A Christian Directory
Argument 18. From 1. Tim 3. 4, 5, 12. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection, with all gravity: For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God: Let the Deacons be the Husbands of one Wife: Ruling their Children and their own houses well. Here mark, that it is such a Ruling of their houses, as is of the same nature as the Ruleing of the Church, muta • is mutandis, and that is, a training them up in the Worship of God, and guiding them therein. For the Apostle maketh the defect of the one, to be a sure discovery of their unfitness for the other. Now to Rule the Church, is to teach and guide them as their mouth in prayer and praises unto God, as well as to oversee their lives: therefore it is such a Ruling of their houses as is pre-requisite to prove them fit.
They that must so Rule well their own houses, as may partly prove them not unfit to Rule the Church, must Rule them by holy instructions, and guiding them as their mouth in the Worship of God. But those mentioned 1 Tim. 3. must so Rule their houses: Therefore, &c.
The Pastors Ruling of the Church doth most consist in going before them, and guiding them in God's Worship, Therefore so doth the Ruling of their own houses, which is made a trying qualification of their fitness hereunto. Though yet it reach not so high, nor to so many things, and the conclusion be not Affirmative [ He that ruleth his own house well, is fit to rule the Church of God; ] but Negative [ He that ruleth not his own house well, is not fit to rule the Church of God ]; But that is, because 1. This is a lower degree of Ruling, which will not prove him fit for a higher: 2. And it is but one qualification of many that are requisite. Yet it is apparent that some degree of aptitude is proved hence; and that from a similitude of the things: When Paul compareth Ruling the House to Ruling the Church, he cannot be thought to take them to be wholly het • rogeneous. He would never have said, He that cannot Rule an Army, or Regiment, or a City, how shall he Rule the Church of God? I conclude therefore that this Text doth show that it is the duty of Masters of families, to Rule well their own families in the right worshipping of God, mutatis mutandis, as Ministers must Rule the Church.
Argument 19. If families have special necessity of family-prayer conjunctly, which cannot be supplied otherwise; then it is God's will that family-prayer should be in use: But families have such necessities: Therefore, &c. The Consequent needs no proof: The Antecedent is proved by instances. Families have Family▪necessities, which are larger than to be confined to a Closet, and yet more private than to be brought still into the public Assemblies of the Church. 1. There are many worldly occasions about their Callings and Relations, which its fit for them to mention among themselves, but unfit to mentition before all the Congregation. 2. There are many distempers in the hearts and lives of the members of the families, and many miscarriages, and differences, and disagreements which must be taken up at home, and which prayer must do much to cure, and yet are not fit to be brought to the ears of the Church-assemblies. 3. And if it were fit to mention them all in public, yet the number of such cases would be so great, as would overwhelm the Minister, and confound the public Worship; nay, one half of them in most Churches could not be mentioned. 4. And such cases are of ordinary occurrence, and therefore would ordinarily have all these inconveniences.
And yet there are many such cases that are not fit to be confined to our secret prayers each one by himself; because 1. They often so sin together, as maketh it fit that they confess and lament it together: 2. And some mercies which they receive together, its fit they seek, and give thanks for together: 3. And many works which they do together, its fit they seek a blessing on together: 4. And the presence of one another in Confession, Petition and Thanksgiving doth tend to the increase of their fervor, and warming of their hearts, and engaging them the more to duty, and against sin; and is needful on the grounds laid down before. Nay, it is a kind of Family-schism, in such cases to separate from one another, and to pray in secret only; as it is Church▪schism to separate from the Church-assemblies, and to pray in families only. Nature and Grace delight in Unity, and abhor division; And the Light of Nature and Grace engageth us, to do as much of the work of God in Unity, and Concord, and Communion as we can.
Argument 20. If before the giving of the Law to Moses, God was worshipped in families by his own appointment, and this appointment be not yet reversed, then God is to be worshipped in families still: But the Antecedent is certain: Therefore so is the consequent.
I think no man denieth the first part of the Antecedent; that before the flood in the families of the righteous, and after till the establishment of a Priesthood, God was worshipped in families or households: It is a greater doubt whether then he had any other public Worship. When there were few or no Church assemblies that were larger than families, no doubt God was ordinarily worshipped in families. Every Ruler of a family then was as a Priest to his own family. Cain and Abel offered their own Sacrifices: so did Noah, Abraham and Jacob.
If it be objected, that all this ceased, when the Office of the Priest was instituted, and so deny the later part of my Antecedent, I reply, 1. Though s • me make a doubt of it, whether the Office of Priesthood was instituted before Aaron's time, I think there is no great doubt to be made of it; seeing we find a Priesthood then among other Nations, who had it either by the light of Nature, or by Tradition from the Church: And Melchizedecks Priesthood (who was a Type of Christ) is expressly mentioned. So that though family-worship was then the most usual, yet some more public worship there was. 2. After the institution of Aaron's Priesthood family worship continued, as I have proved before: yea, the two Sacraments of Circumcision and the Passover, were celebrated in Families by the Master of the house: Therefore Prayer was certainly continued in families. 3. If that part of Worship that was afterward performed in Synagogues and public Assemblies was appropriated to them, that no whit proveth, that the part which agreed to families as such, was transferred to those Assemblies. N • y, it is a certain proof that that part was left to families still, because we find that the public Assemblies never undertook it. We find among them no prayer but Church-prayer; and not that which was fitted to Families as such at all. Nor is there a word of Scripture that speaketh of God's reversing of his command or order for family-prayer, or other proper family-worship. Therefore it is proved to continue obligatory still.
Had I not been too long already, I should have urged to this end the example of Job in sacrificing daily for his Sons; and of Esther 's keeping a Fast with her Maids, Hest. 4. 16. And Jer. 10. 25. Pour out thy fury on the Heathen that know thee not, and on the families that call not on thy name. Its true that by [ families ] here is meant Tribes of people; and by calling on his Name, is meant their worshipping the true God. But yet this is spoken of all Tribes without exception, great and small: And Tribes in the beginning (as Abraham's, Isaac's, Jacob's, &c. ) were confined to families: And the argument holdeth from par • ty of reason, to a proper family: And that calling on God's Name, is put for his Worship, doth more confirm us, because it proveth it to be the most eminent part of Worship, or else the whole would not be signified by it: At least no reason can imagine it excluded. So much for the proof of the fourth Proposition.
Objections answered.
Object. 1. HAd it been a duty under the Gospel to pray in families, we should certainly have found it more expressly required in the Scripture.
Answ. 1. I have already shown you, that it is plainly required in the Scripture: But men must not teach God how to speak: nor oblige him to make all plain to blind perverted minds. 2. Those things which were plainly revealed in the Old Testament, and the Church then held without any contradiction, even from the persecutors of Christ themselves, might well be past over in the Gospel, and taken as supposed acknowledged things. 3. The General Precepts (to pray always, with all prayer, in all places, &c. ) being expressed in the Gospel, and the Light of Nature making particular application of them to Families, what need there anymore? 4. This reason is apparent why Scripture speaketh of it no more expressly: Before Christ's time the Worship of God was less spiritual, and more ceremonial than afterward it was: And therefore you find ofter mention of Circumcision and sacrificing, than of Prayer: And yet Prayer was still supposed to concur. And after Christ's time on earth, most Christian families were disturbed by persecution, and Christians sold up all and lived in Community: And also the Scripture History was to describe to us the state of the Churches, rather than of particular families.
Object. 2. Christ himself did not use to pray with his family: as appeareth by the Disciples asking him to teach them to pray, and by the silence of the Scripture in this point: Therefore it is no duty to us.
Answ. 1. Scripture silence is no proof that Christ did not use it. All things are not written which he did. 2. His Te • ching them the Lord's Prayer, and their desire of a common Rule of Prayer, might consist with his usual praying with them: At least with his using to pray with them after that, though at first he did not use it. 3 But it is the Consequence that I principally deny: 1. Because Christ did afterwards call his servants to many duties which he put them not on at first; as Sacraments, Discipline, preaching, frequenter Praying, &c. especially after the coming down of the Holy Ghost: As they understood not many Articles of that faith till then, so no wonder if they understood not many duties till then: For Christ would have them thus suddenly instructed and fullier sanctified by a Miracle, that their Ministry might be more credible, their Mission being evidently Divine, and they being past the suspicion of forgery and deceit. 2. And though it is evident, that Christ did use to Bless the Meat, and sing Hymns to God with his Disciples, Luke 22. 17, 18. Mar. 14. 22, 23, 26. Matth. 26. 27, 28, 30. and therefore it is very probable prayed with them often, as John 17. Yet it could not be expected that he should ordinarily be their mouth in such prayers as they daily needed. His case and ours are exceedingly different. His Disciples must daily confess their sins, and be humbled for them, and ask forgiveness: but Christ had none of this to do. They must pray for mortifying grace, and help against sin; but he had no sin to mortify or pray against. They must pray for the Spirit, and the increase of their imperfect graces; but Christ had fullness and perfection: They must pray for many means to these ends, and for help in using them, and a blessing on them, which he had no use for. They must give thanks for pardon and conversion, &c. which Christ had no occasion to give thanks for. So that having a High Priest so much separate from sinners, they had one that prayed for them; but not one fit to join with them as their mouth to God, in ordinary family-prayers, such as they needed; as Masters must do with their Families?
Obj. 3. God doth not require either vain or abominable prayers: But family-prayers are ordinarily vain and abominable: Therefore, &c. The minor is proved thus. The prayers of the wicked are abominable: most families are wicked, or have wicked persons: Therefore, &c.
Answ. 1. This is confessedly nothing against the Prayers of Godly families. 2. The Prayers of a Godly master are not abominable nor vain, because of the presence of others that are ungodly. Else Christ's prayers and blessings before-mentioned should have been vain or abominable because Judas was there, who was a Thief and Hypocrite. And the Apostles and all Ministers Prayers should be so, in all such Churches as that of Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus are described to have been. 3. I refer you to my Method for Peace of Conscience, how far the prayers of the wicked are, or are not abominable. The prayers of the wicked as wicked are abominable; but not as they express their return to God, and repenting of their wickedness. It is not the abominable prayer that God commandeth, but the faithful penitent prayer. You mistake it, as if the wicked man were not the person commanded to pray; whereas you should rather say, It is not the abominable prayer that is commanded him. He is commanded to pray such prayers as are not abominable: Even as Simon Magus, Act. 8. to Repent and Pray; and to seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near, and to forsake his way, &c. Isa. 55. 6, 7. Let the wicked pray thus, and his prayer will not be abominable. The command of praying implieth the command of Repenting and departing from his wickedness: For what is it to pray for Grace, but to express to God their Desires of Grace? (It is not to tell God a lie, by saying they desire that which they hate.) Therefore when we exhort them to pray, we exhort them to such Desires.
Obj. 4. Many Masters of families cannot pray in their Families without a Book, and that's unlawful.
Answ. 1. If their disability be Natural as in Idiots, they are not fit to rule families, If it be Moral and culpable, they are bound to use the means to overcome it: And in the mean time to use a Book or form, rather than not to pray in their families at all.
Of the frequency and seasons of Family-Worship.
THE last part of my work is to speak of the fit Times of Family-Worship. 1. Whether it should be every day. 2. Whether twice a day? 3. Whether Morning and Evening? Answ. 1. Ordinarily it should be every day and twice a day: and the Morning and Evening are ordinarily the fitest seasons. 2. But extraordinarily some greater duty may intervene, which may for that time disoblige us. And the occasions of some Families may make that hour fit, which is unfit to another. For brevity I will join all together in the proof.
Arg. 1. We are bound to take all fit occasions and opportunities to worship God. Families have daily (Morning and Evening) such occasions and opportunities: therefore they are bound to take them.
Both Major and Minor are proved before. Experience proveth that family-sins are daily committed, and family mercies daily received, and family-necessities daily do occur. And Reason tells us, 1. That it is seasonable every Morning to give God thanks for the Rest of the night past. 2. And to beg direction, protection and provisions and blessing for the following day. 3. And that then our minds are freest from weariness and worldly care. And so Reason telleth us that the Evening is a fit season to give God thanks for the mercies of the day, and to confess the sins of the day, and ask forgiveness, and to pray for rest and protection in the night. As nature and reason tell us how oft a man should eat and drink, and how long he should sleep, and what clothing he should wear; and Scripture need not tell you the particulars: so if Scripture command you Prayer in General, God may by providence tell you when and how oft you must pray.
Arg. 2. The Lord's prayer directeth us daily to put up such prayers as belong to families: Therefore, &c. Give us this day our daily bread. It runs all in the plural number. And the Reason of it will oblige families as well as individual persons.
Arg. 3. From 1 Thes. 5. 17. Pray without ceasing: in all things give thanks. • l. 4. 1, 2. Masters give to your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in Heaven. Continue in Prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Col. 3. 17. whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus; giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. It is easy for a man that is willing to see, that less than twice a day, doth not answer the command of praying without ceasing, continually, in everything, whatever ye do, &c. The phrases seeming to go much higher.
Arg. 4. Daniel prayed in his house thrice a day: Therefore less than twice under the Gospel is to us unreasonable.
Arg. 5. 1 Tim. 4. 5. She that is a Widow indeed and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications, and prayers night and day. Night and day can be no less than Morning and Evening. And if you say, This is not Family-prayer, I answer, 1. It is all kind of Prayer belonging to her. 2. And if it commend the less, much more the greater.
Arg. 6. From Luk. 6. 14. & 2. 37. & 18. 17. Act. 26. 7. 1 Thes. 3. 10. 2 Tim. 1. 3. Rev. 7. 15. N • h. 1. 6. Psal. 88. 1. Josh. 1. 8. Psal. 1. 2. which show that night and day Christ himself prayed, and his servants prayed and meditated and read the Scripture.
Arg 7. Deut 6. 7. & 11. 19. It is expr • sly commanded that Parents teach their Children the Word of God when they lie down, and when they rise up: And the parity of reason, and conjunction of the word and prayer, will prove that they should also pray with them lying down and rising up.
Arg. 8. For br • vity sake I offer you together, Psal. 119. 164. David praised God seven times a day: & 145. 2. Every day will I bless thee. Psal. 5. 3. my voi • e shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord: in the morning will I direct my prayer to thee, and will look up. 59. 16. I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: 88. 13. In the morning shall my prayer prevent thee. 92. 12. It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises to thy name, O m • st High: to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. 119. 147, 148. I prevented the d • wning of the morning a • d cried, I h • ped in thy word: mine eyes preve • the night watches, that I might meditate on thy word. 130. 6 My s • ul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning, I say more than they that watch for the morning. The Priests were to offer Sacrifices and thanks to God every morning: 1 Chron. 23. 30. Exod 30. 7. & 36. 3. Lev. 6. 12. 2 Chron. 13. 11. Ezek. 46. 13, 14, 15. Amos 4. 4. And Christians are a h • lie Priesthood, to offer up sacrifices to God, acceptable through Jesus Ch • ist, 1 Pet. 2. 5, 9. Expresly saith David, Psal. 55. 17. Evening and morning and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud▪ and he shall hear my voice. So Morning and Evening were Sacrifices and Burnt offerings offered to the Lord; and there is at least equal reason that Gospel worship should be as frequent: 1 Chron. 16. 40. 2 Chron. 2. 4. & 13. 11. & 31. 3. Ezr. 3. 3. 2 King. 16. 15. 1 King. 18. 29, 36. Ezra 9. 5. And no doubt but they prayed with the Sacrifices. Which David intimateth in comparing them, Psal. 141. 2. Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense, and the lifting up of my hands a • the Evening sacrifice. And God calleth for Prayer and praise as better than sacrifice, Psal. 50. 14▪ 15▪ 23.
All these I heap together for dispatch, which fully sh • w, how fr • quently God's servants have been wont to Worship him, and how often God expecteth it. And you will all confess that it is reason that in Gospel times of greater light and holiness, we should not come behind them in the times of the Law: especially when Christ himself doth pray all night, that had so little need in comparison of us. And you may observe that these Scriptures speak of Prayer in general, and limit it not to secrecy: and therefore they extend to all prayer, according to opportunity. No reason can limit all these examples to the most secret, and least noble sort of prayer. If but two or three are gathered together in his name, Christ is especially among them.
If you say, that by this rule we must as frequently pray in the Church-assemblies; I answer, The Church cannot ordinarily so oft assemble: But when it can be without a greater inconvenience, I doubt not but it would be a good work, for many to meet the Minister daily for prayer, as in some rich and populous Cities they may do.
I have been more tedious on this subject than a holy hungry Christian possibly may think nec • ssary, who needeth not so many arguments to persuade him to • east his soul with God, and to delight himself in the frequent exercises of faith and Love; And if I have said less than the other sort of Readers shall think necessary, let them know that if they will open their eyes, and recover their appetites, and feel their sins, and observe their daily wants and dangers, and get but a heart that Loveth God, these Reasons then will seem sufficient to convince them of the need of so sweet and profitable and necessary a work: And if they observe the difference between Praying and Prayerless families, and care for their souls and for communion with God, much fewer words than these may serve their turn. It is a dead and graceless, carnal heart, that must be cured before these men will be well satisfied: A better appetite would help their reason. If God should say in general to all men, You shall eat as oft as will do you good; the sick stomach would say, once a day, and that but a little, is enough, and as much as God requireth; when another would say, Thrice a day is little enough. A good and healthful Heart is a great help, in the expounding of God's word, especially of his General Commandments. That which men love not, but are aweary of, they will not easily believe to be their duty. The new nature, and holy Love and desires and experience of a sound believer, do so far make all these Reasonings needless to him, that I must confess I have written them principally to convince the carnal hypocrite, and to stop the •• ouths of wrangling enemies.
