appeare Thirdly and more especially those severall duties of worship which in private and apart from the other family do concerne them which although they ought to performe alone also yet not alwaies but jointly and mutually as to conferre read pray confesse and give thanks Fourthly they must be joint in the duties of charity to the poore harberousnes to strangers reliefe of other both publique causes and private persons whom by occasion God offereth to their regard Fifthly that mutuall harmony in all religious relations both towards themselves as instruction reproofe advice admonition or encouragement or else others in the Communion of Saints of which reade more at large in my Catechisme Part 2. Artic. 4. or else in their generall and exemplary conversation in the sight of the world which when it is mutuall is resembled in the glasse of each others practice but if not then looses her beauty as we see in the opposition which the holy Ghost makes betweene Abigail and Nabal in that point E're I answer any questions about this I must ground and prove it by reasons and Scripture For the latter it needs not many proofes That of these two worthies Luc. 1. 6. may be sufficient of Zachary and Elizabeth that both were upright before God in all the Commandements and ordinances of the Lord without reproofe In which sentence most of those 5. particulers named before are touched That of the Apostle may be added that they defraud not each other except in the case of fasting least saith he your praiers be hindred that is your joint communion in religious worship Now if there must be such an entercourse in extraordinary duties how much more in ordinary But it s objected that Zachary cap. 12. bids them in their deepe humiliations to be apart this seemes to contradict jointnes I answer The phrase is not to be exclusively taken that they should alway be apart for the Prophets scope in the words is that there be singular uprightnesse in their humiliations for which cause he enjoines secrecy because he mournes truly who mournes without witnesse but this excludes not jointnesse in other times and cases because fervency being as well required in them as sincerity which is more stirred up by mutualnesse it is meete they should bee mutuall in that respect as apart in the other So that these two as occasion differs exclude not each other And there is speciall reason of this duty For first God is not now the God of them apart as before but jointly as married of them I say and of their seed and therefore now Reas 1 God must be sought jointly by them both not onely in severall as in their former estate Secondly the good things which they receive from God though they pertaine to their severall happinesse as their faith hope knowledge yet they reach to the furtherance of each others grace if they be bound then to trade with the whole body of Communion for the increace of grace how much more one with another Thirdly whatsoever they enjoy good or evill in a manner they enjoy it in common Their sinnes are common God may punish the one in the other their gifts and graces are common both blessed for the others sake their infirmities are common each being a fellow feeler of the other their blessings as health wealth successe are common their calling and businesse common tending to the common good of them and theirs their crosses common yea their punishments their posterity their dwelling their friends are common Shall their God then bee severall Shall their religion and worship bee disjointed No sure mutuall wants and needs must unite and reconcile them to one God with common consent Fourthly Religion is the golden Cement of all fellowships and unions both to knit and to sanctifie the same more firmely and closely together That union which is not thus fastened is but as the union of those foxes backward by firebrands in their tailes soone dissolved and very hurtfull The Iewes have a pretty observation upon the Ebrew name of the woman the first and last letters whereof make up the name Iah God which if they be taken from the middle letters leave all in a combustion for they signifie fire If God inclose not marriage both before and after and be not in the middest of it by this band of religious feare marriage is nothing save a fire a contentious and an unpeaceable condition But this consent of both in the Lord is the most firme and blessed of all Those tearmes are ever strongest and best agreed which agree in the best third or couple Now the Lord is the best and the safest band What a sweet glasse is it for husband and wife to see each others face yea heart in to be acquainted with each others graces or wants to be assured of each others love and loiall affection then to looke how they stand affected to the band of their union I meane fellowship in religion faith hope and the fruits Fifthly let us examine this truth but onely in one prime and chiefe act of religion and that is faith in the alsufficiencie of providence and that will teach us the rest What is the married estate save a very stage of wordly care to act her part Single persons never come to understand what care meanes till marriage come That 's the black oxe which treades heard upon them How shall this tread be borne except faith in the promise act another part of holy carelesnesse I meane in point of carking Surely as the fashion of some countries is to hang up a care-cloth in the Bride-chamber to coole the heat of other affections in the married and to put them in mind what an estate they are entring upon so well may this cloth of care ever hang in their chamber except faith take it downe and fasten their care upon him that careth for them cutting off all superflous carking Now this grace belongs jointly to both of them not only to the husband who followes the world hard to please his wife but also to the wife who as the Apostle saith is as ready to please him What a gulfe of care doe both implunge themselves into except the Lord vouchafe them his antidote What craft trickes coosenages dâ—ceits will they not find out to scrape and rake together all being fish that comes into their net What clamors discontents and brawles will arise if defeated of their wills What basenesse will utter it selfe upon any other expences then expected But let the Lord be their portion rocke and defence and what can distract them How sweetly will both draw in this yoake if as they have made God the God of the hilles so they can make him of the vallies I meane the God of their bodies as well as their soules Now if this one joint gift do so runne through all their life what will joint consent in all graces do as hope of salvation fitnesse to die
mercy and compassion love feare meeknesse and the rest All which in their kind under faith serve to furnish the married condition with contentment and welfare Sixtly and lastly what can so assuredly bring in blessing to the bodies soules posterity families and attempts of each other as jointnesse of religion when both are agreed of their verduict and one buildes up as fast as the other when no sooner the one enterprises any thing but the other joines in a commending it to God for blessing They not daring to goe to worke in an unblest way without God That no sooner they spie an infirmity much more a corruption in each other but they reserve it for matter of humiliation against next time No sooner they meet with a mercy but they make it matter of thanks keeping the Alter ever burning with this fewell and Sacrifice What a sweet derivation is this to both of pardon and blessing What a warrant is it unto them both that each shall share in all good when as both doe equally need it so each seeke it of God When God is made both of Court and Counsell privy to all doubts feares and wants of both what can so assure them of an happy condition when censuring condemning or quarreling each with other is turned into a mutuall melting in Gods bosome for the greefs and complaints of one another when in Christ their Advocate they sanctifie all to themselves and make all things pure to them bed board love crosses mercies which else to others are uncleane and defiled This for Reasons Quest A question here offers it selfe if the grace of the married must be joint what is to be said when the husband will not concurre with the wife or she with him in such duties of piety or mercy as doe mutually concerne them Must she then desist for lacke of jointnesse I answer The question were much harder if it were made of such an husband as not onely doth not concurre actually with the wife but is contrarily minded unto her I will therefore frame the answer to both cases I say then that the wife may supply the defect of his non-concurrence with her in these acts of religion or charity For why his defect of joining although it may hinder the grace of the duty yet it must not hinder the essence of performance better is it that God be served in prayer in teaching the family training the children that the poore be relieved and good done as it may be then not at all Not onely because the defect may possibly proceed in the man rather from impotency and weakenesse in which respect the wife making supply especially being eminently better fitted then other women are doth as it were obtaine acceptance of both as if both could joine and the husband could bee the mouth of the woman to God This being provided that her gifts consist in an humble modesty as in other sufficiency But besides also though the husband be opposite to good himselfe yet if he connive at good in her she must not under any pretext detract the duty from God by his lewdnesse and incurre double wrath from God Nay I adde further although he be actually opposite that is forbid it to be done yet as the case may require through necessity of present miseries she is bound to step out from her ordinary course as Abigail did in Nabals desperate abandoning of Davids servants But I wish the Reader to suspend his thoughts awhile till I shall finde fitter occasion to treate of this answer which will be afterward partly in the dutie of the husbands understanding partly of the wives subjection Here therefore I doe but touch it Vse 1 I proceed to the use as I began And that is first Reproof of a foolish contrariety of couples in this kinde They will be religious in marriage but how Forsooth as they were before they will goe apart by themselves and severally but this jointnesse of worship they abhorre as too strict and needlesse They will grant that they must read pray conferre but it must be as formerly either apart or with other company but as for imparting themselves to each other they are loth to utter their ignorance barrennesse ungroundednesse in the principles or their spirituall forgetfulnesse unthankfulnesse lukewarmenesse especially the defect in marriage duties each to other These they are ashamed to make each other privy to God onely is they thinke meetest to be acquainted with them Why are you such strangers Were you not as able before marriage as now to doe this Are you now in no deeper relations then before Then you could not but now you may doe otherwise and will you not doe it I cannot better describe the folly hereof then by the fondnesse of such wives as when they speake to their husbands they call them by their names or place Master such a one or John Richard c. so as any other might call them as well as they or as they might call them before marriage Surely the name of your relation husband or wife I thinke were fitter for them then common names The like I say here such a religion I trow were fitter for you as might best agree with your neere union and not such as any unmarried person may enjoy Woe to him that is alone saith Ecclesiastes for if he fall who shall helpe him And to one how should there be heate he meanes of generation But two are better then one how doth this agree with the course of such They are alone even when they are two and they are two divided when they should be as one Surely if they should claime power in severall over their owne bodies or power to have a severall purse or a stocke going apart it were lesse sinfull then thus to nourish a worship of God wholy apart from each other May any so fitly joine in mutuall confession or thanks as they who have but one God and can as one soule in two bodies fellow-feele and compassionate each others case as his owne Is there any rent so bad as in semelesse coate What can this division savor of but pride singularity selflove Or how would the devill desire to rule rather then by this seperation I aske dost thou hold the body or the body thee And whom hurtest thou herein save thine own body and soule by refuseing such a succor Wouldest thou not think it an unkindnesse in the heart and liver if it would keep in all spirits and bloud within themselves and transmit none to the parts Must it not threaten as he said once putrifaction and obstruction to themselves and ruine to the whole So much for this first Secondly this reproves all such couples as are rather backbyases each to others in the matters of God then helpers either in ordinances or duties Such as when family duties are called for either by husbands or wives then they lay loggs in each others way then of all other
borne it but lo she that are with me out of one dish dranke out of one cup dipt her morsels in the same vinegar lay in my bosome and was one with mee she hath beene as rottennes to my bones as smoake to mine eyes and as a continuall dropping Oh! if the eye be blind how great is that darkenes And if shee who was made for the choysest helper for what earthly comfort is like her who is like her self proove a plague and hurt to a man how great must that wound proove As the discord of brethren is therefore like the brasen barres of a Pallace because they are in place of neerest lovers so the hurt of a wife is unspeakebly intolerable because she breakes that law in pieces which ordeyned her to the contrary For there is a cursed generation of women out of measure sinfull whose cheefe revenge is to whet their teene upon their husbands and to kill their hearts not onely with despitefull tongues but also malitious attempts professing they do it to crosse them Such as these I deny not to be helpers for they helpe their husbands to a sad heart to a weary life to bitter complaints to such as they dare trust for if they had no bosomes to emprie it into their hearts would breake to an empty purse to a rotten name to a ragged coate they helpe them ere they have done â—o the sheete to the stockes to the Gallowes to hell it selfe without mercy by their severall hurtfull inventions Thus was not Abigail to Nabal though a beast if she had scorned him so farre as to renounce helpfulnes she would not have endangered her life for his safety but left him to shift for himselfe But such presidents as Dalila Iezabel Jobs wife and the like helplesse hurtfull wives joying rather in their husbands harmes and thrusting them forward when they are falling better sute to many of our wives then that out worne end of Abigails Alas such a patterne serves rather for wonderment then honor imitation Do wee not see how jolly and proud Dames set up a private wealth to themselves with neglect of the common good of husbands and families Have we not coy peeces that affect a singularity of Diet apparrel company losty carriage above and apart from their husbands Publique shame which yet now restrains most abuses not curbing these Are those helpers that jolly it out and ruffle it in the misery debts banqueruptnes and dejection of their husbands brave in their ruffes and cloathes when they are all ragged costly in their fare when they are faine to bite short sit at the upper end of the Table when Tom foole must stand with finger in hole behind the doore Are these helpers or harlots trow you How else should it be verefied of women which is foretold of al sorts by Paul in these latter daies They should be lovers of themselves proud unnaturall trecherous What traitor is like a bosome one And well might these proverbiall speeches arise that A man may thrive if he have his wifes good wil Or A mant hat marries a second wife with Children need take no thought to purchase house and land These argue that although the case may be otherwise in many wives yet generally it is dangerous especially in second marriages with widowes