generation an interest in the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that is, in all covenant blessings. But what becomes of this great charter of heaven, if Christian women, out of an idle notion of perfection, will resolve to lead single lives, and thereby hinder rising generations from sharing in the honours and privileges of the church of Jesus Christ. Millions of the faithful must thereby be deprived of the token instituted by God to convey to them those covenant blessings, which his love and goodness designed for the rising generations of his people. Have a care then what you do, illustrious STATIA, in this particular. It must be a great crime to hinder the regular propagation of a species, which God hath declared to be under his particular inspection and blessing, and by circumcision and baptism, hath made the special object of divine attention and care. Away then with all thoughts of a virgin life, whatever becomes of me. As God hath appointed matrimony and baptism, let it be your pious endeavour to bear sons and daughters, that may be related to God, their Father; to Jesus, their Redeemer, and first born in the family; and to all the excellent, who are to enjoy, through him, the blessings of the glorious world above. Marry, then, illustrious STATIA, marry, and

let the blessing of Abraham come upon us gentiles. Oppose not the gospel covenant; that covenant which was made with that patriarch; but mind the comfortable promises; I will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed. I will pour out my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring. The seed of the righteous is blessed. They are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. Such is the magna charta of our existence and future happiness: and as infants descending from Abraham, in the line of election, to the end of the world, have as good a right and claim as we to the blessings of this covenant, and immense promise, I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, in their generations; it must be a great crime, to deprive children of this intailed, heavenly inheritance, by our resolving to live in a state of virginity. In my opinion, it is a sin greater than murder. What is murder, but forcing one from his post against the will of Providence; and if the virgin hinders a being or beings from coming on the post, against the will of Providence, must she not be culpable; and must she not be doubly criminal, if the being or beings she hinders from coming on the stage, or into this first state, were to be a part of the perpetual generations, who have a

right to the inheritance, the blessing, and were to be heirs according to the promise made to Abraham? Ponder, illustrious STATIA, on the important point. Consider what it is to die a maid, when you may, in a regular way, produce heirs to that inestimable blessing of life and favour, which the munificence of the Most High was pleased freely to bestow, and which the great Christian mediator, agent, and negociator, republished, confirmed, and sealed with his blood. Marry then in regard to the gospel, and let it be the fine employment of your life, to open gradually the treasures of revelation to the understandings of the little Christians you pro

duce.

This I am sure your holy religion requires from you and if from the sacred oracles we turn to the book of nature, is it not in this volume written, that there must be a malignity in the hearts, of those mortals, who can remain unconcerned at the destruction and extirpation of the rest of mankind; and who want even so much good will as is requisite to propagate a creature, in a regular and hallowed way, though they received their own being from the meer benevolence of their divine Master? What do you say, illustrious STATIA? Shall it be a succession, as you are an upright Christian? And

may I hope to have the high honour of sharing in the mutual satisfaction that must attend the discharge of so momentous a duty?*

* If succession be the main thing, and to prevent the extirpation of the rest of mankind by junction, why may it not be carried on as well without marriage, as in that confined way? I answer, that as the author and founder of marriage was the Antient of Days, God himself, and at the creation, he appointed the institution: as Christ, who was vested with authority to abrogate any laws, or supersede any custom, in which were found any flaw or obliquity, or had not an intrinsic goodness and rectitude in them, confirmed the ordinance, by reforming the abuses that had crept into it, and restoring it to its original boundary: As he gave a sanction to this amicable covenant, and statuted that men should maintain the dignity of the conjugal state, and by virtue of this primordial and most intimate bond of society, convey down the race of mankind, and maintain its succession to the final dissolution; it is not therefore to be neglected or disregarded. We must not dare to follow our fancies, and in unhallowed mixtures, or an illegal method, have any posterity. As the great God appointed and blessed this institution only, for the continuance of mankind, the race is not to be preserved in another way. We must marry in the Lord, to promote his glory, as the apostle says, 1 Cor. ch. vii. v. 39. The earth is not to be replenished by licentious junction, or the promis

All the smiles sat on the face of STATIA, while I

was haranguing in this devout manner, and her

cuous use of women. use

Dreadful hereafter must be the

case of all who slight an institution of God.

I am sensible, the libertine who depreciates and vilifies the dignity of the married state, will laugh at this assertion: The fop and debauchee will hiss it, and still do their best to render wedlock the subject of contempt and ridicule. The Roman clergy will likewise decry it, and injuriously treat it as an impediment to devotion, a cramp upon the spiritual serving of God, and call it an instrument of pollution and defilement, in respect of their heavenly celibacy.

But as God thought marriage was suitable to a paradisaical state, and the scriptures declare it honourable in all: as this is the way appointed by heaven to people the earth; and the institution is necessary, in the reason and nature of things, considering the circumstances in which mankind is placed; to prevent confusion, and promote the general happiness; as the bond of society, and the foundation of all human government; sure I am, the rake and the mass-priest, must be in a dreadful situation at the sessions of righteousness; when the one is charged with libertinism and gallantries, with madness and folly, and with all the evils and mischief they have done by illicit gratification, contrary to reason, and in direct opposition to the institutes of God: and when the other the miserable mass-priests, are called to an