CHAP. IV. General Directions for the Holy Government of Families.
§. 1. THE Principal thing requisite to the right governing of Families is the Fitness of the Governors and the Governed thereto, which is spoken of before in the Directions for the Constitution. But if persons unfit for their Relations, have joined themselves together in a Family, their first duty is to Repent of their former sin and rashness, and presently to turn to God, and seek after that fitness which is necessary to the right discharge of the duties of their several places: And in the Governors of Families, th • se three things are of greatest necessity hereunto. I. Authority. II. Skill. III. Holiness and readiness of Will.
§. 2. I Gen. Dir. Let Governors maintain their Authority in their Families. For if once that be lost and you are despised by those that you should rule, your word will be of no effect with them: you do but ride without a Bridle: your power of Governing is gone when your Authority is lost. And here you must first understand the Nature, Use and Extent of your Authority: For as your Relations are different to your Wife, your Children and your Servants, so also is your Authority. Your Authority over your Wife, is but such as is necessary to the order of your Family, the safe and prudent management of your affairs, and your comfortable cohabitation. The power of love and complicated interest must do more than Magisterial commands. Your authority over your Children is much greater: But yet only such as conjunct with Love, is needful to their good education and felicity. Your authority over your servants is to be measured by your contract with them (in these Countries where there are no slaves), in order to your Service, and the honor of God. In other matters, or to other ends you have no Authority over them. For the maintaining of this your Authority observe these following Subdirections.
§. 3. Direct. 1. L • t your family understand that your Authority is of God, who is the God of Order, and that in obedience to him they are obliged to obey you. There is no power but of God: And there is none that the intelligent Creature can so much reverence as that which is of God. All bonds are easily broken and cast away (by the soul at least, if not by the body,) which are not perceived to be Divine. An enlightened Conscience will say to ambitious usurpers, God I know, and his Son Jesus I know, but who are ye?
§. 4. Direct. 2. The more of God appeareth upon you, in your knowledge and holiness and unblameableness of life, the greater will your Authority be in the eyes of all your inferiors that fear God. Sin will make you contemptible and vile: And Holiness, being the Image of God, will make you Honorable. In the eyes of the faithful a vile person is contemned; but they honor them that fear the Lord. Psal. 15. 4, Righteousness exalteth a Nation (and a person) but sin is a reproach to any people. Prov. 14. 34. Those that honor God he will honor, and those that d • spise him shall be lightly esteemed. 1 Sam. 2. 30. They that give up themselves to vile affections and conversations, (Rom. 1. 26.) will seem vile when they have made themselves so: Eli's Sons made themselves vile by their sin, 1 Sam. 3. 13. I know men should discern and honor a person placed in Authority by God, though they are morally and naturally vile: But this is so hard that it is seldom well done: And God is so severe against Proud offenders, that he usually punisheth them by making them vile in the eyes of others; at least when they are dead and men dare freely speak of them, their names will rot, Prov. 10. 7. The instances of the greatest Emperors in the World, both Persian, Roman and Turkish do tell us, that if (by whoredom, drunkenness, gluttony, pride, and especially persecution) they will make themselves vile, God will permit them by uncovering their nakedness, to become the shame and scorn of men: And shall a wicked Master of a family think, to maintain his authority over others, while he rebelleth against the authority of God?
§. 5. Direct. 3. Shew not your natural weakness by passions, or imprudent words or deeds. For if they think contemptuously of your persons, a little thing will draw them further, to despise your words. There is naturally in man so high an esteem of Reason, that men are hardly persuaded that they should rebel against Reason to be governed (for orders sake) by folly. They are very apt to think that rightest Reason should bear rule. And therefore any silly weak expressions, or any inordinate passions, or any imprudent actions, are very apt to make you contemptible in your inferiors eyes.
§. 6. Direct. 4. Lose not your Authority by a neglect of using it. If you suffer Children and Servants but a little while to have the head, and to have, and say and do what they will, your Government will be but a name or image. A moderate course between a Lordly rigor, and a soft subjection▪ or neglect of exercising the power of your place, will best preserve you from your inferiors contempt.
§. 7. Direct. 5. L • se not your authority by too much familiarity. If you make your children and servants your playfellows, or equals, and talk to them, and suffer them to talk to you as your companions, they will quickly grow upon you, and hold their custom; and though another may govern them, they will scarce ever endure to be governed by you, but will scorn to be subject where they have once been as equal.
§. 8. 11. Gen. Direct. Labor for Prudence and Skillfullness in Governing. He that undertaketh to be a Master of a family, undertaketh to be their Governor: And it is no small sin or folly to undertake such a place, as you are utterly unfit for, when it is a matter of so great importance. You could discern this in a case that's not your own: as if a man undertake to be a Schoolmaster that cannot read or write; or to be a Physician, who knoweth neither diseases nor their remedies; or to be a Pilot that cannot tell how to do a Pilots work: And why cannot you much more discern it in your own case?
§. 9. Direct. 1. To get the skill of holy governing, it is needful that you be well studied in the word of God: Therefore God commandeth Kings themselves that they read in the Law of God all the days of their lives, Deut. 17. 18, 19. and that it depart not out of their mouths, but that they meditate in it day and night. Josh. 1. 8. And all Parents must be able to teach it their children, and talk of it both at home and abroad, lying down and rising up: Deut. 6. 6, 7. & 11. 18, 19. All Government of men is but subservient to the Government of God, to promote obedience to his Laws: And it is necessary that we understand the Laws which all Laws and precepts must give place to and subserve.
§. 10. Direct. 2. Understand well the different tempers of your inferiors, and deal with them as they are, and as they can bear; and not with all alike: Some are more intelligent and some more dull: Some are of tender, and some of hardened impudent dispositions: Some will be best wrought upon by love and gentleness; and some have need of sharpness and severity: Prudence must fit your dealings to their dispositions.
§. 11. Direct. 3. You must much difference between their different faults, and accordingly suit your reprehensions: Those must be most severely rebuked that have most willfulness, and those that are • aulty in matters of greatest weight. Some faults are so much through mere disability and unavoidable • railty of the flesh, that there is but little of the will appearing in them. These must be more gently handled, as deserving more compassion than reproof. Some are habituate vices, and the whole nature is more desperately depraved than in others: These must have more than a particular correction: They must be held to such a course of life, as may be most effectual to destroy and change those habits. And some that are upright at the heart, and in the main and most momentous things, are guilty but of some actual faults; and of these, some more seldom, and some more frequent; And if you do not prudently diversify your rebukes according to their faults, you will but harden them, and miss of your ends: For there is a family-justice that must not be overthrown, unless you will overthrow your families: as there is a more public justice necessary to the public good.
§. 12. Direct. 4. Be a good Husband to your Wife, and a good Father to your Children, and a good Master to your Servants, and let Love have Dominion in all your Government, that your inferiors may easily find that it is their interest to obey you. For interest and self-love are the natural rulers of the world: And it is the most effectual way to procure obedience or any good, to make men perceive that it is for their own good, and to engage self-love for you; that they may see that the benefit is like to be their own. If you do them no good, but are sour, and uncourteous, and close-handed to them, few will be ruled by you.
§. 13. Direct. 5. If you would be skillful in Governing others, learn first exactly to command your selves. Can you ever expect to have others more at your will and government than yourselves? Is he fit to rule his family in the fear of God and a holy life, who is unholy and feareth not God himself? Or is he fit to keep them from passion, or drunkenness, or gluttony, or lust, or any way of sensuality, that cannot keep himself from it? Will not inferiors despise such reproofs which are by yourselves contradicted in your lives? You know this is true of Wicked Preachers: and is it not as true of other Governors?
§. 14. III. Gen. Direct. You must be Holy Persons, if you would be Holy Governors of your families. Men's actions follow the bent of their Dispositions. They will do as they are. An enemy of God will not govern a family for God: Nor an enemy of Holiness (nor a stranger to it) set up a holy order in his house, and in a holy manner manage his affairs. I know it is cheaper and easier to the flesh to call others to mortification and holiness of life, than to bring ourselves to it: But yet when it is not a bare command or wish that is necessary; but a course of holy and industrious Government, unholy persons (though some of them may go far) have not the ends and principles which such a work requireth.
§. 15. Direct. 1. To this end, be sure that your own souls be entirely subjected unto God, and that you more accurately obey his Laws, than you expect any inferior should obey your commands. If you da • e disobey God, why should they fear disobeying you? Can you more s • verily revenge disobedience; or more bountifully reward obedience, than God can do? Are you Greater and Better than God himself is?
§. 16. Direct. 2. Be sure that you lay up your treasure in Heaven, and make the enjoyment of God in Glory, to be the ultimate commanding end, both of the affairs and government of your family, and all things else with which you are entrusted. Devote yourselves and all to God, and do all for him: Do all as passengers to another world, whose business on earth is but to provide for Heaven, and promote their everlasting interest. If thus you are separated unto God you are sanctified: And then you will separate all that you have to his use and service, and this, with his acceptance, will sanctify all.
§. 17. Direct. 3. Maintain God's authority in your family more carefully than your own. Your own is but for his. More sharply rebuke or correct them that wrong and dishonor God, than those that wrong and dishonor yourselves. Remember Eli's sad example: Make not a small matter of any of the sins, especially the Great sins▪ of your children or servants. It is an odious thing to slight God's cause, and put up all with [ It is not well done ], when you are fiercely passionate for the loss of some small commodity of your own. God's honor must be greatest in your family: and his service must have the preeminence of yours; and sin against him, must be the most intolerable offense.
§. 18. Direct. 4. Let spiritual Love to your family be predominant, and let your care be greatest for the saving of their souls, and your compassion greatest in their spiritual miseries. Be first careful to provide them a portion in Heaven, and to save them from whatsoever would deprive them of it: And never prefer the transitory pelf of earth, before their everlasting riches: Never be so cumbered about many things, as to forget that one thing is necessary; but choose for yourselves and them the better part.
§. 19. Direct. 5. Let your family neither be kept in idleness and flesh-pleasing, nor yet overwhelmed with such a multitude of business, as shall take up and distract their minds, diverting and unfitting them for holy things. Where God layeth on you a necessity of excessive labors, it must patiently and cheerfully be undergone: but when you draw them unnecessarily on yourselves, for the Love of Riches, you do but become the Tempters and Tormentors of yourselves and others; forgetting the terrible examples of them, that have this way fallen off from Christ, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
§. 20. Direct. 6. As much as is possible, settle a constant order of all your businesses, that every ordinary work may know its time, and confusion may not shut out Godliness. It is a great assistance in every Calling to do all in a set and constant order: It maketh it easy: It removeth impediments; and promoteth success: Distraction in your business causeth a distraction of your minds in holy duty. Some Callings I know can hardly be cast into any order and method; but others may if prudence and diligence be used. God's service will thus be better done, and your work will be better done, to the ease of your servants, and quiet of your own minds: Foresight and skillfullness would save you abundance of labor and vexation.
CHAP. V. Special Motives to persuade men to the Holy Governing of their Families.
IF it were but well understood what Benefits come by the holy Governing of Familes, and what mischiefs come by its neglect, there would few persons that walk the streets among us, appear so odious as those careless ungodly Governors, that know not or mind not a duty of such exceeding weight. While we lie all as overwhelmed with the calamitous fruits of this neglect, I think meet to try if, with some, the cause may be removed; by awakening ignorant sluggish souls, to do their undertaken work.
§. 1. Motive 1. Consider that the Holy Government of Families, is a considerable part of God's own Government of the world, and the contrary is a great part of the Devils Government. It hath pleased God to settle as a natural, so a Political order in the world, and to honor his creatures to be the instruments of his own operations: And though he could have produced all effects without any interior causes, and could have Governed the world by himself alone without any instruments (he being not as Kings, constrained to make use of Deputies and Officers, because of their own natural confinement and insufficiency) yet is he pleased to make inferior causes partakers in such excellent effects, and taketh delight in the frame and order of causes, by which his will among his creatures is accomplished. So that as the several Justices in the Countries do govern as Officers of the King, so every Magistrate and Master of a family, doth govern as an Officer of God. And if his government by his Officers be put down or neglected, it is a contempt of God himself, or a rebellion against him: What is all the practical Atheism and Rebellion and ungodliness of the world, but a rejecting of the Government of God? It is not against the Being of God in itself considered, that his enemies rise up with malignant rebellious opposition: But it is against God as the Holy and Righteous Governor of the world, and especially of themselves. And as in an Army, if the Corporals, Sergeants and Lieutenants do all neglect their offices, the Government of the General or Colonels is defeated and of little force; so if the Rulers of Families and other Officers of God, will corrupt or neglect their part of Government, they do their worst to corrupt or cast out God's Government from the earth. And if God shall not Govern in your families, who shall? The Devil is always the Governor where God's Government is refused: The world and the flesh are the instruments of his Government: Worldliness and Fleshly living are his service: Undoubtedly he is the Ruler of the family where these prevail, and where Faith and Godliness do not take place. And what can you expect from such a Master.
§. 2. Motive 2. Consider also that an ungoverned ungodly family is a powerful means to the damnation of all the members of it: It is the common Boat or Ship that hurrieth souls to Hell: that is bound for the devouring gulf: He that is in the Devils Coach or Boat is like to go with the rest, as the Driver or the Boatman pleaseth. But a well-governed family is an excellent help to the saving of all the souls that are in it. As in an ungodly family there are continual temptations to ungodliness, to swearing, and lying, and railing, and wantonness, and contempt of God; so in a Godly family there are continual provocations to a holy life, to faith, and love, and obedience, and heavenly mindedness: Temptations to sin are fewer there, than in the Devils Shops and Workhouses of sin: The Authority of the Governors, the conversation of the rest, the examples of all, are great inducements to a holy life. As in a well ordered Army of valiant men, every coward is so linked in by order, that he cannot choose but fight and stand to it with the rest; and in a confused rowt the valiantest man is born down by the disorder, and must perish with the rest; even so in a well ordered holy family, a wicked man can scarce tell how to live wickedly, but seemeth to be almost a Saint, while he is continually among Saints, and heareth no words that are profane or filthy, and is kept in to the constant exercises of Religion, by the authority and company of those he liveth with. O how easy and clean is the way to Heaven, in such a gracious well▪ordered family, in comparison of what it is to them, that dwell in the distracted families of profane and sensual worldlings? As there is greater probability of the salvation of souls in England where the Gospel is preached and professed, than in Heathen or Mahometane countries; so is there a greater probability of their salvation that live in the houses and company of the Godly, than of the Ungodly. In one the advantages of instruction, command, example and credit, are all on God's side; and in the other they are on the Devils side.
§. 3. Motive 3. A holy well-governed Family tendeth not only to the safety of the members, but also to the ease and pleasure of their lives: To live where God's Law is the principal Rule, and where you may be daily taught the mysteries of his Kingdom, and have the Scriptures opened to you, and be led as by the hand in the paths of life; where the praises of God are daily celebrated, and his name is called upon and where all do speak the heavenly language, and where God, and Christ, and Heaven are both their daily work and recreation; where it is the greatest honor to be most holy and heavenly, and the greatest contention is, who shall be most humble, and godly, and obedient to God and their superiors, and where there is no reviling scorns at Godliness, nor no profane and scurrilous talk, what a sweet and happy life is this? Is it not likest to Heaven of anything upon earth? But to live where worldliness, and profaneness, and wantonness, and sensuality bear all the sway, and where God is unknown, and holiness and all religious exercises are matter of contempt and scorn, and where he that will not swear and live profanely doth make himself the hatred and derision of the rest, and where men are known but by their shape, and speaking-faculty to be men, nay where men take not themselves for men but for bruits, and live as if they had no rational souls, nor any expectations of another life, nor any higher employments or delights, than the transitory concernments of the flesh, what a sordid lothsom, filthy, miserable life is this? made up by a mixture of BEASTLY and DEVILISH. To live where there is no communion with God, where the marks of Death and Damnation are written, as it were, upon the doors, in the face of their impious worldly lives, and where no man understandeth the holy language; and where there is not the least foretaste of the Heavenly everlasting joys; what's this but to live as the Serpents seed, to feed on dust, and to be excommunicated from the face and favor of God, and to be chained up in the prison of concupiscence and malignity, among his enemies, till the judgment come that is making haste, and will render to all men according to their works.