Vse 2 Secondly be it exhortation to all that would bee good wives that they be helpfull ones As once that worthy Divine Master Perkins wrote upon his study doore Thou art a Minister of the word that doe so should a good wife upon her palmes and fringes for an helper thou wert made this looke to mind the end of thy creation carry it with thee as thy charge I was made for an helper Not for an helper on way and an hurter ten but an only helper So that as Law is the soule of the state the soule is wholly and in each finge of the body so should my helpfulnesse begin at husband and animate all the family But especially it should be the life of my husband his soule I am bound chiefly to helpe by godly counsell his spirit I must helpe by my cheerfull behavior his body I must cherish with my best benevolence his name I must tenderly honour his sorrowes I must wisely mitigate his joyes I must sympathize his dangers I must prevent his health and state I must uphold and when I have thus done as the Bee gathering hony as the Sheep bearing a fleece as the Oxe plowing the ground as the builder framing the house not for their owne uses but the commodity of others so must the helpfull wife all these I have done not for my selfe but for my husband Yea looke what instinct Nature Art hath put into these creatures that hath grace and helpfulnesse put into me An helper I was made for this oh Lord let me look to If I do it of a willing vertuous mind there is praise If not yet a necessity is layd upon me and wo to me if I be not an helper who ever shunned or waived the end of their creation but vengeance pursued them as traytors to Nature to heaven I was not made for my selfe but for another each part of the house claiming a part of me As he said once to a coy Virgin thy virginity is not all thine to dispose of in part it s thy parents father hath a stroke in it mother another and kindred a third Fight not against all but be his whom they would have thee So say I to thee being a wife and an helper Thy womanhood thy helpfulnesse is not thine it s thy husbands his body state posterity claime it from thee he laies claime to all not as that Tyrant did all thy wives silver and gold is mine but as one that is invested in all thou hast by peculiar providence I live not by rule or examples the unhelpfull shall not teach me to be a hurter the helpfull shall not so teach me as if I followed for their sake only but for his who hath subjected me to helpfulnesse Vse 3 Lastly its incouragement to all good wives to looke off from the degenerate practice of this world which might pull them from this vertue If she be such an helper to thee oh husband as I have said comfort thy selfe in her comfort and encourage her thy selfe against all dismayments And if shee bee so towards a lewed companion who hath not the grace to prise her let mee here from God encourage her God requite thee poore soule for the world cannot thine husband will not God make his way the strength of the upright in the thankfulnesse of both Thou canst doe no more then thou canst If a bad husband will yet ruine all well yet as long as thou couldest thou hast held carte on wheeles The Lord shall be thy helper the strong helper of an helpefull wife Others shall helpe thee Thou shalt not bee forsaken in thy greatest straits And touching this second duty
Christ be not the cover from the storme and raine sinne must needes be and although it be but a sorry one which will one day wet to the skin yet it must serve the whilst Subdue therefore thy soule with these terrors as Christ saith let them sinke deeply into thine heart It is thy selfe it serves to keepe thee from the pathes of death As our Saviour then when he bids watch tell us he saith it to the Disciples and to all so I wish that this watchword might reach to all none excepted even forward professors themselves I much feare this sin is rise among many even of such for profession cannot alone quit us of secret profanenes So neer is the flesh so sly is Satan so copious is a false heart of evasions that no sort of people is free There want not fearful examples at this day of each degree of men and women I need not silence that which all tongues jangle the ears of the good might tingle withal what debauched varlets there are of late brought forth from among theÌ„ who have crept in amongst the zealous servants of Christ and taken upon them to be the forwardest To conceale is now too late too late to say tell it not Gath for its all over the places about their dwelling One being reprooved for attempting the maides who came to his house to folly answered though I may not covet my neighbors maid yet for his owne maides or those that offred themselves he thought he might It s time now my brethren of of all sorts to cease striving to hold â—â—le in your palme it s rather time to apply corrasives The best way now is in taking notice of these to say they were among us they were not of us if they had they would not so fouly have gone out of us And yet were it not that I feare doing hurt I would adde that I must not nor dare finally to censure every owne as lost who is guilty of this sin but I know ten to one of these are hypocrites though for causes God may leave some odde person whose repentance he purposes to make as eminent as ever his sinne was and moreover to use this sinne in others as a forcible occasion to convert them from all sinne But of this after Of the hypocrites I say let him that is filthy be filthy still of the other the Lord give them grace with Achan in the midst of their reproach to give glory to God wofull creatures the whiles weltering in their misery from whom the unclean spirit seemed to bee cast out and they to have escaped the pollution of the world through lust but through their loosenesse the divell hath returned into their hearts and brought seven spirits with him worse then the former so that if that stronger man throw not out this strong the end of such will proove worse then the beginning Consider all such profession cannot dispence with you rather it shall make your sinne treble and heate hell seven times hotter If wee never found any other effect of the sinnes of our ignorance save shame and death what are wee like to finde for sinnes against knowledge Truly men are strangely impudent and hardned in these daies this makes me insist as I doe Feare not him who can destroy the body onely and not the soule but him who can cast both bodies and soules into hell I say feare him Get we our spirits truely moulded into this terrour of God! Those Corinthians pretended the liberty of the Gospell against the terror of the Law But how doth Paul answer them Surely by a fit instance of the Isralites in the wildernesse committing filthinesse at Peor Are you better then they had not they the word the ordinances the cloud the manna and rocke but God was never the better pleased with them for that I Their carcasses all fell and were made dung in the wildernesse Therefore deceive not your selves Be not you fornicators as they â— and were destroyed of the destroyer Their Angell of presence turn'd their destroyer for their uncleannesse If this bee all the priviledge of your bare profession let whose will venture but venture not yee well may some say wee would faine bee of Gods minde but our hearts are so giddy and slight in this point that wee cannot get them to bee seriously awed by Gods judgements I answer I shall referre it to the Exhortation following in the next Chapter in the meane time consider what hath beene said in this CHAP. XVII And last Conteyning the use of Exhortation with Counsells and Motives to preserve Chastity and avoid uncleannesse Vse 4 I Finish the whole use of the point with Exhortation to this effect that all who truely tremble at this judgement of God against Adulterers and fornicators doe preserve their vessells with as much holinesse and honour as is possible To all such as in the end of this point I shall touch belongs consolation but let it lie by a while untill thou be able to apply it to thy selfe by the experience of what I shall now say Wherefore I exhort all such be chaste and pure in body and spirit passing the whole time of their conversation here in holy prevention and caution against uncleannesse A sollemne duty to bring a cleane body to the marriage bedde to maintaine it so and bring it so to the grave But how will some say may this be effected I answer by observing three counsells and first to Abhorre somewhat Secondly to meditate upon somewhat Thirdly by practising Touching the first Abhorre somwhat within and somewhat without In the prosecution of which three if I shall haply trench upon any thing before touched through the neernesse of the argument let the reader consider that when I wrote that before upon the point of chastity I intended not the handling of this latter part of the verse but I hope I shall avoid any purposed repeatings of ought which the necessity of the order doth not inforce upon me for the avoiding of any interruption For the first of Abhorring First with David Abhorre thy selfe that inward originall corruption of nature the foment of this flame he beginnes at the right end of the staffe with that poison wherewith his mother had warmed him in her wombe Abhorring of some outward acts or penalties of this sinne may goe without any loathing of the fountaine Had it not beene saith David for my naturall staine I had never committed such an actuall abomination as this Alas as the feelde of a poore man vanishes in the Mappe of a whole towne so doth this evill of concupiscence vanish in most mens eie when they take a survey of sinne whereas this inward is the body and that which we se breaking out is but a member as it might be here a toe there a finger of defiled old Adam Till then the mother bee abhorred the daughter will never be renounced Put case thou couldest
hypocrites can teach thee It will intercept all thy succours of lust thy provision to fulfill thy lustes When the Court is pulled downe who needes to feare suires in it It will cause thee not morally but from a Principle of grace to shunne all meanes motives provocations and snares of uncleannes which the Devill shall straw in thy way That so the oile being gone the flames may vanish It shall change thy uncleane thoughts affections eyes eares into cleane and pure ones If thy harlot meet thee and say It is I thou shalt answer but I am not I not my selfe Another is become that in mee which my cursed selfe was wont to bee The signe is pulld downe the Alehouse is let to a man of trade no more harlots nor adulterers come there new Lords new Lawes all old things are done away behold all things are become new I am redeemed with a price not to be mine owne if my Lord and Master will endure lust if any accord betweene Christs body and an harlot aske him leave and I obey else I am not my owne Oh! this Grace shall bring thy lust to the horns of the Altar binde it thereto with cords cut the throate of it with the sacrificing knife of the Priest Thy Priest will teach thee to do that office very handsomely to let out the ranke blood of thy lust and the strength and sway which it bare in thee yea it shall drag thine uncleane heart to Golgotha and naile it to the crosse of thy Priest with the same nailes which nailed the body of Christ It is happier to find out those Implements Crosse blood nayles tombe and all then ever Helen was or any Popish relique-monger and to make use of them too to better end then at this daie that Popish Covent of Friats do who have hired those places of the Turke built Temples Altais and silver floores in honor of the Passion It shall cry in thy soule Oh lust I wil bee thy death oh Concupiscence I wil be thy destruction The sting of fin is death and the strength of lust is the law But thanks be to God in Iesus Christ who hath condemned sin in the flesh mortified it by the flesh of his holy body hat neither guilt nor dominion might prevaile Pursue the victory the Lord is with thee thou valiant man and in this thy strength fight and lin not while through thy Captaine both sin and luste die in thee Sixthly returne to the Lord with full bent of soule to renounce all cleaving to the flesh and to cleave to him without seperation That grace which hath killed lust will quicken the life of purenesse in thy soule it will indeed make thee a tâ—ue Pentient not only to renounce uncleanes but to embrace a Chaste spirit and live a Chaste life to returne to God in a contrary practice of unblameablenesse all thy daies so farre as weaknesse will permit As he tooke off from thy jawes the yoke of servitude so he shall make his owne joake easie and his burden light He shal bee as one that layeth meate before thee thou shalt be so preserved by the sweetnes of grace that all the sweetnesse of lust of adultery of lascivi usnes shall stinke before thee so that they shall never have hope to recover thee into their possession any more And what then remayneth but when lust knowes not what to doe with thee then thine eare be bored with Gods awle that so thou maist bee his servant and walke in purenesse and holines all thy daies The Lord blesse this maine Direction with all other unto thee and remember none but Christ can heale this sore And so much for the former branch of Counsell to them who are onely guilty of the sin I passe lastly to the other who have revolted from this Grace once obteyned Lastly therefore if thy uncleannes be yet of a deeper die as beeing a revolt from the Grace of God and the vow of thy spirituall baptisme once made then know the Cure is somewhat different from the former Here then Remember that the seed of God in his dyeth not Therefore if once God hath awakned thee out of this thy relapse and the dead sleep of security under it which if he love thee he will do by some three string'd whip or other which hee shall make for thee as once he did for those defilers of his Temple by some crosse or stirring terrors of the word in thy soule then take Davids course Beseech the Lord first that the despaire and extreame horror which an ill conscience sicke of a relapse might worke in thee through unbeleefe added to it may gratiously bee kept off and so thine heart may be stayd from utter departing from the living God upon feare that he is wholly departed from thee Secondly remember that the covenant of God cannot be repealed it comprehends thee when thou canst not it Therefore apply those mercies of old and be comforted Thirdly take heed lest Satan confound and oppresse thy spirit by the conscience of thy base revolting sinning against such mercies and snarling thy soule with so many successive evills as thou hast heaped upon one another without an heart to get out For its an easie thing to lose a mans spirit and selfe in the divells maze Fourthly with a penitent heart for thy trechery that thou shouldest kick up thy heele against former mercies and covenants behold that promise of which I formerly spake and apply it unto thy soule as thou art able knowing that whatsoever Satan hath to gainsay the Lord Iesus was made all sinne both of rebellion against and also revolt from God that thou mightst be his righteousnesse and recover it having lost it Fifthly let the affliction of thy soule so deeply cease upon thee till through mercy it have soaked into thee and pierced thee as deepe as thy sinne hath peirced God as the tent must go as deepe as the sore is festered and fetch out the bottome scurfe content not thy selfe with such an humbling as thy slight heart would admit For this is one attendant of this sinne to be light and wanton and not to bee able to bee serious Therefore set thine heart to it mocke not God make not the remedy worse then the disease that thou shouldest even be fetcht in againe by Satans clawes ere thy repentance is finished which were to unsettle the work of God in thee and worke thy heart to a despaire of recovery It hath beene the portion of many uncleane ones never to get a serious spirit If therefore thine heart be once downe hold it as if thou shouldst keepe corke under water and trust it not pray thus withdraw from me all objects of vanity and teach me thy law gratiously Arraigne accuse condemne thy selfe judge thy selfe lest God judge thee and till God raise thee be content to lye low beare the indignation of the Lord because thou hast sinned and be
