transcendent The world is now a dayes become a great snare each yong one scarce out of the shell tickles himselfe with the proposall of great hopes to himselfe and telling him His fortunes are great and he may marry in so and so high a degree and what is so high but his hopes may equall And thus not looking at his base beginnings and unlikelihoods of any thing but puffing up himselfe with offers with conceit of his owne worth he growes to thinke the world too narrow to chuse in And never I thinke was the spirit of the male-sex so vast as in this age wherein the multitude of the female sexe and the contempt thereof hath brought it to passe that every boy new out of his prentiship values himselfe by the scores and hundreths although scarce worth a groat besides his occupation And the most men deeme none be they never so religious which in our Fathers dayes would have bin counted rich matches fair or good enough for him except beauty and wealth in an higher degree then common make them so In so much that except parents overstraine and halfe exhaust themselves to dowre their daughters be they otherwise never so well brought up and deserving they lye by as no body Quest But what will some say Doe you envie our lot to be better now then in former times or is it unlawfull to marry to wealthy ones and our betters Answ I answer If God lay out a portion for you without your politicke ambitious seeking and such an one as whose portion in grace equals her estate yea such as in judgement desire you for your religion although you are inferiour otherwise I deny not but friends consenting it is lawfull God hath brought such a vantage to your hands But what is this to mens covetous and proud desires As one once said of his second match I will now have a gallant whatsoever it cost me and so he had such a one as he fancied But by that time he had wintred and summered her a while his bladder was so prickt that he sadly wisht he had one of his former wives sise and fashion as plaine as he then thought her to be I conclude thus overweene not your selves when there is little worth in you to equall the meanest women or husbands but moderate your spirits and marry in the Lord. Nothing hinders but the Lord and outward meanes may concurre as the case may stand and then the question is ended But if it be so that a match of 500. pounds be offred with the Lord and another of seven or eight hundreth without him or at least without any apparent hopes of him what then shall be done I answer other conditions being concurrent in any tolerable proportion despise the greater offer and take the lesser counting the misse of thy gaine happy and the gaine of her grace with that losse more happy Buy thy wife in such a case if thou be wise and let it appeare that Gods oracles are no tyes with thee If her price be above pearles I trow thou who wilt not part with a little gold or silver for it art well worthy for thy betraying her for a little pelâ—e to betray thy selfe to sorrow and to have bag and baggage and all Tell me in what marquet couldest thou traffique so well as to game a pearle for a little silver doubtlesse thy silver would not recompeâ—ce thy losse if thou shouldest chuse it with a farre lesse bargaine The times have bin wherein the man was to bring a dowry to the woman though I think they held not long I am sure Christs marriage is such to his beloved thinke thy selfe to be the man and aske thy selfe if not what thou wouldest give yet what thou wouldest forgoe for a good companion I thinke the dayes were never so rare for marriages in this kinde as now and yet the sorrowfull fruit of the contrary should bring this choyce into date againe It s a custome we know for men ambitious to buy honour rather then want it yea glad they are if they can so come by it Do you so Marriage is honourable buy it whatsoever it cost you and be glad you can get it so Let bad customes be no prescriptions and set a good one against a bad Fourthly let the Lord be much solicited by prayer both ordinary and extraordinary for this blessing beg hard for it rather then want I said before pay for it and now I adde pray for it pay and pray too and thinke it worth it Let the Lord see that your soule is deepely in love with it and will not be denied seeke to honour him for ever for it and count it not every mans case and you shall see what answer he will make you If prayer will not get it try if importunity will prevaile come for a wife as she Mat. 15. came for her daughter and refuse any nay this is the way to get it God will grant it thee rather then be wearied and yet he loves it with importunity Either God will heare you or else give you a reason which shall satisfie you which I adde because I beleeve that exceeding good marriage were not good for some that seeke it it would puffe them up and hurt them they rather need exercising marriages But this know God will not part with his jewels so easily as not to be sought to for them this blessing is like to that Ezek. 36. which the Lord so promised to give his people as yet he would besought too by them for it Commit thy way to Iehova and he shall effect it If thy wife be to thee as Samuel was a sonne to Hannah a wife of prayer thou maist the more rejoyce in her and say with Iacob Loe the wife which the Lord in mercy hath given his servant To the pure all are pure each gift is sanctified by prayer else if thou doe onely light well by accident as Nabal upon Abigail she shall be but a dry morsell to thee without favour or favour thou shalt finde her as he did a snare to thee 〈◊〉 helplesse helper God depriving thee of the staffe of â—read the true good of a good wife not onely a dry pit but even an encrease of thy judgement It is said Abraham called Eliezer his servant in this weighty businesse of chusing a wife for his son Isaac bidding him to put his hand under his thigh a solemn adjuration for assurance that he would not chuse him an heathenish wife but one of Terahs family the best which then could be had though not as it ought beyond the river how much more oughtest thou to put thy hand under the Lords in this case of thine owne marriage vowing that if he will provide a Rebecca for thee and make thy voyage prosperous thou wilt discerne as reall a providence as Eliezer saw in meeting of her at the well Is there never a wife for thee
where love is entire but want of religion is not easily recompenced with externals be wise not to stumble too much at the former neither let heat of affection snare and cousen thee in the latter So much for the meanes to be used for marrying in the Lord. And to this issue pertaines all this discourse therefore still I so conclude as I began And because no bad marriage befals any where the husbands sinne is not chiefe either because himselfe is bad or erreth in judging the wife the woman having onely a refusing voyce not a chusing but the man having the prerogative of choice as the leader of the businesse therefore let the man especially looke to himselfe It s not for the modesty of the womans sexe to play the suitour to put forth her selfe towards the man but to wait till God offer her an object of consideration and I seldome have noted matches very succesfull in this kinde I remember the answer of a wise man to a Gentlewoman which told him she could love him before any man he answered her but of al others I dare not venture upon you for my wife He considered that such pangs in that humorous sex cannot come from judgement because they thwart an ordinance and as a sudden torrent of passion or heat causeth them so they suddenly fall as fast and leave the channell dry when the humour is over then coole blood succeeds and checks the party for rashnesse workes a dislike of the choice and a very indifferent spirit to the husband thinking him to be too meane for them and so little joying in him waxing darke and farre from that sweet temper of amity and subjection which a wife should bewray Therefore ye husbands be not gulled with easie matches they are not so easie to forgoe as to get the furthest way about is the neerest way home There is a pleasingnesse in shew to be fancied by a woman to be offred that estate which I could never have expected but when all is said that can be it is too easie to prove happy what it may prove I cannot say but since it s not of God and is against the modesty of that sex I can see no great hope of it This by the way I end my counsell with a two-fold question One is this if say some we stay till these choice marriages be offred us we may wrong our hopes passing the time of our virginity and youth vainly away To whom I say I speake to none in this kinde save to the religious let the rest move in their owne spheare commit thy way to Iehovah and he will effect it where there is truth of grace it cannot lye hid some way or other the Lord shall provide and the labour of thy love shall not be concealed feare not the worlds feares cry not a confederacy where they cry it but wait and there will alway be some men who will be as jealous as women to plunge themselves into a crosse marriage as glad of thee as thou of him it s a reciprocall case and hee who beleeves makes no more haste then good speed Thy worth shall breake out as the light and thy patience and modesty as the noone day Another is whether should we goe to finde out such for we see the families of such as had name of religion are now degenerate and empty of such choice None doe more degenerate to pride vanity and prophanenesse then the children of many Ministers and professours which have bin religious yea many townes anciently of note for such yet are now become as barren as any other To whom I answer when the people came and told Samuel that his children walked not in his wayes it was not so much from any offence at their sinne as for their owne ends to make them a King many upbraid good families because they are willing to balke them and to looke otherwhere Sure I am that families are not so wanting of good matches as the good matches who are in them are disregarded But further be it true Gods rules are sleighted in all places now a dayes and religion was never thicker sowne nor come up thinner then now what wonder if sinne carry this duty downe the streame of contempt as well as others yet I say is religion gone quite out of all families Though it be entailed to no one yet cannot free grace plant it selfe where it listeth if it leave one can it not chuse another religion for ought I see may lye long enough except excesse of portion smell her out Oh! follow not the streame conforme not to the fashion of this world God is tyed to no places families congregations he is no accepter of persons but in all places where his name is feared and called upon there will he blesse Such shall not need to distrust God hee makes none a soone of Abraham but he makes a daughter of Abraham also meet for him use meanes to finde them out and having so done preferre pearles before pibbles and the Lord shall bring the good to the good for he is a God of order not of confusion Quest 3 But will some say perhaps we have found out a jewell but it s in a dunghill a good husband or wife but the parents bad the kindred bad and no encouragement to proceed I answer as a bad wife is never the better because graced with a good so neither ought a choice either wife or husband be too much sullied by a bad family it s their ill lot to be so but that grace that made Lot eminently good Noah excellently righteous in their sinfull times doth even more abundantly requite that blemish with the select religion of some one among them I blame no man if with a good wife he would be glad to marry to a good family and stocke but in another respect I would account that grace which is unstained with so much ill being in the midst of it more approved and tried with the touchstone then that which growes up together with the grace of a family for company It s some grace to a Lilly to grow among thorns and a Rose looks the more beautifull among thistles contraries set one against another are the more orient I should not refuse a truly vertuous companion for the cause And this be said of the second maine rule for such as are upon entrance of marriage I goe to the third The third dutie concernes the two parties after their Contract viz. to spend that space betweene it and marriage as a more due and solemn season for a preparation of themselves to the estate and conversation of marriage to come But because I foresee that the Reader will expect that somewhat be said in this Treatise touching a Contract I will therefore suspend this third advice till I come to that argument in the fift chapter at the end thereof Thus much for this Chapter
sinne to serve his providence This faith must be Domina fac totum she must doe all and suffer all and carry all she must be the stirring housewife or else in vaine doe others stirre who can doe more with sitting still then all others though each finger were a thumbe By her therefore and her daughter patience possesse your soules and commend your selves to him who will effect your desire This for the former particular for faith in the promise The other particular is outward which is the joint serving of God in the family Though both of you pray not yet the one hold it up in the others absence and set up God with both hands in your house Let prayer reading and other worship hansell your dwelling and sanctifie it at your first entrance and afterward season and sweeten it and all both persons and things that belong to that Let all goe under the banner and protection of God by it It must be as the Temple morning and evening sacrifice what else so ever you adde thereto you may but this must be constant The holy Ghost loves to honour this Sacrifice through the Scripture Daniel would pray at the season of it Eliah would offer his sacrifice at that time and so the rest And this Sacrifice made all the rest welcome and blessed Therefore be joint in it begin not zealously at first and end in the flesh which is the custome of most couples Looke not asquint with an evill eye upon it to cast your businesses so unhappily as to trench upon the season thereof as if your hearts secretly grudged at God in it and could scarse beteame it Both of you be just before God in it striving who should goe before the other in it be no snare each to other not onely by your backwardnesse and murmuring at it not so much as in your indifferency of spirit toward it least you defile each other by it and so you grow mannerly to put it off at first and then by degrees by any trifling occasion to outweare it Know it that by the defacing of this you out-weare all blessing and goe in the rowe of them of whom it s said poure out thy wrath upon the families which call not upon thy name Be very serious to taske your selves to it to presse each other not onely to a performing of it in generall to say a few praiers but to bee instant fervent and constant in it The seasoning of your children the awe and government of your servants depends upon it and where its wanting both prove ruinous and brutish besides the misery of the whole family condition Vse all wisdome thou man all prevention and earely care thou woman both without and within that all busines and occasions may be set at a stay and dispatcht that this weighty affaire stand not let for them Be sure that thy heart smite thee not oft in the day when shrewd turnes befall thy children thy house is in danger by casualty of fire thy husband and thou quarrell or any other sad accident happen to say these are because we sought not God this day therefore is this mischance befallen me in my cattell or in my travaile or by a fall off my horse or ill successe in my businesse or the like Let not the comming in of friends strangers break it off sit not loose to it least each toy unsettle it Awe the family to it both joine in the drawing of your inferiors to reverence it least if forme and commones once breake in the next newes be wearinesse and so breaking it off And with praier let solemne calling of the children and servants to accompt be practised If you can possibly let the morning rather then noonetide be your appointed season lest necessary occasions deprive some whom it concernes Chuse it before meales if it be possible If the greatnesse of household hinder that then take heed that drousinesse slumber and the Divell set not in their foote to marre all which for the most part is the canker of most family duties which through custome is made nothing of till it have cast out duty it selfe upon the dunghill I shall speake more of the mans duty in speciall afterward this now I thought good to premise in generall And this of these two particulars of the joint duty of couples be said Now I come to the generall exhortation and so finish the Chapter Let it be therefore exhortation to all good couples to be mutuall in all religious duties ordinances and service of God This will strengthen the wheele of marriage life as the strong spoakes in the cart wheele strengthen it from cracking and splitting Live not like strangers to God for so shall you never be inward with each other your life will waxe common and fulsome past and spent out in a shaddow and vanity yea vexation of spirit and at your death you shall say alas we never knew one another truely I dare not snare you for settnesse of Canonicall houres or for oftnesse of duty I leave that to your owne experience who should best know each others wants or at least your owne to draw you to it It is not meet families be made privie to the privacie of their governors it is the next way to make them despised its 〈◊〉 referring them to your owne seasons except your selves be the whole family for then the difference is taken away I say there may bee secret cases wherein even each partie may chuse secrecie in such be wise and powre out you hearts to God apart as its like Rebecca did in the strife of her twins There is a season for all things and marriage secrets are sacredly to be kept Therefore I say let this be the chiefe pearle of the marriage crowne search out all thy corruptions make a register of all favors of God which God hath granted to thee and to thy wife in common such as at the time of receiving seemed most pretious and might ill have bin spared marke how the Lord hath gone before thee and ordered thy conversation consider together how happily and yet perhaps hardly you met in marriage what sound love and covenant the Lord bred at first in you how they have since held firme and although many things have come in to weaken them yet they have not prevailed Consider how your hearts are drawne daily each to other calmeth your unquiet spirits which otherwise would not keepe compasse so that you looke not each upon the other with the eyes of Serpents but of Doves Observe how Sabbaths and Sacraments are blessed how your faith and peace growes your feares decay how your corruptions are purged what dangers in body state children you avoid and what sorrowes which comber others you are free from also what successe in your childrens tractablenesse and towardnesse what faithfulnesse and subjection in your servants for is it not God who makes many stout stomackes of both sexes subject to weake
the Corruption of marriage not to be dissolved till death except uncleannes divorced it This love is as the eccho to the voice the vitall spirit and heart blood of this Ordinance causing a voluntary and practique union of two without which union alone by vertue of Gods institution is but a forced necessitie For then hath this ordinance her perfection when this soder of love beeing added thereto maketh that union wâ—â— cannot be broken to become such a willing one as to chuze woulde not be broken Else friendship were a better one-ship then marriage because that may be dissolved when it waxes a burden wheras this holdes bee it never so wearisome But then is it happy when the lover and the loved enjoy each other else the fellowship of those maried ones whose love is degenerat into bitter hatred were as good as the best for the worst marriage is such that till one cease to bee it cannot cease to bee a knitting of two in one no time no distance of place no sin except adultery breaking it of but how miserable a necessity is that which hath no law no remedie Hence God hath allowed so many respects and liberties in the choise of husbands and wives because he would streighten none but that they might live lovingly except the fault bee their owne So that as he who marrieth for other ends religion beeing neglected offendeth chiefly so doth hee also who shall marry one religious without due caution of other things which might strengthen love even hee shall sin against the comfort of his owne life And its certaine that longer then love compounded of the forenamed causes doth last marriage is but a carcasse voyde of life And the stronger the tie is the irkesomer is marriage beeing frustrate of that pretious thing for which it should love groundedly Let me adde some reasons why this so joint a bond should bee carefully preserved First nothing is so pretious among men in worldly respects as that for which the husband loveth and desireth the wife and shee him no union so strong as this no ioy in any outward union so contentfull as this nor able to wish well to the thing loved as this For though I must love my neighbour as my selfe yet I am bound to love my wife otherwise for both kind and measure then my neighbour yea and in some sence better then my selfe And it s truely observed that this rule of loving our neighbour is rather to be expounded privatively or negatively then positively forbidding rather to doe any hurt to my neighbour which I would not doe to my selfe then commanding to do him so much good as to my selfe sithence by this meane I should be bound to feed and cloath him as my selfe which were abused But my wife I am bound to love as my selfe in both respects as my selfe both in the negative and affirmative sense Hence is that of the Apostle No man ever hated his owne flesh but nourisht and cherisht it even so ought a man to love his wife as himselfe not onely in distresse for so am I bound to love mine enemy If thine enemy hunger feed him c. but constantly and at all times Hence is the generall rule urged mutually upon both husband love your wives as Christ loved his Church and gave himselfe for it to purge and wash it that it might bee without spot and the like hee professeth upon the wife to him wives love your husbands c. nothing is to be a reciprocall duty But yet this I must adde that this so mutuall a duty is yet required of both in a different manner For the more cleere understanding whereof observe that as the love wherewith Christ loves his Church is a more abundant and bountifull love then that whereby she loves him againe yea her love is as her other grace fetcht from his fulnesse which he commun cates unto her by his spirit so is the womans love in the carriage thereof to the mans And as the dimme light of the Moone borrowed from that principle of light the Sunne so by proportion the love of the wife is as borrowed from the love of the husband He is the fountaine of the relation she followes as the correlative her love is the streame issuing from his spring Love must decend from him as the oile of Aarons head descended downe to his beard and his cloathing So that the manner of this imparting love must be orderly the husband is to offer to bestow and communicate himselfe first to his wife in a free bountifull full love she is not so much bound to vie upon his love or to love bountifully and actively as to reflect and returne upon himselfe his owne love and that in a reverent amible and modest maner Thence is it that as oft as Paul useth the charge of husbands loving their wives which is very frequent yet he very seldome and but once urgeth the woman to love her husband but as if he would have them their love and all to be drowned in their subjection he presseth them to be subject to their husbands wives submit your selves and let the wife reverence her husband Noting that although the married estate be an equall estate yet the carriage of both must not be the same but the love of the one must be conveyed with royalnesse without tiranny the other in loyall sweet subjection without slavery So then as the head and other inferior members are equally parts of one body yet the head in a different and more singular maner then the rest so ought the case to be betwixt husband and wife And hence it is that according to the custome of all Nations the husband seeketh the wife the wife loveth after she is loved except is be here and there in some odde person noted for folly or immodesty The mans authority mixed with the womans midnesse his activenesse with her passivenesse and acceptance makes the sweet compound As the Sun exhaling vapours out of the earth draweth them up into the aire and having altered their groster quality sends them downe againe with more foyson and fatnesse to refresh the earth as with her owne store so the lovely disposition of a vertuous wife drawing love from her husband into her owne heart sweeteneth the vapour and returnes his owne upon him againe with a double pleasing grace and comlinesse And as we see that the meate which the stomack receaveth except it be cold or hot scarcely admits kindly digestion because being luke warme it cannot worke upon that meate which is like her owne temper so if you take away this temper of natures love is loathsome in one maner and fulsome For what is more loathed by a discreet man then a woman mannishly qualited And what is more yrkesome to a loving woman then a man effeminate Therfore let the man keepe his liberty in loving avoiding all base uxoriousnesse softnesse and nice affection of his wife