§. 4. Motive 4. A holy and well-governed family, doth tend to make a Holy Posterity, and so to propagate the fear of God from Generation to Generation. It is more comfortable to have no children, than to beget and breed up children for the devil. Their natural corruption is advantage enough to Satan, to engage them to himself, and use them for his service: But when Parents shall also take the Devils part, and teach their children by precepts or example, how to serve him, and shall estrange them from God and a holy life, and fill their minds with false conceits and prejudice against the means of their salvation, as if they had sold their children to the Devil; no wonder then if they have a black posterity that are trained up to be heirs of Hell. He that will train up children for God, must begin betimes, before sensitive objects take too deep possession of their hearts, and custom increase the pravity of their nature. Original sin is like the arched Indian Fig-tree, whose branches turning downwards and taking root, do all become as trees themselves: The acts which proceed from this habitual viciousness, do turn again into vicious habits: And thus sinful nature doth by its fruits increase itself: And when other things consume themselves by breeding; all that sin breedeth is added to itself, and its breeding is its feeding, and every act doth confirm the habit. And therefore no means in all the world, doth more effectually tend to the happiness of souls, than wise and holy education. This dealeth with sin before it hath taken the deepest root, and boweth nature while it's but a twig: It preventeth the increase of natural pravity, and keepeth out those deceits, corrupt opinions, and carnal fantasies and lusts, which else would be serviceable to sin and Satan, ever after. It delivereth up the heart to Christ betime, or at least doth bring him a Disciple to his School to learn the way to life eternal; and to spend those years in acquainting himself with the ways of God, which others spend in growing worse, and in learning that which must be again unlearned, and in fortifying Satan's garrison in their hearts, and defending it against Christ and his saving grace. But of this more anon.
§. 5. Motive 5. A holy well-governed family is the preparative to a holy and well-governed Church. If Masters of families did their parts, and sent such polished materials to the Churches, as they ought to do, the work and life of the Pastors of the Church, would be unspeakably more easy and delightful: It would do one good to Preach to such an auditory, and to Catechize them, and instruct them, and examine them, and watch over them, who are prepared by a wise and holy education, and understand and love the doctrine which they hear. To lay such polished stones in the building is an easy and delightful work: How teachable and tractable will such be? And how prosperously will the labors of their Pastors be laid out upon them? And how comely and beautiful the Churches be, which are composed of such persons? And how pure and comfortable will their communion be? But if the Churches be sties of unclean beasts; if they are made up of ignorant and ungodly persons, that savor nothing but the things of the flesh; and use to worship they know not what, we may thank ill-governed families for all this. It is long of them that Ministers preach as to idiots or barbarians that cannot understand them: and that they must be always feeding their auditors with milk, and teaching them the principles, and Catechizing them in the Church, which should have been done at home: Yea it is long of them that there are so many Wolves and Swine among the Sheep of Christ, and that holy things are administered to the enemies of holiness, and the godly live in communion with the haters of God and Godliness; and that the Christian Religion is dishonored before the heathen world, by the worse-than-heathenish lives of the Professors; and the pollutions of the Churches do hinder the conversion of the unbelieving world; whilst they that can judge of our Religion no way but by the people that profess it, do judge of it by the lives of them that are in heart the enemies of it: when the haters of Christianity and Godliness are the Christians by whose conversations the Infidel world must judge of Christianity, you may easily conjecture what judgment they are like to make. Thus Pastors are discouraged, the Churches defiled, Religion disgraced, and Infidels hardened, through the impious disorder and negligence of families! What Universities were we like to have, if all the Grammar-Schools should neglect their duties, and send up their scholars untaught as they received them? and if all Tutors must teach their pupils first to spell and read? Even such Churches we are like to have, when every Pastor must first do the work, which all the Masters of families should have done, and the part of many score, or hundreds, or thousands, must be performed by one.
§. 6. Motive 6. Well-governed Families tend to make a happy State and Commonwealth: A good education is the first and greatest work to make good Magistrates and good Subjects, because it tends to make good men. Though a good man may be a bad Magistrate, yet a bad man cannot be a very good Magistrate: The ignorance, or worldliness, or sensuality, or enmity to godliness, which grew up with them in their youth, will show itself in all the places and relations that ever they shall come into. When an ungodly family hath once confirmed them in wickedness, they will do wickedly in every state of life: when a perfidious Parent hath betrayed his Children into the power and service of the Devil, they will serve him in all relations and conditions: This is the School from whence come all the injustice, and cruelties, and persecutions, and impieties of Magistrates, and all the murmurings and rebellions of subjects: This is the soil and seminary where the seed of the Devil is first sown, and where he nurseth up the plants of Covetousness, and Pride, and Ambition, and Revenge, Malignity and Sensuality, till he transplant them for his service into several Offices in Church and State, and into all places of inferiority, where they may disperse their venom, and resist all that is good, and contend for the interest of the flesh and Hell, against the interest of the Spirit and of Christ. But O what a blessing to the world would they be, that shall come prepared by a holy education to places of Government and Subjection! And how happy is that Land that is ruled by such superiors, and consisteth of such prepared subjects, as have first learnt to be subject to God, and to their Parents.
§. 7. Motive 7. If the Governors of Families did faithfully perform their duties, it would be a great supply as to any defects in the Pastors part, and a singular means to propagate and preserve Religion in times of public negligence or persecution. Therefore Christian Families are called Churches, because they consist of holy persons, that worship God, and learn, and love, and obey his word. If you lived among the Enemies of Religion, that forbad Christ's Ministers to preach his Gospel, and forbad God's servants to meet in Church-assemblies for his Worship; the support of Religion, and the comfort and edification of believers, would then lie almost all upon the right performance of family-duties. There Masters might teach the same truth to their households, which Ministers are forbid to preach in the Assemblies: There you might pray together as fervently and spiritually as you can: There you may keep up as holy converse and communion, and as strict a discipline as you please: There you may celebrate the praises of your blessed Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, and observe the Lord's Day in as exact and spiritual a manner as you are able. You may there provoke one another to Love and to good works, and rebuke every sin, and mind each other to prepare for death, and live together as passengers to eternal life. Thus holy families may keep up Religion, and keep up the life and comfort of believers, and supply the want of public preaching, in those Countries where persecutors prohibit and restrain it; or where unable or unfaithful Pastors do neglect it.
§. 8. Motive 8. The duties of your families are such as you may perform with greatest peace, and least exception or opposition from others. When you go further, and would be instructing others, they will think you go beyond your Call, and many will be suspicious that you take too much upon you: And if you do but gently admonish a rowt of such as the Sodomites, perhaps they will say, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a Judge, Gen. 19. 9. But your own house is your Castle: Your family is your charge: You may teach them as oft and as diligently as you will: If the ungodly rabble scorn you for it, yet no sober person will condemn you, nor trouble you for it, (if you teach them no evil): All men must confess that Nature and Scripture oblige you • o it as your unquestionable work. And therefore you may do it (among sober people) with approbation and quietness.
§. 9. Motive 9. Well governed Families are honorable and exemplary unto others. Even the worldly and ungodly use to bear a certain reverence to them: For Holiness and Order have some witness that commendeth them, in the consciences of many that never practiced them. A worldly, ungodly, disordered family, is a Den of Snakes, a place of hissing, railing, folly and confusion: It is like a Wilderness, overgrown with Briars and Weeds: But a holy family is a Garden of God; It is beautified with his Graces, and ordered by his Government, and fruitful by the showers of his heavenly blessing: And as the very sluggard that will not be at the cost and pains to make a Garden of his thorny Wilderness, may yet confess that a Garden is more beautiful, and fruitful, and delightful, and if wishing would do it, his Wilderness should be such: Even so the ungodly that will not be at the cost and pains, to order their souls and families in holiness, may yet see a beauty in those that are so ordered, and wish for the happiness of such, if they could have it without the labor and cost of self-denial. And no doubt, the beauty of such holy and well governed families, hath convinced many, and drawn them to a great approbation of Religion, and occasioned them at last to imitate them.
§. 10. Motive 10. Lastly, Consider, That holy well governed families are blest with the special presence and favor of God. They are his Churches where he is worshipped: His houses where he dwelleth: He is engaged both by Love and Promise to bless, protect and prosper them, Psal. 1. 3. & 128. It is safe to sail in that Ship which is bound for Heaven, and where Christ is the Pilot. But when you reject his Government, you refuse his company, and contemn his favor, and forfeit his blessing by despising his presence, his interest, and his commands.
§. 11. So that it is an evident truth, that most of the mischiefs that now infest or seize upon mankind throughout the earth, consist in, or are caused by the disorders and ill-governedness of families: These are the Schools and Shops of Satan, from whence proceed the beastly ignorance, lust and sensuality, the devilish pride, malignity and cruelty against the holy ways of God, which have so unmanned the progeny of Adam: These are the Nests in which the Serpent doth hatch the Eggs of Covetousness, Envy, Strife, Revenge, of Tyranny, Disobedience, Wars and Bloodshed, and all the Leprosy of sin that hath so odiously contaminated human nature, and all the miseries by which they make the world calamitous. Do you wonder that there can be persons and Nations so blind and barbarous as we read of the Turks, Tartarians, Indians, and most of the inhabitants of the earth? A wicked education is the cause of all; which finding nature depraved, doth sublimate and increase the venom which should by education have been cured: And from the wickedness of families doth National wickedness arise: Do you wonder that so much ignorance, and voluntary deceit, and obstinacy in errors, contrary to all men's common senses, can be found among professed Christians, as Great and small, High and low through all the Papal Kingdom do discover? Though the Pride, and Covetousness, and Wickedness of a worldly carnal Clergy, is a very great cause, yet the sinful negligence of Parents and Masters in their families, is as great, if not much greater than that. Do you wonder that even in the Reformed Churches, there can be so many unreformed sinners, of beastly lives, that hate the serious practice of the Religion which themselves profess? It is ill education in ungodly families that is the cause of all this. O therefore how great and necessary a work is it, to cast Salt into these corrupted fountains? Cleanse and cure these vitiated Families, and you may cure almost all the calamities of the earth. To tell what the Emperors and Princes of the earth might do, if they were wise and good, to the remedy of this common misery, is the idle talk of those negligent persons, who condemn themselves in condemning others: Even those Rulers and Princes that are the Pillars and Patrons of Heathenism, Mahometanisme, Popery and Ungodliness in the world, did themselves receive that venom from their Parents, in their birth and education, which inclineth them to all this mischief. Family-reformation is the easiest and the most likely way to a common Reformation: At least to send many souls to Heaven, and train up multitudes for God, if it reach not to National reformation.
CHAP. VI. More special Motives for a holy and careful Education of Children.
BEcause the chief part of Family-Care and Government consisteth in the right Education of Children, I shall adjoin here some more special Motives to quicken considerate Parents to this duty: And though most that I have to say for it be already said in my Saints Rest Part 3. Chap. 14. Sect. 11. &c. and therefore shall be here omitted, yet something shall be inserted, lest the want here should appear too great.
§. 1. Motive 1. Consider how deeply Nature itself doth engage you, to the greatest care and diligence for the holy education of your children. They are, as it were, parts of yourselves: and those that Nature teacheth you to Love and provide for, and take most care for next yourselves: And will you be regardless of their chief concernments? and neglective of their souls? Will you no other way show your love to your children, than every Beast, or Bird will to their young, to cherish them till they can go abroad and shift for themselves, for corporal sustenance? It is not Dogs or Beasts that you bring into the world, but Children that have immortal souls: And therefore it is a care and education suitable to their natures which you owe them. Even such as conduceth most effectually to the happiness of their souls. Nature teacheth them some natural things without you, as it doth the Bird to fly. But it hath committed it to your trust and care to teach them the greatest and most necessary things: If you should think that you have nothing to do but feed them, and leave all the rest to Nature, then they would not learn to speak: And if Nature itself would condemn you if you teach them not to speak, it will much more condemn you if you teach them not to understand both what they ought to speak and do. They have an everlasting inheritance of happiness to attain: and it is that which you must bring them up for. They have an endless misery to escape: and it is that which you must diligently teach them. If you teach them not to escape the flames of Hell, what thanks do they owe you for teaching them to speak and go? If you teach them not the way to Heaven, and how they may make sure of their salvation, what thanks do they owe you for teaching them how to get their livings a little while in a miserable world? If you teach them not to know God, and how to serve him, and be saved, you teach them nothing, or worse than nothing. It is in your hands to do them the greatest kindness or cruelty in all the world: Help them to know God and to be saved, and you do more for them, than if you helped them to be Lord's or Princes: If you neglect their souls, and breed them in ignorance, worldliness, ungodliness and sin, you betray them to the Devil, the enemy of souls; even as truly as if you sold them to him: You sell them to be slaves to Satan; you betray them to him that will deceive them and abuse them in this life, and torment them in the next. If you saw but a burning Fornace, much more the flames of Hell, would you not think that man or woman more fit to be called a Devil than a Parent, that could find in their hearts to cast their Child into it, or to put him into the hands of one that would do it? What Monsters then of inhumanity are you, that read in Scripture which is the way to Hell, and who they be that God will deliver up to Satan, to be tormented by him; and yet will bring up your children in that very way, and will not take pains to save them from it? What a stir do you make to provide them food and raiment, and a competent maintenance in the world when you are dead? And how little pains take you to prepare their souls for the heavenly inheritance? If you seriously believe that there are such Ioyes or Torments, for your children (and yourselves) as soon as death removeth you hence, is it possible that you should take this for the least of their concernments, or make it the least and last of your cares, to assure them of an endless happiness? If you Love them, show it in those things on which their everlasting welfare doth depend. Do not say you Love them, and yet lead them unto Hell. If you love them not, yet be not so unmerciful to them as to damn them: It is not your saying, God forbid, and we hope better, that will make it better, or be any excuse to you: What can you do more to damn them, if you studied to do it as maliciously as the Devil himself? You cannot possibly do more, than to bring them up in ignorance, carelessness, worldliness, sensuality and ungodliness: The Devil can do nothing else to damn either them or you, but by tempting to sin, and drawing you from Godliness. There is no other way to Hell. No man is damned for anything but this. And yet will you bring them up in such a life, and say, [ God forbid, we do not desire to damn them? ] But it is no wonder; when you do by your children but as you do by yourselves: Who can look that a man should be reasonable for his child, that is so unreasonable for himself? Or that those Parents should have any mercy on their children's souls, that have no mercy on their own? You desire not to damn yourselves, but yet you do it, if you live ungodly lives: And so you will do by your children if you train them up in ignorance of God, and in the service of the flesh and world. You do like one that should set fire on his house, and say, [ God forbid, I intend not to burn it: ] or like one that casteth his child into the Sea, and saith, he intendeth not to drown him: or traineth him up in robbing and thievery, and saith, he intendeth not to have him hanged: But if you intend to make a Thief of him, it is all one in effect, as if you intended his hanging: for the Law determineth it, and the Judge will intend it. So if you intend to train up your children in ungodliness, as if they had no God, nor souls to mind, you may as well say, you intend to have them damned. And were not an enemy, yea, is not the Devil more excusable, for dealing thus cruelly by your children, than you that are their Parents, that are bound by Nature to love them, and prevent their misery? It is odious in Ministers that take the charge of souls, to betray them by negligence, and be guilty of their everlasting misery; but in Parents it is more unnatural, and therefore more inexcusable.
§. 2. Motive 2. Consider that God is the Lord and Owner of your children, both by the title of Creation and Redemption: Therefore in justice you must resign them to him, and educate them for him. Otherwise you rob God of his own Creatures, and rob Christ of those for whom he died, and this to give them to the Devil, the enemy of God and them. It was not the world, or the flesh, or the Devil that created them, or redeemed them, but God: And it is not possible for any Right to be built upon a fuller Title, than to make them of nothing, and redeem them from a state far worse than nothing. And after all this, shall the very Parents of such children, steal them from their absolute Lord and Father, and fell them to slavery and torment?
§. 3. Motive 3. Remember that in their Baptism you did dedicate them to God: you entered them into a solemn Vow and Covenant, to be wholly his, and to live to him. Therein they renounced the flesh, the world and the Devil: Therein you promised to bring them up virtuously to lead a godly and Christian life, that they might obediently keep God's holy Will and Commandments, and walk in the same all the days of their lives. And after all this, will you break so solemn a promise, and cause them to break such a Vow and Covenant, by bringing them up in ignorance and ungodliness? Did you understand and and consider what you then did? How solemnly you yourselves engaged them in a Vow to God, to live a mortified and a holy life? And will you so solemnly do that in an hour, which all their life after with you, you will endeavor to destroy?