Ieroms preposterous zeale against Vigilantius let me answer with that wise towne-Clerke of Ephesus speaking to the tumultuous people Who knoweth not that virginity is precious But grant it be so What can it not be praised without the disgrace of marriage Is the eye of the one evill because the other is good Can no oblation pacifie the one but the honour of the other depraved and a sacrifice of the heads of married men doth she not cut downe the bowe she stands on yea breake her owne necke in destroying marriage To be sure none are so unfit to commend or defend her as they who confute marriage by the same uncleannesse whereby they defile virginity Virgins I confesse have their honour yea those Eunuches who have made themselves spiritually so for the kingdome of God are praise worthy And as that Demoniacke said Iesus we know and Paul we know but who are ye So we marriage and true virginity we admire but as for you what or whence are yee If you speake a good word for it it were meet as they at Athens were wont in the Senate to do to take it out of your unvirgin-like unseemly mouthes and put it into the mouth of honester persons Praise stinkes in the mouthes of such as doe reproach more by deeds then their mouthes can commend As the Poet once said of the cold Poetry of them who commended fasting with their bellies full so may I say of you who praise virginity your selves having bodies debauched with uncleannesse your breath is not sweet enough for this worke nor your words strong enough to make you beleeved None but Oratours can praise eloquence nor any save chaste virgins single life whether married or unmarried One once said of the great Turkes horse that no grasse grew after where he had once trod so neither did ever virginity thrive upon your praises As Locusts eat up all before them so doth your unbridled lust and the more by how much its vailed with the vow of that Chastity which becomes the greatest snare of uncleannesse to them that make it Thus much for the first branch But to leave these I would also apply this truth to a second sort of men for their dishonouring of marriage Such I meane as doe though not by Popish yet by their uncleane lives and practice defloure and disgrace this Ordinance The most reall and chiefe offenders in this kinde who by their manners doe not onely impute but infuse in a sort a blot and shame into marriage causing it to stinke by their sinne which God hath honoured and blessed And these are the successours of Hophni and Phinees whose open and shamelesse pollutions by whoredome and adultery doth corrupt it A course in these dayes so common that not onely among the viler sort its thought nothing for there be of the ignorant and baser sort of people who are free from it but even of them of the better fashion also where grace rules not of whom in the end of this Treatise I shall speake more But besides these how doe the lives of such as live in this estate of marriage cause men to vow the grosest uncleannesse rather then they would be so married As once an Heathen said If this be the practice of Christians to eat their God and to kill their King let my soule be with the Philosophers So say I the base cursed life of many professours who brawle scold fight and live at defiance with each other causes many ungodly ones to prefer a single life though besmeared with all sorts of lusts contemplative practicall natural unnatural with wives harlots or as they can rather then to marry that is to say Let my soule be with the adulterers I say to such married persons stumbling-blocks and eye-sores perhaps you may be guiltlesse of this sin your selves but verily many by your occasion are as deeply tempted to uncleannes as others are by the entisements of bawds and companions of harlots Well as odious as you are yet is Marriage honourable in her selfe you doe as much as in you lyeth and shall answer for it as well as if it were in your power to defile it but yet you cannot defile that which God hath enstamped with honour To see some married couples how they bring up their brats to all filthinesse of manners to see Ahabs and Iezabels both combining together in villany to see the wofull confusion of bad wives with good husbands or them with as bad wives drawing in a most unequall yoake Nabals and Abigails Moses and Zippora's would it not cause men to stop their noses at the stinch of marriage Should this be if men kept the honour of marriage unstained If they were jealous to suffer any eye to behold their unseemelinesse least marriage should be dishonoured To see the separation of such in the Countrey of all sorts as depart from their yoake-fellowes abandoning each other by Law or lawlesse divorces from bed board and affection I meane by wilfull separating themselves would it not cause men to irke marriage To behold varlets and monsters openly and in the face and defiance of Courts and Lawes without penance or due pursuit and punishment to doe as Zimri and Cozbi did though with contrary successe to bring their whores and the bastards they have begotten by them not onely into their houses and under their wives noses but to lay them in their beds to force them to afford them like nurcery and equall tearmes with their owne would it not make Heathens themselves to spue us out To see great men to relinquish and cast up their chaste and wel-deserving Ladies whom they at first loved and sought with the greatest ambition and to give themselves to vagrant and libidinous courses would it not fray men from marriage and say as they did If the case stand so it is not good to marry To conclude to see but the base Mart that is now made of marriages how men looke onely at the prize and the best game how they may take in or put off their children in and at the best vantage as cattle in a market for wealth and portion be they never so debaucht drunkards or light huswives would it not provoke men to vomit such marriages A worthy wife cannot be sufficiently prized a man cannot tell what to aske for such a pearle and a bad one deserves no price being the worst of wares the one is above this line the other is under it neither ought to be bought and sold I say these and other the like abuses as the perpetuall jealousies betweene some couples not the worst persons yet bad in marriage their sinister conceits melancholike distempers how doe they make this commodity of marriage yea and a better too even religion it selfe which too many such professe to be badly spoken of But in the meane time by these rents and disorders the innocent Ordinance heares ill as if by her default
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
dependeth Well there is no doubt but as in all other so in this part of the wheele of our conversation to wit of marriage we all sinne many wayes and our errours are infinite But now sift thy selfe more narrowly and leaving thy faults examine thy selfe in intentions in all the wandrings and swervings of thy course Canst thou say that as in all other so in this part of thy course thou hast sought better to be informed what that good and accepted will of God is and accordingly with simplicity of heart hast quit thy selfe to thy companion not for thine owne base ends and ease but that marriage might have her honour preserved offences might be prevented God worshipped within and honoured without doores a peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty preserved I aske not whether there have bin staggerings wearinesse of the yoake and desire after more liberties for who is there that sinneth not as Salomon said but I aske this Hast thou denied thy selfe and curbed thy base heart to stoope to God in drawing this yoake not sought thy ease sleshly content letting the honour of God to sinke or swim Hast thou humbly bowed thy neck and stooped to the ordinance acknowledging how much its changed from the first Creation and by sinne filled with sundry sorrowes distempers and bitter-sweets hardly to be avoyded I say hast thou under all these abased thy selfe before the Lord craved pardon of thy stout heart and proud stomacke loth to yeeld and thine impotency of thy passions desiring to testifie thy obedience in bearing these annoyances as justly inflicted for sinne Hast thou acknowledged the Lord most wise in so ordering the matter for thee that because thy heart is haughty and insolent therfore he hath tamed thee by this bridle and hath by it exercised thy faith and patience and brought thee to the bent of his bowe so that for the avoyding of farre worse snares and for the comforts and liberties accruing by marriage thou canst willingly yeeld obedience to the rules and duties therof not dividing burdens from priviledges and thou canst correct all thy licentiousnesse in seeking sleshly content onely in marriage Surely if in some comfortable sort thou canst speake thus in the eares of God begging a pardon of all wants and a release of all deserved penalties then I say according to infirmity thou hast sought the honour of marriage and to prevent the just staine and aspersions thereof by thy watchfulnesse yea thou hast sought the honour of the ordainer therof for thy singular comfort which thou mightst ill have wanted What remaines therefore but that I comfort thee from God and encourage thee by his promise not onely against the feare of thy dishonouring God but also towards a more hearty endeavour to honour him further Surely thou hast neede of no lesse Thy journey is long thy obedience difficult its not for a day or a moneth but for life it s not for a sodering up of breaches for a while to breake out so much the worse after it s no worke of an outside to set a good face upon the matter abroad nourishing still the disease within God is not mocked and sinnes in this kinde are like oyle in the hand which cannot be hid But this obedience is a perpetuall yet an ingenuous humble and holy subjection to the will of the subjecter who by it tryes men and shewes them all which is in the heart so that I dare say a true obedient in marriage is a good servant in all Therefore as thou needest encouragement from God as who doth not in difficult duties so take it into thy bosome as thine owne chew upon it and digest it it s the Lords will that thou shouldest I say unto thee that as the Lord hath put honour upon this ordinance so thou hast sought to maintaine it and who so honours God shall be honoured of God God can and will turne all the impediments and incumbrances of this estate into blessings thou shalt finde this estate made honourable to thee thy selfe shalt finde acceptance with God in all thy suits successe in enterprises honour and esteem among his people he shall crowne thee with old age and good report in the way of righteousnesse Thy wife shall be a blessing no snare thy liberties shall be pure unto thee and thou shalt visit thine habitation without sinne as Iob speaks thou shalt drâ—nke of the stoods of milke and butter and honey Thy children shall honour thee in the gate and shall be thy crowne in thy age they shall stand about thy table as olive plants yea although any of them should prove irregular yet that should not condemne thine innocency In a word God shall bring upon thee all the blessings promised to such as honour his ordinance even to love thine for many generations His word shall not be taken from thee and them for ever he will continue thee a name upon earth and a naile in his temple and peace upon Israel Nay I adde that thy very obedience alone in it self shal be a blessing unto thee Dost thou preserve thy body in holines and honor thou shalt a void hereby those infinite woes and miseries which befall the unchaste as proverty basenesse a rotten body a worse soule a ruined estate both in this world and in the world to come Dost thou nourish love and amity betweene thy selfe and thy wife that so the peace of God thereby may the better rule thy heart and minde Loe how infinite many garboiles and miseries thou avoydest of wrath debate envie raylings quarrellings and discontents which bad marriage causeth But canst thou say that besides these ordinary duties of the married estate thou and thy wife have also closed with God in the speciall service of the time and with good Vriah and Mephibosheth moderately used the comforts of this life during the sorrowes of the Church and bin married as if not remembring the afflictions of Ioseph making them the due and daily matter of thine Humiliations and Requests before God hast thou oft with Ioel's Bridegroome and Bride come out of thy feasting Chamber to hide thine head in thy fasting chamber as our Saviour tels us when the Bridegroome shall be taken away they shall mourne in those dayes the husband apart and the wife apart for sincerity or both together for fervency Or with the Psalmist Dost thou desire thy tongue cleave to the roofe of thy mouth except the joy of Ierusalem be above all thy joy even marriage joy it selfe which yet is allowed to be great Surely then I say thou hast honoured marriage indeed and as thy share in the duty hath bin greater so shall it be in the blessing The Lord shall give thee an hiding place in the day of evill and because thou hast kept the word of his patience in bad times hee shall also deliver thee in that
is a lesser degree of grace under this onely appearing in the seed tender and weake and that is of such as although they reach not so farre yet have their eye toward this bridegroome counting him one of ten thousand comparing selves with such as are married to him thinke themselves far inferiour wish their case were so happy abhorre their own treachery count the feet of such beautifull as wooe them to Christ thinke highly of the offer love to be such friends of the Lord Iesus and children of his Bridechamber full of tears affections and desires after it Even these are not to be excluded neither there is hope of such that they may come to be married to Christ in due time therefore it were unequall that for meere lacke of time and training they should be rejected rather if better faile in ordinary providence there being sufficient ground to hope that their little is in truth I dare not deny but a contract with such may be lawfull and the Lord may cover defects in mercy especially if the more forward party be industrious to improve a little to a greater measure in the other if the weaker party be teachable and in either of both there be a selfe-denying heart if God crosse their hopes to lye downe meekely at his feet humbled for sin the cause thereof and patiently taking up and bearing their crosse till God amend it By all this it appeares that Marrying in the Lord requires good consideration and that they who so marry have laid the foundation of future honour beforehand And who doubts but it had need be so for what hope is there that they who never sought it before should ever light upon it after Honour requires good breeding and it is a stud which except it subsist upon a good ground-cell will soone lye in the dust Rash and sudden attempts in this kinde doe but make way for shame and reproach onely marrying in the Lord prepares the soule for the worke it hath her tooles in readinesse to fall to the trade whereas the contrary is still to seek yea the very method of the Apostle in this Epistle shewes no lesse for he speakes of no marriage businesse before he have fully opened the doctrine of faith he layes that for the bottome and then comes in and tels such their Marriage is honourable Faith then is the hand and wheele which must frame a vessell for honour prepared as for all other so for this worke of marriage And in truth as it is all Religion upon point so it is the marriage ring which makes the soule one with the Lord and this ring is beset with many rich jewels all of them serving for the honour that is the well carrying and discharge of marriage duties One jewell is humility and selfe-denyall whereby the heart is tamed and humbled to this worke with all subjection and freed from that rudenesse and rebellion of spirit which makes it fit for nothing but it owne will and ends but this grace levels it to the obedience of this ordinance Another jewell is peace whereby the soule is so calmed and pacified within it selfe in the point of pardon and Gods favour that it can beare any affronts even as the shooes or brasse boots of the Souldier can walke upon rocks or pikes