ought not to yeeld to it in conscience but with love and modesty hold her selfe to agreement But the truth is many women who have power enough to do good do it not yet blaming their husband whenas the sin lies upon their owne base hearts as also many who have of their owne to do it will spare themselves do it of their husbands who indeed eate stollen bread and drink of the waters of a forbiddē Cisterne Now I mean by Reservation only this that they have acknowledged no more estate to their husbands then they wil yield upon marriage desiring their jointer to be according 3. Except upon the yeelding up of their whole estate to their husbands hands they make such a mutuall compact together that the wife shall enjoy such libertie without jealousie ascribing to her discretion in that behalf without jealousie or grudging 4. Except she have allowance by her husband to take to her own use the overplus of such monys as are granted for the expences of the family she faithfully providing for it without parsimony not defrauding any of their due for that were to feed others upōrapine stealth in such case that which she spares is her own the like is the case of such vayles as do by a kinde of custome issue vndoubtedly to the woman from her husbands trading Fifthly except any thing be fall her by Gods providence gift or speciall bequest of the deceased wherin her husband doth and hath cause to all other a portion as being derived by her Channel unto him Sixthly if she doe perceive by his behaviour and love that when she doth any thing in that kinde before his face he give allowance therto as a gift mutually issuing from both their consents though not named precisely yet implied secretly And in a word except she know that such a practice of hers wisely ordered would no whit prejudge her in her husbāds thoughts if he knew it but be taken by him as an act of Conscience not to be opposed But to returne if none of these cases can be safely alledged it is unlawfull for the woman to put forth her hand to her husbands estate under any colour whatsoever As that their estate is God be thanked great enough to admit it that they have small charge and do little by Consent any way or that her husband is extreamly base or that her dowry was more then ordinary or if she were againe to compact with him she would not doe as she hath done or because her huswifery is great she deserveth the liberty by her great gaines or savings or her comparing her lot with other women lesse deserving then shee or that shee is hardly handled or shee is to be pittied and pardoned if the need of the poor so requiring she exceed the rule a little for the greatnes of the good which might so be done I say not what God may in mercie do in point of covering the goodnesse of her meaning if shee do it ignorantly but what right she hath to do it before God Let such women as enjoy their liberty blesse God and beware lest they stumble at the stumbling block of their iniquity As for the rest lest them mourne under their crosse but not ease themselves of subjection knowing that their desies are accepted of God for the deed in greater inabilities then these and therfore resting in their integrity till God grant them greater libertie The worst is many women whine and aske Questions while they live under Covert of their husbands who yet when the Lord hath set them free to try all that is in their hearts have neither Questions nor Answers to make but are bounde with chaynes of their owne from all good doing shewing that neither credit nor Conscience was their motive And doubtles where there is a sound heart to God few women are so straited by their husbands but they might by one meane or other winne them to some indifferency But for that which I spake touching the necessitie of times and danger of not affording of helpe to the distressed and the like cases of extraordinary nature its sufficient that the Church hath beene compeld to greater aberrations then this as appeares by Act. 1. and the act of Abigail to David contrary to Nabals resolution may sufficiently evince And so much for this second branch Thirdly this subjection extendes to the whole conversation of the wife in Marriage whereof I say this That shee is to be generally attendant to this duty and to have it in her eye daily as if written upon her frontless and fringes of garments rising up walking and lying downe with her continually whether God do blesse or crosse them in their goings out commings in she must carry it writtē on her forehead Subjection to my husband In particular take these First in point of her attire The common tenent of gallants and proud dames is this that whatsoever fashion is up be it never so costly above her mean troublesome be it change upō change have it she will The fashion she holds is above her husbands power she must not be laught at for her worne sute because she is not in the new cut St. Peter could not speak of subjection but he must needs speake of this as for the sake whereof womē otherwise subject yet for their wils sake wil venture a joint and forfeit subjection In a case of meetnes of fashion what husband so little delights in his wife as not to allow her that which is indifferent But hereupon to run before the husband even to that which is uncomely and excessive either for fashion or cost I must tell women it sutes not with subjection Not in gold sayth he broydred attire playting of the hayre but in meeknesse of the spirit as if subjection were much a seene and most forfeited in this case I will not run into the determining of fashions sutable to each degree Let the soberest in every state determine it and I had rather it should be the husband should determine then she Love wil be bountifull enough selfe love may not be trusted But oh the excesse of this sexe both in married women and Virgins yea the wyves of those who should be Patternes to the world is so woefull in these dayes and so hideous that it doth not onely helpe to make a world of Banque-rupts but to fil the world with curiosity and Vanity wherfore let this be taken for a rule Never was there curious proude and fashionable woman who could stoop to be subject by their ruffling flinging flaring curling dresses tirs and forelocks you shall know them Custome as the world thinkes takes away offence But by that rule nothing should be evill in it selfe but in opinion But a subject wife puts little oddes betweene such opinion and realnes For shee is knowne by her Modesty as abhorring to receive lustre from rags but affording honor to her attire by her sober
way of promise follow this worke hard It belongs to the hopelesse not to such as turne this hope to a snare Beg of the Lord to turne a terrified heart into a melting one that it is which must mould an uncleane soule to a cleane and chast one no hammer can doe this mercy must dissolve it in the fornace of grace Lin not till thou feele that heart which hath beene drencht in the sweetnesse of lust to bee steept in bitternesse over head and eares for thy wounding the Lord of life and his Virgin-pure flesh to death by thy unclennesse Looke not upon other sinners thy selfe wert murderer sufficient of his sacred person thou soughtest to destroy his Godhead as well as his flesh if it had beene in the power of thy sinne though there had been no other sinner in the world thou hadst beene enough And shouldst thou not care for thy base lust sake to kill not a man onely an innocent Vrija but the person of the Sonne of God If this melting spirit be wrought in thee by the spirit of grace thou shalt behold him ' as pierced willingly and of his owne accord for thee who didst as little deserve it as Judas the Traytor but yet seeing thou hast a melting heart which he wanted and canst with Peter weepe bitterly it s a signe that the curse shall turne to a blessing yea thou shalt see God so ordering the matter for thee and Christ so giving up his soule to the speares point of wrath for thee that thine eie shall behold another sight that is an enwrapped hope of forgivenesse in this satisfaction of his and of life in his Resurrection so that now thine horror shall turne to hope And know it only this glimpse of Sun-shine in thy dungeon of feare can dissolve thy hard heart and prepare thee for pardon Thirdly let this hope rip up all the seames of thine uncleane heart and all that filth which lay hid in the entralls thereof never like to have come to light had not God revealed it and uncased thee Let I say this seed of hope discover that which an habituall love of thy sinne would have smothered for ever For this opening and ingenuous confessing of thy sinne will make way for further mercy It s none of thy worke but the spirit of grace that makes way for it Now a franke heart is put into thee to be as open as ever thou wert close before yea and to take as much paines with thy selfe how thou maist give glory to God in a full confession and turning up that cursed poake of falshood from the bottome pouring out all thy sinne as ever thou tookest care before to sweare thine heart to an hellish secrecy It s with thee as with a woman who hath many old peeces of gold and jewells lying by her which she is loth to forgoe although shee might thereby make a summe for the purchase of faire house and land yet perhaps rather then quite forgoe the purchase she will fetch them all and poure them downe upon the table So when hope of mercy offers it selfe oh the pearle thereof exceeding all petty shreds wil make thee freely disburden thy soule of whatsoever loads it thy most beloved lusts I speake not now of abandoning the habits of them that 's mortification following after but of the cleere intention and meaning of thy heart to abandon without any base hollownesse Oh! thou desirest now to spare God a labour of proclaiming thy sin before men and Angells and if it were meet as it is where Gods ordinance may prevaile thou wouldest chuse that place ratherest to shame thy selfe in where the solemne presence of God his Angels and Church are gathered together Still I speake with caution if thy sinne have broken out publiquely but if thou hast kept it secret thou art not tied to make thy self publique nor to take witnesse except thy hard heart require it to confesse to others for the breaking thereof the reason is because the way of Church-correction for open sins is one and the Evangelicall correction of the spirit of Christ in private is another But usually these sinnes are open and therefore openly to be proclaimed in confession as in the committing If mercy have toucht thee at the heart never so little it will worke in thee as Gods voice in the Whale when she vomited up Jona upon the drie ground thou shalt no more take care what become of thy lust so thou maist be rid of it nor who shame thee so thou be shamed and sinne have her due Thou takest more care how God may be honoured in the abhorring of thy rebellion how others may be flaited from the like how thine owne heart may be melted upon melting not how thou may maist scape in an whole skinne and lie hardened in thy stie of uncleannesse No rather shall litter and whelpes and all be raked together and cast to the dunghill I tell thee of a sollemne thing rarely seene yet I will not say I have not seene such a confessing spirit Ephraim had it when shee smote upon her thie the Publicant the Prodgall the Theefe on the Crosse and here and there as a berry left upon the bush I have seene such as uâ—fained Penitent but when I did so I never pleased my selfe with any object like it I was almost ravisht with it and tooke it as a reall marke of the Lords pardoning of it in heaven which was so performed on earth And good cause for what shouldst thou care to nourish that in thy selfe which thou purposest for ever to be divorced from Therefore here on Lord say thou comes the most tainted Adulterer that ever lived These were my first allurements to silthinesse such and such companies I haunted such baites for my lust I maintained so many base harlots married or single I clave unto Such were the places I frequented the filthie Sonnets I sang the musique dauncings revellings and wantonnesse I was defiled withall yea such and such were the colors whereupon I hardned my heart in sinne such fees such bribes such perjuries such friends in Courts and Proctors I corrupted with mony and in this confusion I had lien for ever had not mercy cast an eie upon me No day no Sabbath or season of worship came amisse no light of conscience could beare downe my sinne no shame of world no patience of thine long winking at me no good education no hope of my friends no terror by thy judgments could disswade I sinned against all Here therefore I uncase my selfe oh Lord Against thee thee Lord have I done this villany in it selfe morall in me spirituall and in an high degree I was ever tainted even from the womb and this my sinne is but one of a thousand which the forge of my heart hath sent forth If for this thou hadst drown'd me in perdition even in the act burying mee up in the bed of my lust thou hadst beene
such evils were committed Vse 3 I proceed to a second use of Admonition and that is to all such as shall upon triall finde out their errors or else can entire and unstained Sundry are the feares and griefes I know of the weaks though religious couples when they looke backe to their beginnings some to consider how rawly they entred into this condition at first and since having found God to be more gracious to reclaim them home or the husband and wife that before was a verse yet when they also thinke how unthankefully they have requited God for it waxing light wanton worldly and loose they cannot chuse but they must be in bitternesse for it Others although they have entred into this estate with much zeale resolution and consent of heart to honour God to their uttermost in it yet alas when they come to weigh seriously how many dayes moneths and yeeres are come over their heads in a most unprofitable sort gray haires being upon them without any impression of fruit and growth in good able to say little for themselves either for religion walking betweene themselves praying for and with each other joynt care in education of their children yea that they have humored each other in their base corruptions bolstred each other in worldlinesse which hath eaten up their stocke not suffered grace to revive but to decay serving their turnes each of other onely for common and vanishing ends of their owne spent Sabbaths carnally and little delighted in them for Gods cause fruitlesse in hearing and Family duties oh much cause of griefe must needs be to such Be therefore admonished sleight not the care of maintaining of Religion in your marriage with all solicitous carefulnesse shunning that which might weaken it the honour and comfort of it Crownes of honour are tickle things and looke whatsoever it be that hath much honour put upon it hath withall much care anxiety and burden annexed Beware then scum not off the fat and sweet of the honor and content of marriage but as for the burden and service of it to seeke God to worship him joyntly to shun all occasions of ease carnall occasions of jollity unchaste company you are loath to take the paines surely you shall finde at last that repentance will be the best fruit of such sleghtnesse it is strange how little this is beleeved at first till experience have taught it but men thinke marriage to be a buckler to fence off all blowes so long as they love one another as they thanke God that they doe heartily though with a rotten love that will hold them in as the corner-stone doth the sides of an house Others take marriage to be an estate of loose liberty to live as they list and therefore observe no caution nor feare any danger till at last they be waile their folly when they see how by their rash improvidence they have brought a snare of poverty upon themselves others an habit of pleasures and expence till both time thrift and heart be all lost and past recall Others there are who by their froward peevish carriage have provoked each others to wearinesse impatience and discontent others have drowned themselves in lust and led each others by base example to follow them and instead of complainers of each others to be as deep in and overshooes therein as the other thereby heaping diseases and needlesse sorrow upon their heads And whereas for lacke of mature regard and prevention they have pierced through themselves with the fruit of their sinne then they cry out too late wishing they had bin wiser to keepe this crowne entire from staine and dishonour Kings and Emperours have so sleighted the due care of their crownes that they have brought ruine and misery upon themselves by running into excesse of contempt as in the example of Rehoboam wee see But when as for their loose exorbitant wayes they have come to see those sad effects which followed they have wisht their crownes againe upon condition of improving their honour with ten times more temperance and wisedome How much more then have married persons cause to abhor their carelesnesse in this kinde and to binde sare if they looke to finde sure that is to prop up the honour of this ordinance if they will enjoy the quiet fruit of righteousnesse by their good behaviour If a Minister or Magistrate haviâ—g more honour put upon them in their places then others should carry themselves the more disdainfully and beare themselves so upon their places that they care for no man nor baulke any bad courses doe they looke their honour should beare them out should not God say to them Those who honour me I will honour but such as reproach me I will make vile If private persons excelling others in gifts shall not attend to humility and fear of themselves shall not their glory end in their shame their gifts in barrennesle and their profession in revolt Even so is it here such as care not regard not their demeanour in marriage both to God themselves and their families by shunning offences jealousies losse or alienation of affections but thinke it will alway be hony-moone and a merry world with them is it not just that their unseasonable ruines should teach them repentance too late Therefore let all married oncâ— be warned hereby to be sober heedfull advised moderate in their affections loves and liberties rather walking on this side the brinke then otherwise alway fearing a change and saying What if my follies breed in my wife by Gods secret vengeance a loathing of me a fire of contention in my bosome a continuall dropping upon my head my content at home my repute abroad God keepe me within such bounds of marriage ' as I first â—owed to keepe at my entrance Thus much for the Admonition Next I proceed to comfort all such godly couples as have laboured to enhanse and uphold the honour of this Ordinance Try your selves then no doubt you shall meet with uncomfortable thoughts for your manifold failings and no doubt you thinke few religious mariages so ill managed and so poorely carried as your owne the many breaches and flawes of your marriages do cause you to mourne and complaine saying If indeed I had so inured and acquainted my selfe and my wife to prayer and close worshipping of God if I had wisdome and understanding enough to be Gods voyce to my wife to guide her if I had abstained from the snares and occasions laid in my way by Satan to overthrow me and my peace had I preserved bòth body and soule in that chastity and honour that was meet nourishing love and amity abhorring all occasions to the contrary I might behold the face of God with comfort I but now my burden is encreased by my errours in marriage viz. that with a slight heedlesse and regardlesse heart I have carried my self in a businesse of such consequence upon which the well or ill fare of my life