§. 4. Motive 4. Consider how great power the education of children hath upon all their following lives: Except Nature and Grace, there is nothing that usually doth prevail so much with them. Indeed the obstinacy of Natural Vitiousness doth often frustrate a good education: But if any means be like to do good, it is this: But ill education is more constantly successful, to make them evil. This cherisheth those seeds of wickedness which spring up when they come to age: This maketh so many to be proud, and idle, and flesh pleasers, and licentious, and lustful, and covetous, and all that is naught. And he hath a hard task that cometh after to root out these vices, which an ungodly education hath so deeply radicated. Ungodly Parents do serve the Devil so effectually, in the first impressions on their children's minds, that it is more than Magistrates and Ministers and all reforming means can afterwards do to recover them from that sin to God. Whereas if you would first engage their hearts to God, by a religious education, Piety would then have all those advantages, that sin hath now. Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The language which you teach them to speak when they are children, they will use all their life after, if they live with those that use it. And so the Opinions which they first receive, and the customs which they are used to at first, are very hardly changed afterward. I doubt not to affirm, that a godly Education is God's first and ordinary appointed means, for the begetting of actual faith, and other graces in the children of believers: Many may have seminal grace before: but they cannot sooner have actual faith, repentance, love, or any Grace, than they have Reason itself in act and exercise. And the Preaching of the Word by public Ministers is not the first ordinary means of grace, to any but those that were graceless till they come to hear such preaching: that is, to those on whom the first appointed means hath been neglected, or proved in vain: that is, It is but the second means, to do that which was not done by the first. The proof is undeniable: Because God appointeth Parents diligently to teach their children the Doctrine of his holy Word, before they come to the public Ministry: Parents teaching is the first teaching: And Parents teaching is for this end, as well as public teaching, even to beget faith, and love, and holiness: And God appointeth no means to be used by us, on which we may not expect his blessing. Therefore it is apparent, that the ordinary appointed means for the first actual Grace, is Parents godly instruction and education of their children. And public preaching is appointed for the Conversion of those only that have mist the blessing of the first appointed means. Therefore if you deny your children religious education, you deny them the first appointed means of their actual faith and sanctification: and then the second cometh upon disadvantage.
§. 5. Motive 5. Consider also how many and great are your advantages above all others for your children's good. As 1. Nothing doth take so much with any one, as that which is known to come from Love: The greater Love is discerned in your instruction, the greater success may you expect. Now your children are more confident of their Parents Love, than of any others▪ Whether Ministers and Strangers speak to them in Love, they cannot tell: But of their Parents Love they make no doubt. 2. And their Love to you is as great a preparative to your success. We all hearken to them that we dearly Love, with greater attention and willingness than to others. They Love not the Minister as they do their Parents. 3. You have them in hand betime, before they have received any false opinions, or bad impressions: before they have any sin but that which was born with them▪ You are to make the first impressions upon them: You have them while they are most teachable, and flexible, and tender, and make least resistance against instruction: They rise not up at first against your teaching with self-conceitedness and proud objections. But when they come to the Minister, they are as Paper that is written on or printed before; unapt to receive another impression: They have much to be untaught, before they can be taught: And come with proud and stiff resistance, to strive against instruction, rather than readily to receive it. 4. Your children do wholly depend on you for their present maintenance, and much for their future livelihood and portions: And therefore they know that it is their interest to obey and please you: And as interest is the common bias of the world, so is it with your children: You may easilier rule them that have this handle to hold them by, than any other can do that have not this advantage. They know they serve you not for naught. 5. Your authority over your children is most unquestionable. They will dispute the authority of Ministers, yea, and of Magistrates, and ask them who gave them the power to teach them, and to command them? But the Parents authority is beyond all dispute. They will not call you Tyrants or Usurpers, nor bid you prove the validity of your Ordination, or the uninterruptedness of your succession. Therefore Father and Mother as the first Natural Power, are mentioned rather than Kings or Queens in the fifth Commandment. 6. You have the power of the Rod to force them. Prov. 22. 15. Foolishness it bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. And your correction will be better understood to come from Love, than that of the Magistrate or any other. 7. You have best opportunity to know both the diseases and temperature of your children: which is a great advantage for the choosing and applying of the best remedy. 8. You have opportunity of watching over them, and discerning all their faults in time: But if a Minister speak to them, he can know no more what fault to reprehend, than others tell him, or the party will confess. You may also discern what success your former exhortations had, and whether they amend or still go on in sin, and whether you should proceed to more severe remedies. 9. You have opportunity of speaking to them in the most familiar manner; which is better understood, than the set speech of a Minister in the Pulpit, which few of them mark or understand. You can quicken their attention by questions which put them upon answering you, and so awaken them to a serious regard of what you say. 10. You are so frequently with them, that you can repeat your instructions, and drive them home, that what is not done at one time, may be done at another: Whereas other men can seldom speak to them, and what is so seldom spoken is easily neglected or forgotten. 11. You have power to place them under the best means, and to remove many impediments out of their way which usually frustrate other men's endeavors. 12. Your example is near them and continually in their sight, which is a continual and powerful Sermon. By all these advantages God hath enabled you above all others, to be instruments of your Children's good, and the first and greatest promoters of their salvation.
§. 6. Motive 6. Consider how great a Comfort it would be to you, to have your children such as you may confidently hope are the children of God, being brought to know him, and love, and serve him, through your own endeavors in a pious education of them. 1. You may love your children upon an higher account than as they are yours: even as they are God's, adorned with his Image, and quickened with a divine celestial life: And this is is to love them with a higher kind of Love, than mere Natural affection is. It would rejoice you to see your children advanced to be Lord's or Princes: But O how much greater cause of joy is it, to see them made the members of Christ, and quickened by his Spirit, and sealed up for life eternal? 2. When once your children are made the children of God, by the Regeneration of the Spirit, you may be much more free from care and trouble for them than before. Now you may boldly trust them on the care of their heavenly Father, who is able to do more for them than you are able to desire: He loveth them better than you can love them: He is bound by promise to protect them, and provide for them, and to see that all things work together for their good. He that clotheth the Lilies of the fields, and suffereth not the young Lions or Ravens to be unprovided for, will provide convenient food for his own children, (though he will have you also do your duty for them, as they are your children.) While they are the children of Satan, and the servants of sin, you have cause to fear, not only lest they be exposed to miseries in this world, but much more lest they be snatched away in their sin to Hell: Your children while they are ungodly are worse than among Wolves and Tyg • rs. But when once they are renewed by the Spirit of Christ, they are the charge of all the blessed Trinity, and under God, the charge of Angels: Living or dying they are safe: For the Eternal God is their portion and defense. 3. It may be a continual comfort to you to think what a deal of drudgery and calamity your child is freed from: To think how many Oaths he would have sworn, and how many lies and curses he would have uttered, and how b • aftly and fleshly a life he would have lived, how much wrong he would have done to God and men, and how much he would have pleased the Devil, and what torments in H • ll he must have endured as the reward of a •••• ▪ and then to think how mercifully God hath prevented all this, and what service he may do God in the world, and finally live with Christ in glory: What a joy is this to a considering believing Parent, that taketh the mercies of his children as his own? 4. Religion will teach your children to be more dutiful to yourselves, than Nature can teach them. It will teach them to Love you, even when you have no more to give them, as well as if you had the wealth of all the world. It will teach them to honor you, though you are poor and contemptible in the eyes of others. It will teach them to obey you, and if you • all into want to relieve you according to their power: It will • it them to comfort you ist the time of your sickness and distress; when ungodly children will be as thorns in your feet or eyes, and cut your hearts, and prove a greater grief than any enemies to you. A gracious child will bear with your weaknesses, when a Ch • m will not cover his Fathers nakedness: A gracious Child can pray for you, and pray with you, and be a blessing to your house, when an ungodly Child is fitter to curse, and prove a curse to those he live • with. 5. And is it not an exceeding joy to think of the everlasting happiness of your Child? and that you may live tog • there in Heaven forever? When the sores • en mis • ry of a grac • l • ss Child, may grieve you when ever you look him in the face. 6. Lastly, It will be a great addition to your joy, to think that God blessed your diligent instructions, and made you the instrument of all that good that is done upon your children, and of all that good that is done by them, and of all the happiness they have forever. To think that this was conveyed to them by your means, will give you a larger share in the delights of it.
§. 7. Motive 7. Remember that your Children's Original sin and misery is by you; and therefore in ju •• ice you that have undone them, are bound to do your best to save them. If you had but conveyed a leprosi • or some hereditary Disease to their bodies, would you not have done your best to cure them? O that you could do them but as much good as you do them hurt. It is more than Adam • sin that runneth down into the natures of your Children, yea, and that bringeth judgments on them: And even Adams sin cometh not to them but by you.
§. 8. Motive 8. Lastly, Consider what exceeding great need they have of the utmost help you can afford them. It is not a corporal disease, an easy enemy, a tolerable that we call unto you for their help •• But it is against Sin, and Satan, and Hell fire. It is against a body of sin: not one, but many; • o • small, but pernicious, having seized upon the heart: deep rooted sins, that are not easily pluck • up. All the teaching, and diligence; and watchfulness that you can use, is little enough, and may prove too little. They are obsti •• te vices that have possessed them: They are not quickly nor easily cast out; and the remnants and roots are apt to be still springing up again, when you thought they had been quite destroyed: O then what wisdom and diligence is requisite to so great and necessary a work!
§. 9. And now let me seriously speak to the hearts of those careless and ungodly Parents▪ that neglect the holy education of their Children: yea, and to those Professors of Godliness that slubber over so great a work with a few customary formal duties and words, that are next to a total omission of it. O be not so unmerciful to the souls that you have help • to bring into the world! Think not so b • seely of them, as if they were not worth your labor! Make not your Children so like your Beasts, as to make no provision but only for their flesh. Remember still that it is not Beasts but men, that you have begotten and brought forth: Educate them then and use them as men for the Love and Obedience of their Maker: O pity and help the souls that you have defiled and undone! Have mercy on the souls that must perish in Hell, if they be not saved in this day of salvation! O help them that have so many enemies to assault them! Help them that have so many temptations to pass through; and so many difficulties to overcome; and so severe a judgment to undergo? Help them that are so weak, and so easily deceived and overthrown! Help them speedily while your advantages continue! before sin have hardened them, and Grace have forsaken them, and Satan place a stronger Garrison in their hearts. Help them while they are tractable; before they are grown up to despise your help: Before you and they are separated asunder, and your opportunities be at an end. You think not your pains from year to year, too much to make provision for their bodies: O be not cruel to their souls! Sell them not to Satan, and that for naught! Betray them not by your ungodly negligence to Hell. Or if any of them will perish, let it not be by you that are so much bound to do them good: The undoing of your children's souls is a work much fitter for Satan, than for their Purents. Remember how comfortable a thing it is, to work with Christ for the saving of souls. You think the Calling of Ministers honorable and happy; and so it is, because they serve Christ in so high a work: But if you will not neglect it, you may do for your children, more than any Minister can do. This is your preaching place: Here God calleth you to exercise your parts; even in the holy instruction of your families: Your charge is small in comparison of the Ministers: He hath many hundred souls to watch over, that are scattered all abroad the Parish: and will you think it much to instruct and watch over those few of your own that are under your Roof? You can speak odiously of unfaithful soul-betraying Ministers: and do you not consider how odious a soul-betraying Parent is? If God intrust you but with earthly Talents, take heed how you use them; for you must be accountable for your trust: And when he hath entrusted you with souls, even your children's souls, will you betray them? If any Rulers should but forbid you the instructing and wellgoverning of your families, and restrain you by a Law, as they would have restrained Daniel from praying in his house, ( Dan. 6. ) then you would think them monsters of impiety and inbumanity; and you would cry out of a Satanical persecution, that would make men Traitors to their children's souls, and drive away all Religion from the earth: And yet how easily can you neglect such duties when none forbid them you, and never accuse yourselves of any such horrid impiety or inhumanity? What hypocrisy, and blind partiality is this? Like a lazy Minister that would cry out of persecution, if he were silenced by others, and yet will not be provoked to be laborious, but ordinarily by his slothfulness silence himself, and make no such matter of it: Would it be so heinous a sin in another to restrain you? and is it not as heinous for you that are so much obliged to it, voluntarily to restrain yourselves? O then deny not this necessary diligence to your necessitous children, as you love their souls, as you love the happiness of the Church or Commonwealth, as you love the honor and interest of Christ, and as you love your present and everlasting peace. Do not see your children the slaves of Satan here, and the firebrands of Hell forever, if any diligence of yours may contribute to prevent it: Do not give Conscience such matter of accusation against you, as to say, All this was long of thee! If thou hadst instructed them diligently, and watched over them, and corrected them, and done thy part, its like they had never come to this. You till your Fields; you weed your Gardens; What pains take you about your grounds and Cattle? and will you not take more for your children's souls? Alas, what creatures will they be if you leave them to themselves? how ignorant, careless, rude and beastly. O what a lamentable case have ungodly Parents brought the world into? Ignorance and selfishness, beastly sensuality and devilish malignity have covered the face of the earth as a deluge, and driven away wisdom, and self-denial, and piety, and charity, and justice, and temperance almost out of the world, confining them to the breasts of a few obscure humble souls, that love virtue for virtues sake, and look for their reward from God alone, and expect that by abstaining from iniquity, they make themselves a prey to Wolves. Isa. 59. 15. Wicked education hath unmanned the world, and subdued it to Satan, and made it almost like to Hell. O do not join with the Sons of Belial, in this unnatural horrid wickedness!
CHAP. VII. The mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives towards each other.
§. 1. IT is the pernicious subversion of all societies, and so of the world, that selfish ungodly persons enter into all Relations, with a desire to serve themselves there, and fish out all that gratifieth their flesh, but without any sense of the Duty of their Relation. They bethink them what honor, or profit, or pleasure their Relation will afford them, but not what God and man require or expect from them. All their thought is, What they shall have, but not What they shall be and do. They are very sensible what others should be and do to them; but not what they should be and do to others. Thus it is with Magistrates, and with People, with too many Pastors and their flocks, with Husbands and Wives, with Parents and Children, with Masters and Servants, and all other Relations. Whereas our first care should be to know and perform the Duties of our Relations, and please God in them, and then look for his blessing by way of encourageing-reward. Study and do your parts, and God will certainly do his.
§. 2. Direct. 1. The first Duty of Husbands is to Love their Wives (and Wives their Husbands) with a true entire Conjugal Love. Ephes. 5. 25, 28, 29, 33. Husbands love your Wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it—So ought men to love their Wives as their own bodies: he that loveth his Wife, loveth himself: For no man ever yet • ated his own flesh; • ut nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church.—Let everyone of you in particular so love his Wife even as himself —It is a Relation of Love that you have entered. God hath made it your Duty for your mutual help and comfort: that you may be as willing and ready to succor one another, as the hand is to help the eye or other fellow-member: and that your converse may be sweet, and your burdens easy, and your lives may be comfortable. If Love be removed but for an hour between Husband and Wife, they are so long as a bone out of joint: There is no ease, no order, no work well done, till they are restored and set in joint again. Therefore be sure that Conjugal Love be constantly maintained.
§. 3. The Sub-directions for maintaining Conjugal Love are such as these. Direct. 1. Choose one at first that is truly amiable, especially in the virtues of the mind. 2. Marry not till you are sure that you can Love entirely. Be not drawn for sordid ends, to join with one that you have but ordinary affections • or. 3. Be not too hasty, but know before hand, all the imperfections, which may tempt you afterwards to loathing. But if these duties have been sinfully neglected, yet 4. Remember that Justice commandeth you to Love one that hath as it were forsaken all the world for you, and is contented to be the companion of your labors and sufferings, and be an equal sharer in all conditions with you, and that must be your companion until death. It is worse than barbarous inhumanity to entice such a one into a bond of Love, and society with you, and then to say, You cannot Love her! This was by perfidiousness to draw her into a spare to her undoing. What comfort can she have in her converse with you, and care, and labor, and necessary sufferings, if you deny her Conjugal Love? Especially if she deny not Love to you, the inhumanity is the greater. 5. Remember that Women are ordinarily affectionate, passionate creatures, and as they love much themselves, so they expect much love from you. And when you joined yourself to such a Nature, you obliged yourself to answerable duty. And if Love cause not Love, it is ungrateful and unjust contempt. 6. Remember that you are under God's command: And to deny conjugal Love to your Wives, is to deny a duty which God hath urgently imposed on you. Obedience therefore should command your Love. 7. Remember that you are Relatively as it were one flesh: You have drawn her to forsake Father and Mother to cleave to you: You are conjoined for procreation of such children as must bear the image and nature of you both: your possessions and interests are in a manner the same. And therefore such nearness should command affection: They that are as yourselves should be most easily loved as yourselves. 8. Take more notice of the good that is in your Wives, than of the evil. Let not the observation of their faults make you forget or overlook their virtues. Love is kindled by the sight of Love or Goodness. 9. Make not infirmities to seem odious faults, but excuse them as far as lawfully you may, by considering the frailty of the Sex, and of their tempers, and considering also your own infirmities, and how much your Wives must bear with you. 10. Stir up that most in them into exercise which is best, and stir not up that which is evil: And then the good will most appear, and the evil will be as buried, and you will easilier maintain your love. There is some uncleanness in the best on earth: And if you will be daily stirring in the filth, no wonder if you have the annoyance: And for that you may thank yourselves: Draw out the fragrancy of that which is good and delectable in them, and do not by your own imprudence or pievishness stir up the worst, and then you shall find that even your faulty Wives will appear more amiable to you. 11. Overcome them with Love: and then whatever they are in themselves, they will be Loving to you, and consequently Lovely. Love will cause Love, as fire kindleth fire: A good husband is the best means to make a good and loving Wife. Make them not froward by your froward carriage, and then say, We cannot love them. 12. Give them examples of amiableness in yourselves: set them the pattern of a prudent, lowly, loving, meek, self denying, patient, harmless, holy, heavenly life: Try this a while, and see whether it will not shame them from their faults, and make them walk more amiably themselves.
