man.

For the exhibition of a contrast between the frown and the favor of God, resting on a Father and his posterity, I have therefore selected, not two persons of opposite sentiments, but two parents whose individual character for piety has been admitted by all ages. Such a picture will serve to show the reader that there is no respect of persons with God, and that he is determined to act on the same solemn principles with his own people, as with those who do not, in any degree, acknowledge his authority.

OBEDIENCE AND SUCCESS.

Several circumstances unite to render the family of Abraham a subject of peculiar interest. At the age of seventy-five, he was himself a convert from idolatry, or, at all events, he was then called to give his opinion and decided testimony against it, by first leaving his country, and finally his Father's house. In the course of but a

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