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The second advice given to the spouse is this, "Forget also thine own people and thy father's house" (Genesis 2:24). It is equivalent to that, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation" (Ephesians 4:22; 1 Peter 1:14). Now, in these words, "Forget also," etc., there is —

1. The natural relations of Christ's spouse pointed at in contradistinction to those of her husband. She wants not relations, indeed, but they are such as she can have no credit nor good from them, but will be the worse of them, and therefore her husband has taken her out from among them, and would have her to forget them. She has some that are her natural country people, her own people. Who are these but the world that lieth in wickedness; and before she was espoused to Christ, she was one of their own, but He hath chosen her out of the world. Every country hath its own fashions, and in former times she followed the fashions of the country as well as the rest. She has also a father's house in that country. Who is her father naturally but the devil? (John 8:44), and though she has left the house, yet he keeps house there still with his children and servants (Luke 15:15).

2. There is the duty of Christ's spouse with respect to these. She must forget both of them. And here there is something supposed, that is, that Christ's spouse is apt to have a hankering after her own people and father's house, even after she has left them, as Laban alleged that Jacob sore longed after his father's house. There may be eager looks back again, while the soul minds them, and that with too much affection, not sufficiently weaned from them. There is something also expressed that Christ's spouse ought to forget them. Not absolutely, for she not only may, but ought to mind them for her own humiliation and thankfulness. But in respect of affection, her heart must be weaned from them, she must not desire to return to them; and in respect of practice, she must no more conform herself to them. But the hearts of Christians are often found much unweaned from their father's house. As it is with a childish, new-married woman, they have a foolish hankering after the house from which they came.

I. Is WHAT THIS UNWEARIEDNESS APEARS.

1. In the cooling of our zeal against our father's house.

2. In kindly reflections on its entertainments and pleasures. Israel lusting after the flesh-pots of Egypt.

3. In uneasiness under the restraints of our husband's house.

4. In hankering after the Egypt we have left. Remember Lot's wife.

5. In kindly entertaining any sent from thence (2 Samuel 12:4).

6. In serving our husband after the fashion of our father's house; like a new-married woman, who, though she has changed the house, yet she keeps the fashions of that from which she came. So, though the man will not neglect prayer, hearing, and ether duties, yet he is so far unweaned, that he performs these often only as they do who are still in his father's house. "When thou prayest," says He, "thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are." He will have his own work done after the fashion of His own house.

7. In our stealing visits to our father's house, and secret tampering with former lusts. Stealing it must be, for our Lord and Husband will never give His consent to the meeting again (Ezekiel 6:9). But alas! how often is Christ's spouse missed out of her husband's house.

8. Many that have been espoused to Christ before the world, but not from the heart, quite forsake their husband, and go back, for altogether, to their father's house by their apostasy. Like the Levite's wife — for wife she was, though in a secondary degree (Judges 19.).

II. WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS? There are some who have been joined to Christ only by the hand, but never by the heart. But even those who are joined to Him by both may yet be chargeable with being unweaned from their father's house, as the others certainly are. For —

1. The consent of many to Christ is an involuntary consent (Psalm 78:34, 36, 37). The stone thrown up in the air will fall again when the force ceaseth.

2. The heart has not been freely loosed from some one sin or another. They "go not very far away" from Egypt (Mark 10:20, 21).

3. Sin has never been made bitter enough to them. The soul that never tasted the bitterness of sin will break over purposes, vows and resolutions, to get to it again.

4. Because by reason of their not living by faith on Christ, they find not that soul satisfaction in Him which they expected. No wonder she longs to be back at her father's house who is disappointed of comfort in her husband's.

5. Because there is a principle of corruption in the best, which still inclines the wrong way. We are unstable souls. A good frame is hard to get, and easily lost. It is like letters written in the sand, that a blast of wind doth obliterate. Hence the soul often turns aside very quickly, and on very slender occasions, as Peter at the voice of a maid, and that even soon after some remarkable manifestations from the Lord. Lastly, because those of our father's house are ever seeking to seduce us, and make us as they are. How humble should all this make us, and how careful not to look back and hanker after our old sins. Think how such desires grieve the Spirit of Christ; how they will move your communion with Christ; how unfixed and unstable in religion they will make you; how they dishonour Christ; how they are the fountain of apostasy. They that are often looking away will break away at length.

(T. Boston, D. D.)

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KJV: Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house;

WEB: Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear. Forget your own people, and also your father's house.