§. 4. Direct. 2. Another Duty of Husbands and Wives is, Cohabitation and (where age prohibiteth not) a sober and modest conjunction for procreation: Avoiding l • sciviousness, unseasonableness, and whatever tendeth to corrupt the mind and make it vain and filthy, and hinder it from holy employment: And therefore Lust must not be cherished in the married; but the mind be brought to a moderate chaste and sober frame: and the Remedy must not be turned into an increase of the disease, but used to extinguish it: For if the mind be left to the power of Lust, and only marriage trusted to for the cure, with many it will be found an insufficient cure; and Lust will rage still as it did before, and will be so much the more desperate and your case the more miserable, as your sin prevaileth against the remedy. Yet marriage being appointed for a remedy against lust, for the avoiding all unlawful congress, the Apostle hath plainly described your duty, 1 Cor. 7. 2, 3, 4, 5. [ It is good for a man not to touch a woman: Nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband: Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence; and likewise also the wife unto the husband: The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud you not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. ] Therefore those persons live contrary to the nature of their relation, who live a great part of their lives asunder, as many do for worldly respects: when they have several houses, possessions or trades, and the husband must live at one and the wife at another for their commodity sake; and only come together once in a week, or in many weeks: when this is done without great necessity, it is a constant violation of their duties. And so it is for men to go trade or live beyond Sea or in another Land, and leave their wives behind them; yea though they have their wives consent; it is an unlawful course, except in a case of mere necessity, or public service, or when they are able on good grounds to say, that the Benefits are like to be greater to soul and body than the loss; and that they are confirmed against the danger of incontinence. The offices which Husband and Wife are bound to perform for one another are such as, for the most part, suppose their Cohabitation: like the offices of the members of the body for each other, which they cannot perform if they be dismembered and divided.
§. 5. Direct. 3. Abbor not only Adultery itself, but all that tendeth to unchastness and the vi • lation of your Marriage-Covenant. Adultery is so contrary to the conjugal bond and state of life, that though de facto it do not actually dissolve the bond, and nullify the marriage, yet it so far disobligeth the wronged innocent party, that de jure it is to such a sufficient ground to warrant a divorce. And God required that it be punished by death, Lev. 20. 10. When lust is the chiefest cause of marriage, and when married persons live not in the fear of God, but pamper the flesh and live licentiously, no wonder if marriage prove an insufficient remedy against such cherished lust. Such carnal beastly persons are still casting fuel on the fire; by wanton unbridled thoughts and speeches, by gluttony, drinking, sports and idleness; by vain enticing company, and not avoiding occasions, opportunities and temptations, they burn as much when they are married as they did before: And the Devil that bloweth up this fire in their flesh, doth conduct and accommodate them in the satisfying of their lusts: so that their brutish concupiscence is like a fire burning in the Sea: water itself will not quench it. One Woman will not satisfy their beastiality. And perhaps they loath their own wives, and run after others, though their own (in the eye of any impartial man) be the more comely and amiable, and their Whores be never so deformed, or impudent filthy lumps of dirt. So that one would think that they had no other reason, to love and follow such unlovely things, but only because that God forbiddeth it: As if the Devil did it to show his power over them, that he can make them do that, as in despite of God, which else they would abhor themselves. When once their sensuality and forsaking of God, hath provoked God to forsake them, and give them up to the rage of that sensuality, an unclean spirit sometimes takes possession of them, and wholly inclineth them to wallow in uncleanness: They can scarce look a comely person in the face, that is of the other Sex, but unclean thoughts are rising in their hearts: They think of filthiness when they are alone? They dream of filthiness in the night: They talk of filthiness with others: The tongues of the dogs that licked Lozarus his sores, were not used in such a filthy employment as theirs are. They are as fed Horses in the morning; everyone neigheth after his neighbors wife: Jer. 5. 8. They declare their sin as Sodom, and hide it not. Isa. 3. 9. And usually when they are given over to this filthy sin, it utterly debaucheth their Consciences, and maketh them like blocks or beasts, insensible of their misery and the wrath of God, and given over to all other villainies, and even to hate and persecute Godliness, if not civility itself: Some few Adulterers I have known that sin so much against their Consciences, that they live in continual despair; tormented in the sense of their own unhappiness; and yet sinning still; as if the Devil would make them a derision: And yet these are the better sort, because there is some testimony for a better life, remaining in their minds: But others of them being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness, Eph. 4. 19. They have eyes full of Adultery that cannot cease from sin—As natural brute beasts that are made to be taken and destroyed, 2 Pet. 2. 10, 11, 12. Take heed therefore of the causes of this odious sin, and of all appear me of it; suffer not your eye or thought to go after a stranger, nor to begin a breach in your Covenant and conjugal fidelity.
§. 6. Direct. 4. Husband and wife must take Delight in the Love and Company and converse of each other. There is nothing that man's heart is so inordinately set upon as Delight: And yet the lawful delight allowed them by God, they can turn into loathing and disdain. The delight which would entangle you in sin, and turn you from your duty and from God, is it that is forbidden you: But this is a Delight that is helpful to you in your duty, and would keep you from sin: When Husband and Wife take pleasure in each other, it uniteth them in duty, it helpeth them with ease to do their work, and bear their • urdens; and is not the least part of the comfort of the married state. Prov. 5. 18, 19. Rejoice with the wife of thy youth, as the loving Hind and pleasant Roe, let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. Therefore a Wife is called, The desire of the eyes: Ezek. 24. 16. Avoid therefore all things that may represent you unpleasant or unlovely to each other. And use all lawful means to cherish complacency and delight: not by foolish ridiculous or proud attire, or immodest actions; but by cleanness and decency and kind deportment. Nastiness and uncleanness and unseemly carriage, and foolish speech, and whatever is loathsome in body or mind, must be shunned as Temptations which would hinder you from that love and pleasure and content, which Husband and Wife should have in one another. And yet it is a foolish fleshly person, that will continue Love no longer than it is cherished with all this care. If there be any deformity of the body, or anything unseemly in behavior, or if God should visit them with any loathsome sores or sickness, they must for all that love each other, yea and take pleasure in their converse: It is not a true friend that leaveth you in adversity; nor is it true Conjugal affection which is blasted by a loathsome sickness. The Love of Mothers to their Children will make them take pleasure in them notwithstanding their sickness or uncleanness: And so should their Love do between a Husband and his Wife. He that considereth that his own flesh is liable to the same diseases, and like ere long to be as loathsome, will do as he would be done by, and not turn away in time of her affliction, from her that is become his flesh. Much less excusable is the crime of them that when they have nothing extraordinary to distaste or disaffect them, are weary of the company of one another, and had rather be in their Neighbors houses than in their own, and find more pleasure in the company of a stranger, than of one another.
§. 7. Direct. 5. It it a great duty of Husbands and Wives to live in quietness and peace, and avoid all occasions of wrath and discord. Because this is a duty of so great importance, I shall first open to you the great necessity of it, and then give you more particular Directions to perform it.
§. 8. I. It is a duty which your Union or near relation doth specially require. Will you fall out with yourselves? cannot you agree with your own flesh? 2. Your discord will be your pain, and the vexation of your lives. Like a Bile or Wound or Fracture in your own bodies, which will pain you till it's cured: You will hardly keep Peace in your minds, when Peace is broken so near you in your family. As you would take heed of hurting yourselves, and as you would hasten the Cure when you are hurt; so should you take heed of any breach of Peace, and quickly seek to heal it when it's broken. 3. Dissension tends to cool your Love: Oft falling out doth tend to leave a habit of distaste and averseness on the mind. Wounding is separating. And to be tied together by any outward bonds, when your Hearts are separated, is but to be tormented; and to have the insides of adversaries, while you have conjugal outsides. As the difference between my house and my prison is, that I willingly and with delight dwell in the one, but am unwillingly confined to the other, such will be the difference between a quiet and an unquiet life, in your married state: It turneth your dwelling and delight into a Prison; where you are chained to those calamities, which in a free condition you might over-run: 4. Dissention between the Husband and the Wife, do disorder all their Family affairs: They are like Oxen unequally yoked, that can rid no work for striving with one another: Nothing is well done because of the variance of those that should do it, or oversee it. 5. It exceedingly unfitteth you for the Worship of God: You are not fit to pray together, nor to confer together of Heavenly things, nor to be helpers to each others souls: I need not tell you this: you feel it by experience. Wrath and bitterness will not allow you so much exercise of love and holy composedness of mind, as everyone of these duties do require. 6. Dissention disableth you to govern your Families aright. Your Children and Servants will take example by you; or think they are at liberty to do what they list, when they find you taken up with such work between yourselves: And they will think you unfit to reprove them for their faults, when they see you guilty of such faults and folly of your own: Nay you will become the shame and secret derision of your Family, and bring yourselves into contempt. 7. Your Dissensions will, expose you to the malice of Satan, and give him advantage for manifold temptations: A house divided cannot stand: An Army divided is easily conquered, and made a prey to the Enemy. You cannot foresee what abundance of sin you put yourselves in danger of. By all this you may see what Dissensions between Husband and Wife do tend to, and how they should be avoided.
II. For the avoiding of them observe these Sub-directions. 1. Keep up your conjugal Love in a constant heat and vigor. Love will suppress wrath: You cannot have a bitter mind upon small provocations, against those that you dearly love: much less can you proceed to reviling words or to averseness and estrangedness or any abuse of one another. Or if a breach and wound be unhappily made, the balsamick quality of Love will heal it. But when Love once cooleth, small matters exasperate and breed distastes.
2. Both Husband and Wife must mortify their Pride and Passion which are the causes of Impatiency; and must pray and labor for a Humble, meek and quiet spirit. For it is the diseased temper of the heart, that causeth dissensions, more than the occasions or matter of offense do. A proud heart is troubled and provoked by every word or carriage that seemeth to tend to their undervaluing: A pi • vish froward mind is like a sore and ulcerated member, that will be hurt if it be touched. He that must live near such a sore diseased impatient mind, must live even as the nurse doth with the child, that maketh it her business to rock it and lull and sing it quiet when it • ryeth: For to be angry with it will do no good: And if you have married one of such a sick or childish temper, you must resolve to bear and use them accordingly. But no Christian should bear with such a vexatious malady in themselves: nor be patient with such impatiency of mind: Once get the victory over yourselves, and get the cure of your own impatience, and you will easily keep peace with one another.
3. Remember still that you are both diseased persons, full of infirmities; and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other; and make not a strange matter of it, as if you had never known of it before: If you had married one that is lame, would you be angry with her for halting? Or if you had married one that had a putride Ulcer, would you fall out with her because it stinketh? Did you not know before hand that you married a person of such weaknesses as would yield you some matter of daily trial and offense? If you could not bear this, you should not have married her: If you resolved that you could bear it then, you are obliged to bear it now. Resolve therefore to bear with one another; as remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect persons, and not as Angels, or as blameless and perfect.
4. Remember still that you are one flesh; and therefore be no more offended with the words or failings of each other, than you would be if they were your own: Fall out no more with your wife for her faults, than you do with yourself for your own faults: and than you would do if hers had been your own. This will allow you such an anger and displeasure against a fault, as tendeth to heal it; but not such as tendeth but to fester and vex the diseased part. This will turn anger into compassion, and speedy tender diligence for the cure.
5. Agree together before hand, that when one is in the diseased angry fit, the other shall silently and gently bear, till it be past and you are come to yourselves again: Be not angry both at once: When the fire is kindled, quench it with gentle words and carriage; and do not cast on Oil or fuel, by answering provokingly and sharply, or by multiplying words, and by answering wrath with wrath: But remember that now the work that you are called to, is to mollify and not to exasperate, to help and not to hurt, to cure another rather than to right yourself: As if another fall and hurt him, your business is to help him up, and not to tread upon him.
6. Look before you, and remember that you must live together until death, and must be the companions of each others fortunes, and the comforts of each others lives, and then you will see how absurd it is for you to disagree and vex each other. Anger is the principle of revenge, and falling out doth tend to separation. Therefore those that must not revenge, should not give way to anger; and those that know they must not part, should not fall out.
7. As far as you are able, avoid all occasions of wrath and falling out, about the matters of your Families: some by their slothfulness bring themselves into want; and then being unable to bear it, they contract a discontented peevish habit; and in their impatiency they wrangle and disquiet one another: some plunge themselves into a multitude of business, and have to do with so many things and persons, that one or other is still offending them, and then they are impatient with one another: some have neither skill nor diligence to manage their businesses aright: and so things fall cross, and go out of order, and then their impatiency turneth itself against each other: Avoid these occasions, if you would avoid the sin: And see that you be not unfurnished of Patience, to bear that which cannot be avoided.
8. If you cannot quickly quench your passion, yet at least refrain your tongues: speak not reproachful or provoking words: Talking it out hotly doth blow the fire, and increase the flame: Be but silent, and you will the sooner return to your serenity and peace. Foul words tend to more displeasure. As Socrates said when his Wife first railed at him, and next threw a vessel of foul Water upon him [ I thought when I heard the thunder, there would come rain ]: so you may portend worse following, when foul unseemly words begin: If you cannot easily allay your wrath, you may hold your tongues, if you are truly willing.
9. Let the sober party condescend to speak fair and to entreat the other: (unless it be with a person so insolent as will be the worse.) Usually a few sober grave admonitions, will prove as water to the boiling pot: say to your angry Wife or Husband, [You know this should not be betwixt us; Love must allay it; and it must be repented of: God doth not approve it; it; and we shall not approve it when his heat is over: This frame of mind is contrary to a praying frame, and this language contrary to a praying language: we must pray together anon; let us do nothing contrary to prayer now: sweet water and bitter come not from one spring, &c. ] Some calm and condescending words of Reason, may stop the torrent, and revive the Reason which Passion had overcome.
10. Confess your fault to one another, when passion hath prevailed against you; and ask forgiveness of each other, and join in prayer to God for pardon; and this will lay a greater engagement on you, the next time to forbear; You will sure be ashamed to do that which you have so confessed and asked forgiveness for, of God and man. If you will but practice these ten Directions, your conjugal and family peace may be preserved.
§. 10. Direct. 6. A principal duty between husband and wife is, with special care and skill and diligence, to help each other in the knowledge and worship and obedience of God in order to their salvation. Because this is a duty in which you are the greatest helps and blessings to each other, if you perform it. I shall 1. Endeavor to quicken you to make Conscience of it, and then 2. Direct you how to do it.
§. 11. I. Consider, 1. How little it can stand with Rational Love, to neglect the souls of one another? I suppose you believe that you have immortal souls, and an endless life of joy or misery to live: And then you cannot choose but know that your great concernment and business is, to make sure provision for those souls, and for the endless life. Therefore if your Love do not help one another in this which is your main concernment, it is little worth, and of little use. Every thing in this world is valuable as it is useful. A useless or unprofitable Love, is a worthless Love. It is a trifling, or a childish or a beastly Love, which helpeth you but in trifling, childish, or beastly things. Do you love your Wife, and yet will leave her in the power of Satan, or will not help to save her soul? What! Love her, and yet let her go to hell? and rather let her be damned than you will be at the pains to endeavor her salvation? If she were but in bodily pain or misery, and you refused to do your part to succor her, she would take it but for cold unprofitable love, though you were never so kind to her in complements and trifles. The Devil himself maketh show of such a love as that: He can vouchsafe men pleasures and wealth and honor, so he may but see the perdition of their souls. And if your love to your wife or husband do tend to no greater matters than the pleasures of this life, while the soul is left to perish in sin, bethink yourselves seriously how little more kindness you show them than the Devil doth. O can you see the danger of one that you love so dearly, and do no more to save them from it? Can you think of the damnation of so dear a friend, and not do all that you are able to prevent it? would you be separated from them in the World that you are going to? would you not live with them in Heaven forever? Never say you love them, if you will not labor for their salvation. If ever they come to Hell, or if ever you see them there, both they and you will then confess, that you behaved not yourselves like such as Loved them. It doth not deserve the name of Love, which can leave a soul to endless misery.
§. 12. What then shall we say of them, that do not only deny their help, but are hinderers of the holiness and salvation of each other! And yet (the Lord have mercy on the poor miserable world!) how common a thing is this among us? If the wife be ignorant and ungodly, she will do her worst to make or keep her husband such as she is herself: And if God put any holy inclinations into his heart, she will be to it as water to the fire, to quench it or to keep it under: And if he will not be as sinful and miserable as herself, he shall have little quietness or rest. And if God open the eyes of the wife of a bad man, and show her the amiableness and necessity of a holy life, and she do but resolve to obey the Lord, and save her soul, what an enemy and tyrant will her husband prove to her (if God restrain him not): so that the Devil himself doth scarce do more against the saving of their souls, than ungodly Husbands and Wives do against each other.