religious wives and yet for some by-respects and ends of their owne will tolerate them in their profession of religion and use of means But alas full ill is it against their wils if by any counsell benefit or perswasion they could be withdrawne from it how glad would they be Nay if they could divert their affections from this way to any worldly way of feasting jollity and companionship how much rather would they chuse to be at double or treble cost to maintaine it rather then at a single one to nourish the other So that if they permit them not their religion with gibing and geering them openly yet with a secret disdaine If say they our wives will needs be precise let them why Is it because you love it in them No for then they should have your company and you would be like them wheras now you suffer them by a kinde of connivence winking at them and looking betweene the fingers But why perhaps they being men of a more indifferent and gentle nature and convinced by the secret grace which breakes out in their wives which they cannot smother and now and then especially in the time of their feare of death acknowledging their state to be better then their owne besides beholding sundry gracefull qualities in their wives which tend to their owne honour and credit in the opinion of others beholding them to be in esteeme with some of their betters and themselves accepted the better for their sakes sometimes also stirred in conscience to desire they were as they are though when their pangs be over their lusts doe againe surprize them I say by such second motives many men not being Nabals and base blockes being perswaded better of their wives then others are as seâ—ing their estates to be the more prosperous by their frugâ—ll housewifely and wise managing thereof they grow more indifferent toward them and especially their persons and sweet innocent behaviours gracing them in their eyes And by such meanes many women unequally yoked live at better tearmes then others doe But alas how few of such husbands are drawne to God as the Apostle saith by the conversation of the wives or wives by such husbands but put it off with a tricke you see say they what our wives affect they must have their wils we must not crosse them for then all were out of order let them alone and run their course as poore silly women may doe but as for us who are wiser and have greater affaires to looke after we must play the good husbands at home and hold in matters together Well take heed you wise fellows lest you be taken in your owne snare beware lest God pull ye not downe from that pride and jollity by which you look over religion as a meane thing under your worth and employment The wisedome of man is but foolishnesse with God and when the glory of this world shall be abased and bid you farewell then Gods matters will beare some price and Maries portion may hap to be wished Oh therefore as Paul saith what knowest thou O man whether God have appointed thy wife to occasion thy conversion Oh its death to many a bad man to thinke that a woman should beare stroke or sway with him in the cause of God they will not yeeld so farre as to grace their wives with such a victory It s well if her ornament prove not her greatest detriment and she have not much soure sauce to digest her sweet meat But as for following her steps to heavens oh it were too great honour to the wife well you shall wish you had esteemed it your owne greatest honour Meane time the greater shall her thank be with God by how much her religion hath cost her the setting on if she suffer not her zeale and grace to quaile by any discouragements till she see better things at last after her long patience to be wrought in her husband Oh thou unequall husband art thou content to pocket up all the commodities and contents of a good wife and to take all which religion affords thee in thy wife for thine owne ends never looking whence this mast fals wilt thou love the daughter thrift modesty subjection sobriety teaching of thy children and carest thou not for the mother religion which bred them all How base is it to love the effect and to dislike the cause to desire that these good qualities were in a wife without religion rather then by them to behold the beauty thereof Take heed resist not the light stop not your eyes from beholding that Sun whose beames you are so much beholding too I conclude this fourth branch being a very materiall one with an admonitory caâ—eat to such persons whose wisdome will be as I take it to make a vertue of a necessity either in drawing the backward party to a better passe or themselves to a more patient bearing of their burden First therefore let such say with Pharao's Butler I remember my sinne this day the sinne of rash entrance into marriage my sensuality and yeelding to mine appetite without consulting with God These and other sinnes of thy youth open before God that he may cover them Redeeme thy former neglect by present diligence in humbling thy soule and praying to God for pardon it is never out of season to doe so if the fruit be not as thou desirest yet it shall be some supply of thy want of good marriage and an ease of thy sorrow As for thy companion poure out thy soule to God for him as Abraham for Ismael Oh that he might live in thy sight If conscience move thee not yet let self-self-love doe it for thou art like to enjoy the good And with spirituall meanes joyne sutable practice commend whatsoever is praise-worthy in thy companion for the worst have some good parts that it may appeare that thou art loth to bury good under the clod of evill and wouldst be glad to commend for somewhat for so God himselfe doth Deut. 5. 28. c. infirmities passe by and marke not for who speakes of a scar when the body is crooked grosser evils so observe as waiting thy season to reprove them and that with all mercy and meeknesse lest thou exasperate instead of mending joyne especially a convincing and winning conversation for this glasse will say more then all thy words nay if Saint Peter may be beleeved more then the word it selfe sometimes And they are no men nor women whom such a carriage will not win in time But put case God still answers not thy desires fret not against thy lot which is Gods providence nor by comparison of worser folkes better successe But possesse thy soule with patience beare this indignation a while till the evill be overpast thou drinkest of no other cup then that which thou hast filled for thy selfe Moderate such pangs and melancholique passions of discontent as doe
his virgin that she is not necessitated to marry he may refuse or otherwise hee may yeeld he offends in neither But after one marriage is expired the widow is not so tyed because providence hath settled her upon her owne right Howbeit for the weaker sexe the case so falling out that shee may stand in as much need of counsell at last as at first yea of more this I say That it were the part of such widows to remember that they are children and to ascribe a reverentiall and honourable esteeme of their parents counsell out of wisedome and discretion although a precise command of God doe not absolutely urge it Lastly parents must still looke at the maine point that is the condition and state of a childe 's both body and minde For a parent understanding the case to be such that a childe cannot without deepe discontent of spirit and inconvenience of body propending strongly to marriage and shunning those continuall and noysome vexations which would attend the contrary I say cannot abstaine then his authority not being allowed him for the tyranny and hurt but the good and welfare of his childe he ought not unseasonably and rigidly to dispute his right or to hold it but tenderly and wisely to release it at the childes humble instance And this I might also presse in other cases as well as this But because they will occurre better upon objections brought against this point I will stop two gaps with one bush that is both lay downe the extent of this exception and also answer a question both in one For why here it is objected by sundry children as I toucht before that as neare as they can they observing the rules of God in religious and apt choice and being now to strike up the match they say The parents or guardians at least of one side wilfully withdraw their consent To whom I must answer with much caution for the safegarding of a parents honour First ye children beware lest you put any unjust affront upon your parents that may cause this rigour you complaine of and open their mouthes against you For if you doe their cause must be heard when you must stand by Put case that it fall out that your match be not faulty after your tryall of each other howbeit you upon the presumption thereof have beene your owne carvers and carried all with your owne wits leaving your parents to serve your turne after and hereupon the parent being offended looks not so much at the fitnesse of the match as at his owne contempt who can in such a case justifie you In this case especially if the parents be irreligious and unable to value the price of a good husband or wife I see not what course you should take but to humble your selves for your offence considering in your owne case how unwilling you would have beene to be so served Parents I grant should not only hearken to but runne and ride to seeke out good matches for their children if any occasion be offered and yet many of them are so stout peevish selfe-willed and envious that of all other matches they will crosse them most which are the best But yet you children crosse not them by forcing unequall conditions upon parents in consenting to your marriages Although you be granted to be religious yet it becomes not you to thinke so well of your selves that being unequall in state and stocke or in other respects you will force the marriage of one that hath great meanes under colour of religion For in this case a parent is not bound but hath his excuse If God should move a parent in this case considering how few are religious or thrifty to match their children under-foot for the world in respect of grace it is well and good embrace their good will thankfully But to obtrude your own worth upon their affections you ought not whether the parents bee religious or not The like I say if the disproportion lye in any other kinde This by way of digression that children bee sure of it that their matches be consonant and agreeable to the rule for they may be godly and yet not apt matches But to answer the question as it lyes If I say your matches be truly equall yet your parents will not yeeld Then first Let such children count it the crosse that they are fallen upon such parents let them not domineere over them and outshoote the divell in his owne bow of resolution and stomack but humbly submit to the parents as parents in generall seeking by all meanes to winne their love and respect first or last by your obedience and well-pleasing that they may see it and say My child â—s as carefull to give me content as to serve his owne turne And if need require let such friends be used by way of mediation as may best alay their opposite mindes shewing them the ill consequents thereof And lastly set on the Lord also to encounter their untractable hearts humbly supplicating that he would turne the hearts of fathers to the children to melt them and to give them the eies of Doves insteed of Crocodiles If all these prevaile not then the discipline of the Church being in force course ought to be taken to make complaint of such wrong viz. that a parent abuseth his or her authority to hurt and therefore implore the aide both of the Church and of the Magistrate to reduce parents into due order for they themselves must know that they are under Authority and no further made the Iudges over the children then as they can answer to God for their good carriage therein And so also to require such a childes portion from them as in such case is fit But if children cannot meet with such releefe I leave them under the crosse which God hath cast upon them to take it up meekly and beare it till God ease their chaine But if the father consent and the mother onely be obstinate they may with good conscience notwithstanding proceed yeelding all due respect to her So much for this Another question heer mooved is this Put case that two parties have got the affections of each other but the father on his deathbed dissent and forbid the marriage whether is the conscience of the child absolutely so tyed by those irrevocable words that he or she may not dare to attempt marriage I answer that child which out of an honourable respect shall wholy forbeare for feare of after scruples or shall piously encline to forbeare doubtlesse they bewray a very awfull heart to the counsell of their parent especially if they be convinced of an overruling providence determining the businesse But to affirme directly that a child is alway bound to obey in such a case I dare not Many circumstances must be observed next to the rule and therefore first I shall thinke it fit in this businesse that the parties resigne up themselves to the judgement
passe on a most uncomfortable time of marriage more dismall then to live in a wildernesse because the necessity of an unwelcome chaine makes it doubly wearisome And as themseves so they who were the authors of such matches do live together at deadly feude at continuall sutes the one striving to revenge himselfe upon the other till both their estates be ruined I doe not hereby exclude Guardians from that due respect which the law affordeth when their care and respect to their orphans welfare is sutable to the calling of a Governour But whatsoever the law allots the conscience of one that feares God should be so tender that themselves being no losers in respect of the charge which they have bin at they should deale with the orphan mercifully in all other respect of advantage which a man of no conscience would encroach upon Such as looke at their own peace and the honour of their profession will be wary in such undertakings to make their retreat sure that nothing may after be cast upon them which might crocke their name or religion or give occasion to others either to stumble at the practice or to make it at a president for the like impiety To conclude I say this to all parents who will be ruled by the word boast not of your honour and priviledge to doe hurt with Shunne all those base distempers of which I have treated at large as the infamies and reproaches of bad parents or governours Sinne not on either hand ether on the right or left neither by base sluggish neglect and contempt of this charge nor yet by any abusing of your liberty to the prejudice of your children But walke in the cleere way of duty To which end consider your prerogative is allotted you by God no otherwise then that you might undertake the duty more cheerfully Be circumspect painfull wife and helpfull to your children so farre as your meanes will admit with a free beteaming heart God tries your love and integrity by this occasion Times are now growne such that the best parents cannot improve their love and affection to their well deserving children as were to be wished the world is at such an high rate that they whose estates are not very great can hardly light upon a comely sutable match especially for daughters there being none so meane now adaies but looke for as good portions as in our predecessors time would have beene thought a very good portion for men thrice above their fashion And it is the disease as well of the children of God as of men to flight good matches where excesse of portion attends not yea I am perswaded it s the cause why Gods hand is so manifest in the ill successe of most matches because God was never so little looked at in marriages as now But as for these things let both good parents and children count it their affliction beare it meekely and leave it to God Let your love be neverthelesse to doe them the good you can It is not in your power to do all you would God will have somewhat left to himselfe Smaller matches with Gods presence and blessing for ought I see may in short time equall farre greater in successe Doe that for your children both in your education meanes counsell prayers providence which is in your power to doe and as for the the rest remember marriages are made in heaven and thence must expect their happinesse you can doe no more then you can And for this whole argument viz. consent of parents thus much CHAP. V. Touching a contract What it meanes The substance of it Answer to some questions about it COncerning this argument the first enquirie will be about the word contract how and in what sense we here use it Then touching the necessity or indifference thereof Thirdly concerning the performance and act of contracting Fourthly touching such reasons or respects as whereupon it may seeme to be reasonably practised And then shall want such quaeres as are or may be made against it or about it Lastly we will conclude with some use of the point For the former of these we here make a contract a relative word importing an antecedent act betweene two parties who intend marriage that is to say a private mutuall free unconditionall promise having past between these two persons to marry each other and no other But here this contract is not ment but a more solemne and open binding expression of this former promise made that it may be ratified and strengthned as becommeth a businesse of so great consequence So that before we come to any other consideration we must needs premise a little touching marriage promises made in private betweene the single parties it being presupposed that they be not within degrees prohibited and further that they be without all exception of inconvenience or ill report and scandall as in the case of cozen Germans is manifest and the nature thereof For we must know that although an explicite or expressed contract hath in it the greater force externall before men to tye the parties to marriage yet the mutuall promises of them both joyntly made either at the first or afterwards doe as deepely binde them both before God and in court of conscience as the other doth And indeed the difference betweene them is not formall but accidentall and both are true reall contracts or covenants the one as the other and if there be somewhat in the expressed contract which is not in the other in respect of outward obligation then may there be truly said to be somewhat in the former which is not in that in respect of essence For the being of the expressed contract rests in the former viz. in the deliberate voluntarie mutuall and honest resolutions of the parties among themselves which being past give the essence to marriage before the other came and is the foundation and ground of the latter For else it might be said that any passage of expression betweene two before witnesse falling from parties though in rashnesse or in sport or upon a question demanded might carry the force of a contract which no man of any sense can imagine to wit because the expressed contract before witnesse implieth a former mutuall consent betweene them not now to be questioned but yet for speciall causes to be more solemnly and publiquely testified for avoyding of great inconvenience And this appeares plainly by the effect which a contract or promise produceth and that is a great alteration in the parties who before such promise were their owne and had the stroke in their owne hand to dispose of themselves as they please But after their mutuall promise they cease to be their owne and passe over themselves not their money or corne or goods but themselves each under God to the other so that now each hath power over other and onely one over the other In so much that whatsoever other promise should possibly be made by both
