And this, the design of a merciful Providence, which is manifest to our common reason and our common feelings, is abundantly verified and enforced by the holy word of God. The fifth commandment in the law distinctly recognizes and requires the exercise of domestic affection; and it is repeatedly confirmed, under the gospel covenant, by the pen of an inspired apostle. That apostle has farther declared, that “if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” {379} And the sense of this precept may be properly extended, to sanction and command all those peculiar offices, of kindness and countenance and support, which the members of a family can perform for each other. Under ordinary circumstances therefore, if there be no opposing necessity, the natural tie is to be respected by the Christian, and bound upon his conscience and his heart. Nor is such a connexion to be dissolved, but in cases of extremity; for this among other reasons, that there is always a hope, of the recreant and abandoned becoming, by the mercy of God, at length reclaimed and converted; and of this great blessing the pious relative may be made an instrument, by his fervent prayer, his affectionate counsel, and the constant influence of his good example. But all this hinders us not from looking, with a very different eye, upon the spiritual and the worldly relation; upon the good and the evil; though both may be objects of our kind personal offices, the nature and degree of our affection may vary most exceedingly. Our love for the truly christian relative has a fervour, a purity, a delight, which nothing but the mutual working and spirit of religion can possibly generate: the happiness proceeds from that sacred, heavenly source, from which both of us draw our principles and hopes; from the consciousness of our common interest in the great Redeemer, and our common relationship to Him: we are both “members of Christ and children of God;” inheritors of a better kingdom; to which we are journeying together, and of which we love to be discoursing; it is a bond of union, which nothing can separate; not distance, not death: for this is the great consideration, the great enhancement of our joy and comfort, that the love which we are bearing for one another, in the kingdom of grace, shall be renewed and matured in the kingdom of glory. And unless there be this principle of attachment between relations, this common faith and hope, this exercise of piety and godliness, this interchange of holy affection, all other attachments, however requisite for this world, are but time-serving and poor: death will be the dreadful extinction. But when the natural affection is thus combined with the spiritual, and draws its nourishment from it, they produce together a happiness, which none but such relations can know.