The Power of Holiness to be Shown in the Christian’s BEHAVIOUR TO OTHERS 3/4

2. The power of holiness is to appear in labour­ing to interest God in our relations.The Christian cannot indeed propagate grace to his child, nor join­ture his wife in his holiness, as he may in his lands, yet he must do his utmost to entitle God to them. Why did God command Abraham that all his house should be circumcised? surely he would have him go as far as he could, to draw them into affinity with and relation to God.  Near relations call for dear affec­tions.  Grace doth not teach us to love them less than we did, but to love them better.  It turns our love into a spiritual channel, and makes chiefly desire their eternal good.  What singular thing else is in the Christian’s love above others?  Do not the heathens lay up estates for their children here? are not they careful for their servants' backs and bellies as well as others?  Yes, sure, but your care must exceed theirs. I remember Augustine, speaking how highly some commended his father’s cost and care to educate him, even above his estate, makes this sad com­plaint: ‘whereas,’ saith he, ‘my father's drift in all was not to train me up for thee.  His project was that I might be eloquent, an orator, not a Christian.’  O my brethren! if God be worth your acquaintance, is he not worth theirs also that are so near and dear to you?  One house now holds you; would you not have one heaven receive you?  Can you think, without trembling, that those who live together in one family, should, when the house is broken up by death, go, one to hell, another to heaven?  Surely you are like to have little joy from them on earth, who you fear shall not meet you in heaven.  By the law of Lycurgus, the father that gave no learning to his child when young, was to lose that succour that was due from his child to him in his old age.  The righteousness of that law though I dare not assert, yet this I may say—what he unjustly commanded, God doth most righteously suffer—that those who do not teach their children their duty to God, lose the honour and reverence which should be paid them by their children; and so of other relations also

3. The power of holiness is to appear in your taking heed that thy relations be not a snare to thee, or thou to them.  There are such sad families to be found, who do nothing else but lead one another into temptation, by drawing forth each other’s corruption, from one end of the year to the other.  What can we call such families, but so many hells above ground?  A man may live with as much safety to his body in a pest-house, as he can there to his soul.  And truly the godly are not so far out of danger, but that the devil may make use of their passions to roil and defile one another.  I am sure he is very ambitious to do them a mischief this way, and too often prevails.  Abraham’s fear laid the snare for Sarah his wife, who was easily persuaded to dissemble for him she loved so dearly, Gen 12:13.  And Rebekah’s vehement affection to Ja­cob, together with the reverence, both her place and grace in Jacob’s heart, made him, of a plain man, be­come the subtle man, to deceive his father and broth­er; which, though it was too broad a sin for him at first proposal to swallow, as appears, ‘I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing,’ Gen. 27:12; yet with a little art-using by his mother, we see the passage was widened, and down it went, for all his straining at it; and yet both were godly persons.  Look therefore to thyself, that thou dost not bring sin upon thy relations.  It would be a heavy affliction to thee to see thy wife, child, or servant sick of the plague, which thou broughtest home to them, or bleeding by a wound which thou unawares gavest them.  Alas! better thus than that they should be infected with sin, wounded with guilt, by thy means.  And be as careful to anti­dote thy soul against receiving infection from them, as to take heed of breathing it on them.  Thy love is great to thy wife.  O let it not make the apple of temptation the more fair or desirable, when offered to thee by her hand!  Thou lovest thyself, yea thy God too little, if her so much as to sin for her sake.  Thou art a dutiful wife, but obey ‘in the Lord;’ take heed of turning the tables of the commandments, by setting the seventh before the first.  Be sure to save God’s stake, before thou payest thy obedience to thy husband.  Say to thy soul, ‘Can I keep God’s com­mand in obeying my husband’s?’  In paying of debts those should be first discharged which are due by the most, and those the greatest obligations.  And to whom thou art deepliest bound—God or thy husband —is easy to resolve.  Thus too in all other relations. Go as far with thy relations as thou canst travel in God’s company, and no farther, as thou wouldst not leave thy holiness and righteousness behind thee; the loss of which is too great, that thou shouldst expect they can recompense unto thee.