loving neither her nor thy selfe unfeignedly should shake that affection of thine which being well grounded once as thou supposedst drew from thee promises of marriage But say they are true in part or wholly what then They come in out of season the steed is stolen it s too late now to shut the stable doore affections are snared thou maist not desert her Wast thou not in thy owne power before hath any man forced thee to resigne it save thy free selfe Thou art snared and I say if she should release thee it were her meeknes and discretion but it s thy rashnesse if thou wert amerced as he was who defiled a Virgin for the satisfaction of her discontented spirit and questioned name thou were well served No other satisfaction can duely be made her then thy returne againe to her with so much the more affection by how much thy deserting of her hath beene long and yrkesome Let the falling out of friends be the renuing of love Thou departedst once that thou mightst returne for ever And thus much for this occasionall point of promises Quest Now I come to the second generall having shewed therfore of what contract I am heere to speake viz. of a witnessed and professed contract it may be demanded whether it be essentiall or not to marriage Answ To which I say that the essence of marriage consists in the former promise making mutually to each other therefore there is no essentiall necessity of the witnessing and professing there of before others but marriage may stand as reall and firme in point of substance without it as with it Howbeit I conceive it to be of very speciall expediencie and use for the behoofe and good of the parties as I shall after manifest All sorts of people even very heathens have alwaies esteemed Espousalls Betrothings Assurings Contractings Affirmings for they are all one to be very solemne matters as the words they use and the ceremonies then performed do testifie So sacred and reverend it hath appeared to all sorts that there seems to be a finger of God pointing out the usefulnes thereof Witnesse the assembling of the friends of the parties on both sides to be spectators therof that so the blessing of it might bee more effectuall Witnesse that instance of Booz and Ruth who were as it were affianced in the gate of their City before many solemne witnesses who being called forth to testifie the contract did assent thereto and by their acclamations and thanksgivings and prayers to God for them graced and honored the same So that it s no wonder if the Church of both old and new Testament did practise it And it s particularly specified in the Generation of Christ that when Joseph and Mary had been espoused together before they came together shee was found with child of the holy Ghost The Hebrew writers tell us of the formes and tenor of words used among the Iewes to wit that by divers reall ceremonies they strengthned the promise which had passed betweene the parties and that in a set meeting of the familie Somtimes they did it by tickets of paper written by each of their hands and delivered by each other mutually Sometime by very solemne words of obligation passing betweene them sometime by a peece of coine given and received which by the change of possession argued the possession and assignment which one made and surrendred to the other All to shew that they accoumpted this businesse no trifle or toy to be wantonly used for the pleasing of carnall humors but a divine ordinance requiring firme and strong assurance each of other The formes were these Lo thou art betrothed unto me or be thou betrothed unto me or the like If it were without witnesses it was frustrate The solemnity hereof was acted under a Tent Canopie or Tabernacle set up for the nonce to shew inwardnesse and secrecie of marriage affection and benevolence This was distinct from the act of marriage it selfe which followed sometime after and was done with great festivity and with many songs and Epithallamium's of the boyes and girls of the bride chamber alluded unto by our Saviour Luc. 5. After the contract followed the dowry bill which was from the man to the woman though the woman brought a portion to the man also as appeares in Calebs bestowing his daughter Achsa upon Othniel yet usually it was the mans act to endow the wife onely and to purchase her unto himselfe To these may be added which I adde lest any should accuse me of singularity the joint consent and practice of the Church of God among our selves especially such as feare God though we condemne not those who doe not and there are extant in print sundry bookes published by authority and by name one of M. R. G. wherein the practice of that reverend servant of God is at large expressed when he contracted couples So that I hope touching this second branch little more need be added Touching the third which is the action or performance of the contract And that standeth in three personall acts The first is of him that leadeth the contract or guideth the two parties to expresse their former consent Who ought to be a meet person for gravity and experience able to teach them if need require the duties of that condition and to answer such scruples as might arise in their mindes about it In a word such an one as by his presence might cast some awe and authority upon the mindes of the parties and assist the action with some correspondence One that may bee wise to discerne of the frame of the parties and therefore by questions may sift out the truth to prevent danger as by demanding whether they formerly have engaged themselves to any other man or woman person or persons shewing them the dangerous sinfulnesse of such dalliance Also whether themselves have freely and without feare and with the mutuall consent of parents testified by presence or by their hand if doubt be made consented mutually in heart to this contract The second person are the parties contracted who ought to follow him that leades them in the contract thus or in like forme of words first the man then the woman I Thomas Iohn c. doe take thee Joane Mary c. for my espowsed husband or wife and I promise to marry thee shortly without faile if God will And so with some short counsel and praier to God to dismis them as true man and wife before God The third person are the witnesses produced who being moved therto answer and say we are witnesses of this contract by which these parties are betrothed each to other and wil testifie it being required The fourth generall is the rationall respects in which such a contract seemes very meet to be used And they may be reduced to these three following As first the sutablenes of the contract to the witnesses of the attempt It 's meet that such things be done orderly
let not this marriage of mine deface these faire beginnings it is appointed for good let us therfore meet for the better not the worse Take me on further Lord as the child takes forth his lesson let the sun of my light and grace not go back but forward ten degrees in all my hearings Sacraments publique and private use of ordinances growing in the truth as it is in Iesus that together with judgement sweet affections againe with tender affections sound judgement may grow and increase in me And thus I have finished this point also of a Contract being the second peece of my Digression from the point intended to wit the honour of marriage both in the entrance of it whereof I have spoken in the first three Chapters and the continuance of it whereof in the Chapter following shall be treated CHAP. VI. Returne to the first Argument The Honour of Marriage in the preserving of it during the marriage life TO returne then whence we digressed now it followeth that we come to the second part of the Honour of Marriage standing in the carefull improving thereof in the marriage conversation It is the nature of honour to love attendance and they who have found an honourable marriage must wait upon it and keepe it so And it is a true speech That it is no lesse vertue to keepe a mans wealth name or honour then to purchase them Iob tells us that God hath denyed wisedome to the Estrich to looke to her egges to hatch them when she hath layd them she forgets the worke of laying and leaves them in the sand for the feet of wilde beast to destroy them The Apostle John willes that Lady and her children not to lose the good things they had gotten but to get a full reward It had beene better that some had married with farre lesse shewes of goodnesse and hope of thrift except they had kept it better For there is nothing so miserable as to have beene happy The praise of that good woman in the Proverbs is not that she was vertuous before entrance no it was her proofe and practice which made her honoured and her husband in her Many great Captaines have got a sudden crown upon uâ—eir heads but they have died with a bare title and lost it with more shame then the glory came too which they got it by It s not sayd that Zachary and Elizabeth were worthy couples in their entrance but both in their married course walked with God Paul doth not onely teach married ones to bee married in the Lord and no more but how to live together and maintaine conjugall affection and to keepe that knot by subjection compassion tendernesse and faithfullnesse Rest not in this as some Scholers doe that their names are up and then fall to idlenesse and prove dunces So many couples are like the Image made of gold in the head silver in the breast but worse and worse downeward They would have their marriage beare up it selfe whereas that is as she is used if she be not cautiously observed she will take a tetch depart and carry her honour away some husbands and wives through the slighting of religion as thinking it needles to acquaint themselves with God as Job saith in all their complaints wants and distempers others by loosenesse of heart in company whereof they make but small choice others pampering themselves with ease and wantonnesse lying open and naked to a unsuspected enemy soone blast that honour of their marriage which at the first they seemed not dishonourable to enter upon And others have done the like by improvidence by needlesse meetings gaming 's or the like idle courses others little observing each others temper and so preventing many discontents others also by presuming to find at the hands of another more respect and affection or expecting greater wealth and estate then they found grow to distates and debates then to seek stollen waters as weary of their owne cisternes And therupon growes a decay in their estates discredit among such as esteemed well of them poverty and imprisonment seperation from each other And what is all this save to cast their crowne into the dirt and to prophane it wilfully whereas had they resigned up themselves and the successe of all their hopes to God walking faithfully and keeping covenant both with him and themselves humbled themselves and submitted painfully to their callings of magistracy ministery or private life without ambitious reatching at matters above them they might have kept their crowne and garland fresh and green yea surely had they set themselves to embrace those graces of God in each partie to winne love and amity betweene them bearing with infirmities and covering them with tendernesse how flourishing had their head and honour continued without fading even to this day But it shall be enough in this place to touch only in the generall upon the equall necessity and coherence of this second duty with the former for all such as would preserve their honour inviolable That which I shall further say hereof may more seasonably come into the use of that discourse which shall ensue after we have cleered the point it selfe which because its large and will cost consideration let us enter upon it It may then be demanded wherein this art and skill consists of saving this honour of marriage so unsteined The answer is it stands in two sorts of duties whereof the former sort concernes both husband and wife jointly and undividedly to practice The latter concernes each of them in severall the husband apart and the wife apart Let us then begin with the former Those duties which concerne bothe equaly are foure First Iointnesse in religion mutuall love like loyall chastity and sutable consent Touching the first of religion my meaning is that as they are entred already with a religious spirit into their marriage so they must continue not only to be religious stil but to cleave mutually together in the practise of all such meanes of worship and duties of both tables as concerne them I say in the parts of religious conversation to God More plainely first that they be joint in the worship of God publiquely both ordinarily upon the Sabbath and occasionall at other times and seasons as also extraordinary The word must be heard by both jointly Sacraments mutually received prayers frequented and all the worship attended Secondly family duties concerning both themselves and their children and servants as reading of the Scriptures conferring of them prayer and thanksgiving exercising those whom God hath committed to their care in the principles of Godlinesse and the severall duties of inferiors The husband being the voice of God when they are both together touching which more shall be said in the severall offices belonging to the husband If he be absent and there be no man of better sufficiency to present whom both of them allow of then ought the wife to discharge the duty as hereafter shall
of some particular duties and then of your generall converse Touching the former I would touch these two the one touching family worship outward the other touching that grace mentioned in the fourth reason before I meane faith in Gods providence which is inward I begin therefore with this Consider both of you there is but need of it in this your course of wordly dealing most couples are met to encrease carking and distrust as much raine to make a torrent The Devill will so stuffe and fill them with carking and covetousnesse their owne base hearts set upon the creature will so inflame them the error of the wicked will so pollute them through lust by their cursed example that many who met together in hope to become Saints after they are met proove little better then disguised heathen Well might the Apostle joine the caveat of marriage here with that of covetousnesse in the next verse and marke his phrase let not your conversation be in covetousnesse the words are roll not as the doore upon her hinges in the love of silver his meaning is this marriage is a rolling up and downe from one carnall busines to another the calling the looking to children buying in paying out stocking the groundes raising of commodity thereupon going out and in and walking in a round of the world nothing but scuffling and shuffling to get and scrape except there be this gift of faith to season the heart in all this orbe and round to settle it in the center of providence to sweeten it with affiance in God Alas else all the questions will be how shall these chargabe servants be fed how shall all these debts be paid what losses are here in our cattel how poore are our takings in our shops our trades are meane our children are many what shall we eate wherwith shall we be cloathed Alas little thought I at first entrance that marriage had beene of this die I thought all had beene white and faire now I see corne cattell husbandry house wisery all lies at the curtesie of mercy the stocke is out and except God blesse it may never come in againe except God give successe good seasons of weather crops will faile rents will be unpaid and we may die beggers What did you think marriage was but a song a sport an hony moone of one daies jollity did you not consider that its a perpetuall exercise of faith for your selves for your children for your servants and businesse If you did not then learne wisdome now God hath set you in it to try you what mettall you are made of whether it will make you disguised heathens or gracious believers who commend your selves and all to God shutting up your selves in his Arke that the floods of great waters overflow not I tell you marriage is a stage for faith to act upon to cast and venture all upon him who will care for you and promiseth to doe all your workes for you Be therefore both of you just before God walke in this command of faith as well as any yea this before any Take no carking thought how children should be maintained educated portioned married Doe not as one lately did having one sonne borne he vowed he would have no more whatsoever came of it for he meant to leave that child all his estate judge by the way into what noisome snares a base heart brought him into and he whould have no more to be beggers Would it be thought this Divell of unbeliefe were so ranke Why marriage will make covetousnes a veniall sinne worse then the Pope makes it without faith Be resolved of it faith must be your onely helpe to stop you from drowning in this gulfe Else no farme or occupying will be great enough you would thinke all your life but a moment for the satisfying of an insatiable spirit So many irons at once in the fire till one marre another and overthrow all Else you will pick quarrels with your trades and be ready to forsake them as fast as you embrace them and so wearie your selves with losses till ruined Else you will be so sordid so pinching and base in your house keeping so subtile false in your sellings you will grow defrauders oppressors usurers and cheaters in your traffique and trades so eager in your toile so impatient of a defeate so injurious and unmercifull not onely to your beasts but even to your wives selves children servants so base in your works of charity that both God and men loath and be weary of you What patternes of such married ones doth almost every towne afford And when God frownes upon them then they knaw their tongues for vexation and wax as profane in the first Table scorners of worship and Sabbaths as before unjust in the second Therfore live by faith both husband without and wife within this is a joint worke of both of your severall duties I shall speake after doth gaine come in and wealth abound Set not your heart upon it be not giddie wanton sensuall faith abhorres such behaviour and settles the soule in a sober frame of thankfulnesse doth God crosse you Distrust him not deject not your hearts God is able to supply it How else was David supported when not onely city and wealth but also wives were carried captives surely by faith he comforted himselfe in God and recovered all Am I in debts God will pay them I came not into them by my sinne but God brought me in by providence he therefore shall bring me out Have I losses God will restore them as to Job Am I sicke in body diseased husband and wife each lying upon others hand threatned by creditors to goe to prison fallen into the hand of a mercilesse Landlord faith will cast you upon a mercifull God and although the common proverbe is faith will never buy corne nor clothes yet do but improove it and thou shalt finde it will be like Salomons silver and answer all things buy all marquets She serves a master who can mollifie the hearts of the cruellest enemy will sooner suffer the Lyons to be hungerbit then his poore shiftlesse Lambes to want All the fishes in the sea are his his are all the sheepe on a thousand hills all the mines of red and white earth all the mony in all men purses All things are Christs thou being his all things are thine and shall be cast in as an overplus unto thee Thou needest not say husband wife we shall be destroyed one day by this poverty therefore wee must fall to indirect courses as others to bring in the penny No let Atheists say thus they who have a God to trust to let them never dishonor him by such doings thereby making him their enemy lest they be compelled to speake for somewhat He that clothes the grasse of the field and the lillies which neither labour nor spinne much more will doe for them that trust him you serve no hard master nor one that needs your
governors as David saith how your fellowship with the good encreases what new blessings are fallen upon you in persons names trades posterity Marke also well where Satan most insuleth and where the hedge is lowest with you what corruptions as old sores breake out in their seasons which yet seemed to be quasht before what lustes of the heart lust of the eie or pride of life bubbles up from within Looke not each into him or her selfe but each into other as having interest deeply planted yet doe it not with curiosity but simplicity By this meanes both abundant matter and manner as oile to the lampe will offer themselves to nourish this ordinance all lust of sloth all rust of ease wearinesse will be filed off And a free heart to make God the umpire of your differences if any be as how can it be avoided but a roote of bitternesse within will lesse or more breake out the composer of your hearts the granter of your requests and the gracer of your marriages will be obtained And feare not lest this course should in time wearie you or alienation each from other should grow to distast this duty for the Lord who hath founded it will owne it and can blesse it and keepe out disorder and the sweet fruit of this service will so both prevent attend and follow you in all your waies that you shall feele your selves to walke each before other and both before God lesse loosely moresoundly and safely For why how can it otherwise be when both of you remember whom you use to goe to as to the oath and covenant both in your confessions on which you shame your selves for your faylings and in your requests craving pardon and purging and where you have done wel to praise him for support and to be thankfull for that administration and protection of his under which as his beloved you have bin all the day long I conclude therefore goe to God more jointly then ever hold and pull more hard and close together so oft as you go to the throne of grace especially when as with that good Jacob you are resolved not to cease wrastling till you be blessed compell him to send you away with your request else you cannot be answered Goe by a promise in your Advocate and say now Lord this new state of ours requireth new manners new selfedeniall new faith new life a donble portion of grace begge it therefore as Elisha did all that belong to you require a new part in you And who is sufficient for these Make your selves nothing and God all in all who can satisfie you Seperate not your selves in these duties as others doe in Congregations or others in boord and bed but say come let us pray together confesse give thanks I am as thou art my people as thine my horses as thine my thoughts affections members as thine By this meane love shall so grow that it shall outgrow all distempers you shall say of each other I never thought my wife had the tithe of that grace in her heart or that my husband had halfe that humblenesse compassion faith which now I perceive Those evills those infirmities which would for ever have estranged some and caused distast I see in him in her breed so much the more love to my soule sympathy and mercy This from this welspring of joint worship shall flowe streames of hony and butter as Iob speakes into all the lifeâ— Especially when crosses and streights shall befall you then shall God be neerest of all unto you and be afflicted with you in all because you have made him the God of your mounteynes he wil bee the God of you valleys also whenas others who never thus traded with him shal be sent to their Idolls and to shifte for themselves And as touching the first duties of mutuallnes viz. of these fowre jointnesse of religion and worship thus much CHAP. VII The second mutuall duty of the Married viz. Conjugall love handled I Now proceed to the second mayne and joint duty of the marryed which is conjugall Love For the better handling wherof it will not be amisse first to premise somewhat touching the nature of it and then to shew some reasons why it should bee jointly preserved adding some meanes wherby it may bee done and so concluding with use That infinitely and onely wise God who both upholdeth by his providence all his creatures in their kindes and subsisting and hath by one soule of harmony and consent accorded each with other for their mutuall ayde and support much more hath his hand in the accorde of reasonable creatures their fellowship and league together as without which they could not well continue in their welfare prosperity And therefore for the more sweete reconciling and uniting of the affections of one to another in every kinde of league and fellowship both the more generall and common standing in outward commerce and the more neer close as in friendship and marriage he hath accordingly planted in every nature sexe and person more or lesse Simpathy that the one not possibly beeing able to subsist without the other might by this tye each love the other and be knit to the other in union and affection This appeares even in the most remote contracts of buying and selling borrowing and lending wherin although the league stand rather in things then in persons yet even there is seene a generall kinde of love each man chusing to trade and traffique with them whose spirit and frame is most sutable to their owne When God meant to enrich the Israelites by the bounty of the Egyptians he darted in for the time such a sympathie into their hearts that they found favour in their eies so that nothing was then too deare for them jewels and gold and silver till they had impoverisht themselves And in those combinations of men which are grounded in law and civill order in commonwealths and corporations although there be a necessary bond to keepe all sorts within order and government yet there is to be observed between those members a more peculiar bond betweene some then others through a suteablenesse of disposition that is in them whereby for speciall causes the one doth more tenderly affect some one or other then the common body can affect it selfe This yet doth much more appeare in the league of friendship wherin we see God doth so order it that by a secret instinct of love and sympathy causing the heart of the one to incline to the other two friends have beene knit so close to the other that they have beene as one spirit in two bodies as not only wee see in Jonathan and David but in heathens which have striven to lay downe their lives for the safeguard of each other And that the finger of God is hert appeares by this that oftimes a reason cannot be given by either partie why they should be so tender each to other It being caused notby any profitable