§. 13. 2. Consider also that you live not up to the Ends of Marriage, nor of humanity, if you are not helpers to each others souls. To help each other only for your bellies, is to live together but like beasts. You are appointed to live together as heirs of the grace of life, 1 Pet. 3. 7. And husbands must love their Wives as Christ loved his Church, who gave himself for it that he might sanctify it and cleanse it, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish, Eph. 5. 25, 26, 27. That which is the end of your very life and being, must be the end of your relations and your daily converse.
§. 14. 3. Consider also, if you neglect each others souls, what enemies you are to one another, and how you prepare for your everlasting sorrows: When you should be preparing for your joyful meeting in Heaven, you are laying up for yourselves everlasting horror. What a dreadful meeting and greeting will you have at the bar of Christ, or in the flames of hell, when you shall find there how perversely you have done? Is it not better to be praising God together in Glory, than to be raging against each other in the horror of your Consciences, and flying in the faces of one another with such accusations as these, [
O therefore resolve without delay, to live together as the heirs of Heaven, and to be helpers to each others souls. To which end I will give you these following Sub-directions, which if you will faithfully practice, may make you to be special blessings to each other.
§. 15. Direct. 1. If you would help to save each others souls, you must each of you be sure that you have a care of your own: and retain a deep and lively apprehension of those great and everlasting matters, of which you are to speak to others. It cannot be reasonably expected that he should have a due compassion to another's soul, that hath none to his own: and that he should be at the pains that is needful to help another to salvation, that setteth so little by his own, as to sell it for the base and momentary ease and pleasure of the flesh. Nor is it to be expected that a man should speak with any suitable weight and seriousness, about those matters whose weight his heart did never feel, and about which he was never serious himself. First see that you feel thoroughly, that which you would speak profitably: and that you be what you persuade another to be; and that all your counsel may be perceived to arise, from the bottom of your hearts; and that you speak of things which by experience you are well acquainted with.
§. 16. Direct. 2. Take those opportunities which your ordinary nearness and familiarity affordeth you, to be speaking seriously to each other about the matters of God and your salvation. When you lie down and rise together, let not your worldly business have all your talk; but let God and your souls have the first and the last, and at least the freest and sweetest of your speech, if not the most: When you have said so much of your common business as the nature and dispatch of it requireth, • ay it by, and talk together of the state and duty of your souls towards God, and of your hopes of Heaven, as those that take these for their greater business. And speak not lightly, or unreverently or in a rude and wrangling manner, but with gravity and sobriety, as those that are advising together about the greatest matter, that ever they had to do in the world.
§. 17. Direct. 3. When either Husband or Wife is speaking seriously about holy things, let the other be careful to cherish, and not to extinguish and put an end to the discourse. There are two ways to cherish such discourse: The first is, by taking your turn, and bearing a due proportion in the discourse with wisdom and gravity: But all cannot do this: some are but learners, and those must take the second way, which is to ask for resolution in matters of which they doubt, or are uninstructed; and to draw on more by pertinent Questions. The two ways by which such discourse is silenced are these: The first is by the constant silence of the hearer: When a man talketh as to a post, that giveth him no answer, nor putteth any pertinent question, he will be wearied out at last, and will give over: The second is, by a cross, contradicting, cavilling, wrangling against what is spoken, or by interruptions and diversions; when you come in presently with some worldly or impertinent talk, and wind about from sober conference, to something that is unedifying: And some that will not seem merely profane, and vain, and worldly, will destroy all holy fruitful conference, even by a kind of Religious talk; presently carrying you away from Heart-searching and Heavenly discourse, to some Controversy, or doctrinal, or formal, or historical matter, that is sufficiently distant from the Heart and Heaven. Take heed of these courses, if you would help each other.
§. 18. Direct. 4. Watch over the hearts and lives of one another, and labor to discern the state of one another's souls, and the strength or weakness of each others sins and graces, and the failings of each others lives, that so you may be able to apply to one another the most suitable help. What you are unacquainted with, you cannot be very helpful in: you cannot cure unknown diseases: you cannot give wise and safe advice, about the state of one another's souls, if you are mistaken in them. God hath placed you nearest to each other, that you might have so much interest in each other as to quicken you to a loving care, and so much acquaintance with each other, as to keep you from misunderstanding, and so from neglecting or deceiving one another: And you should be always provided of those fit remedies, that are most needful and suitable to each others case. If that Preacher be like to be dull and unsuccessful, that is all upon mere Doctrine, and little or nothing in close and lively application, you may conceive that it will be so also with your familiar conference.
§. 19. Direct. 5. See that you neither flatter one another through fond and foolish love, nor exasperate one another by a passionate or contemptuous kind of reprehension. Some persons are so blinded with fond affection, that they can scarce see in Husband, Wife or Children any aggravated sin or misery: but they think all is well that they do, or not so ill, as in another they would perceive it: But this is the same course that self-loving sinners take with their own souls, to their delusion and perdition. This flattering of yourselves or others, is but the Devils charm to keep you from effectual repentance and salvation: And the ease of such Anodynes and Narcoticks doth endure but a little while. On the other side, some cannot speak to one another of their faults, without such bitterness of passion, or contempt, as tendeth to make the stomach of the receiver, to loath the Medicine, and so to refuse it, or to cast it up. If common reproofs to strangers must all be offered in Love, much more between the nearest relations.
§. 20. Direct. 6. Be sure that you keep up true Conjugal love to one another, and that you grow not to disaffect the persons of each other. For if you do, you will despise each others counsels and reproofs. They that slight, or loath, or are weary of each other will disdain reproofs, and scorn advice from one another: When entire affection greatly disposeth to the right entertainment of instruction.
§. 21. Direct. 7. Discourage not each other from instruction or reproof by taking it ill, or by churlish reflections, or by obstinate unreformedness. When you will not learn, or will not amend, you discourage your instructer and reprover. Men will be apt to give over, when they are requited with ingratitude, and snappish retortions, or when they perceive that their labor is all in vain. And as it is the heaviest judgment of God that befalleth any upon earth, when he withdraweth his advice and help, and leaveth sinners wholly to themselves; so it is the saddest condition in your relations, when the ignorant and sinning party is forsaken by the other, and left to their own opinons and ways: Though indeed it should not be so, because while there is life there is hope.
§. 22. Direct. 8. So far as you are able to instruct or quicken one another, call in for better helps: Engage each other in the reading of the most convincing quickening Books, and in attendance on the most powerful Ministry, and in profitable converse with the holiest persons. Not so as to neglect your duty to one another ever the more: but that all helps concurring may be the more effectual. When they find you speak to them, but the same things which Ministers and other Christians speak, it will be the more easily received.
§. 23. Direct. 9. Conceal not the state of your souls, nor hide not your faults from one another. You are as one flesh, and should have one heart: And as it is most dangerous for a man to be unknown to himself, so is it very hurtful to Husband or Wife, to be unknown to one another, in those cases wherein they have need of help. It is foolish tenderness of yourselves, when you conceal your disease from your Physician, or your helpful friend: And who should be so tender of you, and helpful to you, as you should be to one another. Indeed in some few cases, where the opening of a fault or secret, will but tend to quench affection, and not to get assistance from another, it is wisdom to conceal it: But that is not the ordinary case. The opening your hearts to each other is necessary to your mutual help.
§. 24. Direct. 10. Avoid as much as may be contrariety of opinions in Religion: For if once you be of different judgments in matters which you take to be of great concernment, you will be tempted to disaffect, contemn or undervalue one another; and so to despise the help which you might receive: And if you fall into several Sects, and follow several Teachers, you will hardly avoid that contention and confusion, which will prove a great advantage to the Devil, and a great impediment to your spiritual good.
§. 25. Direct. 11. If difference in judgment in matters of Religion do fall out between you, be sure that it be managed with Holiness, Humility, Love and Peace, and not with C •• nality, Pride, Uncharitableness or Contention. 1. To manage your differences Holily, is to take God for the Judge, and to refer the matter to his Word, and to aim at his Glory, and the pleasing of his Will, and to use his Means for the Concord of your judgments: which is, to search the Scripture, and consult with the faithful able Pastors of the Church, and soberly and patiently to debate the case, and pray together for the illumination of the Spirit. On the contrary your Differences are carnally managed, when carnal reasons breed or feed them; and when you run after this or that Sect or Party, through admiration of the persons, and value not the persons for the sake of Truth, but measure Truth by the opinion and estimate of the persons; and when you end your differences by selfish carnal principles and respects: And hence it comes to pass, that if the Husband be a Papist or otherwise erroneous, its two to one that the Wife becometh of his erroneous Religion, not because of any cogent evidence, but because he is of the stronger parts, and hath constant opportunity to persuade, and because Love prepareth and inclineth her to be of his opinion: And thus Man instead of God, is the master of the faith of many. 2. Your differences are managed in Humility, when you have a just and modest suspicion of your own understandings, and debate▪ and practice your differences with meekness and submission; and do not proudly overvalue all your own apprehensions, and despise another's Reasons as if they were not worthy of your consideration. 3. Your differences must be so far managed in Love, not that mere Love should make you turn to another's opinion be it true or false, but that you must be very desirous to be of the same mind, and if you cannot, must take it for a sore affliction, and must bear with the tolerable mistakes of one another, as you bear with your own infirmities; that they cool not Love, nor alienate not your hearts from one another, but only provoke you to a tender healing compassionate Care, and endeavor to do each other good. 4. And you must manage your differences, in quietness, without any passionate wranglings and dissensions, that no bitter fruits may be bred by it in your families among yourselves. Thus all true Christians, must manage their differences in matters of Religion; but married persons above all.
§. 26. Direct. 12. Be not either blindly indulgent to each others faults, nor yet too censorious of each others state, lest Satan thereby get advantage to alienate your affections from one another. To make nothing of the faults of those whom you Love, is to Love them foolishly to their hurt; and to show that it is not for their virtues that you Love them. And to make too great a matter of one another's faults, is but to help the Tempter to quench your love, and turn your hearts from one another. Thus many good women that have Husbands that are guilty of too much coldness in Religion, or worldly-mindedness, or falling into ill company, and misspending their time, are first apt to overlook all possibility of any seed of grace that may be in them, and then looking on them as ungodly persons, to abate too much their Love and duty to them. There is great wisdom and watchfulness requisite in this case, to keep you from being carried into either of the extremes.
§. 27. Direct. 13. If you are married to one that is indeed an infidel, or an ungodly person, yet keep up all the Conjugal Love which is due for the relation sake. Though you cannot love them as true Christians, yet love them as Husband or Wife. Even Heathens are bound to Love those that are thus related to them: The Apostle hath determined the case, 1 Cor. 7. that Christians must perform their Duties to Husbands or Wives that are Unbelievers: The faults of another discharge you not from your duty. As Satan hath deceived some by separating principles about Church-communion, to deny almost all God's Ordinances to many, to whom they are due; so doth he thus deceive some persons in family-relations, and draw them from the duties which they owe for one another's good.
§. 28. Direct. 14. Ioyn together in frequent and fervent prayer: Prayer doth force the mind into some composedness and sobriety, and affecteth the heart with the presence and Majesty of God. Pray also for each other when you are in secret; that God may do that work which you most desire upon each others hearts.
§. 29. Direct. 15. Lastly, Help each other by an exemplary life. Be that yourselves which you desire your Husband or Wife should be: Excell in meekness, and humility, and charity, and dutifulness, and diligence, and self-denial, and patience, as far as you do excel in profession of Religion. St. Peter saith, that even those that will not be won by the Word, may be won without it by the Conversation of their Wives, 1 Pet. 3. 1. That is, the excellency of Religion may so far appear to them, by the fruits of it in their Wives Conversations, as may first incline them to think well and honourably of it, and so to inquire into the nature and reason of it, and to hearken to their Wives; and all this without the public Ministry. A life of undissembled holiness, and heavenliness, and self-denial, and meekness, and love, and mortification, is a powerful Sermon; which if you be constantly preaching before those that are still near you, will hardly miss of a good effect. Works are more palpably significant and persuasive, than words alone.
§. 30. Direct. 7. Another great Conjugal duty is, to be helpful to each other for the health and comfort of their Bodies. Not to pamper each others flesh, or cherish the vices of pride, or sloth, or gluttony, or voluptuousness in each other; but to further the health and cheerfulness of the Body, to fit it for the service of the soul and God. Such cherishing or pleasing of the Flesh, which is unlawful in each person to himself, is also unlawful (ordinarily) to use to another. But such as you may use for yourself, you may use also for your Wife or Husband. Not to live above your Estates, nor as servants to your guts, to serve the appetites of one another by delicious fare; but to be careful of that health, without which your lives will be made unserviceable or uncomfortable: And this must proceed from such a love to one another as you have to yourselves: And that both in time of Health and Sickness.
§. 31. 1. In Health, you must be careful to provide for each other (not so much pleasing as) wholesome food, and to keep each other from that which is hurtful to your health; dissuading each other from Gluttony and Idleness, the two great Murderers of mankind. If the bodies of the poor, in hunger, and cold, and nakedness must be relieved, much more of those that are become as your own flesh.
§. 32. 2. Also in Sickness, you are to be tenderly regardful of each other; and not to be sparing of any cost or pains, by which the health of each other may be restored, or your souls confirmed, and your comforts cherished. You must not loath the Bodies of each other in the most lothsom sickness, nor shun them through loathing; no more than you would do your own. Prov. 17. 17. A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity: Much more those that are so nearly bound for sickness and health, till death shall separate them. It is an odious sin to be aweary of a sick or suffering friend, and desirous that God would take them, merely that you may be eased of the trouble. And usually such persons do meet with such measure as they measured to others; and those that they look for help and comfort from, will perhaps be as weary of them, and as glad to be rid of them.
§. 33. Direct. 8. Another duty of Husbands and Wives, is to be helpful to each other in their worldly business, and estates. Not for worldly ends, nor with a worldly mind; but in obedience to God who will have them Labor, as well as pray, for their daily bread; and hath determined that in the sweat of their brows they shall eat their bread; and that six days they shall labor and do all that they have to do: and that he that will not work must not eat. The care of their affairs doth lie upon them both, and neither of them must cast it off and live in idleness: (unless one of them be an Ideot, or so witless, as to be unfit for care, or so sick or lame, as to be unfit for labor.)
§. 34. Direct. 9. Also you must be careful of the lawful honor and good names of one another. You must not divulge, but conceal the dishonorable failings of each other: (as Abigail, except in any case compassion or justice require you to open them to any one for a cure, or to clear the truth.) The reputation of each other must be as dear to you as your own. It is a sinful and unfaithful practice of many, both Husbands and Wives, who among their companions are opening the faults and infirmities of each other, which they are bound in tenderness to cover. As if they perceived not that by dishonoring one another, they dishonor themselves. Love will cover a multitude of faults, 1 Pet. 4. 8. Nay, many disaffected peevish persons will aggravate all the faults of one another behind their backs to strangers; and sometimes slander them, and speak more than is truth. Many a man hath been put to clear his good name from the slanders of a jealous or a passionate Wife: And an open enemy is not capable of doing one so much wrong as she that is in his bosom, because she will be easily be believed, as being supposed to know him better than any other.
§. 35. Direct. 10. It is also a great part of the duty of Husbands and Wives, to be helpful to one another in the education of their Children, and in the government of the inferiors of the family. Some men cast all the care of the Children while they are young upon their Wives: And many women by their passion and indiscretion do make themselves unfit to help their Husbands in the Government either of their Children or Servants: But this is one of the greatest parts of their employment. As to the Mans part, to govern his house well, it is a duty unquestionable. And it is not to be denied of the Wife. 1 Tim. 5. 14. [ I will that the younger Women marry, bear Children, guide the house. ] Bathsh • ba taught Solomon, Prov. 31. 1. Abigail took better care of Nabal 's house than he did himself. They that have a joint interest, and are one flesh, must have a joint part in government: although their power be not equal; and one may better oversee some business, and the other, other business; yet in their places they must divide the care, and help each other: And not as it is with many wicked persons, who are the most unruly part of the family themselves, and the chiefest cause that it is ungoverned and ungodly; or one party hindereth the other from keeping order, or doing any good.
§. 36. Direct. 11. Another part of their Duty is, to help each other in works of charity and hospitality. While they have opportunity to do good to all, but especially to them of the household of faith: and to sow to the Spirit, that of the Spirit they may reap everlasting life: yea, to sow plentifully that they may reap plentifully, Gal. 6. that if they are able their houses may afford relief and entertainment for the needy; especially for Christ's servants for their Masters sake; who hath promised, that [ He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward: and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward: and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones, a cup of cold water, in the name of a Disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. Matth. 10. 41, 42.] The woman of S •••• em lost nothing by the entertainment of Elisha, when she said to her Husband, Behold, now I perceive that this is an holy man of God which passeth by us continually: Let us make him a little Chamber I pray thee on the wall, and let us set for him there a Bed, and a Table, and a Stool, and a Candlestick: and it shall be when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither: 2 Kings 4. 10. But now how common is it for the people to think all too little for themselves; and if one of them be addicted to works of charity, the other is covetous and is always hindering them.