and feele no hurt so an heart well a paid in the Lord is calme and able to cleare the coast of all distempers and to goe through discontents and crosses such as an unquiet spirit cannot A third is purity which cleanseth the soule of many bad humours very unequall for marriage selfe-love pride disdaine wrath heart-burning jealousies and conceits and makes a man much fitter for marriage A fourth the last which I will name is righteousnesse that is the fellowship with Christs holy nature by which the soule partakes the properties of Christ qualifying it with wisedome influence strength meeknesse patience holinesse cheerfulnesse long-suffering and compassion which graces as they make him a meet head and husband for the Church so they make married couples meet heads and helpers for each other Faith I say doth draw from Christ all such abilities and graces as may prepare the soule to all the services which the marriage estate cals for Even as the spokes or staves of the wheele strengthen it for the good motion of it so doth faith strengthen this great master-wheele of conversation which is Marriage Reas 2 Againe except the honour of Marriage be forelaid in the entrance when the minde is free and impartiall how should it be like to be provided for in marriage it selfe Alas marriage hath her handsful of trial what grace is already wrought in the soule marriage will finde a gracious heart work enough at the best for it iâ— given to exercise grace It is not given to worke grace without singular mercy doe occasion it but to exerciâ—e it for what abundance of other distractions doe there fall out in this estate which as the Apostle tels us keepe off the soule from sitting close and comely to God The necessity of marriage-occasions are such as compell the parties each to please other in the matters of this life So that except single persons have well bethought themselves and fitted themselves with a stocke to live upon they will finde it an hard thing to act a true part on this stage upon the sudden rather they are like to finde except God alter it marriage to pul them from God to carry their spirits to worldlinesse unsetlednesse cares feares temptations lusts sometimes on the right hand by baits to carnall ease and jollity and otherwhiles on the left to snares and distempered passions of anger and impatience neither of which extremity favours religion but kils and damps it taking up all the time and leasure of the soul from attending the best things or at lest causing it to attend them lesser as good never a whit as we say as never the better Reas 3 Besides these reasons what hope have we that when we forsake Gods way he will be found of us in ours How just is it for him to forsake us and give us over to our owne by-ends and respects in our marriages and to suffer us to defile our selves more and more that as we entred badly so we should live worse and end worst of all As Paul saith The wicked waxe worse and worse deceiving and being deceived so may the Lord plague ungodly marriages by themselves and scourge them with their owne whip so that the husband should be deceived with the bad qualities of the wife and she by his one defiling the other more and neither doing any good to the other Wee see it thus daily uncleane men doe but teach their wives their trade that they might match them in their kinde carnall proud and bad wives draw their husbands to the like evils one must please another by concurring with
let me speake unto you and be admonished ere it be too late ere either the one of you be swept from the other or both to destruction to consider your sinne at the first humbling your soule for it and much more for the long thred of your former course which you have spent amisse And if neither of you will at all profit by either word or workes of God while you live together but goe on hardned in your mutuall wickednesse yet when God shal separate the one from the other by death crying out lamentably of his or her sinfull course oh let the survivour be yet gastred out of his den and with that third Captaine of fifty cry out to God and say Although thou hast parted us Lord and my companion be dead in sinne yet let my life I pray thee be precious in thy sight unsettle me from those lees upon which I am setled for want of roling that I may breake off my long prophane fruitlesse conversation and seeke thy face and recover my selfe ere I depart and be seene no more Oh! it were better I grant if the Lord were so pleased that as both of you have bin partners in sinne and one corrupt flesh so you might both together repent and become one spirit in the Lord both of ye might be rouzed by his terrours out of your dead sleepe that the one being humbled might gaster his fellow and say husband wife seest thou not that Gods hand is out against us and his wrath is upon us we are under all adversity our bodies soules children and affaires nothing prospers oh we have made use a long time each of other for the divels vantage till our bones be full of the sin of our youth except we returne in time God will be avenged on us and send us to our place and long home of misery Alas we have never honoured marriage as other holy couples have done its strange patience that yet we are on this side hell let us now joyne together and turne to the Lord that if possible all may be forgotten and forgiven Oh! happy you if ever you should live to see that day happy your poore children and family whose soules you should snatch out of the fire and be instruments of pulling them out of that misery unto which you have bred them But I forbeare But there is a fourth sort of marriages whereof either party onely is religious These also are to be humbled for their ungrounded attempt the one for ventring upon an irreligious yokefellow the other for irreligious entrance Zachary and Elizabeth are commended that they were both just therfore it is a staine to such marriages as wherein either party is good the other opposite to it Example whereof we have in Scripture David and Michal Nabal and Abigail Iob and his wife The Lord who forbad to sowe one field with divers seedes or to weare a garment of linsey-wolsey much more abhors that the marriage-bed should be defiled with persons of divers religious for we know no opposition is so strong as that which is spirituall and how then should there be amity and love where the seeds of greatest enmity abide What a tempting of God is it to draw the yoke of God with one that drawes in the yoke of the Divell Oâ— as Paul speaks in the like case What fellowship is there betweene Christ and Belial the beleever and the infidell what is such an union save a monster compounded of divers natures by an adulterous mixture What a noysome thing were it for a lively and healthy body to walke with a dead caâ—casse bound to it backe to backe How long could it continue how should it avoid putrifaction as appeareth by the manner of that punishment in some cases inflicted among the Heathens as that image of Nebuchadnezzar which had the body made of mettals and the feet of clay could not abide long without dissolution so neither can that temper which consists of such contraries And hitherto adde that which one well observeth that when good and bad joyne together seldome is the worse bettered by the good but often the better is marred by the worser party The browne bread in the oven wil be sure to fleece from the white not that from it How can it otherwise be in this so neere a knot of marriage since it s seldome seene but it s so in all other fellowships when the one party is patient devout meeke sober a lover of the Word conscionable in Sabbaths and the use of meanes the other carelesse froward unchaste intemperate and prophane what a corrasive must the one needs be to the other and instead of an helper what a continuall dropping was it a savory thing thinke we to Iob to heare his wife bid him Curse God and dye himselfe being so armed with patience as to say Shall wee receive good things of God and not evill When David danced before the Lord and in the height of zeale brought home the Arke of God was it a pleasing thing to heare Micol to call him foole for his labour and although they are not so grosse as to scoffe at their husbands or wives yet what a crosse is it to have such lying in our bosomes as are of a diverse minde what complaint is so usuall in these dayes as to heare the complaints of good husbands of ill wives and wives of husbands through this desparity Some making their moane for the churlishnesse straightnesse maliciousnesse restraint from use of meanes others for other eye-sores of which sort unequall marriages are infinitely fruitfull So rare are those couples of whom it may be said They draw mutually and equally in one yoke as Zachary and Elizabeth both just diligent hearers zealous worshippers lovers of God of good men and the like And hence it is that there is oftentimes little difference betweene those families in which both be bad and those in which onely either party is good because commonly the better party makes himselfe but a prey to the other Religion must alway be the disadvantage of the party and the irreligious must beare the chiefe sway even as the elder brother will dominâ—â—e over the yonger because of his birth-right so the better party must ever looke to be the underling As we say or a syllâ—â—â—â—â—◠〈◊〉 the conclusion ever followeth the weaker 〈…〉 Alaâ— where both parties are as they ought how 〈…〉 is done â—o many croâ—â—es businessâ—â— of the world debts and temptations by sinne and Satan come betweene that even the comfort of such marriages goes neere together what good is like to be done when the one is alway thwarting the other in the duties of the family or lesser occasions I say when the maine is crazie how shall the rest be sodered But enough of these To passe therefore to another sort of couples how many husbands are of this ranke disaffected to their
the childe may claime the best amends I say then such promises binde not in conscience because the princible of willingnesse is absent and the party would never have consented if such feare and compulsion had not beene used I adde this except afterward the party being freed from such feare and returning to her selfe shall expresse another consent free and ingenuous then the former impediment cannot frustrate this latter promise Thirdly it must also be without deceit or false opinion and that in such a kinde as opposeth marriage essentially Hence those Heathenish presidents of marriages are frustrate when one sexe marries the same Nero was an horrible example when an Eunuch marries a woman or a woman marries an Hermophradite one of the Epicene gender when a man is deceived in the person as Jacob in Lea put into his bed in stead of Rahel notwithstanding the act of copulation but especially when the party supposed to be pure and a virgin proves defiled and corrupted in such a case if it breake out before marriage consummate it doth justly infringe the promise and makes it of none effect This be said touching a binding promise But touching this last of error understand it of no other errors accidentall which doe not of themselves crosse marriage For though they may be such as gave occasion to the party to consent and had the error beene foreknowne the party would not have yeelded yet because they disannull not the reall knot of marriage that is peculiarity of person by defilement therefore they are presumed no other then in some cases would have beene admitted and therefore the party must stick to his or to her promise neverthelesse and therefore let them either beare it as their desart for lacke of inquisition or if they did their indeavour to be informed but were deceived let them take it as the triall which God hath put upon them the promise bindes still except the other party releaseth it And so much for this question Vse 1 Some Vse would doe well ere I leave it because the point is but occasionall and shall be no more returned unto And I would urge these two uses following the one of Admonition the other of Reproofe The admonition is that â—ingle persons be well advised of their promises ere they make them And indeed few words might serve if the former item were well regarded viz. that the speaking of a few words at once may for ever dispossesse them of their liberty never to be recovered fooles once and slaves perpetually So that it s no matter of slightnes and merryment no play no trifle no sport except you will call that a sport which may cost a poore wretch both body and soule Abuer indeed called murder a sporte but bitternesse was in the end of it Be advised therefore and let this point seasonably as a hammer knocke home to the head the former exhortation of marrying in the Lord and wisely to looke well about you e're you venture I pray tell me would you willingly make another man master and owner of any commodity you have for nothing say it were but your horse or cow yea were it but a dogg which you set by I trow not how much lesse of thy selfe Art thou so seelly as to resigne up the right of thy selfe and to make thy selfe a prisoner a captive in the prison of marriage whence there is no escape Surely no except thou art mad and hatest thine own flesh thou wouldst not doe that with a breath which all thy worth cannot revoke and undoe As Salomon saith beware how thou become surety for a stranger quit thy selfe speedily and deliver thy selfe as a Roe and as a bird from the net of the pursuer Man or woman youth or maid looke to your promises I thinke resignation of a mans or womans selfe to an other had not need to be to every commer to every unknowne stranger to each unchast irreligious indiscreet companion which might make thy life irkesome for ever In the promise is the foundation of marriage whether it be well done or ill it can be done but once therefore let it be deliberately wisely and well done Oh! let it be a solemne thought with you my promise gives away my selfe and takes unto my selfe another my liberty is gone If a woman be urged to give up her right onely in a little copy-hold she will shrug at it and thinke well of it before hand And yet shee may possibly recover a better peece of land for a small matter But this free hold of thy person and thy liberty once resigned up and forgone can never be recovered againe Therefore I say be well advised e're thou forfeit it The second use is Terror and Reproofe to all who have disguised themselves in this kind of inconsiderate rash promises You shall have leasure enough to repent if anguish will suffer you Also of all violent parents who to be ridd of their children force them upon unsutable marriages which their children had as leive part with their lives as venture upon and so bring upon them a lasting monument of misery If saith the parent thou refuse this match I will never own thee for my child I will dispossesse thee of all Nay what say you to parents who first defloure virgins and then force their childen to marry the harlots for a cover of their owne villanie Is not this cursed love and cruell command of an inocent child But to be short especially it rebuketh the basenesse of many who cast arrowes and deadly things and say am not I in sport that is who scrue themselves with strong perswasions and arguments into the hearts of such as they sue unto and having so done breake off all againe and wipe off every crumme off their mouthes as if they had eaten no bread Oh you masterlesse persons what are sollemne promises but cobwebs which great flyes can breake through Make ye no bones of them doe ye snap these bandes in two as Samson did his cordes and greene withes There is one who is stronger then you who will not be mocked but bind you for bursting in cheines too strong for you But perhaps you will say if it were my lightnesse and giddinesse it were very sinfull indeed and I deserved never to be trusted more Yes perhaps your word shall be taken but it shall be by such an one as shall make you doe penance against your will all your life for the breach of that promise which you willingly made But you have since that heard sad reports of the party for instance sake That the woman is no huswife or is a Melancholique person not fit for your temper nor yet in a second marriage for your children or she hath some of her owne or some such blemish now you have found out well either these are true or else false Are they false How basely minded art thou whom the pratling tongue of some false sycophant jangler or gossip