and let the woman shunne all uncomely boldnesse and taking upon her with authority in the carriage of her love towards him it becomes him to play the Captaine and lead this service of love and it beseemes her to tread the same steps and follow This is the wisest contention whether shall love other with the most cordiall affection in a true way Vse 1 I come to some use of the point And first it much condemneth the course of such as beare any stroake in the marriages of others who are so eager and peremptory in striking through the match that they omit the tying of the knot sure which is the maine point and so â—ecome the occasions of forced matches empty of love Alas you little consider of time to come and what a sad entrance you make into an estate of life which needs the mutuall improovement of a stocke which you never care to procure them at the first And even so are couples themselves herein excedingly to blame in that they set the cart before the horse dragging in a sort as he those oxen he had stollen into his denne by the tailes so they the wives which by head and shoulders they have gotten into their bosomes the contrary way Sympathy of heart or amiable qualities which should attract love towards their persons and cover any such defect as a carnall curious eye would stumble at these they set not in the first ranke but as the kite upon the prey so fall they eagerly upon something in the woman neither praise worthy nor amiable for as the Philosopher saith who praises any for wealth or that which is without but either profitable or sensually pleasing these they thinke will carrie love after it But by that time they have tried at leasure and found that love is not compelled but a thing which must be perswaded and extracted by some deservingnesse of the qualities in the partie loved then finding no such thing in the party married they perceive how preposterous they have beene and would amend their choice if possible with the forfeit of much other commodity But it s too late for what shall a man give for the recompence of love if absent or what shal it profit a man to have won a wife with all other advantage in whom is no true amiable thing to winne affection what a sad bondage is it to be tied for ever to one thou canst not love An object of discayne of hatred of loathsomnesse of stinch a thing wherin there is no dramme of that which is desireable How wofull a burlen wereit to have a dead carcasse bound with cordes to thy oacke to go with thee every where whoÌ„ thy heart tels thee thou knowest no one woman or man of an hundred whom thou canst not as well find in thine heart to love as her So that in all the companies wherin thou comest darest utter thy thoughts this must bee the first complaint Thou wert compelled to marry her or him whom in thine heart thou never couldst set thy love upon so that thou wert driven into the net and taken as a birde in a snare Oh if love bee one of those joint duties which the married should continually nourish what shall become of them who never joyned together before marriage to compasse it at all what is this but to prepare for themselves perpetuall vexation should I call it or desolation And secondly how doth this reproove such as although first entred not without some affection each to other yet through a vaine emptie and base spirit neglect the chary keeping of such a jewell as love is Tush they thinke that will keepe it selfe although they live at randon and hang it upon every hedge If love say they bee the matter you talke of let us alone I warrant you we love each other as much as any body there is no love lost betweene us we have one anothers heart as it were in a boxe Heare mee I pray what kind of love is that you meane Is it a meer carnall and brutish appetite or a vertous and religious love which I have spoken of perhups for the present thou supposest thy selfe enamoured with some externall thing which thou seest in her not yet comparing that one with ten other most odious qualities which in time will weare out the humorous conteÌ„t and doting delight thou hast in that one As yeares come on sicknes and crosses alas that insufficient one object beeing blasted and no other object comming in the roome to holde thee satisfied how needes must thy affection quaile sterve in thy bosome thou shouldst first have layd the ground of thy love in such adefired obiect of vertue modesty and worth as might have held water and not shrunke in the wetting The most resolute loves vanish in a short tyme where the fuell of love faileth But to goe backe put case thou hadst groundes of first love to thy companion what then thinkest thou that this edge will holde without dayly whetting when thou foolishly slightest the due attendance of this love dost thinke it a toile to nourish it nay darest cast water upon this sparkle as never fearing it wil be quenched dost thou wonder if this thy darling is lost on the suddeine for lacke of looking to No no thou must fixe thine eyes upon those first objects which won thy love to thy companion not run up and downe into all places with unsavorie compliants of husbandes and wives Not looking at the partes of others to estrange thine hearte at home Love is a birde with winges soone gone out of the cage of thy bosome if it be carelessely set open Thou sayst thou hast it in a boxe but what if thou loose box and all Therfore shunne those compleints which fools make Oh! if my husband had the qualities of such a man were hee of such understanding religion parts of speech and memory tendernes and amiablenesse that such and such a one is how coulde I love him Then comes in hee with the like if my wife had the properties of such a woman so chast so kind so wise so able to keep her tongue and observe the lawes of silence or of speech so zealous provident and the like as other women have how worth were she of love Dare you thus dally in so weightie a busines dare you like the gnat fondly fly about the candle as secure of burning Oh unworthie of love each from other should you looke out abroad upon obiects which belong not unto you hurtfull not helpful to encrease emulation and envie not affection what are you the neerer Poare upon your owne husband and his parts let him be the vaile of your eies as Abimelec told Sara and looke no further let her bee your furthest object thinke you no vertues in any beyonde hers those that are but small yet make them great by oft contemplation those that are greater esteeme and value at their
it selfe alway destroyes the contrary and so providing that this twinne may live and die with them together Some dreame that old folkes are past love and foolishly impropriate it to the heate of youth but alas the anciently married if right may as ill want it as the young yea worst of all when old age hath prooved it to be sounde then may the marryed cease to love when they cease to live Therfore roll each stone to find this grace buy it whatsoever it cost fell it not whatsoever you may have for it lest you bee as he who solde his birthright which once gone coulde be no more recovered though sought with never so many teares And truly for the most part it s noted that when it once gets a fall it prooves almost impossible to soder it againe beeing as the native heate and moysture of the body which once spent they say is irrecoverable And so much of this second joint duty of the marryed Conjugall love CHAP. VIII Treating of the 3. Ioint duty of the Marryed viz. Chastitie THe third mutuall service of the married followeth to be spoken of to wit Chastity A dignitie helde by a dutie both the vertue of preserving it and they who are the preservers of it are honorable And while we are discoursing about this we seeme to be in the center in the chiefe of the honor of marriage Other honors are excellent additions and ornaments but this the being of it marriage delights in being quiet peaceable rich in credit but provided alway the mayne bee entire else they lose their value As it is with the rich their pleasures feasts companies and liberties please them will but how still presupposing the oote to be sound their stock and state to be unquestionable Every accidental of marriage is pleasant because chastity which makes it so is taken for granted It is the fairest floure the richest jâ—wel in the garland the crowne of marriage And well it may be so stiled for as a crowne is blasted if it have a peere and a competitor to amate iâ— so is this if the chastity therof be empaired The wante of other happinesses may in a sort be supplyed in this the wife is sheepish or shrewish or the like but the comfort is she is chast Wheras if she be unchast there is no comfort in it that she is fayre rich personable or well bred The peculiarity of Marriage standes in chastity I am desirous that my money my land my friende bee my peculiar ones and that no man may have a right in theÌ„ save my selfe yet rather then I should wante them I had rather have them in a community then want them altogether But chastity is such a peculiar of marriage that I rather chuse infintely to have no husband no wife at all then one that is unchast Many endowments so honor marriage when they are present as that yet being absent they disannull her not they make it a sad an uncheerfull one but undoe it not chastity is so reall so essentiall an attribute that the absence thereof quite destroyes the being thereof The institution of Christ is sufficient to approove this duty They two shal bee one slesh not two not three not joyned to this harlot that Adulterer Malachi tells us he who had spirit enough in him to have devized and bestowed â—â—â—ther elbowroome in this kinde yet foresaw that closenes and entirenesse of spirit such as the marryed couples ought to embrace cannot subsist in multitude the first number two are enough to grow into one flesh and love would vanish into lust basenes and brutish commonnes if the bridle were let loose into manifolde copulation Sin not therefore saith the Prophet against the husband and wife of thy flesh nay sin not against him that made them one flesh and onely them for that were to taxe his spirit and ordinance And wherin do rationall creatures differ from sensuall save in this honorable peculiarnesse and propriety which not the scriptures have revealed but the verie lawe of nature hath dictated and engraven in the minds of the very heathens who have censured promiscuous luste with as severe lawes as the word it selfe many of them I say especially in case of adultery As for that loosenes of the first times where in men tooke the liberty both of many wives and of those frequent divorces wherby they stayned their bodies with unbridled pollutious although the former were permitted in the first tymes of the churche the number wherof was scant being cooped within the narrow boundes of one family and the latter winked at by the Lord and his government for the unavoydable hardnes and rebellion of that Iewish nation yet neither was allowed of but abhorred as the tymes grew more enlightned so such commonnesse and vagrancy of lust grew to be restreyned till it was quite out of practice Hence that of the Apostle having disswaded marriage in times of danger and persecution Neverthelesse sayth he to avoyde Fornication let every man have his owne wife and woman her husband And in the rules given to Ministers the same Apostle foreseeing what a sad president the common sorte would snatch to themselves from the practice of the Minister precisely chargeth him that if he marry which he forbiddes not yet he should bee the husband of one wife Noting doubtlesse that all Chastity is not seene in abstinence from strange flesh but in the restreint of corruption from colouring over uncleannes with a marrying of many which is a double sin not onely mocke-adultery but a defiling of an ordinance with that pollution which it abhorres and sinne as it were by priviledge And let every man saith Paul learne how to preserve the vessel of his owne body in holines and honor marke how the one goes with the other why doth he presse it because it s the Temple of the holy Ghost and he who defiles the temple of God him will God destroy We neede go no further to prove this duty of Chastity to be the Crowne of marriage then that text keep your vessels in honor we know a like phrase of the Old Testament when a man shall lie which a mayde he having humbled her what 's that Surelye he hath takeÌ„ her honor of chastity away her credit is gone And fitly in this text the Apostle prooves marriage to be Honorable by the undefilednesse of the bed God saith he hath put honor upon it as carnall a thing as it seemes powre not you any contempt upon it by unchastenesse So Iacob saith in his dying words to Reuben Although thou art my strength and crowne by thy first borneship yet because thou went up to thy Fathers bed thou art unstable as water thy dignity is gone And the childe we know begotten thus is called a Base A marke of dishonor to Father and it selfe Salomon tells us that such an one gets himselfe a blurre which never will out
experience will construe my meaning herein better then others can I now conclude the whole Chap. with use of exhortation and with some short direction to set it home First I say let all who desire to preserve the honor of their marriage looke to their Chastity Drinke of the waters of thine owne well but let the Cisterne bee thine owne Seeke not to strangers give not thy strength to the harlot and thy yeeres to the cruell Abhorre all sweetenesse of stollen waters let not thy teeth water after forbidden deynties lest thou find bitternesse in the end If medling with thy neighbors hedge thou mayst feare lest a serpent bite thee how much more with his bed Let thine owne wife delight thee shee is the woman whom thou chosest for the companion of thy youth transgresse not against her therefore Let her love satisfie thee and her affections equall thy embraces let thine appetite be subject to him and share the duty and the honor of it betweene you both and keep chaste till the comming of the Lord Iesus Know that this is an equall duty of both God having bestowed the power of each over other upon both Thinke not thy husband tyed to this rule O woman nor thou thy wife tied O husband and the other free the tye is equall It s not jealousie of each other which can preserve this honor no it s the Canker of marriage Bathsheba describing the condition of a good woman tells us The husband of such a woman rests in her his heart setles upon her Nothing that a wise man observing vertuous qualities in his wife iudgeth her the same towardes himselfe which he is to her A good man such an one as Joseph was to Mary a just man one that had no worse thoughts of jealousie towards her then shee had to him loth to entertaine the least suspicious thought against her will alway esteeme her by himselfe Why should I thinke that her Conscience Chastity is not as tender to her as mine to my selfe what can it come from save a base heart enclined to treachery against my wife that I should imagine my wife should bee false to mee Surely were it not a sin to do such a thing or wish it done it were but just that an unjustly jealous husband should meete with that he feares that so he might be jealous for somewhat Many civilly chast women having bin drawne to commit this folly by no greater motive then the vexation of jealousie as not fearing God and therfore thinking they were as good commit it as be alwayes falsely charged with it And marke it It s commonly the sin of couples unequall in yeeres who having marryed yonger husbandes wives then themselves lye opē to this temptation Alas I am too old to give him or her content they seeke such as are like themselves when as yet the parties are as cleere from such aspersions as the child new borne what hast thou offended once and is there no remedye but thou must soder it by a worse I speake not as if I would make men Pandars and Bawdes to their wives through their folly and carelesse confidence exposing them to any temptations and winking betweene the fingers for what is this save to give ayme to a chaste woman to be lewd No But to shame that impotencie and basenesse of either sex whereby each is prone contrary to the good cariage and approoved conversation of the other yet to surmise in them falsehood and ill meaning What can be such an incendiary to set all on fire between couples as this cursed mischiefe of jealousie which is ofttimes upon meere mistake of some word guise or action nothing tending that way rooted in the spirit of man or woman that neither all the assurances of truth betweene themselves nor yet by mutuall friends can compound the matter so but still there must be a pad in the straw and ther smoke must argue some fire And yet when all is done it prooves a meere Idoll of fancie nothing in all the world The Lord indeed appointed a triall for the jealous man against his wife but wee must not conceive this was to breed or nourish causelesse conceits it was no doubt first brought to the judges in criminall causes to determine what the matter was and as our Inquests doe to cut off all meere surmises else what a bondage had it beene for a wife to be so hurried and defamed And although it be true that for the hardnesse of their hearts the Lord permitted more liberty to men at that time being sturdy and rebellious should that be any encouragement now to Christians to nourish such trash in themselves to make their spirits their prayers their whole life sad and miserable to themselves and to be so imbittered each against other that even when they would faine shake off their owne conceits they should not be able I say no more of this elfe of causelesse jealousies but this for the party sinning no man shall need to wish his greater torment then himselfe hath created to himselfe let him thanke himselfe that his owne sinne hath eaten up the marrow of his bones The greatest pity is to the party innocent and sinned against who is to be advised while there is any hope of recovery to strive by all caution and exact circumspection of carriage to tender the weaknesse of the other hoping that love rather then anger hath bred it but by no meanes disdaine them and to walke loosely under pretext of innocency But if the disease be so rooted that it will not be healed let them enjoy their uprightnesse for the way of God is strength to the upright as Salomon saith Prov. 10. 29. and not be dismaied but looke up to God who can cleare their righteousnesse as the noone day and plead their cause against their oppressour joyning prayer to God to quit them accordingly This I have said of injust jealousie as for that which is just I say as much against the guilty party wishing the law were as strong now as it hath formerly beene against all violaters of this sacred knot And for this branch so much I had here purposed to insert some other watchwordes and directions but I consider that in the latter part of this Treatise more full occasion will be given of this Argument So much therefore shall serve for this Chapter CHAP. IX Conteining the description of the 4. last Ioint duty of the Marryed viz. Consent THe fourth and last duty equally concerning both parties married is Consent and harmony of course each to another Both the former of chastity and this doe grow as springs from the stocke of love the former in the bodies this latter in the lives of both For this I would have the Reader conceave that the former of love and this of consent doe not differ save as the roote and the branch the cause and the effect Love being the noble groundworke this the sweet building