§. 37. Direct. 12. Lastly, It is a great part of the duty of Husbands and Wives, to be helpers and comforters of each other in order to a safe and happy death. 1. In the time of Health, you must often and seriously remember each other of the time when death will make the separation; and live together in your daily converse, as those that are still expecting the parting hour. Help to awaken each others souls, to make ready all those graces which then will prove necessary, and to live in a constant preparation for your change. Reprove all that in one another, which will be unsavory and ungrateful to your review at death. If you see each other dull and slow in your preparations, or to live in vanity, worldliness or sloth, as if you had forgotten that you must shortly die, stir up one another to do all that without delay which the approach of such a day requireth. 2. And when Death is at hand, O then what abundance of tenderness, and seriousness, and skill, and diligence, is needful for one, that hath the last office of love to perform, to the departing soul of so near a friend? O then what need will there be of your most wise, and faithful and diligent help? When nature faileth, and the pains of flesh divert the mind, and temptations are strongest, while the body is weakest; when a languishing body, and a doubting, fearful, troubled mind, do call for your compassion and help, O then what skill and holy seriousness will be necessary! O what a calamity is it to have a carnal unsanctified Husband or Wife, which will neither help you to prepare for death, nor can speak a serious word of counsel or comfort to you at a dying hour: that can do nothing but stand by and weep over you, but have not a sensible word to say, about the life that you are going to, nor about the duty of a departing soul, nor against the temptations and fears which then may be ready to overwhelm you. They that are utterly unprepared and unfit to die themselves, can do little to prepare or help another. But they that live together as the heirs of Heaven, and converse on earth as fellowtravellers to the Land of Promise, may help and encourage the souls of one another, and joyfully part at death, as expecting quickly to meet again in life eternal.
§. 38. Were it not lest I be over tedious, I should next speak of the Manner how Husbands and Wives must perform their duties to each other: As 1. That it should be all done in such entire Love, as maketh the case of one another to you as your own. 2. That therefore all must be done in Pa • ience and mutual forbearance. 3. And in familiarity, and not with strangeness, distance, sowerness, no • affected complement. 4. And in secrecy: where I should have shown you in what cases secrecy may be broken, and in what not. 5. And in confidence of each others fidelity, and not in suspicion, jealousy, and distrust. 6. And in prudence to manage things aright, and to foresee and avoid impediments and inconveniences. 7. And in holiness that God may be the first and last, and all in all. 8. And in constancy that you cease not your duties for one another until death. But necessary abbreviation alloweth me to say no more of these.
CHAP. VIII. The special Duties of Husbands to their Wives.
§. 1. HE that will expect Duty or Comfort from his Wife, must be faithful in doing the duty of a Husband. The failing of yourselves in your own duty, may cause the failing of another to you, or at least will some other way as much afflict you, and will▪ be bitterer to you in the end, than if an hundred failed of their duty to you. A good Husband will either make a good Wife, or easily and profitably endure a bad one. I shall therefore give you Directions for your own part of duty, as that which your happiness is most concerned in.
§. 2. Direct. 1. The Husband must undertake the principal part of the Government of the whole family, even of the Wife herself: And therefore I. He must labor to be fit and able for that Government which he undertaketh: This ability consisteth 1. In holiness and spiritual wisdom, that he may be acquainted with the End to which he is to conduct them, and the Rule by which he is to guide them; and the principal works which they are to do. An ungodly irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the chiefest part of family-government. 2. His ability consisteth in a due acquaintance with the works of his Calling, and the labors in which his servants are to be employed. For he that is utterly unacquainted with their business, will be very unfit to govern them in it: unless he commit that part of their government to his Wife or a Steward that is acquainted with it. 3. And he must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of mankind that he may know how much is to be born with, and also with the particular temper, and faults, and virtues of those whom he is to govern. 4. And he must have Prudence to direct himself in all his carriage to them, and Justice to deal with everyone as they deserve; and Love to do them all the good he can, for soul and body. II. And being thus able, he must make it his daily work, and especially be sure that he govern himself well, that his example may be part of his government of others.
§. 3. Direct. 2. The Husband must so unite Authority and Love, that neither of them may be omitted or concealed, but both be exercised and maintained: Love must not be exercised so imprudently as to destroy the exercise of Authority: And Authority must not be exercised over a Wife so Magisterially and imperiously, as to destroy the exercise of Love. As your Love must be a Governing Love, so your Commands must all be Loving Commands. Lose not your Authority▪ for that will but disable you from doing the Office of a Husband to your Wife, or of a Master to your servants. Yet must it be maintained by no means inconsistent with Conjugal Love; and therefore not by fierceness or cruelty, by threatenings or stripes, (unless by distraction or loss of reason, they cease to be uncapable of the carriage otherwise due to a Wife). There are many cases of equality in which Authority is not to be exercised; but there is no case of inequality or unworthiness so great, in which Conjugal Love is not to be exercised: and therefore nothing must exclude it.
§. 4. Direct. 3. It is the duty of Husbands to preserve the Authority of their Wives, over the Children and Servants of the family. For they are joint-governors with them over all the in • eriors. And the infirmities of women are apt many times to expose them to contempt: so that Servants and Children will be apt to sleight them, and disobey them, if the Husband interpose not to preserve their honor and authority. Yet this must be done with such Cautions as these: 1. Justify not any error, vice or weakness of your Wives. They may be concealed and excused as far as may be, but never owned or defended. 2. Urge not obedience to any unlawful Command of theirs. No one hath Authority to contradict the Law of God, or disoblige any from his Government. You will but diminish your own authority with persons of any understanding, if you justify anything that is against God's authority. But if the thing commanded be lawful, though it may have some inconveniences, you must rebuke the disobedience of inferiors, and not suffer them to sleight the commands of your Wives, nor to set their own reason and wills against them, and say, We will not do it. How can they help you in Government, if you suffer them to be disobeyed.
§. 5. Direct. 4. Also you must preserve the Honor as well as the Authority of your Wives. I • they have any dishonorable infirmities, they are not to be mentioned by Children or Servants. As in the natural body we cover most carefully the most dishonorable parts (for our comely parts have no need) 1 Cor. 12. 23, 24. So must it be here. Children or Servants must not be suffered to carry themselves contemptuously or rudely towards them, nor to despise them, or speak unmannerly, proud or disdainful words to them. The Husband must vindicate them from all such injury and contempt.
§. 6. Direct. 5. The Husband is to excel the Wife in Knowledge, and be her Teacher in the matters that belong to her salvation. He must instruct her in the Word of God, and direct her in particular duties, and help her to subdue her own corruptions, and labor to confirm her against temptations: If she doubt of anything that he can resolve her in, she is to ask his resolution, and he to open to her at home, the things which she understood not in the Congregation, 1 Cor. 14. 35. But if the husband be indeed an ignorant sot, or have made himself unable to instruct his wife, she is not bound to ask him in vain to teach her that which he understandeth not himself. Those husbands that despise the word of God, and live in willful ignorance, do not only despise their own souls, but their families also; and making themselves unable for their duties, they are usually themselves despised by their inferiors; For God hath told such in his message to Eli, 1 Sam. 2. 30. Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.
§. 7. Direct. 6. The Husband must be the principal Teacher of the family. He must instruct them, and examine them, and rule them about the matters of God, as well as his own service, and see that the Lord's Day and Worship be observed by all that are within his gates. And therefore he must labor for such understanding and ability as is necessary hereunto. And if he be unable or negligent, it is his sin and will be his shame. If the wife be wiser and abler, and it be cast upon her, it is his dishonor: But if neither of them do it, the sin and shame and suffering will be common to them both.
§. 8. Direct. 7. The Husband is to be the mouth of the family in their daily conjunct prayers unto God. Therefore he must be able to pray, and also have a praying heart. He must be as it were the Priest of the household, and therefore should be the most Holy, that he may be fit to stand between them and God, and to offer up their prayers to him. If this be cast on the Wife it will be his dishonor.
§. 9. Direct. 8. The Husband is to be the chief Provider for the family (ordinarily): It is supposed that he is most able for mind and body; and is the chief disposer of the estate: Therefore he must be specially careful that wife and children want nothing that is fit for them, so far as he can procure it.
Direct. 9. The Husband must be strongest in Family-patience; bearing with the weakness and passions of the wife: not so as to make light of any sin against God, but so as not to make a great matter of any frailty as against himself; and so so as to preserve the Love and Peace which is to be as the natural temper of their Relation.
Direct. 10. The manner of all these Duties must also be carefully regarded: As, 1. That they be done in Prudence, and not with folly, rashness and inconsiderateness. 2. That all be done in conjugal Love, and tenderness, as over one that is tender and the weaker vessel: and that he do not teach or command or reprove a wife, in the same imperious manner as a child or servant. 3. That due familiarity be maintained, and that he keep not at a distance and strangeness from his wife. 4. That Love be confident, without base suspicions and causeless jealousies. 5. That all be done in Gentleness, and not in Passion, roughness and sourness. 6. That there be no unjust and causeless concealment of secrets, which should be common to them both. 7. That there be no foolish opening of such secrets to her as may become her snare, and she is not able to bear or keep. 8. That none of their own matters which should be kept secret be made known to others. His teaching and reproving her should be, for the most part secret. 9. That he be constant, and not weary of his Love or duty. This briefly of the Manner.
CHAP. IX. The special Duties of Wives to Husbands.
THE Wife that expecteth comfort in a Husband, must make conscience of all her own Duty to her Husband: For though it be his duty to be kind and faithful to her though she prove unkind and froward, yet 1. Men are frail and apt to fail in such difficult duties as well as women: 2. And it is so ordered by God, that comfort and duty shall go together, and you shall miss of comfort, if you cast off duty.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Be specially loving to your Husbands: Your natures give you the advantage in his: and Love feedeth Love: This is your special requital for all the troubles that your infirmities put them to.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Live in a voluntary subjection and obedience to them. If their softness or yieldingness cause them to relinquish their authority; and for peace they are fain to let you have your wills; yet remember that it is God that hath appointed them to be your Heads and Governors. If they are so silly as to be unable, you should not have chosen such to Rule you as are unfit: but having chosen them, you must assist them with your better understanding in a submissive and not a ruling masterly way. A servant that hath a foolish master may help him without becoming Master. And do not deceive yourselves by giving the bare Titles of Government to your Husbands, when yet you must needs in all things have your own Wills: For this is but mockery, and not obedience. To be subject and obedient is to take the Understanding and will of another to Govern you before (though not without ) your own; and to make your Understandings and wills to follow the conduct of his that governeth you. Self-willedness is contrary to subjection and obedience.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Learn of your Husbands as your appointed Teachers, and be not self-conceited and wise in your own eyes, but ask of them such instructions as your case requireth. 1 Cor. 14. 34, 35. Let your women keep silence in the Churches, for it is not permitted to them to speak: but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the Law: and if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: (unless when the husband is so ignorant as to be utterly unable; which is his sin and shame: For it is vain to ask that of them which they know not.)
§. 4. Direct. 4. Set yourselves seriously to amend all those faults which they reprove in you: Do not take it ill to be reproved; swell not against it, as if they did you harm or wrong: It is a very ill sign to hate reproof, Prov. 12. 1. and 10. 17. and 15▪ 10, 31, 32. and 17. 10. And what doth their Government of you signify, if you will not amend the faults that are reproved in you? but continue impenitent and grudge at the reproof? It is a miserable folly to desire to be flattered and soothed by any, but especially by one that is bound to be faithful to you, and whose intimacy should make you as ready to hear of your faults from him, as to be acquainted with them yourselves and especially when it concerneth the safety or benefit of your souls.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Honor your Husbands according to their superiority. Behave not yourselves towards them with unreverence and contempt, in titles, speeches or any behavior: If the worth of their persons deserve not Honor, yet their place deserveth it. Speak not of their infirmities to others behind their backs: as some twatling Gossips use to do, that know not that their husbands dishonor is their own, and that to open it causelessly to others is their double shame. Those that silently hear you, will tell others behind your back, how foolishly and shamefully you spake to them against your Husbands. If God have made your nearest friend an affliction to you, why should you complain to one that is farther off? (unless it be to some special prudent friend, in case of true necessity for advise.)
§. 6. Direct. 6. Live in a cheerful contentedness with your condition; and take heed of an impatient murmuring spirit. It is a continual burden to a man to have an impatient discontented wife. Many a poor man can easily bear his poverty himself, that yet is not able to bear his Wives impatience under it. To hear her night and day complaining, and speaking distrustfully, and see her live disquietedly, is far heavier than his poverty itself. If his Wife could bear it as patiently as he, it would be but light to him. Yea, in case of suffering for righteousness sake, the impatience of a wife is a greater trial to a man than all the suffering itself; and many a man that could easily have suffered the loss of his estate, or banishment, or imprisonment for Christ, hath betrayed his Conscience and yielded to sin, because his wife hath grieved him with impatiency, and could not bear what he could bear. Whereas a contented cheerful wife, doth help to make a man cheerful and contented in every state.
§. 7. Direct. 7. In a special manner strive to subdue your passions, and to speak and do all in meekness and sobriety. The rather because that the weakness of your Sex doth usually subject you m •• e to Passions, than men: And it is the common cause of the husbands disquietness, and the calamity of your relation. It is the vexation and sickness of your own minds: you find not yourselves at ease within, as long as you are passionate. And then it is the grief and disquietness of your Husbands: And being provoked by you, they provoke you more: and so your disquietness increaseth; and your lives are made a weary burden to you. By all means therefore keep down passion, and keep a composed patient mind.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Take heed of a proud and contentious disposition; and maintain a humble, peaceable temper. Pride will make you turbulent and unquiet with your husbands, and contentious with your neighbors: It will make you foolish and ridiculous, in striving for honor and precedency, and envying those that exceed you or go before you: In a word, it is the Devils sin, and would make you a shame and trouble to the world. But Humility is the health, the peace and the ornament of the soul, 1 Pet. 3. 4. A meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price: (Write those words in your bed-chamber on the walls where they may be daily before your eyes.) Col. 3. 12. Put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another —If this be the duty of all to one another; much more of wives to husbands. 1 Pet. 5. 5. Yea all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Proud women oft ruin their Husbands estates, and quietness, and their own souls.
§. 9. Direct. 9. Affect not a childish gawdiness of apparel, nor a vain or costly or troublesome curiosity, in anything about you. Uncleanness and nastiness is a fault, but very small in comparison of this pride and curisioty. It dishonoreth your Sex and selves to be so childish as to overmind such toyish things. If you will needs be proud, be proud of somewhat that is of worth and proper to a man: To be proud of reason or wisdom or learning or goodness, is bad enough: but this is to be proud of something. But to be proud of fashions and fine clothes, of spots and nakedness, of sumptuous entertainments, and neat rooms, is to be proud of your shame and not your virtue; and of that which you are not so much as commendable for. And the cost, the time (O precious time) which themselves and their servants must lay out, upon their dressings, entertainments and other curiosities will be the shame and sorrow of their souls, whenever God shall open their eyes, and make them know what Time was worth, and what greater matters they had to mind. If vain and empty persons like yourselves; commend you for your bravery or curiosity, so will not any judicious sober person, whose commendation is much worth. And yet I must here with grief take notice, that when some few that in other matters seem wise and Religious, are themselves a little tainted with this childish curiosity and pride, and let fall words of disparagement against those whose dress and dwellings and entertainments are not so curious as their own, this proves the greatest maintainer of this sin, and the most notable service to the devil: For then abundance will plead this for this sinful curiosity and pride; and say, I shall else be accounted base or fordid: even such and such will speak against me. Take heed, if you will needs be such yourselves, that you prate not against others that are not as vain and curious as you: For the nature of man is more prone to Pride and Vanity, than to Humility▪ and the improvement of their Time and • ost in greater matters: and while you think that you speak but against indecency, you become the Devils Preachers, and do him more service than you consider of▪ You may as wisely speak against people for using to eat or drink too little; when there is not one of a multitude that liveth not ordinarily in excess: and so excess will get advantage by it.
§. 10. Direct. 10. Be specially careful in the Government of your tongues; and let your words be few, and well considered before you speak them. A double diligence is needful in this, because it is the most common miscarriage of your Sex: A laxative running tongue is so great a dishonor to you, that I never knew a woman very full of words, but she was the pity of her friends, and the contempt of others; who behind her back will make a scorn of her, and talk of her as some cracktbrained or half-witted person: yea though your talk be good, it will be tedious and contemptible, if it be thus poured out, and be too cheap. Prov. 10. 19. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise. You must answer in judgment for your idle words, Matth. 12. 36. You will take it ill to be accounted fools, and made the derision of those that talk of you: Judge by the Scripture what occasion you give them. Eccles. 5. 3, 7. A dream cometh by the multitude of business, and a fools voice i • known by multitude of words: In the multitude of dreams and many words, there are divers vanities. Eccles. 10. 12, 13, 14. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious, but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself: The beginnings of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is mischievous madness: A fool also is full of words. Whereas a woman that is cante • o •• and sparing of her words, is commonly reverenced and supposed to be wise. So that if you had no higher design in it, but merely to be well thought of and honored by men, you can scarcely take a surer way, than to let your words be few and weighty: Though the avoiding of sin, and unquietness, should prevail with you much more.