due rate that you may know them to the ful weight having weighed thē in the ballance This putting your sickle in your neighbours corne will prove too hot and heavie it will cause your owne to shale and perish the while It s a better worke of the two for you to thinke you see wonder in your own companions though there be little in either then to bee quicksighted in seeing the gifts of others bee they never so excellent at least its the farre safer error of the two It must be the mutuall reflexe and exchange of gratious and sweet vertues in and from each other rebounding as the sunbeames from the wall that only can holde you in an invincible league of amity The marking of each others goodnes compassion fidelity chastitie which must continue that first love which at the first they caused You need not quench love it s enough that you withdraw this fuell and looke upon the infirmities of each other the onely dampe and choakepeare of affection these alone will kill it And when other fuell failes as I sayde before let religion step in and make it up this will keep harmonie in other discord Reade over that divine songe of Salom. Setting out the blessed union betweene Christ and his spouse the Church wherin is most lively expressed what inward content and feeling ioy each partakes in other through the fight of each others perfections She in her heade because in him shee beholdes all fulnesse of wisedome and grace and hee in her because of the reboundings of those ornamēts and graces of the spirit wherwith he had furnished her So much forthis second Vse 3 Thirdly this must bee a serious caveat to all married couples to nourish this their love and to preserve it entire Which will the more easily be obteined if they shall consider those sad effects which come from the decay of it in the lives of couples As Salomon speaking of drunkennes saith whence are red eyes whence are woundes and quarrels Are they not from the red wine and St. Iames whence are warres and contentions among you Are they not from your lustes that fight in your members you seeke and enjoy not but miscarry in all your attempts see not whence your misery commeth So say I whence are those ende lesse debates differences betweene the married that they are alway seeking for blessing and longing after an happy life but still it goeth further and further from them Alas because they dreame still the fault is without doores in this and that bad servants ill successe improvidence and sometime in each other but never set the sadle upon the right horse the disease is within their bosomes they have lost their first love each to other they are waxen saplesse and unsavory in their spirit and affection one to another While that lasted all went forwarde in a sweet maner cart went well upon wheeles for the spirit of mutuall love made it slicke and trimme the oile of love set it forward but since this was exhausted and dried up all went to havocke the sinewes of society the band of peace and perfection of thrift and welfare beeing broken there is a dissolution of the frame and a shattering of all Children have no edge to do their duties servants have no joy to doe their worke lovelesse couples are livelesse unfortunate yea the salte having lost her favour is good for nought save to be trodden under the feete of contempt and scorne Whence are those Mock-divorces so frequent in the world wherby couples seperate from each others some from bed from board from house and so farre that one shire will not holde thē beeing barred of a real they please themselves in a locall content which yet lasts not the names of each others much more the companyes beeing odious Hence come those hideous presidents of conspiracies one against the life of another adulteries villanies yea murthers practized against husband and wife he who despizeth his owne life is soon Mr. of anothers and how can a man chuse but despise his life when he feeles it wearisome As those 4. Lepers sayd let us be desperate and rush upon thee Campe of Aram for what is our life worth we are but dead men wee cannot be worse so may lovelesse couples say whatsoever we doe we suffer we cannot be worse though we were not thēwe are A dead dog is as good as such a living lyon Hence againe come those manifold suites and pursuites abroad exclaming jealousies at home the treasure is stollen love is gone As he sayde of his Idolls so I of this love you have stollen my Gods and do you aske mee what ayleth thee The fence is broken the sluce is pulled up all goes to wracke and confusion There is as much use of a bone out of joint yea of a man out of his wits as of such a couple Fidelity modesty huswifery in a woman degenerate into carelesnesse of body of soule of state of name into meere vanity a woman not loving her husband will not stick to pull one eie of her owne to pull out both of her husbands as the fable tells rob and spoile her selfe of goods and good name that she might spoile him Nay many have devoted themselves to a defilement of their bodies to be revenged each of other meere hatred and spite hath drawne them to such sinne as lust alone would not have done This tast may be sufficient to warne all who be not forlorne to looke to themselves to beware how they embessel that sacred stocke which God hath inspired all such married ones withall whom he meanes to susteine in this state with integrity and honour Marriage is honourable keepe then the pledge of it entire which is love It s like that Image in the Capitall called the Paladium which if it ever came to be seene and profaned threatned ruine to their Commonwealth therefore they kept it in a most affected secrecy and safety God hath bestowed it to make the difficulties of the married life tolerable which else the multitude of them would make yrkesome and shall a man having but one string to his bow cut it in two or a city having but one engin to defend themselves cast it away Let it bee a warning to all sorts therefore Lastly this point must be exhortation to couples to practise and discharge faithfully this joint duty of marriage ove each to other Wheresoever thou art whithersoever thou goest whatsoever thou dost remember thou carriest about thee a precious pearle looke to it prise it and preserve it as thy life There be sundry motives to presle this upon willing couples as hammers to drive this naile home to the head and indeed I may say of it as he once said of one an honest man need not a dishonest man will not be warned The generall motive to both husband and wife is Gods charge to them live and love Both of you thinke thus
her beauty but her bane her devotion but profanenesse She that thought no crumbe clave to her lips because she had paid her vowes yet escapes not her eternall reproach because she was a disloyall harlot Tell me wert thou married to a chast wife blind of an eie lame of an hand a legge whether wouldest thou change her for one sound in all being unchast I trow not That which then covers all wants is worth the due improoving and carefull attendance Reas 5 Fiftly this chastity is the corner stone that holdes in all the parts of the building A chast wife hath her eies open eares watching heart attending upon the welfare of the family husband children and servants she thinks that all concerne her estate content posterity this rivets her into the house makes her husband trust to her commit all to her heart and all But the unchast having lost his or her heart is loosened from the whole body thinks nothing perteining to her is ready to part the children leaving the lawfully and chusing the misbegotten for her portion that so she may goe to her Paramour That which Saul through mistake thought Michal would prove to David that doth an unchast one without doubt prove to her husband a very snare That which I said before of love may be said of her sister chastity she is painfull close doth all things hopeth believeth endureth all things without grudging The frost is nothing by night the heate by day toile in both because he loveth her she him each are faithfull loiall to other Who should not nourish that tree which hath such branches Whereupon some thinke the English and Latine wordes Chaste do come from a greeke word signifying to Adorne noting that Chastity is one of the cheefe ornaments of the married and so of all in either sexe One saith As the face of a statue or faire picture razed or the head rent off so is the most beautifull rich honorable person if Chastity be gone Its as that father speaks The Ornament of the Noble the exaltation of the low the Beauty of the Abject the solace of the sorrowfull the encrease of beauty the glory of religion the friend of the Creator Reas 6 Lastly Chastity preserves marriage in honor and ought to be jointly againe preserved because it preserves that joint â—lessiâ—g of God which makes it honorable and that in sundry respects 1. of the fruitfulnesse of the wombe Many thinke a fruitfull posterity rather a crosse then a blessing but the godly are of his mynd who sayde she shal be as the fruitfull vine by the side of thine house and thy children as olyve plants round about thy table The adulterer and adulteresse are cursed with barren wombes fruitlesse bodies There is not now such a cursed water to try the uncleane by rotting the wombe and bowells of the harlot nor to become a water of blessing to the chast But in stead thereof there is a curse of God upon the one and a blessing upon the other Even the adulterine mixtures of Beasts as the Mule comming from the Asse and the Mare have a brande of barrennesse nature stopping all infinitenesse and confusion as most contrary to her selfe how much more the bodies of adulterous husbandes and wives and wheras it is objected Object some harlots are fruitfull and some chast wyves are barren Answ the answere is still the curse holdes upon the bastard fruite of the one and the blessing upon the soule of the other As the Prophet encourages those holy Eunuches that kept God Sabbaths that it should go better with them then if they had sons and daughters even a place should be given them in the house of God and an everlasting name that never should be cut off So doth he here to all chast ones when he cuts off the cursed race of the uncleane then he continues to the godly though barren a better name then posterity could atteyne unto Secondly to the chast belongs the blessing of legitimation but to the uncleane the curse of illegitimate ones to bring Bastards into the family as lawful heyres how execrable and how unnaturall is it The children of Gilead cast out Iephtah bcause he was the strangers issue Sara sayd well of Ishmael The son of this stranger though of her owne gift shal not inherit with my son Isaac But the curse of Adultrous is to leave their wealth to bastards As the Lord cursed the garment made of mixt lmsey and wolsey the field sowne with sundry kinds of graine together so much more the illegitimate posterity of defiled persons As Eagles fethers consume the fethers of other foules so the unlawfull brood of the uncleane devoures he lawfull till at last that fire consume them and all which is threatned the children of the whore the Adulterer for it was unlawful fire that begat theÌ„ the same shall kindle and burne till it have destroied them And thirdly to the Chaste eveÌ„ a curse is turned to a blessing The sorrowes of conception and birth turne to the salvation of the pure and Chast beeing faythfull wheras the blessing of marriage turneth to a curse to the other As all things are impure to the impure as the ceremony also made the things and vessel to be defiled whether wood or stone which the leper touched But especially to the impure in bodies yea their very consciences are as impure as their flesh and therby whatsoever thy doe touch use partake or possesse is made filthy because their nasty consciences tell them so Even so To the pure all things become pure As our Saviour saith of almes Give almes to the poore of that you have and all the whole lumpe of your estate shal be cleane vnto you So here If couples keep themselves pure in body and spirit pure are their prayers readings conference Sabbaths Sacraments service of God yea in Christ all things are pure unto them their health estate eating and drinking duties fellowship and benevolence bed and board and all they take in hand Now to finish the reason if it be under such a threefold blessing then ought so happie a vertue as Chastity to be jointly preserved by both the married persons Quest But heer it wil be demanded how should Chastity in Marriage be preserved and in how many things standes it I answ In these foure First in the Chastity of the spirit Secondly of prevention Thirdly of the Bed Lastly of the Body Answ For the first the center of Chastity is the minde and spirit If that bee pure there neede bee no keepers as he once saide of those Romanes the richer sort of whom kept their wyves chastity by Eunuches if that bee uncleane no keepers will serve the turne unbrideled luste like the wilde fig will soone mount over the wall The first care then must bee to keepe that cleane from whence as our Saviour saith
upon the former foundation both making up marriage to grow to an happy frame and building which who so behold can no other judge but those parties are well met and dwell commodiously But will better appeare in particulars how the one differs from other This then is the point that both married persons ought studiously to maintaine this grace of mutuall consent as a maine peece of that which must maintaine the honour of their marriage Reas 1 Such a thing is this of consent As may appeare both by the judgements of all those who either by wofull experience could never attaine it though their eager desire after it may proove it to be the crowne of marriage or the more happy experience of such as have atteined it according to their desire and found it to bee no lesse then I have spoken For the former of these who need to question it but that must needs be most honorable for lacke whereof the estate and contentation yea whole welfare of thousands have perished Who covets that with earnestnes which hath not some rare felicity in it And when a man hath with all his skill sought that which yet when all is done hee cannot atchieve yea is further off from what remedy but such a one must needes lie downe in sorrow If the deferring of the soules desire is the fainting of it what is the utter defeating of it when as not for the present only but for adoe for ought appeares a man foresees his own misery and must of necessity survive the funerall of his owne happinesse For the latter who doubts of the honour and price of that commodity unto which they who have enjoyed it doe esteeme all as meere drosse and dung Even all their wealth beauty and birth which yet doe much conferre to a comfortable life What shall it profit a man to winne all these and to lose his owne content in a sweet amiablenesse of conversation Or what shall a man give for a recompence of it if it should be in hazard Thus will every one speake of this blessing except he be a foole to whom the Sunshine is wearisome for the continuall shining of it and yet this faire wether may doe hurt so cannot consent or such as to whom nothing will seeme pretious save by the want of it As for all wise men they will affirme it That then which in both the confessions both of desirers and enjoyers makes so much for the honour of marriage justly deserve the joint consent of both parties to ensue and mainteine Reas 2 Secondly the very nature of this jewell the nobility the praise and price of it in generall is a signe of the worth and how it deserveth the joint care of couples to maintaine it It may challenge equality with the things of greatest price and excellency Oh thou sweet amiablenesse and concord what may not be said of thee Thou art the ofspring of God the fruite of Redemption the breath of the spirit Thou art the compound of contraries the harmony of discords the order of Creation the soule of the world without which the vast body thereof would soone dissolve it selfe by her owne burden as wearisome to it selfe and fall in sunder by peacemeale from each other By thee oh