God sendes thee to the Lord Iesus As he loved his Church and gave himselfe for it to the death that shee might escape it so oughtst thou to redeeme thy wife in case of such a danger when thy bearing will laten the blow from her When the Lord Iesus was taken by the souldiers If yee seeke mee saith he let these my chickens depart Take not the damme on the neast with her birdes Let these be free let all the danger light upon my selfe If then this tendernesse must extend to life it selfe surely then well may this tribute of an inferior ranke be shewed But I cease to discourse the point any further Well then will some kind husband say wherein stands this respect and honor which I owe to my wife I should be loth to wrong her of ought which she might plead through my ignorance or which my selfe if I knew it could beteame her well in hope there shal be no love lost that thy wife will requite it when as in the next point shee shall come to the like triall I will do her thee this favor here to lay out her Priviledge and thy duty But first it s not amisse againe to recognize breefly that which I spake of the modell the Canon of this Duty which the Apostle layes downe thus As Christ loved his Church Before he had sayd He that loveth his wife loveth himselfe But knowing that selfe is sometyme an ill judge and crooked rule he amends it by a better even the Golden Rule of that honor and respect of Christ towards his Church which never fayles or exceedes the mediocrity What is thē that indulgence tendernesse which thy selfe wouldst either wish or look for from Christ thy head Teach thy self therby thy office to thy wife in the measure of thy Grace tender it to her Dost thou desire alway to be accepted of him find grace in his sight Let thy wife finde the like from thee Wouldest thou have him doe all thy workes in thee and for the Show thou the like Grace to her do thou likewise require not the uttermost service from her but let her doe all in the comfort of thy love acceptance Wouldest thou have him compt all thy deeds not according to strict law and performance of full measure but according to sincerity of endeavor Do thou also so esteeme of hers according to the will and affection whence they proceed though they faile never so in degree Wouldst thou have him to esteeme thee according to the better and not the worser part So doe thou interpret her Wouldst thou have him save thee from sorrow So protect thou her and let thy love be her banner Wouldst thou have him to feed thee and fight for thee to bee thy Protector and Champion Should he stave off thine Enemies and catch their woundes in his owne side which should else light on thee Wouldst thou have him to stop the mouth of each dog from barking or biting thee yea even to keep each cold wynd from nipping and blasting thee Even so stand thou betweene they wife her harmes and cover her head in the storme raine not only with thy cloake but thy best protection against any annoiance Wouldst thou have Christ afflicted with thee in all thy troubles to pitty thee suffer with and susteyne thee by his patience courage long suffring So let thy blood run in her veynes and thy marrow in her bones sustaine her like wise by thy meeknes and long-sufferance shee is also flesh of thy flesh and bone of thy bone Dost thou expect at last that he should at last redeeme thee out of all thy troubles Dost thou also as far as lyes in thee seeke rest for her from all hers let no enemy of hers encounter her alone but know he hath a double enemy to fight against noteasy to contest with Thine are hers hers are thine rejoice to see herrid of all if God see good which way it seemes best to himselfe to deliver her meane time be thou active passive in all with her In a word whatsoever thou wouldst have Christ do for thee the same doe for her for this doubtlesse is to be conformed to thine head and to do the part of an honoring and respective husband to her These generalls had need be branched out into some particulars else perhaps it will not be easie for every one to conceive them These therfore that follow may serve First let this respect begin at her soule procure to that the cheefe good that it may fare well The tender love of Christ stands in this that he gave himselfe for the Church why Not to make her such as shee her selfe woulde not to give her the full swinge and swaye of her owne will But to wash her to purge her to sanctify her as peculiar to himselfe having neither spot nor wrinkle So do thou begin with this and this shall guide all the rest Thinke not this to be thy tendernesse to thy wife to deale by her as David by Adonija whom his father would never from his youth speake a wry unto that is aske him what dost thou But rather in this is thy tendernes if by any wayes of God allurements yea milde and well seasoned reproofes if need be thou mayst be an instrument of her good It s not tendernes but exceeding and degenerate softnes in an husband that because his wife is well pleasing to him in some carriages therfore he should rather suffer her to go on in deep ignorance of God and her selfe and go the broad way to perdition rather then he would grieve her or speake one worde amisse especialy to be so base and remisse that when he knows he might winne her by his loving tendernes he shoulde rather neglect her by his Carelessenes No if thou be tender truly her soule wil bee thy principall object and thou wilt present to her those tender mercies of Christ those bowels of compassion in him to the church never linning till Christ hath by his blood washt her soule from the naturall uncleannes of it forgiven her and taken away her guilt and blemishes If her face were stayned with some spots how studious would he bee to tell her of them that she might wash them off how much more that Christ Iesus might call her his Hephziba and Beulah his dove faire one and pretiously beloved that he might behold her washt and cleane as the sheep comming from the rivers to shearing from her scurffe accepted of God and as much as flesh may bee without spot or wrinckle eyther of guilt or apparant corruption a vessel purged and prepared for every good worke No worke so honorable as this to make thy wife a vessel of honor to God first and then for marriage Thus Paul describes that tendernesse of Christ and yet that washing and rinsing of her must cost some hardnesse save that Mercy and love oversweetens it and
then it will seeme plesant Nourish and cherish and hate not thy owne flesh in this first respect as Nathans lambe in the true bosome of the Lord Iesus the tenderest husband that ever was Secondly this thy Respect and Tendernesse must reach to her person and that in her Safegard and Defence Thy wife walkes under God in the shaddow of thy wings and protection Thou must bee as a vaile to her eye to keep off the dint of all lust and strange desires as Abimelec told Sara of Abraham As the eyelid is made by nature a tender filme and very mooveable and watchfull to the body of the eye that no dust or mote fall into it to offend it so must the tender husband come betweene the least aspersion of reproach and infamy cast upon the name of his wife wrongfully And when thou art dead let her rest safe in the Ark of Gods protection by the benefit of thy living prayers before sent up for her to the throne of grace that God would be an husband to the widdow that so even when dead yet thou mayst speake But while thou art living thou must bee as a wall of fire to her let everie one that hath ill will to thy wife as many will have even for that which deserves honor knowe that they maligne thy selfe Nay herein love her better then thy selfe that thou wiltright some wrongs done to her which perhaps if done to thy selfe thou wouldst passe by more strongly Let her Name and honor bee as sweet oyntment unto thee The husband who shall content himselfe in the generall love of his wife beeing yet supinely negligent of her repute or enduring any within doores or without to disesteeme her without sharpe rebuke or to bee knowne himselfe to see any of her weaknesses with the least contempt is not worthie to have the comfort of her vertues or the love of a religious companion The like I say of her body both in health and sicknesse Whatsoever diet or warmth or shelter either at home or abroad by thy selfe or others thou seest necessary for the preserving her in health and vigor from the least assault or impression that neglect not keepe away wether distemper disease for her be as a Physitian according to the discretion thou hast and the knowledge of her bodylie frame and infirmities in the absence of better helpe Prevent all dangers from her which possibly might assault her and what soever sorrow or sad newes ill and sudden accidents thou deemest would disquiet her turne them away if it bee within thy power or keepe them from her notice lest they might overthrow her spirit or weaken her body Yea as our Lord Iesus did so do thou if a danger must needs ceaze upon thee provide it may not come to her knowledge or as little amaze and affright her as may bee In her diseasednesse neglect no meanes which either thy counsell purse or friends can helpe her to advise for soule physicke for body attendance and nursery to person Grudge not that shee lyes upon thine hand But as thou wouldst have I say not her but Christ himselfe to tender thee in thine so do thou her in her defects Let it appeare to her cleerly that her life is precious and her losse would be uncomfortable If the poore Shunamite seeing her child dead lockt it up in the Chamber hasting to the Prophet proventing al pudder to her husband aldisquiet in the family by taking it upō her selfe how much more should the husbands wisedome and tendernes reach to thy wife that no Sicknesse or Sorrow might ever ceaze upon her more deeply then needs must if thou canst keep it off Say not with unnaturall Nabals Thou tookest her not for sicknesse but for health for better not for worser knowing that good wives in their health lay up desert enough to be tendred in their sicknesse The wife is not for nothing sayd to bee under her husbands covert Doe thou as Boaz did to poore Ruth upon the cold floore in the chill night spread the lap of thy garment over thy beloved I charge you sayth the husband in the Canticles O yee danghters of Ierusalem watch by my spouse sit by her and keepe silence wake her not untill she please Good reason shee have more rest thē thou let thy waking be her security gaster her not up too early sluggish women will not good ones should not be waked too soone Shee is alway in griefe that for thee by thy meanes what day weeke moneth is she free through the yeer breeding bearing nursing watching her babes both sick that they might be well and well lest they be sicke If she lose a childe by the hand of God or by casualty her tender heart takes more thought for it in a day then thy manly spirit can in a moneth the sorrow of all lies upon her Shee had need to be eased of all that is easeable because she cannot be eased of the rest We reade in the fable that the male sparrow once accused the female for that she did not so much take paines in building of their nest as he did But she replied There was cause why shee should pleade exemption Shee had all the trouble of laying the egs of sitting of hatching feeding them and therfore some reason she should be spared in the building of the nest let him do that who did nothing else and she prevailed And shall not shee who alleageth for her selfe with more reason Get her asleep if thou can but awake her not till she please And tell mee shall not her ease be thine Or canst thou have any if she want Little dost thou thinke of those gripings checks pangs wherewith she walketh whē as thou goest through stitch with thy matters with an hardy courage If all wives be not so I speak not so much in their behalfe but the good wife is usually so yeeld her this fruite of tendernes it s all the milke thou givest Yea let thy hollow cheeks pale face sad heart be as a Calender in which others may read thy wives infirmities their number their measure and how long they have continued I speak not Rhetorique unto thee but Divinity As and husband must loath uxoriousnesse so much more Stoicall insensiblenes remembring who it is who sayth Erre in her love let thy soule know no other objects while shee lives let them be abhorred And when she hath breathed out her last yea even when she lyes by the walles yea in the mouldes yet then is there another honor due to her memory when shee is not even this that thy hand be upon thy side for the losse of another rib thy sweet companion Mourne not for her without hope like an heathen shee is not lost but sent before but yet as Abraham as Jacob so mourne thou even till the dayes thereof be accomplished Bee not as the horse as the
her instruction to Salomon speake Shee describing a godly and helpfull wife and not onely a thrifty one as it appeares from the 25. verse to the end of the Chap. doth couple her vertue and house wifery together She openeth her mouth with wisedome and the law of grace is upon her lips there is her grace and she overseeth the waies of her houshold and eateth not the bread of idlenesse there is providence And lest any should thinke this latter might be spared it s to be noted that she spendeth the whole Chapter in the description therof by divers passages wheras the former she shuts up in the end of that Chapter in a verse or two although the more necessary as taking it to be more out of question then the other nay note how the holy Ghost wil needs convey that instruction by the counsel of a woman to all of her sex to make the thing lesse subject to exception pressing it strongly in an Idea of such an exact helper and that with pleasing Rethorique and variety Why save because she saw it a vertue meet to be urged as being that which many women will not acknowledge Neither can the greatnesse and wealth of wives controll this duty of Providence and that not for shew neither or complement and praise to let the world see what skill in spining in needle worke or in other matters they have but for conscience sake In Bathsheba's daies gold and silver were common and as plentifull as the stones and figtrees and therefore need there was not for Queenes or their maids to work so hard And yet for the religion of the duty she speaks so as one who had experience of it in her owne princely person and had the oversight also of her maydens in the handling of the wheele and spindle for flax and wool And surely in great families both sexes had need to be yoked and awed from the sins which come from sloth and idlenesse although I adde in a mediocrity lest they trench upon the contrary of covetousnesse My meaning yet by all this is not to allow any woman the liberty of any such peculiar housewifery by her selfe apart from the common streame and welfare of the husband and family but in common with for and under him though in a way of her owne best fitting her sex and education For I know there be housewives who excell in providing for themselves and like the Steward in the Gospell who to prevent beggery when he should be turnd out of service can shift for themselves who yet are but ill providers for the good of their husbands whom to use that Emperors comparison I may liken to the Spleene in the Body which when its fullest makes the body emptiest and so commonly when the cofers of these Housewives are fattest their husbands treasure is leanest and lankest wheras shee should rather be a pipe to conveigh into his cesterne then a sponge to sucke from or a Channel to dreyne from his fountayne This yet is a common vice not only of second wyves prowling for their owne broodes or kindred But of all sorts of women and is caused by pride of Birth of dowry education or person which to godlesse ones are occasions to withdraw them from the yoke of supposed bondage though if a Queen may judge of helpfull houswifely providence In some others its rather caused by oldor late habits of luxuriousnes riotous and lewde companionship for now wee have meetings of Women-drinkers Tobacconists and swaggerers as well as men lest Pauls Prophecie of the latter time should be falsified and which is worst of all secret and stollen liberties These vices are like the daughters of the horseleach crying give give but like hell the grave never satisfied In steed of the which licentious usurping over the husbands commodities let women know that although they have a true property and interest in their husbands Estates yet when the use of the same comes into question the Lord will have it as wel as other things ordered by the husband Neither may the bad qualities of the man as his churlishnes Covetousnes and Enmity to vertue authorize the woman to be her owne carver lest if this wicket be set open to good wyves the bad ones throng in with them also and usurpe it to evill endes Gods law is one and concerneth all sorts indifferently If women desire a stroake this way as indeed some may more causedly plead in then others in shew let them labor by their good deserts to prevaile with their husbands and by their helpfulnesse and love to draw so good an opinion of themselves that they may with a willing mynd yeeld this favor to their wives as to use their pleasure in a sober manner Provided that they spende it upon honest and religious objects But if God have layde another burden upon them as I noted in the former chap. of ill natured and straithanded husbands let them take up and beare it as the Crosse which God hath set apart for them without discontent or grudging Especially second wyves having the charge of former brood depending upon them further then by cheerfull consent of their husbands they are allowed let them beware lest herein they dishonor their Profession by yeelding to the strong and tempting occasions of needy unruly and burdensome children supplying their want by injurious pillage of the husband and his posteritie This by the way To conclude the point these three specialls concerne the womans providence first getting then storing and lastly dispensing those things which are committed to her charge The first of these three is proper onely to those women who sell their husbands commodities or are allowed to be chapmen of their wares which is the case of few or such as by reason of some speciall skill in any crafts or manufactures have some stocke allotted them by their husbands to trade and traffique withall In which way they must use all good faythfulnes neither selling to their husbands losse nor for their owne secret gaine nor the hurt of the buiers all which rules are in all tradings usually transgressed Besides the huswifery of many tradesmens wives who learne their husbands skill serve to the making of sundry wares which serve to the upholding of the family and estate In which case as the other burden of family will admit they are to shew their best endeavor both for the getting in of some part of the mayntenance and saving it from being spent about such houshold expences as by paines and thrift at home might be spared And this is that which Bathsheba most insisteth upon She laboureth cheerfully with her hands she is like the Ships of Merchants She bringes home her food from a farre Shee ariseth while it is yet darkish her candle goeth not out she puts her hand to the wheele and her handes to the spindle She makes sheets and selleth them and giveth girdles to the merchant Shee
she bee all blubberd with teares she loseth not her beauty but by the contrary doth commend it so although the occasions of her life are sad aswell as cherefull yet the cloud doth not disanull the sun but causes it to shine thorough with a more acceptable grace So farre I say as weake flesh mixt with much corruption wil admit And this forthe latter What shall I then say for Conclusion of this former part of my text that the married wives must honor their Marriage by this amiable behaviour Surely it instructeth us in and about the variety of couples in marriage The oddes is as great as the difference of the Prophets baskets of figs very good and very naught so that they could not be eaten The gratious wife is not only an helper to the Estate of her husband â—ut shee is a Coâ—fort and contentment to his mind and spirit shee lies in his bosome as a bag of sweet spices under his Aâ—meâ—olâ—s as a perfumed garment to his nostrils as the spikenard of the spouse in the Canticles which gave her savor to the beloved when he lay upon his bed Hence it is that Salomon compares her not onely to the most costly but especially to the most comely things which Nature hath made All her teeth her forhead lips necke bosome thighes legges yea even her very goings are pleasing in his eye he compares her to the lillies to the washed sheepe to the Roes of the Mountaines to the Doves to the Cedars to the Curtains of Salomon and every lovely amiable thing All to shew that amiablenesâ—e and gracefulnes is that principall excellency which commends a wife to her husbands esteem and affection without the which the rest were little worth In other things shee hath a mixture of her selfe but in this she resembles him who hath restored her to her first order and comelinesse in her creation A creation which no outward wealth or price can purchase nothing in the world can equall the reflexion of those graces and the savor of that report which came from her They are in her not for her as the flowers of a garden serve to garnish the house so these grow in her for his use her husbands to adorne and grace his person that he may be knowne in the gates All that City which knew Ruth to be a vertuous woman knew Booz to be an happy man in her himselfe thinking no lesse when he told her so Her vertues indeed shine within her owne sphaere and centre chiefly yet the influence therof is as that oile of Aaron which stayed not where it was first layd upon his head but wet the whole attire and earth about And as that box of costly oyntment though onely powred upon the feete of Christ yet made the whole house savor of it so the temper which ariseth of the simplieity meeknesse modesty of a good wife makes her amiable to such as never saw her face It s as the vices of the bad wife which like oile in the palme of ones hand cannot be hid Contrariwise an unhappy husband falles alone nor in himselfe so much as in his vitious wife who creates abroad dishonour at home discontent to him The best man thus plagued shall hardly avoid one of these imputations either that he is unworthy of a good one because he makes her no better or unhappy because she is no better the one is his sinne the other his shame both his sorrow She is neither comfort to him at home because he is an eie-witnesse of what he would not nor abroad being forced to stop his nose at the ill savour of he vices as Ahigail at Nabals churlishnesse Neither can hee be but as the body sitting upon a rolling stone which is never at rest but alway in conflict with himselfe with wrath and despaire yet there is no way to bee rid of such either in the getting or having except God shew a man favour that a man fall not into her hands So much for information But from this another use arises And that 's admonition to good wives and happy husbands thus much To the good wife this if God have thus graced thee enjoy it not thy selfe but set a Crowne upon thine husband expresse the temper of thy inward vertues in the amiablenesse of a loving and sweet carriag Forget it not even in affliction utter it even in the midst of bodily weaknesse Let thy pleasing influence breake through all opposition and sorrowes as the Sunne breakes through the thick mist or darke cloudes yea although eclipsed in part yet shine in part and let a glimmering appeare remember thou art a true friend made for the day of adversity it is not so thankeworthy for thee to cheere thine husband when he can cheere thee or himselfe without thee while the day of prosperity lasts but then to play the sweet orator and to make him merry when all other comforts have forsaken him in the sad season of sicknesse of sorrow this is better then all musique and melody Every base bird while summer lasts will chirp and chitter But to sing upon the bare bow or thorne bush when the leaves are gone and the cold winter approacheth this argues a wife truly gracefull truly amiable and cheerfull and next to the Soules peace with God is the greatest content under the Sunne I exhort no woman to play the hypocrite neither indeed can gracefulnesse be long acted by any apish imitator But I entreat her whom God hath thus graced to understand the use she serves for not concealing her selfe but to the uttermost to apply her selfe to the comfort of her husband And for himselfe this I say If God hath thus honored thee with such a wife understand oh man thine owne happinesse and digest it seriously with thanks to him who hath framed her so and brought her so framed into thy bosome Let her finde by good experience there is no love lost but let thy heart rest in her and trust to her seale her a bond of thy sure and faithfull respect againe and let her see she hath not a wearisome Nabal to do with who cannot value that which is pretious in her at a due rate Set her as a signet on thy right hand and let her be neerer thine heart then thy costliest jewell Let it not be enough that thou canst love one who hath honoured thee more then all thy wealth or birth could doe but procure her honour in all places and suffer none to eclipse her worth Give her of the worke of her hands and let her workes praise her in the gates And so much bee spoken for the use of this third Branch and so touching the meane to preserve the honour of Marriage by the duties which concerne each party in severall And thus having at last absolved this Taske which I undertooke to wit to shew how Matrimoniall honor may both bee purchased and preserved entire viz first