sweet peace and concord the heavens are combined to the earth by their sweet influence by thee the earth confines the unlimited waters within bounds both earth and waters nourish those inferior vegetables by thee those same creatures nourish the sensible by thee those sensible againe returne their food to the most noble members of the world the reasonable that so the spirituall part which is above the rest I meane the inner man and new creature might by them for them and in them all honour his Creator Oh thou divine consent the sweet temperature of bodily complexions the blessed union of soule and body the lawe of government to Commonwealths and societies the band of perfection in the Church the reconcilement of God with man the recollection and confederating of all things in one both in heaven and earth the life of the family the daughter of love sister of peace and mother of blessing Canst thou then who art the life of all things chuse but be the honour of marriage Shall all other creatures know no other marriage band and shall the truly married be without it Is it so sweet and good a thing to see brethren to dwell together in affection although they cannot alway in place and habitation and must it not needs be more sweet to them who are both in affection and habitation inseparable If in distance of bodies by necessity yet if it be so sweet what is it in the necessity of each others presence All this considered what a joint care ought there to bee in couples to nourish it How stupid doe they declare themselves to be who doe not feele it The Beasts the Birds the Plants are sensible of it and strive to put forth themselves to all mutuall offices of service each to other for the improving of it as loath to forge such a jewell and shall married Christians be senslesse and carelesse of it Reas 3 Thirdly that which is honorable both in the coherence and consequence of it deserves mutuall care in couples to preserve it betweene themselves But such is this consent For marke when love hath once combined and incorporated two to one what an instinct doth it breed and what influence doth it instill into each party for the usefull services belonging to their place Each Bee flies abroad to work and carry home to her hive being once appropriated to it Even so here Readinesse and willingnesse in each party to his and her office the man to toile without in weary labour and travaile and the woman within doores both without complaint these â—low from the geniall consent of each with other Hence nothing is thought too much benevolence providence forbearance patience fidelity secrecy all vertuous offices The husband complaines not that the burden lies all upon his shoulders the wife as weake as she is mutters not that her sicke husband lies upon her hand and spends all from her like to leave her in want Both cheerefully goe on acted by Providence to looke upon a promise and all because a secret accord of spirit puts them forward to the work The reason comes to this issue That which is as usefull and gainfull as its pleasant and contentfull is as the dew of Hermon and the oile upon the head of Aaron in both so much graces marriage deserves that the married should enshrine it in their bosomes and nourish it with joint endeavor Reas 4 Lastly this grace of consent is that which brings the Lord himselfe to rule and reigne in the family over the married themselves and all that pertaine to them then well doth it deserve the care of all married persons to joine themselves in the promoting
himselfe and exposing himselfe to hazard and in both how he preserves innocency and uprightnesse Besides these she may behold in him neither on the one side cowardize in a good cause nor in the other folly in the bad handling of it how close and secret he is to them that are faithfull friendes to God and himselfe how he is neither basely niggardly nor yet vainly lavish that he is neither lightly credulous nor yet sinfully distrustfull in his liberties neither taking the uttermost nor yet scrupling the moderate and lawfull Thus I say when shee sees the image of God shining in his understanding and behaviour she shall be farre from despising him at least justly for grace is honorable and makes the face to shine even before such as have little good in them much more such as can observe it Nay more shee shall honor him as her head see cause of entirely loving him devoting her selfe first to God in thanks for such a blessing and then to him in all loyall affection No woman save a Micol can find any disdaine in her heart of such an husband And which is the crowne of all shee shall represent and act her husbands vertues upon the stage of her owne practice and conversation So much for this second Vse 1 If this be thus how much to blame are many husbands of all sorts we Ministers you people who in matters of God suffer their wives to live at randon Because they see it requires some labor to menage the soules of their wyves by that neere Communion I have spoken of therfore they plucke off hand quite from boorde leave them wholly to themselves to sincke or swim The very grounde of the sluggard doth not so speake against his sloth by the briars thistles wherewith it s overgrowne as the soules of these mens wyves by their profanenes and their lives by their immodest rude behaviour So themselves can hold bodily welfare farewell sleep and play and lye downe in an whole skin what care they what becomes of them How many inclinations are there in some tender plants at first marriage which through the neglect of husbands vanish How many sweet parts and graces which lie and ruste for the want of good improovement how many blemishes and wants which wise and seasonable counsell might redresse are suffred to grow remedilesse how many husbands might say of their wives as once a shrew sayde of her husband shee could have lived sweetly with him if shee would meaning it was not passion but a spiteful heart which hindred it so it s not ignorance but a â—ase lasie heart which doth this had they bin worth their eares God seconding theÌ„ they might have improoved them sweetly And how gladly would such wives have blessed God for their counsell if they might have bin beholding to them for it what honor had they got for their instrumentall help to convert support save theÌ„ If thou do not this work how canst thou say thou lovest her or thy heart is with her Surely thou shalt pay the sad shot of her sin If no place in thy house bed board closet walke can witnesse for thee if any common worke steale away thine heart or leasure from helping her If she run into riot because thou staydst her not how just is it that thy life goe for hers wherewith God betrusted thee Vse 2 Secondly how great cause is there that some bad husbands should tremble to consider that they have bin so far froÌ„ guiding their wyves with understanding that alas they lack all wisedome to guide themselves So that if their wives should be so unhappy as to tread in their steps they must of necessity fall with theÌ„ into the ditch of all error profanneesse Alas how full is the world of women not the worst for disposition hope of good who yet through ill planting because they see that else they must live a dismall life not only stumble at the threshold and go not one step forward but ten degrees backward being fain to comply with their husbands and waxe tenfold more the children of the devill then before what is more easy then for a weake Chamaeleon a faint and weake creature to resemble the colour of each cloth its laide in when they see no feare of God nor reverence of man care of Sabbaths conscience in dealings savor in examples to fall to the like especially fynding a sweetnes and welpleasing to the flesh and nothing to gainsay it How basely dare they speake of sincerity of the ministery how vaine frothie and fashionable grow they their husbands reading them the lecture and as Abimelec saying what you see mee doe do ye likewise How full is each corner of Lamecs desperate varlets who act villany wrath rage envy worldlines pride and scorne before their wives to cast them into the like moulde of wickednesse Vse 3 But if it fall out that there bee any more wisedome in women matcht which such Nabals to observe and judge aright how can they chuse but underprise them for want of understanding Is it wonder that a woman except very humble should extremely vilify such an head Doth the Apostle justly reproove men for wearing shag hayre like women and for shaming their head or being ashamed of the glory of God which they resemble by the uncovering of it and shall not these dishonorers of their headship much more be condemned as in this matter of walking like men of understanding before their wives yes surely it s no wonder that their complaints against such husbandes are so frequent that they can nourish so little honor in their hearts toward them who powre out so much contempt upon their owne heades I do not patronize such women as do so but yet their disdeyne is in some sort veinall against them who do so violate the Ordinance â— what a clog is it to be matcht to a man who in stead of stayednesse and due wisedome is not so much as sensible when he is told of his follies So openly ridiculous that as oile in the hand it bewrays it selfe to all men So shallow-braynd fickly easily led aside by any bad counsellor to any loose uncleane wastfull courses who makes as many promises as he hath fingers on both handes and that daily but breakes them before he go to bed what wise woman can endure it to see him who should understand himself to bee so seely credulous in judicious that each base cheating companion can cosen him of his wealth rob him of his money make him drunke and picke his pocket Such a foole as will lend every man he meets with that wold borrow not shillings but poundes without any band save a bare word as good never a whit as never the better to such as are not worth that they borrow what indignation would it moove in a woman to be compelled to follow her wise husband to the Alehouse to gaster
to be idle except a man be well occupied too early up never the neerer is to small purpose A wise judicious head is as good a toole for a Trade as a nimble apprehension lest cost without wit proove wast Here then observe some Rules First begin thy action and workmanship with God and the rather if thy service be the worke of Study of the mind especially Trust not thine owne wisdome but commit thy waies to God That so as thou hast shunned a bad trade so thou maist abhore all basenesse in a good one which easily creepes in under color It s in vaine to build except the Lord bee the Master builder Except the Lord watch the City in vaine are the watchmen in vaine it is to eate browne bread and drinke water rising early and lying downe late for he giveth rest to his beloved Many have miscarried in their thrift and prosperity no man can tell how or why save only that irreligion hath bred a secret canker and shut God out of doores I have noted it some cannot keep out the waters from flowing in and wealth from encreasing while they in a manner sit still and others fray it away by their eagernesse For the one counts it the honour of their faith to sit still thy strength shall be to sit still and make no hast the other by their hast fill themselves with snares God will be the chiefe mystery in all trades not Manu-factuaries and Merchandize onely but even Sciences and ingenuous Studies even Scholers must place the Bible above all their bookes and all sorts of set praiâ—r above and before all their worke Yet so make Gods providence chiefe as not destroying thine owne Beware of base cowardly Sioth Ease slaies the foole both body and soule It puts hand in bosome but is loath to pull it out It s like Jacob for frost and heate and all weathers it frames lyons in the way if it should put foorth it selfe lusking in a bed of idlenesse loathing action Such should not eate The idler is the companion of the waster whiles he rolles upon his hinges foldes his hands and yanes after more sleepe and sloth he hastens poverty upon himselfe as the necessity of an armed man The thornes on his backside are his Emblem Yet abhorre being ill occupied as much as sloth There is a golden measure in all things Our proverbe saith better sit for naught then stir for naught Rash headlong wilfull indiscreet busying a mans selfe may proove worse then lying in bed as some eager onâ—s keep wares at a good price offred till they proove trash It s a question whether there be more husbands proove beggers by the pot and pipe then by overmuch nimblenesse and deepnesse in the world and medling too much Thirdly a good husband must beware of loathing and wearisomenesse in his calling when gaines come not in according to thy expectation and desert for I speake still to all Artists both studious and manuall Looke not at other trades of quicker returne and dispatch to bring thee out of conceit with thine owne Abide in the vocation wherein God hath pitcht thee Hold the trade of thy youth till old age leave it not either because thou thrivest not fast enough or because thou hast thriven enough alredy still shew that thy trade is not thine onely object I deny not but some cases there may be where the trade may be altred as when stock is wanting without dangerous borrowing upon usury when it s so sunke that it affords no competency for the family when some other is offred wherein as much skill as in the former or some marke of providence appeares that the change is from God But to pick quarrells with our trades that we might turne to such as we conceit to be speedier for returne and gaine that we might be rid of our owne threatens future misery under the speciousnesse of present commodity To goe through many trades is the high way to beggery Fourthly subject thy selfe to thy trade of life not for gaine sake but for conscience whether thou get or not as that yoke which God hath put upon thy necke to try thee to tame thy sloth pride and other sinne that the penalty of Adams curse may become to thee as Jacobs curse upon Levi through his obedience to God became to him a blessing The travail of the husbands hands and labour may possibly be made to him as the travaile of the wombe is made to the believing wife a benefit and favour Onely the rebellion of an unsubject heart to the obedience of God in what kind soever brings a curse The richest man yea the Gentleman must hold his trade still the poorest also must abide in it both as in their vocation The Lord tries thereby the faith patience meekenesse bounty thankfulnesse selfedeniall uprightnesse and paines of the husband It s not given for men to fledge themselves and mipe their fethers by but to avoide temptations and snares which if we avoid not but incurre neverthelesse as most doe we turne Gods remedy into an encreaser of the disease that is an occasion of eager worldlines surfiting with cares and excesse a baiâ—â— of oppression usury and unrighteousnes Besides by the calling the Lord would teach a Christian husband to know what that portion is which hee purposes to alot him and what not and doth thereby serve his providence in the competent support of us and ours without sin and sorrow For such is the portion of the righteous Fiftly beware of moiling and toiling in the world onely to pocket up and hoard treasure and store filling our bellies with Gods hidden store as David Psal 17. describing the ungodly speaketh which one day will bring a wasting and consumption as fast either upon our selves or ours But abhorre all such aiming to enhance our selves above others for the jollity and pride of life This is the cast of most men if once become great to bestow all upon their pleasures in hawking gaming prodigality and wantonesse that they might have much the more as that heathen said to satisfy their lust and appetite To set their wives children and selves on float in the bravery of buildings in curious fashions or costly apparrell and the like The Lord can pluck your plumes quickly if wee drinke to be drunke or forget our beginning to bee from the dunghill as indeed none growe prouder then such base ones keepe we moderation then and be sober God tries us by prosperity what is in us we may enjoy the travell of our hands and the benefit of our welfare so that prodigality on the one side and base niggardise on the other which commonly in this self-loving world concurre be abhorred Sixtly which perhaps to some may seeme strange God will have thee maintaine thy husbandry and providence by serving him with the encrease of thy labour and his