thou art old its ill ending it were better beginning with it in thy youth if God would Yet so it is many have beene faine to hang up the harpes of their youth upon the wislowes of sad marriage in old age and sing this new life requiâ—es other manners other abearing before I was carried upon Eagles wings now I must shift for my selfe my battels were once wont to bee fought to my hand but now I must knowe warre and fight my own Now I am tried indeed what is in my heart what patience what selfe-deniall is in it yea my best wits to please to conceale what I cannot amend and all too little Doe you wonder Who should have told you that a good wife was worth the thanks while you had her Or that she was any better jewell then you thought you deserved till she was taken away If nothing but wanting can convince your folly why should not medicine cure your maladie To end this former branch If your selves have sped well in a businesse of such hasard why doe you not guide others by your experience to make a good choice you will say marriage makings are thanklesse offices I grant it that if all I have premised be true I thinke some may con them small thanke who have holpen them to their marriages But as hard as the world goes and although all hopes must rest upon proofe yet by your leave some may give a shrewder guesse then others and say more touching aptnesse or unaptnesse howsoever I say to you as those Lepers having stored themselves with victualls and booty wee doe not well to suffer our brethren to starve And although the best care may miscarry yet the care is in no fault but rather much worse it must bee where Counsellors are wanting Secondly I say to all such good couples be wise lâ—ve love and leave What hath a man of all his sore labours under the Sunne or what profits it to spend our life in needlesse toile and vexation Live first in the joifull improovement of all those graces and blessings where with God hath endowed you Take and mutually possesse each others vertues grow by the helpe of others more inward holy usefull in the communion of Saints Let your streames flow to others enjoy not all to your selves Love secondly endeere your hearts in each other mutually Suffer not Satan to come betweene barke and tree and through a satiety of Blessings to turne all to wearinesse and fulsomenesse to grow estranged in your affections yea ready to take pritches at each other forgetting Gods love to you both If some had those advantages we have should you say of consent and peace oh what a close walking with God would it produce without separation whereas we vanish how would they settle religion and government of family which they would and cannot wee might and will not Leave lastly each other willingly and contentedly when God shall determine your short pilgrimage which will so much the easilier be if you have lived and loved before the parting will be bitter however yet much worse if all be to bee done at death Sweeter will the parting be upon experience of former marriage improovements then upon guilt of remedilesse errors But I say the time is short use the world as if you used it not buy as if you bought not marry as if you married not doe all moderately knocke off before unloose in season There hath beene a time of embracing there must come another far from it By that rejoicing you have had in Christ die daily and tell each it other in your best rejoicing I bid you not do as heathens set a scul before you on your marriage day with a Motto What I have bin thou art and what I am thou shalt be But know marriage happines is but the liberty of a prison Squeez it not too hard lest you force blood use it slightly and it will comfort you Say not its good being here build not Tabernacles Matth. 17. 4. Let not death knocke unawares Its pitty a man should be in love with shells on the shore as to forget the sip and be swept away or love the husband here forgetting Christ a carnall relation renonuncing an eternall Vse 3 This point also to conclude all is instruction to shadow out the priviledge of them who are united to Christ by the marriage of faith and the spirit It s a mystery as Paul calles it And as sometimes he teaches married persons their duties by the mutuall union of Christ and the Church so also another while he describes the true union and Amity of Christ and the spouse by the samenes of flesh which marriage causeth betweene husband and wife A word or two of both and first how Christ and his spouse meet For looke how Eliâ—zer was a spokesman between Isaac and Rebecca to draw her into a marriage knot with him and as he carryed the Bracelets and tokens sent in Isaac's name to allure her to him also declared the abundant wealth of Abraham in cattel gold and jewells all to bestow upon his onely son Isaac that so the richnesse and content fulnesse of the match might perswade Rebecca So doth the Lord by his spokesmen the Messengers reveale to his Church by his spirit all his wealth and Treasures of wisedome and knowledge all put into the flesh of the Lord Iesus and tells her 1. Cor. 1. all the goods which he hath giveÌ„ us in him that he may therby surprise her heart and gaine her to be his he sets out his son from head to foote in all amiablenesse of person and graces that his eyes and looks might wound her and steale her heart away from trash and toies of the world It is he who not only so but where as he found her unapt for himself an Amorite an Hittite in her blood a base Captive he shaves off her hayre pares her nailes washes her and makes her cleane he bestowes her dowry upon her not as men upon their wyves for they looke for it from them thinking them little without it he discovers the miserable desolate and forlorne life of her wofull vriginity wherin as an orphan she lay open to all enemyes all wrongs and injuries convinces her that her support and welfare is meerly from himselfe Nay tells her that shee was engaged before to a most cursed husband who would have undone her he undertakes to stab him and to make her way cleer for the marriage of himselfe the old contract being dissolved He becomes an earnest suiter an hot lover of hers and refuses no patience to winne her even till his locks be full of the dew of the night All to make her his owne his only one that having renounced not only base qualities but her own fathers house her selfe her name and all her owne happinesse he may be happy in her and she in him alone for he can endure no corryvall and
wil be said how may this wrath and Iustice of God against these whoremongers appeare Answer Answer By a particular induction of those punishments which he hath inflicted upon all uncleane ones Which by and by I shall number up but in the meane tyme let mee not forget to premise some Reasons why the Lord strives to put so odious an outside upon this sin of uncleannes and these reasons I desire may be marked for the whetting up of the Readers edge upon the matter ensuing I wil be short in all remembring that I am now onely adding a little to the former Argument Reason 1 First then this sin is a very â—eâ—r naturall and familiar corruption to our nature and as much nourisht and cherisht as any one a true Ruben the eldest child of old Adams strength bearing name of the Mother which is called in generall lust or concupiscence Heathens esteeme those vertues which carry the name of the kind â—o be eminent ones as fortitude because it s called vertue it s to be supposed to be Eminent and to have most of the kind of good in it So hath uncleannes the name and most of the kind because it s called lust eminently The Mother and Daughter are bawdes mutually to each other Now then the Lord seeing how hardly those evills are shamed and abhorred which lye so neer our heart and are so fomented by the influence of continuall corruption as the streame by her spring seeing that this sinne is bred and steepes in our bosome as our sonne doth so much the more set himselfe to deface and make it odious As a father beholding some more naturall evill lurking in the spirit of his childe pride drunkennesse doth all hee can to unmaske it to discover that blind folding self-selflove which maintained it and doth all hee can to bring it out of conceit with him and make him loath it Reas 2 Secondly men are marveilously given although they do see and grant it to be evill yet to blanch it over and make it as none or very small by their slighting and extenuating of it So much the more doth the Lord strive to point it out in lively colours and to aggravate it The heathens such as all were to whom Paul directs his Epistles had by ill custome so far dasht out that dimme twilight of conscence left in them that they deemed this sin among others a meere naturall necessary appetite and in a manner made as common of it as of eating and drinking In so much that in that Epistle to the Corinthians Paul hath much adoe to perswade them to see any shame in it Nay that they might adde drunkennesse to thirst lo they began to make the more bold with God in this kinde under pretended priviledge by the Gospell as if Christ had come to proclaime liberty to all petty sinnes for opposition to which unsavory basenesse the Apostle is faine to alledge the wrath of God against it even upon them who were his peculiar people the Iewes The more wee slight sinne the more is God faine to cast us in teeth and upbraid us with it Reas 3 Thirdly although we should come so farre as in words to confesse it a sinne yet the sensuality of our spirit and the tickling pleasure of the flesh being as the belly which hath no eares inflaming and bolstring up it selfe by the lewd generall practice of base times and the baites and objects of uncleannesse in every corner spred as snares by Satan is very propense is very apt to forget that face thereof which in the glasse of a royall law and the terror thereof were presented unto us Our carnall affections I say are so apt to take fire as dry gunpowder and to flash up that they doe bribe our judgements dangerously from a convinced perswasion of the loathsomnesse of it And the divell is never farre off but presents this butter in so Lordly a dish that the soule spies not the hammer and naile in his hand till hee have driven it into the temples Who should have perswaded David or Samson that those amiable objects and delights of their eies were so bainefull and odious as they found them Saint Jude tells us that those Idoll teachers were so defiled with the flesh that they bare downe their conscience in that which they knew to bee evill and like sensuall bruite beasts powred out themselves to their lust with greedinesse Such a charming Syren there is in the soule by this sinne lulling it a sleepe as upon Dalilas knees lest it should admit a thorough convincement thereof The dead flesh then of this soare being so great the corrasive had need bee smarty which should eate it out Reas 4 Fourthly no sinne is so ready to hide it selfe under cloakes and excuses as this none so fruitfull in devising shifts and tricks that it might not bee discovered or evasions that it might not be punished Whether we looke at the tricks and inventions which the committers themselves devise to cover it yea the many desperate waies which they have to cloake it from the sight of men or whether we looke at the covers which the divell hath fitted for these cups how many waies of commuting how many wayes of recrimination and turning the crime upon the accusers so that they are more snarled then the accused for vice is manifold vertue is simple how many waies of overthrowing witnesses for lacke of narrow testimony how many commutings dispensings and pardonings of this sin a very mocking of God and adding oile to the flame Look into the nature of the sin it selfe it s a worke of darkenesse and therefore as deepe as hell in the devising of waies to conceale it selfe Sleidan hath a story of an adulterous Duke in Germany who falling in love with his Dutchesses handmaide and thereof had in deepe jealousy by his wife devised a course politiquely to imbarque himselfe more deeply into his uncleannesse and to elude his wives suspicion He sent the harlot to a Castle as if hee meant to cast her quite off appointing a strait watch as he gave it forth that she might not be thought to escape and after some time caused a report to be given forth in the Country that she was deadly sicke whether of discontent or other disease after this had a while possessed his Dutchesse he caused it shortly after to be reported that shee was dead and left that might be suspected hee tooke a solemne course for her enterrement he hired women for the nonce to conduct the corpes appointed an Image such was the manner of the buriall to bee laid above the herse openly to be seene which should resemble to the eies of the beholders the pale and consumed face of his lemman as shee looked â—eeing dead also witnesses hee suborned such as had tended her to sweare it a solemne funerall and a sermon with a large dole to the poore all framed to give demonstration and assurance to
land to their penance with such impudence or disdaine Not to speake of such great ones as for their villany in some kndes not to be named with their owne flesh and forcers of their wives to yeeld to the lust of their servants have been brought to open execution is it not pitty that through the insolency of offendors the sacred censures of Gods Church should be vilified and exposed to scorne To end this reproach of the name it s an usuall saying that the sinnes of seed and pollution are punisht in the seed one way or other a tainted seed bewraying it selfe Saint Peter speakes of some sinnes derived by tradition from the fathers to their children among which this is one none of the pretious legacies as Iericho was built so is adultery plagued both in the eldest and youngest it goeth through the race till it have wasted all and made an utter consumption Some notorious monster in this kind being as he who puts a burning torch into a stacke of straw so violently burning that there is no quenching of it Thirdly God accurseth this sinne with beggery and rags wastings of state open or secret no man can tell how save that so it is and by this privy plague God hath discovered many wretches in the eies of them that else never should have suspected such One of them upon his death confessed both of this and of other evills I have spent many thousand pounds to damne my soule Alas poore soule it need not have cost thee a penny save that the divell loves to have his bored slaves outvie Gods servants and as one saith doe more for him that will shed their blood then Christs servants will doe for him that shed his blood for them When no cause I say hath appeared of such a mans wasting but yet wasted he is parsonage added to parsonage great portion in mariage to former inheritance great befallings of legacies by this meanes and that yet none will serve the turne but a canker fretting out the marrow of all no thriving in estate what doth it argue but that moth that eates out the foyson of all and that fire that melteth all as fat before the Sunne The sluggard and adulterer being commonly joined in one pertake of one plague of penury Goe over townes and countries tell the choice buildings lands and inheritances of them and aske whose these were all will tell you such a name such an house enjoy'd them but now all is gone and embezzeled away nor one acre remaining of foure or five thousand pound lands by the yeere And how Oh the fire of lust and burning concupiscence hath wasted all and driven them out of their dwellings as dogges or swine so that all who come by may say drunkennesse riot whoring idlenesse or malitious persecution of the Church of God have beene the meanes to roote out the most families of this greatnesse and wealth Truely methinkes when I passe by them they are as Theaters of vengeance and judgement of God against adulterers and fornicators Fourthly the judgement of God appeares in the snaring of the sinner by this sinne As is the whore so is the adulterer shee is a deep ditch to devoure and he is a vast gulfe of lust and concupiscence He is so drowned in his owne perdition and cannot get out snarled as a bird so that the more she struggles the worse shee is hampered would unwind her selfe but cannot Oh! then what a judgement is this neither to be able to be chast nor endure to be unchast As the Poet said of the Paramour to his harlot neither can I live with thee nor without thee So of this lust I cannot endure it it is so dogging so unsatiable that it wastes my marrow in my bones and causeth a perishing daily without death it s a tyrant to me forcing me to serve it beyond my strength And yet I cannot be without it neither it hath so prevailed against me by the false sweet and cursed habit of it that I cannot want it One in this kind was so addicted to it that even when he was spent to the very pith yet had appointed his harlot to meet him when death approached and could not beleeve he should die till want of breath intercepted his thoughts and trade The soule in this plight sinkes deeper and deeper one harlot makes way for another some one insatiable stallion in this kind having three foure yea seven harlots to exhaust him As he said merrily so I here such need no gout dropsie ague or consumption to bring them to their end they have provided a speedier course There is no end of sinning and he must needs go whom the divell drives Fifthly it s the divels nestegge and causes many sinnes to be laid one to and upon another Looke upon the wofull cheine of Davids lust how did one follow another the act urged the concealment the eagernesse thereof provoked a suborning of Vrijah that brought on the making of him drunk when that will not serve turne then the innocent must be murther'd any one of these odious in a wretch how odious then are all in a Saint How many secret murthers of infants have beene caused by Popish Votaries let the vaults privies fishponds belonging to their lawlesse houses testifie nay their owne Pope Gregory who tooke an order with them upon the observation of such villany I Oh the lies shifts perjuries purgings by forsworne men bribes given and taken policies and tricks to cover defend and make off such abominations So it must bee I wonder that a man should be so debauched as to be a whoremonger but being one I wonder not that he is as such a one must bee for can a bowle rolling downe the hill stop her owne course no more can hee who is in the power of his lust doe as hee would but as the force of ill custome and the prevailing sweetnesse of his lust necessitates him unto No sin goeth alone but to be sure uncleanesse cannot avoid many to accompany it Once over the shoes in this puddle rarely will Satan leave off till he have by degrees got thee over head and eares Sixthly what wofull consequences follow this sin As Salomon of the drunkard whence are red eies To whom are woundes blacke and blue cheeks So say I here To whom are quarrels Broyles blood shed Duells betweene Corrivalls of Harlots with a raging heart never at peace To whom To those whom the fury of harlots discontent hath incensed what will not such doe to gratify their Mistresse Nay where doe Robberies by the high waies and murthers and burghlaries begin Surely in the love of harlots as much as in any other roote It must be so love will not be maintaind with nothing this sin is and must be desperately wastfull The old speech is Venus must be nourisht with Ceres and Bacchus infinite is the luxury and Riot of such no end of expences in each