will not be so mad as to smite it because its one with it selfe and suffers the same fall with it So here The samenesse of flesh which the woman hath with the man makes him naturall and sympathising towards her and not to hurt or hate her in her weaknesse and stumblings but to bear with her condole her and count himselfe to suffer in her his content joy and welfare not to stand in himselfe but in her who is another selfe and therefore to be as willing to wound himselfe hurt and hate himselfe as to hurt her By vertue of this union and neerenesse it is that there ariseth in the spirit of an husband who is not degenerate a marveilous natural and tender instinct of sympathie towards his wife in all her complaints and infirmities She is one with him in all things one in flesh one in generation and posterity one in blessings and welfare copartner also in all crosses and wants All these are common the husband shares with the wiâ—e and suffers in all her diseases paines trials spirituall and bodily Selfe doth ill and selflove is odious between nâ—ighbour and neighbour yea stranger and stranger much more betweene father and child brother and sister but most of all in this superlative union of marriage wherein two bodies may truly be said to be linked into one soule Here then to affect a singularity a privacy in so close an union and for the husband to be a man by himselfe apart from her who is one and the same flesh with him what a podigious selflove is it union breedes love and love sympathy and compassion but where selflove abides union and love are absent And from hence it is that in another place the Apostle addeth giving honour to the woman as to the weaker vessell which giving of honour is nothing else save the peculiar office of the husband to his wife and as I may tearme it the way of his tendernesse when as he willingly resignes up his manly authority sometimes and wisely abridgeth himselfe of that power to the utter most which else he might usurp over his weaker wife And in stead therof wisely considers it s the honour of a man sometime to be under himselfe to forget his strength there is a providence in the government of this vast world and it stands in the overruling of some inferior creatures that they may not know their strength over the superior but be kept within compasse as it were by a necessary and naturall restraint Even such a voluntary tye hath the Lord put upon the more fierce and rough nature of the male to the female that there may not onely be a consent from hurting and offending each other for so Lions and Wolves agree together but further that there might be a vertuous and more generous forbearance of authority over the weake vessel As acknowledging the headship of the man is given him not to discourage or destroy but to direct benefit and build up the wife That as God cloathes the weaker members with the more honour so wee should condescend and vouchsafe the like respect to the womans weaknesse Although a proud and base spirit would hold his owne leaping over the hedge where it is lowest yet a wise and understanding head will of his owne accord yeeld and give honour and respect unto the woman as to the weaker vessel Surely if a father be said to spare his owne sonne who feares him and the Lord will be master even over the Parent that he bee not bitter to his children to tread them under feete but count it his honour to passe by the corrigible errors of his children then what should that sparing eye that indulgent heart and hand that honour and respectivenesse bee wherby God swayeth the husband being but her equall towards his yielding and tender wife And in a word I say this giving of honour is the more speciall way of the man then of the woman for though she be so to him yet in a divers way and in a more naturall kinde as it were according to her frame for who takes it not for granted that a thing naturally framed to tendernesse should act her own property and give honour as due desert to the husband But in the mans giving honour to her there is a more vertuous and royall disposition that is an abatement of the right invested in man lest excesse of right might proove excesse of injury and a yeelding of that tendernesse and sympathy out of mercy and love which else neither perhaps the merit of the wife would require but to be sure the surlines roughnesse of the man would not easily contribute Reas 1 And of this many reasons may be yeelded For why Is there any thing gayned by Austerity and roughnesse when the dint therof returnes upon our selves Is honor and respect lost upon the wife when it reflects backe from her upon her husband Is it not well deserved on Gods part when we not only behold what graces he hath put into the wife as Treasure into a vessel of earth but also how little is got by the contrary wheÌ„ a rough husband too much yielding to that which is corrupt doth turne edge therby in his wife and force her to that which seemes to be most disguized against nature that is Reas 2 to be fierce against the husband Agayne as the Apostle sayth Do we not willingly beare with fooles our selves beeing wise And is it not as meete that we beare with the weake wee our selves beeing strong what a betraying rather a forfeit of a Masculine not to speake of a religious spirit and a bewraying not of a feminine Reas 3 but of a brutish base folly is it when a woman shal bee faynt to be are with an husbands seelynesse and fraylty as the stronger with the weaker what a dishonor is it to marriage Besides what an obligatioÌ„ doth a religious husband stand in to his yokefellow for infinite many fruits of love service to him in every kynd Not to speake of that command of God which is above all tying the husband to his wife for conscience sake though shee should fall short of the duty as once a good husband sayd to an undeserving wife Blessed bee God yet who hath given mee a wife who will do this or that for mee upon never so unkynd termes But much more if shee be deserving at his handes for all her tendernes in sicknes and health is it much if shee receive due honor and respect from him If thou owe her thine owne selfe againe for them is it much if thou repay tender esteeme prising of her If thou oughtst to lay downe thy life in some cases even for thy Christian brother rather then expose him by thine unfaythfulnesse to danger how much more shouldst thou expose thy selfe rather to the greatest hazard then betray her who is weake and unable to beare Remember the president whom
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
he ever feele himself burne if shee were weake What affliction of body or mynde coulde he ever fynd in his heart to condole for his wife What one kid gave he at any time to her out of his flocke or twelve pence out of his purse to make merry withall what one lap of his garment did he ever spread over her Or what I say not blast of cold wind but sad crosse did he ever keep in tendernesse from her himselfe being both a nipping East wind to blast her hopes and a perpetuall dropping to dwell with Many an infamy and blot hath he suffred to light upon her head though he needed not himselfe being the upshot of all Oh the snares which such unnaturall wretches bring upon innocent women but ease them of none Oh the narrow eye they carry over them watching them as the Cat the mouse from either good Sermon hearing loving friends frequenting abroad or Christian company at home Stripping their bodies of good clothes their purses of mony their hearts of delight their soules of grace as much as in them lies if grace were not past their reach to rob them of what one peny ever gave they them for good use If they knew of any who should endure the tempest of their violence they will see their owne turnes served to the uttermost But as for easing them of their burdens or being drawne to resigne up their lusts and loose liberties to joine with their wives in the burden of house government those Israelitish bondmen were as good complayne to Pharao or those other subjects to Râ—hoboam as they to their husbands for their tale of bricke should be but multiplyed their fingers should proove heavier theÌ„ their loyns before I might be endlesse But I blame only the faulty for I know and God forbid else all are not alike Many not onely irreligious but meerly civil ignorant ones have had tender melting hearts to their wyves so unnaturall wretches are all unmercifull respectlesse husbands in this kynd even bred upon the rockes and nursed up by Tygres yea fiendes in the likenesse of men Let them alone but O thou woman that fearest God persist neverthelesse in thy uprightnesse serve God not man and vile man for Gods sake do not repent thee of thy goodnesse give thy worke to God still heape up hot coales upon the head of the Barbarous if they melt not they shal burne to hel bear a while he that commeth will come not tarry causing thy light to breake out as the morning and thy Righteousnes as the noone day He shal plead the cause of the despised wife and quit her of her adversary bringing his wickednes upon his owne pate And of this third severall duty of giving honor and so of all the three thus much be spoken CHAP. XIII Treates of the personall dutyes of the wife Ana first of her Subjection to her husband IT is high time now having dispatched the husbands duties to proceed to the next branch in which the preserving of Matrimoniall Honor consists to wit the peculiar duties of the wife to the husband Else I know husbands would taxe mee for partiality and I confesse as I have no cause to conceale the priviledges of the good wife from her husband so neither must I withhold from her the knowledge of her offices and services towards him The first and maine wherof comprehending all the rest is subjection to her husband the second is helpfulnes the third Gracefulnes By her subjection she answers his understanding By her helpfulnesse she equals his providence by her gracefulnesse she supplies his tender respectivenesse in a word she answers him as face to face in water so shee in marriage service with all correspondence Else how shall the relation hold firme and entire First then of the first This duty then of subjection is the womans great and cheefe commandement and as St. Iames saith he that can rule his tongne is a perfect man can rule his whole conversation so shee who hath learned to be subject for as Paul Philip. 4. is not ashamed to say of that grace of contentation that he had learned it so may the woman say of this is a perfect woman That which was wont to be said of prounciation in Rhetorique and of humility in Divinity that may be said of Subjection in this businesse of the wife Its breadth and length it fills up all yea it s all in all the whole duty of the womaÌ„ all other sticke at this grant this and all other follow of themselves Now then this great dutie of subjection so much cavild at by the Rebellious so much honored by the dutifull and loyall wife must have a good foundation both for the convincement of the bad and for the encouragement of the good The warrant then of this duty stands not in the opinion choise or will of man or flesh no nor of nations because the world will have it so for there is a world of women to gainsay as well as of men to alledge it But it is a firme law from the will of the first ordeyner because God will have it so That very strict Imperiall Edict of Ahashuerosh that Every man should bear rule in his owne house proceeded in a sort from a discontent with Vashti a desire to be revenged for the dishonor offred Ahashuerosh her husband and for prevention of the like for time to come But if all this streame of Authority had not met with another more strong one of divine Ordinance alas it had beene no more terror to the sexe of women then swordes and spears to the Whales skin even as stubble and rotten wood No no it s an instinct put into the spirit of the woman principling and convincing her understanding will and affections viz. The great God of heaven and earth will have it so Reasons 1 Wherof two reasons may be given the one from the law of creatioÌ„ the other from the law of Penalty following disobedience For the first The man we know was first created as a perfect Creature and not the woman with him at 〈…〉 as we know both sexes of all other 〈…〉 not so here But after his constitution and frame ended then was she thought of Secondly she was not made of the same matter with the man equally but she was made and framed of the man by a rib taken from the man and being formed by God into a woman was brought unto the man And thirdly she was made for the maÌ„s use and benefit as a meet helper when no other creature besides her was not able to do it Three weighty reasons and grounds of the womans subjection to the man and that from the purpose of the Creator who else might have done otherwise that is yeelded to the woman coequall beginning samenesse of generation or relation of usefulnesse For he might have made her without any such precedency of matter without
s mine and given thee my deere mother to bee a nurse my nurse The subject wife stops not her eare to this call Shee seekes not brests in her husbands purse but in her owne bosome and according to her power takes her babe embraces and nurseth it Ruth gave her sonne Obed the brests though Naomi dry-nursed it When Pharaohs daughter had found poor Moses crying whom sent she for to nurse it rather whom sent God to it oh the mother to note Gods verdict No water like the owne no nurse to the mother As David of Goliahs sword so here its best of all None so tender so chary so carefull Physitians for a fee will be suborned to be at the request of an unaturall mother and to pronounce against the full brests and the milke thereof to advise the husband if you love your wife your child let her not nurse Another Physitian advises the contrary if you love your health nurse your child surely if the skale hang so even if you please let God cast it there being no apparant let A subject wife will bewray it this way as soone as any and the Apostle joynes it with subjection in the place so oft recited She will doe it if not for her husbands sake who lies in her bosome yet for that infants sake which lay in her wombe Though she have not such wages as Moses his mother had for her paines yet shee hath assurance of such pay from a better Master who promises her she shall bee saved that she will doe it for his sake though for neither husbands nor childes That fee and wages next to faith and love will cause her to looke upon her babe even in the worst pickle and hand that belongs to it with so sweet and smiling a countenance that she would not for the paine of many nursings forfeit it Oh thou coy woman what art thou richer then Sarah weaker then Rabel better then Rcbecca holier then Hanna then all those matrons of old who were honorable in this point of subjection whose daughter wouldst thou chuse to be theirs who nurse not or these And by these six branches mentioned judge oh yee women of the rest No one duty of many I know is lesse practised Consider what hath beene said and God give you understanding love made Jacob count all wethers welcome for Rahcl Let her thinke all service sweet for him Thus much for answer to the question wherein subjection consists Now to the uses breefly to finish withall Vse 1 And first let it bee for Admonition if yet my words may reach unto and pierce any such to all sad creatures unsubject soules in this kind to shun all Rebellion against their husbands If thou wilt hearken to thy corrupt will it will tell thee another tale and quash all my former counsell Oh it will say thou mayst winne the goale and get the upper hand of thine husband for ever if thou be damish and imperious It will make him to seeke thee not thou him But subjection will say that I get this way in the Hundreth I shall lose in the Shire If I lose the better end of the staffe with God what get I by getting it of a poore husband It s possible I may cone short too even of that but sure I am never was an unsubject woman powerfull or prevailing with God Therefore her voice is a body thou hast given me it s written in thy booke I shall doe thy will oh God! Loe here I am speake for thy servant heareth and cavills not and my soule answereth thy face will I seeke I will be subject A Zippora will throw the foreskin at her husband the meekest man upon earth Micol will say to the holiest man living even in the act of his zeale what a foole was my husband this day But a subject one will say I opened not my mouth because thou bidst so or if I have once have I spoken but I will say no more but will lay mine hand upon my mouth If I have erred teach me pardon me By crookednesse of spirit of tongue I shall lose honor gaine reproach yea hell too but by subjection as I shall honor mine head so shall he mee yea my yeelding is the way to honor mee more then all my recoylings and to winne that Authority in his heart which no usurping can ever obteine As is the shadow such is the husbands heart love fall downe upon it and thou maist overtake it if thou pursue it it flees further off So if thou contest with strong hand resist thy head he will be as a Lyon his courage wil not stoop But if thou shalt speak kindly to him win him by subjection thou hast conquered him for ever God hath appointed him to be over thee in seeking to be above him thou provokest him to Tyranny and to challenge his right but canst not subdue him by rebellion Remember thy sexe is crazy ever since Eve sinned sin is out of measure sinfull through the Law and Satans incensing loathes subjection affects impotency But oh thou woman that fearest God let that liberty with thine husband which thy subjection hath purchased satisfie thine heart seeke no more lest in catching at the shadow thou lose the Substance Let thy Birth thy Education estate endowments exceed his never so much yet the Ordinance of God hath subjected thee to thine husband with all thy perfections There is but one Law for all wives both poore and rich meane and great wise and foolish one and other that is to be subject No Pop◠no Prince much lesse the law of thine own lust cā exempt thee there were wives in Pauls time who because they beleeved could have shaken off their husbands that were Infidells But Paul meets them a going and turns them back with force upon their allegiance and subjection saying Except the separation begin from the unbeleeving party do not thou who beleevest desert the other As he saide Set meate before them and breake their hearts but smite them not so here winne them by all holy meanes but oppose not If subjection be due to heathens much more to Christians Vse 2 Lastly this is Exhortation to all wives who will stand to Gods barre Be ye subject to your husbands Let the spouse of Christ teach you she is subject to her head both in heart she gives it to him in eye she delights in his wayes she is so to him in all matters both of God and the world shee is so in her gesture speech abroad at home in all Bee thou so and prosper Without this none of thy inward abilities outwarde gifts nay the Graces of God wil be a Crowne to thy husband except it bee a Crowne of thornes No if thou wert never so huswifelike fruitfull in children rich in gold or jewells except thou adde Subjection all will not amount to the making of a crowne except this make it nothing else will All thy
the murther of Amnon then the treason of Absalon both whom he should have slaine and taken from the earth together with his just execution by Ioah the child it selfe conceived in adultery should have beene the first the open defiling of all his Concubines in the face of the sun as he had defiled others in secret The perptuall unhappinesse of his course all his life to his dying day never free from sorrow and even then in the usurpation of Adonijah what godly man ever suffred so in his children himselfe living to see it as hee why should God sit in judgment upon his owne favorite for this sin save to scare all to whom this story should come even to the worlds end And what became of Salomons glory Was it not all blasted by this sin of uncleannesse Although he lived not to see it yet what a spectacle of ruine did the Lord make Rehoboam Stripping him of the ten tribes and of the richest kingdome in his fathers daies making it the poorest that it had ever bine before What made Sampson of a judge in Israel yea a Giant a conqueror to become a foole in Israel a blynde slave to grinde in a mill save the besotting of himselfe with lust How dealt God with those Israelits at Poor Did he not set his vicegerent Phinees on work to thrug throusth the cheefe ringleaders ere he could bee pacified And when the heate of wrath seem'd to be slaked did it so vanish Did not the taile of that plague sweepe away foure and twenty thousand Coulde their priviledge of beeing Gods people save them Where is now thy mouth as he sayd who callest adultery but a tricke of youth In steed of one cloake which men use to put upon it of slightnesse what cloak doth the Lord put upon it Surely a Cloake bathed in the blood of so many thousand adulterers I was not this enough to drive men from such dalliance Who might not thenceforth call it by the name of a bloody sin of a scarlet die What shall say of our own experiēce How many have we heard of struck dead by the hand of God taking thē in the act Not suffring them to go out of the bed of uncleannes whether hath God come in person to judge such or no. And although many have bin suffred to escape such judgments yet how many missing the Beare have met with the Lion out of the horror of their conscience some dashing their braines against the walls others stabbd ' drownd ' hangd ' themselves To penne out of severall writers who have written Theaters of Gods judgements the examples of such as God hath plagued is not my scope Alas these bee daies wherin men will rather sit upon God himselfe and scorne him to his face then tremble at Gods sitting in judgement upon Adulterers But there be books which doe at large supply us in this kind if our hearts bee not quite sunke into a senslessenes of them Even while I was writing this lest I should want unsought presidents a reporte came to mine eares of a Black-smith neer Colchester whose wound is as it were yet bleeding who having made a Cheine to hang a woman that had murthered her husband fell into such suddeine terrors by Gods hand oppressing his conscience for his Adulterous life that he cried out saying that he was as wicked as shee for whom he had made the cheyne so that he could not lin till by cutting his own throate he had made an end of himselfe So the Lord pulles out some to be spectacles of reproach and detestation to the world though thousands scape All are not drag'd out by the hand of God openly as that bawdy Bishop at the Councell of Trent whom Sleidan mentions who creeping out of his window along the leades to the wife of the next house was watcht by her husband and catcht in a grinne or snare laid for him in his passage and there hung by the neck as a ridiculous object to all the beholders But I say because men object that thousands scape to some odde persons whom vengeance intercepts Tell me what better portion have they who survive then the other What one sinne hath so manifold markes of wrath upon it as this upon the soule body or person sinning as by the sequell may appeare First for soule what sinne hath found lesse place for repentance then this Closenesse secrecy shifts alway attending it which keepe the heart from all tendernesse yea defile and disable the soule from repenting nay the curse of God sealing up that soule to impenitency some walking ten some twenty some more yeeres in the guilt hereof yet with a smothered conscience and although they be wounded yet hardly healed in a kindly manner but suffering their hearts to rankle inward and outbidding all ordinances to their destruction How can it be but such a sore must break forth all at once with such a forcible outcry that nothing can still or satisfie it Secondly what sinne hath so foule a blemish and dishonour cast upon the name of the committer as this With what a blot doe wee thinke or speak of Sampson to this day And how many Divines though amisse have deeply questioned Salomons salvation Touching the outward name what a blot and infamy do they for ever procure What an infectious plague hath it prooved in the stock of the Adulterer No space of time hath purged it it hath beene as the fretting leprosie in the walls which nothing could heale save pulling downe the whole race and family from the very foundations Jeroboams name not being more prodigious and odious in Israel then an Adulterers in the Church of God as if such or such a family had bought the staple of the trade So that it is observed that this sinne hath so defiled the blood of some families that they are no sooner named but their kind is offensive scarse any in such families beeing noted to bee chast What a stinch might such cause and even a taint to a whole Country How just were it for God to pull downe the whole houses of such sticke and stone no memory of such to bee left behind How just were it having first motheaten their name by dishonor to come upon their persons as a Lyon and teare them in peeces Is not the finger of God here as they told Pharaoh when men on earth who should have censured them suffer these nasty creatures to lurke in their sties and dens poysoning the Country with their breath hath the Lord let them alone Hath he not beene fame to step in himselfe and by suddaine vengeance to cut them off And if such censures were in force as we are bidde◠to pray for in the Church of God such discipline I mean in the Church could such a sin as this escape the dint of Excommunication the greatest dart of wrath Should we have had such notorious whoremongers brought forth in the famousest places in the
ordinance the end to prevent sinne Branch 1 For the former beware of defiling any ordinance of God! That which he hath put honor upon put not you contempt upon Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled by an ordinance It s like the decree of Medes and Persians which alters not Take not you away the honour therof either by wilful abandoning of Marriage to live in lust unbridled or defiling marriage to cover your filthinesse it was not made to such an end God will bee surely avenged upon all such It s the practice of Satan and Antichrist his eldest sonne to be Gods opposite to thwart an ordinance What is so holy an ordinance as the ministry of the word the vse of Sacraments the use of the Keies And what doth hee more purposely contradict How basely speakes all this rabble from top to toe of a Minister of preaching of our Sacraments our Communion table they jeere all and oppose their Priesthood Masse Sacrifice and Altar What so sacred a civill ordinance as Magistracy They abhorre it tread under feet all kinds that crosse their owne Government cursing destroying excommunicating and murthering them at pleasure if they can come by them What so pure an ordinance as marriage But what uncleannesse is there which they preferre not before it Beware you rebels you fight against God one that is stronger then you hearten not one another against this Ark that is come into your Camp lest hee plague you and make it too hot and too heavie for your keeping Call not those things common and carnall which he hath called pure honour that which God hath stamped discerne the solemnes the sacrednesse of it defile not mine ordinance lest I make you your Sacriledge Branch 2 Secondly the end is to stop and prevent the sinne it selfe Beware then of all riot and excesse this way you who formerly during your dissolute youth have defiled your bodies or since marriage have adventured to doe so look backe and bethinke you what you have done Tremble to think that you dared to presume to sinne in that kind which God hath gastred you from Should Adam have ventured to breake into the garden againe upon the shaken sword of a Cherubin But loe the shaken sword of a greater then Cherubins are is heere How just were it that God had struck you dead in the act Still to strip you of all at once and bring you into the pit of despaire To accurse your posterity and to transmit your sin through your race to make you a by word as Jeroboam oh wonder that ever you got out of this pit if yet you be and take heed lest he who delights to see doggs and swine turn to their mire and vomit pull you not into this ditch againe Taxe not God for his severe and hard sentence against such uncleane wretches whose bodies have rotted in prison persons beene ruin'd with penury soules perisht in impenitency It were just with God your owne should have suffered no lesse for such as despise his therrors goe on still as the forlorne ranke in the mouth of the Canon wrath hath alway swept them away as a man who is aâ—gry will smite him that is next so hath he smitten some in their soules in their names bodies estates posterity to flaite others Else had hee beene unjust Now then take warning God aimes at the preventing of sinne If you by these examples repent not your selves shall goe in the drove and bee made examples that others may repent by yours And to conclude to both sorts I say knowing the terror of the Lord desist from your uncleane course who shall stand when God shall come in person to judge It s said that when Jehu sent to the Princes of Samaria Tutors of Ahabs Children to set up one of their Masters Children and fight for him they trembled and said two Kings could not stand before him and can we Therefore they chose to cut off the heads of them and send them in to him rather then to try it out I tell thee though the sonne of Nimshi were a furious marcher the sonne of God is more Not two or ten but ten thousand Kings could never stand before his revenge Hell is prepared for Kings if uncleane and adulterous Stand not out cut off the heads of these lusts and thereby make way for pardon and attonement to thy selfe if yet ever this wofull spot and crocke of spirit may bee washt out for there is but one thing even the blood of this Iudge which can cleanse it and forgiven Thinke not by peaking out of Gods sight for a while to wind out and bee forgotten So did Baalam that Bawd of Peor who curs'd Israel more by this Stumbling-block then otherwise Oh! he went to his place and lurkt in his nest till the Lord in person came upon Midian and then both the five Kings of it and all those entising fornicatresses and then Baalam himselfe was dragged out of his hole to execution verifying his owne Prophecie who shall stand when God doth these things will an innocent Lambe tremble before a Lion and shall not guilty Adulterers when God sits upon them Shall this be the fruit of Gods scaring of men that with the new built house they settle the more upon the frame when the wind most shakes them To runne to sinne to snort in it with so much the more impudency securely What is this save to mocke God and play the Giants against heaven To dare him with a Babell and try whether hee can confound us As those Philistians cried now play the men kill both Israel and the God of Israel if you can Be not so mad Time will make you thinke God is like your selves and he will neither doe good nor evill Because judgement is deferred your hearts are set in you to play the whores and villaines still But your damnation sleepes not he shall come upon you and set your disordered waies in order before you and bring as Salomon did Shemeis all your pranks old and newe at one view into your eies and then shall it not bee possible for your shoulders your consciences to stand under your loade nor endure those terrors that shall sting you as the handsels of hell which is ready to devoure you Vse 3 Lastly let us all learne to be of Gods mind and so convince our hearts of the judgements of God against uncleannesse as not to dare to think of committing it I have seene many wretches and one the other day whom flaited in his conscience by the feare of suddaine death unloading his guilty spirit into the bosome of Gods Minister even his filthy haunts with many close queanes unsuspected and under this he lay as long as the dint lasted but having found no further favour with God relapsed to his old course as a cony though taken in her hole yet if let goe hath no shift but to runne to her old burrow and harbour If
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