so few backsteps comming from thenceward would thinke any other save that there they were devoured And who would dare to hasard himself upon such a point as whether he should come backe from thaâ—pit from which its ten to one if any at all returne That heathen Philosopher Xenocrates may teach us wisedome herein who was a Stoick of most exact chaâ—tity and morallity He having read to his scholers deep Lectures of austerity and abstinence from all pleasures seeming to his Scholers to speak more then he had strength to performe was attempted by them what he was they got an harlot of exquisit beauty and laid her in his bed to provoke him to folly But he according to his rules abhorring the temptation answered them he would not buy repentance at so deere a rate Surely if he who had no more to lose save his morrall conscience and feared lest the forfeit thereof would prove so irrecoverable what should we Christians say who have our soules to lose what should it profit to winne the world and lose them or what shall bee given in exchange of them And having no hope of recovering repentance any more how should they tremble at so great a losse In one word this I say that this sinne hath a wofull spirituall giddinesse and drunkennesse annexed unto it disabling the sinner from laying it to heart except strange mercie prevent him so that as Salomon speakes in comparing the two sexes so may I say in comparing these with other sinners I have seene of them one of a thousand to repent but of this scarse one of a thousand It s the Lords course to give over these sinners to their haunt and custome It s said of Queene Tomyris that having overcome Cambyses a bloody Tyrant in battell and surpris'd his person she cut off his head and sous'd in a barrell of blood saying satiate thy selfe with that whereof thou hast beene alway so insatiable So saith the Lord to the Adulterers since fleshly pleasure hath beene that which thou hast alway so hunted after fill thy selfe with it for ever Split thy soule against the rocke and stone-wall of my seventh Command at which thou hast so stumbled let that grind thee in peeces This curse of God sealing up the heart of the Adulterer gives him over to his owne sinfull sweetnesse so that the surfet thereof doth so wast and embezell the spirit of such an one that he walkes up and down staggering in the drunken pleasure of his uncleannesse he is quite a sleepe as Jona under the hatches If any of Gods Marriners Ministers I meane cry out Arise thou Adulterer call upon God and pray if possiâ—ly this tempest of wrath may bee prevented Alas hee is as that fellow upon the top of the mast ready to topple into the Sea and yet neither awakes nor feares any danger Once I knew and still there bee some alive who will beare me witnesse a most oâ—ious Adulterer of seventy yeare old who having long consumed his strength with harlots as he in the Proverbs wasted himselfe and all at last being laid in a barne good enough for him for no man could endure the vermin and savour which came from his rotten body was rèquested thus Potter so was his forename call upon God he replyed with his ordinary oathes Pox and woundes is this a time to pray thus he spake at death All his life long the season of Praier and Repenting was not come And now at his death lo it s gone As he merrily sayd of Marriage either it s not yet time or past time Oh! its just with God to bereave such of all list to apprehend any sound notion of their misery they are held off from capablenesse to mourne after God and in a following deceipt of sin even to death I heard once an Oxford man of worthy Memory in a Sermon relate of two students of eminent parts in that Vniversity who were sunke in a brutish Custome of Tobacco and Sacke and then into a loathsome habite of uncleane Pleasures and in time grew into such a slavish Impotency of spirit in those waies that when Necessity urged them to returne to their Chambers they could not there rest till they had pitcht a new meeting and so another till in time they grew so enfeebled and past all sense of Sobriety that with their pipes and Pots at their mouthes they were faine to be had into their beddes and so miserably died Alas no wonder If drinke and riot alone can do it how much more when lust is added to it as a threefold cord not easily broken Both streames meeting in one channel to overflow the bankes This is that Arrow of God shot through the livor of all such uncleane ones to be so enthralled to their lust that all sap of the spirit is dried up and a kingdome of uncleannes set up in their hearts and bodies to carry them beyond all hope of repenting Muse of this seriously if thou wouldest roote up the love of lust and kindle a deadly fewd with it never to be razed out Touching the outward Penalties what should I say Or what can I adde to that I have already said of Gods judgments against this sin Looke to the former doctrine Onely I adde this Exhortation Suffer not thy selfe when thou readest the judgments of God against the Name body person of an uncleane wretch to passe away without Meditation till they have wrought thy heart to a due abhorring therof yet lest I might seeme to mention this point for nothing let me adde one outward Penalty to all the former and that is That even Repentance it selfe is not able wholly to wast off the staine of this sin from the Committers of it Such is the wounde that those men give to the Name of God his religion and truth do suffer so deadly by their meanes that God in justice suffers them to expiate it by an outlasting infamy This was Gods threat to David Thou hast made the Enemies of God to blaspheme therfore lo the sword shall never depart from thy house nor reproach from thy name That same text which shall most eternize thee for a man according to Gods heart shall againe crocke thee saying Save in the matter of Bathsheba That 's a back blow yet just for he thought his secret conveyance would cover all but he saw not this That the thing he had done displeased the Lord therfore he must feele it to his smart His repenting God knew but yet that must not serve to quit him of a worke of sorrow as before I noted He that comitteth folly with a woman is destitute of understanding his blot shall never goe out Courts of men absolve such from all aspersions but when they are white and fayre in them they are foule and blacke in Gods No time no concealment of witnesses no dwelling farre off no oaths of purging no bribes must ever looke to doe it when as Repentance cannot do it Who
should imagine a possibility of it seeing what the name of David Lot Salomon till this day suffer for it As a blur in faire cambrique so is this alway cast upon him as his shame God doth not usually upbrayde his people But this he alway casts him in teeth withall yet this Caution I adde by the way It is not lawfull hereby to condemne whom God hath justified but to cover it rather for our parts But for caution to others the Lord will rather make a Record of it and hang it on the file then it shal be forgotten And when we heare the uncharitable imputations of men fret not at them but say God is in it he will keep it on foot he will checke the soule with it and caufe the guilty therof to possesse the sin of their youth as Iob did If God shall conceale the shame of any guilty of this sin let them prayse him and make an end of all in his privy Chamber of mercy and Repentance that so his open judiciall proceeding in court may be stopped Let this also adde some weight of terror and divorce thee from this sin whip the slaves backe with this rod But the son will be drawne by love So much for this second of Meditation The third and last is to practise somewhat And this is the mayne of all other helpes to rid us of this muscheefe And it consists of sundry particulars Touching all which let the Reader understand that they properly concerne such as have beene actually defiled with uncleannesse in one kind or other And these men are either guilty of their Crime during their estate of ignorance and unregeneracy or else such as have revolted from that grace which they have either soundly or seemingly received To both I would give some advise and first to the former To that then which hath beene abundantly spoken of the Terrors of God against this sin let this only be added That all those men whose hearts God shall touch for it doe lay them close to their hearts that as that pearking presumptuous Asahel was met with and pierced in the fifth rib by Abners speare so may these wild creatures be in their ventrous provoking of God Surelie such a giddy lightnes is in every uncleane heart yea the religious they cannot be solid when as they would they are so drunken with this sin except the law or else that old Simeon speakes of which must open and let out the thoughts of many hearts do let out these wild and unbrideled affections And as that Asahel 2. Sam. 2. being once darted through was tame enough and stopt in his wantonnes so let thy soule be earnest with God to step out of his ordinary way to make an high sence and sharpe hedge of Thornes which he doth but for few in this kind yea to set an Angell before the doore of that harlot shaking a sword that thou mayst no more venture to returne This will not bee till a fire bee thrust into thy soule to feele the intolerable wrathe of God upon all Whoremongers which may so sting thee that as a man scalt or burnt hath small joy or mirth so the feeling of thy selfe in the suburbs of hell may cause thee to feele small list or edge to thy former occupation Hell my freind is no paynced sire on the wall such as thou seest in Alehouses to make drunkards merry but is kindled with the breath of God who hath vowed to bee a terrible judge and consuming fire to all defilers of themselves with whores or harlots single or married yet entreat him that this terror of his may not be extreeme and desperate as his was of whom I last spake ending in violent laying of hands upon himselfe and preventing of Repentance but rather breake the force of lust pull down thy jollity that it may bee as sad an object to thee as was the murthering of the Lord of life to Peters hearers Act. 2. 37. And not onely so but stoop and quaile under this terror of God wee see prisoners at the barre doe not descant or quarrell with the Iudge all their language is confession and supplication for why They know the Iudge hath them at advantage their lives stand at his curtesie Do thou likewise Will God judge Adulterers Stoop then at his barre hee can save or destroy Other Iudges admit appeale themselves may and must be judged their judgements may bee questioned disannulled they sit but upon the breath and life of a man Not so the Lord hee is Iudge of the high Court a Soveraigne King and Iudge If hee once passe sentence no revocation it toucheth the life of thy precious soule This should affright all uncleane persons What suing and seeking is there to the Iudges of spirituall Courts if they threaten but the sheet Oh! but here 's a greater Iudge that can damne thee in hell for ever No bribes prevaile here he is like that enemy of Babell who should scorne all gifts and bee above gold and silver Submit therefore under his hand confesse thy damnation is just lie prostrate upon the earth with thy mouth in the dust and say oh thou the Soveraigne God of the Creatures enemie of all uncleane wretches if thou send mee to hell I have nothing to alleadge if I perish I may thanke my selfe thou hast power to destroy Tremble at this Soveraignty doe not quarrell nor shift with him there is nothing to be pleaded save meere favour I can say nothing why the sentence of death should not be pronounced against me Secondly seeing all repentance stands not in a preparative go on be earnest with God to give thee a glimpse of hope in the Lord Iesus who was made all sinne and this by name not onely for David but for the nature of man and for thine and hath satisfied the wrath of this Iudge that he might say deliver him I have accepted a ransome The law of Moses knew no such attonement stoning and strangling was the end of it As the Iudge tells some felons that the law hath no mercy for them their sinnes exceed it so here But the Gospell affords more grace refuseth to pardon no sinne no offence which the soule can be humbled for I grant this will not easily enter so debauch't a spirit to dream of a possibility of such a grace For when that conscience which was so deeply benummed is once stirred to the bottom it becomes as sensible as ever it was senselesse before and while conscience holds under bondage it s no easie thing to fee such an hope of grace by the Gospell But yet in this thy amasement utter losse an despaire in thy selfe thou must wait upon God who can sustaine thy bottomlesse spirit from sinking altogether till in due time he open a crevis of light into thy dark dungeon And when it shall please him to turne thine eie towards some likelihood of finding mercy in the
just yea thy deserting of my spirit cutting off my daies and sending me into the hottest place of hell had beene little enough for me But oh if thou shalt wash this spot away and cleanse me with hyssop I shall be whiter then the snow what I am is not the thing confusion belongs to me for it it s all I can plead But there is mercy with thee that thou maist bee feared and some little hope hath opened my heart to confesse my sinne as rather relying upon thy word then upon my owne feares that thou wilt deale rigorously and of mine owne mouth as thou moughtst condemne mee Fourthly thou must not thus walke onely with thy Penance fagot upon thy shoulders and the sheet of thy shame upon thy back as one shut out and excommunicated from the Assemblies upon whose face thy father hath spit But thou must set before thine eyes a double promise One this That if the Lord shall once accept thee all thy former sins shall never bee so imputed as to cast thee off Looke that place in Jeremy full of Comfort If an harlot be divorced from her husband shall he returne to her any more No surely But loe thou Adulterer thou harlot you have defiled the Bâ—d which I made Honorable yet I will deale better with you returne and I will accept you sayth the Lord And what upon thaâ— Surely it shal bee with thee in my accompt as if thou hadst never sinned The Lord will open to such a fountaine for sin and uncleannes This may seeme as a cable to the eye of a Needle such mercie for so gracelesse a wretch yes bee encouraged for the Lord lookes not at the greatnesse of the sin if thy Traytors heart distrust him not but at the expression of his owne grace and getting himselfe a name in pardoning it that where sin hath abounded grace might abound much more A dog will catch at this moisell and poison himselfe for he will sin to try a conclusion But this must not east off a poore penitent soule who hath sinned alreadie and beene carried by the streame of his Sensuality Neither must an hypocrite be bolstred nor yet the grace of God to his own frustrate And secondly consider What thou hast beene the Lord lookes not at he beholdes thee in his Son as washed purified therfore wil bee honored even by these members which have most served the lusts of thy uncleannes The Lord delights to see it so if once the property bee altred Witnesse Mary Magdalene so highly honored by Christ to bee the first witnesse of his Resurrection and so enrolled in the book of God that wheresoever the Gospell should come her Name should be honorable How did our Lord Iesus admit her to come to his body and with those eyes handes wherewith shee had beheld embraced those tresses and forelocks which had allured so many uncleane lovers yet he was content to be washed annointed and wiped what exceeding love is this thus to restore an Adulterer to his blood and to entertayne him to that dignity and service which he had forfeited Try thine owne heart in this Case no other Medicine save this made of the blood of Christ can satisfy for thy sin nor wash off the guilt and stayne of it Beleeve this promise apply this blood and this wil bee a true seed of abhorring it for ever Fayth will carry thee to the Crosse of the Lord Iesus tell thee thus I have seene him bleed and breath out his last conflict with wrath and overcome it for the full expiation of thy uncleannes if it could have overcome him thou hadst lost the day for ever but seeing he got the victorie thy sin shall not damne thee so long as he prevailed against death and hell for thee Christ onely can make a divorce between thee and thy sin Till he shed his pretious blood in the defiance of sin the soule and sin could never be made Enemies Onely death which separated his soule and body asunder can divide them If then thou seekest no other morrall shifts nor carnall Popish waies of abhorring this sin at least dost rest in no other all is well Thou takest a sure course to part with it for ever I Come in therfore and claspe to this pardon offred thee in the promise sue it out and apply it to thy soule Perhaps thy base heart will chuse rather to lose it then to take it Gods way But consider since God will not stoope to thy way and there is but one way to come to him bee it never so unwelcome stoope to that way and come in Any way of thine own dawbing with untempered mortar will please thy flesh better then this But seeing in them thou must perish by this thou maist bee saved to use Esai's wordes in the promises there is continuance in the other lying vanity cleave to this and know this onely can satisfy God and change thy lepers skin therfore venture upon this If thou canst possibly perish in beleeving this perish yet know much more sure it is thou must perish except thou beleeve If thou like those nasty lepers sit still in the city die thou must no shift of it here thou mayst live value thy life at no greater rate then the life of a desperate man is worth if elswhere there were hope thou mightst shrug at it But worse then thou art thou canst not bee if thou finde more favour then thou deservest count it for a vantage But howsoever do not preferre assured death before hope of recovery nor lose it for venturing Fiftly rest not here neither but if more mercy be shewed thee then thou lookedst for for God is best to a sinner when he is past pleading then let this perswade thee to follow him for further Grace I meane when the guilt of thy Conscience is gone sue to him for Repentance for the mortifying and subduing the rage power defiling and snaring property of thy sin And begin with the roote kill there first begin not with Adoni-bezek at the fingers endes Christ stabbes the old man at heart first As himselfe told the Pharisee nothing which comes from without can defile the man But that which defiles the man comes from within From the heart proceed as other sins so uncleannes and all the fruits Therefore either purge the roote first or else let all alone Thou shalt fynde this a new worke Yet that faith which hath washt thy Conscience and inner man from guilt and feare and hell Can purge thee a second way from all slavery to thy lust Mercy will act the part of a Priest it will both set an eternall oddes betweene thee and thy lust And it will mortify thy Concupiscence dayly till it be quite dead It will trvely set thee on mourning Truely worke thee to an hearty indignation against thy selfe It will teath thee the art of sinne detesting which no wit of man no skill of
glad if any such veine of wrath may bee let into thy soule as may truly subdue thee under the mighty hand of God that he may raise thee up Thinke not the time long take leasure an heart long defiled a vessell once fustie will hardly change her hiew nor bee sweetned Sixthly let faith alway come betweene thy sinning and thy repenting soder not up a repentance of thine owne its bad in any sinne but deadly in this such sudden leapings out of one contrary to another may admit as easie a relapse from this to the former And so thou maist make thy fall to become a falling sicknesse if the power of pardon and purging come betweene thy sin and thy redresse then is the cure from God and from Christ the sure Physition whose healings are sound and perfect Let his blood come into thy nasty soule come between thy sinne and thy spirit loosening the sweetnesse and the defilement thereof from thee or else it will returne Morall plaisters may hold while the soule is in feare But when sensuality returnes she breakes all such cords in sunder Seventhly when God hath healed thee goe thy waies and thinke thou meetest with him that said Sinne no more lest a worse thing happen to thee even an impenitent spirit Let the experience of thy revolt bind thee to a double care and feare of time to come as that incestuous Corinthian a kindly Convert and as fit an object as any to bee set before a relapsing Adulterers eye approved his repentance so do thou thine How rare a sight were it in these daies to see such an one so swallowed up with sorrow that the Church had need to comfort him in all the haste for feare of despairing Oh! mourne for the wasting of the spirit of grace by an uncleane spirit of thine owne count thy selfe cut off moane thy condition in the eares of God and beseech him to set thee so in joint againe that thine heart may bee stronger then ever to resist thinke thy selfe unworthy to be restored to the Communion of Saints be as an excommunicate in thine owne eies as those offenders in the ancient times who were hardly and by degrees admitted to the Assembly Then the judgements of the Ministers were so harsh as if such might not be admitted as Cyprian and others erroniously thought but to be sure they were admitted with great difficulty for feare of second relapses But now our discipline is in a contrary extreame be thou a law to thy selfe Eightly if thy revolt have been open and publique let thy repentance be so Thinke not that remarkeable offences will be huddled up in the Court of heaven without open repentance and more then ordinary humiliation Most mens plaisters are too narrow for their sores But if wee observe Gods penitents you shall see that their revolts were never so famous as their repentings have beene eminent Thou hast sinned with David repent also with him and let the Church bee well satisfied she hath not lost a member Ninthly be content to beare the reproach of thy sin for ever as a burden upon thy back yea to carry it written in great letters upon the forehead if God think meete to exercise thee in that kind Not thou but hee must judge of the breadth of thine offence It s to keepe downe thine heart which would ever be pearking up and floating aloft and running to the like excesse Better have thy fagot alway upon thy backe Tenthly returne to so much the more close and narrow walking with God watching to a chast and inoffensive course not only against open evills but even secret-suspicions and learne to sanctify the marriage bed against such â—orraine provocations But if any desire to reade more of this Argument I referre him to my Treatise of the Sacraments part 2. and the Chapter of Sacramentall Repentance So much here may suffice Vse 5 Fifthly if God himselfe be so severe a witnesse and Iudge of Adulterers thundring out such threats against them let it bee a caveat to all Magistrates and Governors both Civill and Ecclesiasticall who take upon them the censures of such Delinquents to looke to themselves you are in the place of Gods Officers you should execute the authority of God Doe in these cases as the great judge would do If he sate in judgement he would verefy this threat here in my Text Perhaps its not in your power to do as he would do if he sate in Commission against Whooremongers But yet as farre as lies in your power shew your selves swift witnesses against this crew which doth now so swarme in Cities great townes and generally every where and among all sorts that they wil make the land rue it spew out her inhabitants as once CanaaÌ„ did hers Consider what a vengeance this one sin not to speak of others both spirituall morall might justly bring upon this our land which groaneth under it as much as ever Israel and Iuda did to which God doth threaten such terrible plagues by Esay Ieremy and other Prophets for their fulnes of bread the sins of SodoÌ„ their neighinglike horses after their neighbors wives or else after other harlots which perhaps in England is the more frequent Suffer not vile Adulterers making open profession of it to live with their Harlots and Bastards under their noses nay in the beddes of their wives expelling them and harbouring the other in their bosomes with despite Do not through bribes and flattery or an ill Conscience privy to the like evills through sloth and ease or love of sin seeke pretences to shift your handes of censuring such and so connive at them But by what meanes possibly you can vindicate the honor of God assoyle the land of the just plagues which shee is liable unto for hatching such vipers in her Bosome Bee vicegerents of God! will you not judge them Yes judge these sinners I say not stone them for it s beyond your power and the long impunity of this sin hath hardned the hearts of men in their Impudence but send them to the Carte to the house of Correction to the sheet and shame of their uncleannes to excommunication from the Sacraments and the fellowship of Christians Poste not off these men from one Magistrate to the other as if neither were willing to brand them with shame they have sinned both against Church and commonwealth let them pay for both But in no wise harden them by alaying releasing exchanging of Censures If you discharge those whom God holdes guilty turning such heynous sins to meer Pageants huddling up that which the Lord would have proclaymed on the tops of houses know it your lives shall go for theirs God will call you over himselfe and when he punisheth Adulterers themselves he will judge you for not executing his judgement upon them which have prevented it and spared their soules Lastly let this Point be also Encouragement and Consolation to all