§. 11. Direct. 11. Be willing and diligent in your proper part, of the care and labor of the family. As the primary provision of maintenance belongeth most to the Husband, so the secondary provision within doors; belongeth specially to the wi • e. Read over and over the 31 Chap. of the Prov • Especially the care of nursing your own children, and teaching them, and watching over them when they are young; and also watching over the family at home, when your Husbands are abroad, is your proper work.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Dispose not of your Husbands estate without his knowledge and consent. You are not only to consider whether the work be good that you lay it out upon, but what power you have to do it. Quest. But may a woman' give nothing, nor lay out nothing in the house, without her Husbands consent? Answ. 1. If she have his general or implicit consent, it may suffice; that is, If he allow her to follow her judgment: or if he commit such a proportion to her power, to do what she will with it. Or if she know that if he knew it he would not be against it. 2. Or if the Law or his consent do give her any propriety in any part of his estate, or make her a joint proprietor, she may proportionably dispose of it in a necessary case. The Husband is considerable either as a Proprietor or as her Governor: As a proprietor, he only may dispose of the estate, where he is the soleproprietor: But where consent or the Law of the Land doth make the Woman joint-proprietor, she is not disabled from giving for want of a propriety. But then no Law exempteth her from his Government: And therefore she is not to give anything in a way of disobedience, though it be her own: Except when he forbiddeth that which is her duty, or which he hath no power to forbid. So that in case of joint-propriety she may give without him, so be it she exceed not her proportion, and also if it be in a case of Duty, where he may not hinder her. As to save the lives of the poor in extreme necessity, famine or imprisonment, or the like. 3. But if the thing be wholly her own, excepted from his propriety, and she be sole-proprietor, then she need not ask his consent at all, any other way than as he is her Guide, to direct her to the best way of disposing of it: Which if he forbid her, instead of directing her to it, she is not thereby excusable before God, for the abusing of her trust and Talents. 4. I conceive that ad aliquid as to certain absolutely necessary uses, the very Relation maketh the Woman as a joint proprietor: As if her Husband will not allow her such food and raiment as is necessary to preserve the lives and health of herself and all her Children; she is bound to do it without or against his will, (if she can, and if it be not to a greater hurt, and the estate be his own, and he be able) rather than let her Children contract such diseases as apparently will follow to the hazard of their lives. Yea and to save the life of another that in famine is ready to perish: For she is not as a stranger to his estate. But out of these cases, if a Wife shall secretly waste or give, or lay it out on bravery, or vanity, or set her wit against her Husbands, and because she thinks him too strait or penurious, therefore she will dispose of it without his consent, this is thievery, disobedience and injustice.
Quest. But as the case standeth with us in England, hath the Wife a joint propriety or not?
Answ. Three ways (at least) she may have a propriety. 1. By a reserve of what was her own before; which (however some question it) may in some cases be done in their agreement at marriage. 2. By the Law of the Land. 3. By the Husbands consent or donation. What the Law of the Land saith in this case, I leave to the Lawyers: But it seemeth to me, that his words at Marriage [ with all my worldly goods I thee endow ] do signify his consent to make her a joint-proprietor: And his consent is sufficient to the collation of a title, to that which was his own. Unless any can prove, that Law or custom, doth otherwise expound the words, (as an empty formality,) and that at the contract, this was or should be known to her to be the sense: And the Laws allowing the wife the third part upon death or separation, doth intimate a joint-propriety before.
Quest. 2. If the Husband live upon unlawful gain, as cheating, stealing, robbing by the high-way, &c. is not the wife guilty as a joint proprietor, in retaining such ill-gotten goods, if she know it? And is she bound to accuse her Husband, or to restore such goods?
Answ. Her duty is, first to admonish her husband of his sin and danger, and endeavor his repentance, in the mean time disclaiming all consent, and reception of the goods. And if she cannot prevail for his Repentance, Restitution and Reformation, she hath a double duty to perform: the one is to help them to their goods whom he hath injured and robbed, (by prudent and just means:) The other is to prevent his robbing of others for the time to come. But how these must be done, is the great difficulty.
1. If she foresee (or may do) that either by her husbands displeasure, or by the cruel revenge of the injured party, the hurt of discovering the fraud or robbery, will be greater than the good, then I think that she is not bound to discover it. But by some secret, indirect way, to help the owner to his own: if it may be done without a greater hurt.
2. To prevent his sin and other men's future suffering by him, she seemeth to me to be bound to reveal her husbands sinful purposes to the Magistrate, if she can no other way prevail with him to forbear. My reasons are▪ Because the keeping of God's Law, and the Law of the Land, and the public order and good, and the preventing of our Neighbors hurt by Robbery or fraud, and so the interest of honesty and right, is of greater importance than any duty to her Husband or preservation of her own peace, which seemeth to be against it. But then I must suppose that she liveth under a Magistrate who will take but a just revenge. For if she know the Laws and Magistrate to be so unjust, as to punish a fault with death which deserveth it not, she is not to tell such a Magistrate, but to preserve her Neighbors safety by some other way of intimation.
If any one think that a Wife may in no case, accuse a husband, to the hazard of his life or estate, let them, 1. Remember what God obliged Parents to do against the lives of incorrigible Children, Deut. 21. 2. And that the honor of God, and the lives of our Neighbors should be preferred before the life of one offender, and their estates before his estate alone. 3. And that the light of Reason telleth us, that a Wife is to reveal a Treason against the King, which is plotted by a Husband▪ and therefore also the robbing of the Kings Treasury, or deceiving him in any matter of great concernment: And therefore in due proportion, the Laws and common good, and our Neighbors welfare are to be preserved by us, though against the nearest relation: Only all due tenderness of the life and reputation of the Husband is to be preserved, in the manner of proceedings, as far as will stand with the interest of justice and the common good.
Quest. 3. May the Wife go hear Sermons when the Husband forbiddeth her?
Answ. There are some Sermons which must not be heard: There are some Sermons which may be heard, and must when no greater matter doth divert us: And there are some Sermons which must be heard whoever shall forbid it. Those which must not be heard, are such as are Heretical (ordinarily) and such as are superfluous, and at such times when greater duties call us another way. Those which may be heard, are either occasional Sermons, or such Lectures as are neither of Necessity to ourselves, nor yet to the owning of God and his public Worship. One that liveth where there are daily or hourly Sermons, may hear them as oft as suiteth with their condition, and their other duties: But in this case, the Command of a Husband, with the inconveniences that will follow disobeying him, may make it a duty to forbear. But that we do sometimes publicly own God's Worship, and Church-Ordinances, and receive Ministerial teaching for our Edification, is of double necessity; that we d • ny not God, and that we betray not, or desert not our own souls. And this is especially necessary (ordinarily) on the Lord's Days, which are appointed for these necessary uses. And here the Husband hath no power to forbid the Wife, nor should she ( formally ) obey his prohibition. But yet as affirmatives bind not ad semper, and no duty is a duty at every season, so it is possible that on the Lord's Day, it may extraordinarily become a duty to forbear Sermons or Sacraments, or other public Worship. As when any greater duty calleth us away: As to quench a fire: and to save men's lives; and to save our Country from an enemy in a time of War: and to save our own lives (if we knew the assembly would be assaulted), or to preserve our liberty for greater service. Christ • et us to learn the meaning of this Lesson [ I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice ]. In such a case also a mischief may be avoided, even from a Husband, by the omission of a duty at that time, (when it would be no duty) for this is but a transposition of it. But this is but an act of prudent self-preservation, and not an act of formal obedience.
Quest. 4. If a Woman have a Husband so incorrigible in Vice, as that by long trial she findeth that speaking against it, maketh him worse, and causeth him to abuse her, is she bound to continue her disuasion, or to f • rbear?.
Answ. That is not here a duty which is not a means to do some good: And that is no means which we know before hand is like, i • not certain, to do no good, or to do more harm. We must not by weariness, laziness, or • ensoriousness, take a case to be desperate, which is not: Nor must we so easily de • ist with so near a relation as with a stranger or a neighbor. But yet Christ's indulgence of not exposing ourselves to be torn by Dogs, and his Word trodden in the dirt by Swine, doth extend to relations as well as others. But then you must observe that she that is justly discouraged from sharp reproofs, may yet have hope that gentle and humble persuasions may succeed: And she that is discouraged from open, or frequent, or plain reproofs: may yet have hope that secret, or more seldom, or more distant and general admonitions may not be lost. And she that is discouraged from one way of doing him good, may yet have many other ways (as to set some Minister whom he reverenceth to speak to him: to put some suitable Book into his hand, &c. ) And she that is discouraged at the present, ought not totally to despair, but may make some more attempts hereafter; either in some sickness, or time of mortality, or danger, or affliction, or when possibly time and consideration may have better prepared him to hear. And in the mean time she is to continue all Conjugal affection and duty, and a convincing, winning course of life▪ which may prove the most effectual reproof.
Quest. 5. What should a Woman do in controverted cases of Religion, when her judgment and her Husbands differ?
Answ. 1. Some make a controversy of that which with all good Christians or sober persons should be past controversy: and some controversies are indeed of real, if not insuperable difficulty. 2. Some controversies are about important necessary things, and some about things of lesser moment. 3. Some are about mere Opinion, or other men's practice, and some about our own practice.
1. In all differences of judgment the Wife must exercise such self-suspicion, and modesty, and submission, as may signify her due sense, both of the weakness of her Sex, and of her subjection to her Husband. 2. In things indifferent she must in practice obey her Husband; unless when superior powers do forbid it, and that in cases where their authority is greater. 3. She may modestly give her reasons of dissent. 4. She must not turn it to an unpeaceable quarrel, or matter of disaffection, or pretend any differences against her Conjugal duties. 5. In dark and difficult cases she should not be peremptory, and self-conceited, nor importunate; but if she have faith (that is, some more knowledge than he) have it to herself, in quietness and silence: and seek further information lest she err. 6. She must speak no untruth, nor commit any known sin, in obedience to her Husbands judgment. 7. When she strongly suspecteth it to be sin, she must not do it merely in obedience to him, but seek for better satisfaction. For she is sure that he hath no power to force her to sin: And therefore hath no more assurance of his power in that point, than she hath of the lawfulness of the thing. 8. But if she prove to be in the error, she will sin on either side, till she recover. 9. If a Husband be in dangerous error, she must wisely, but unweariedly seek his reformation, by herself or others.
Cases about Divorce and Separation.
Quest. 1. IS it lawful for Husband and Wife to be long absent from each other? and how long, and in what Cases?
Answ. It is lawful to be absent either in the case of prayer which Paul mentioneth, or in case of the needful affairs of their estates, so long as may be no danger to either of them as to mental or corporal incontinency, nor to any other hurt which will be greater than the benefits of their absence; nor cause them to be guilty of the neglect of any real duty. Therefore the cases of several persons do much differ according to the different tempers of their minds, and bodies, and affairs. He that hath a Wife of a chaste, contented, prudent temper, may stay many months or years in some cases, when all things considered, it tendeth to more good than hurt. As Lawyers by their Callings are often necessitated to follow their Callings at Terms and Assizes. And Merchants may be some years absent in some weighty cases. But if you ask, Whether the getting of money be a sufficient cause? I answer, that it is sufficient to those whose families must be so maintained, and their Wives are easily continent, and so the good of their gain is greater than any loss or danger that cometh by it. But when Covetousness puts them upon it needlessly, and their Wives cannot bear it, or in any case, when the hurt that is like to follow, is greater than the good, it is unlawful.
Quest. 2. May Husband and Wife be separated by the bare command of Princes? If they make a Law that in certain cases they shall part: As suppose it to Ministers, Judges or Soldiers?
Answ. You must distinguish between the bare Command or Law, and the Reasons and Ends of that Command: and so between a Lawful Command and an Unlawful. In some Cases a Prince may justly command a separation for a time, or such as is like to prove for perpetuity, and in some cases he may not. If a King command a separation without sufficient cause, so that you have no Motive but his Authority, and the question is, Whether formally you are bound to obedience; I answer, No: Because what God hath joined, no man hath power to pu • asunder. Nor can either Prince, Pope or Prelate dispe • se with your Marriage Covenant: In such a case, it is as a Private act, because God hath given them no authority for it: and therefore their Commands or Laws are Nullities 〈◊〉 Only if a Prince say, He that will be a Judge or a Justice shall part with his Wife, it is lawful to leave the Office, and so obey the Law. But if he say to all Ministers of the Gospel, you shall forsake your Wives or your Ministry, they should do neither, because they are Divinely obliged to both, and he hath no power to forbid them, or to dispense with that obligation.
But it may fall out, that the Ends of the Command may be so great as to make it Lawful, and then it must be obeyed both formally for the authority of the Prince, and finally for the reasons of the thing. As if the safety of the Commonwealth should require, that Married persons be Soldiers, and that they go far off; yea, though there be no likelihood of returning to their families, and withal they cannot take their Wives with them, without detriment or danger to their service: In this case men must obey the Magistrate, and are called by God to forsake their Wives, as if it were by death. Nor is it any violation of their Marriage Covenant, because that was intended or meant to suppose the Exception of any such Call of God, which cannot be resisted when it will make a separation.
Quest. 3. May Ministers leave their Wives to go abroad to preach the Gospel?
Answ. If they can neither do God's work as well at home, nor yet take their Wives with them, nor be excused from doing that part of service, by other men's doing it, who have no such impediment: they may and must leave their Wives to do it. In this case, the interest of the Church, and of the souls of many, must over-rule the interest of Wife and Family. Those Pastors who have fixed stations, must neither leave flock or family, without necessity, or a clear call from God. But in several Cases a Preacher may be necessitated to go abroad: As in case of persecution at home, or of some necessity of foreign or remote parts, which cannot be otherwise supplied: Or when some door is opened for the Conversion of Infidels, Heretics; or Idolaters, and none else so fit to do that work▪ or none that will. In any such case, when the cause of God in any part of the world consideratis considerandis doth require his help, a Minister must leave Wife and Family, yea, and a particular flock to do it. For our obligations are greatest to the Catholic Church, and public good; and the greatest good must be preferred. If a King command a Subject to be an Embassador in the remotest part of the world, and the public good withal requireth it, if Wife and Children cannot be taken with him, they must be left behind, and he must go. So must a consecrated Minister of Christ for the service of the Church, refuse all entanglements which would more hinder his work, than the contrary benefits will countervail. And this exception also was supposed in the Marriage contract, that family interests and comforts must give way to the public interest, and to God's disposals.
And therefore it is that Ministers should not rashly venture upon Marriage, nor any woman that is wi • e, venture to marry a Minister, till she is first well prepared for such accidents as may separate them, for a shorter or a longer time.
Quest. 4. May one leave a Wife to save his life, in case of personal persecution or danger?
Answ. Yes, i • she cannot be taken with him: For the means which are for the Helps of Life, do suppose the preservation of Life itself: If he live, he may further serve God, and possibly return to his Wife and family. But if he die, he is removed from them all.
Quest. 5. May Husband and Wife part by mutual Consent, if they find it to be for the good of both?
Answ. If you speak not of a dissolving the bond of their Relations, but withdrawing as to cohabitation: I answer, 1. It is not to be done upon passions and discontents, to feed and gratify each others vicious distempers or interest: For then both the Consent and the separation are their sins. But if really such an uncurable unsuitableness be between them, as that their lives must needs be miserable by their co-habitation, I know not but they may live asunder; so be it, that (after all other means used in vain) they do it by deliberate free consent. But if one of them should by craft or cruelty constrain the other to consent, it is unlawful to the constrainer. Nor must impatience make either of them ungroundedly despair of the cure of any unsuitableness which is really curable. But many sad instances might be given, in which co-habitation may be a constant calamity to both, and distance may be their relief, and further them both in God's service, and in their corporal concernments. Yet I say not, that this is no sin: For their unsuitableness is their sin: And God still obligeth them to lay down that sin which maketh them unsuitable; and therefore doth not allow them to live asunder, it being still their duty, to live together in Love and peace; And saying they cannot, •••• th them not from the duty. But yet that moral Impotency may make such a separation as aforesaid, to be a Lesser sin than their unpeaceable co-habitation.
Quest. 6. May not the Relation itself be dissolved by mutual free consent, so that they may marry others?
Answ. As to the Relation, they will still be Related as those that did Covenant to live in conjugal society, and are still allowed it and obliged to it, if the Impediments were but removed: And it is but the exercise which is hindered. And they may not Consent to marry others: 1. Because the contracted Relation was for Life, Rom. 7. 2. and God's Law accordingly obligeth them. Marriages pro tempore, dissoluble by consent, are not of God's institution, but contrary to it. 2. They know not but their Impediments of co-habitation may be removed. 3. If he that marrieth an innocent divorced woman commit adultery, by parity of reason (with advantage) it will be so here. If you say, what if either of them cannot contain? I answer, He that will not take heed before, must be patient afterwards, and not make advantage of his own folly, to the fulfilling of his lusts. If he will what he ought to do in the use of all means, he may live chastely. And 4. The public interest must overrule the private, and that which would be unjust in private respects, may for public good become a duty: It seemeth unjust here with us, that the innocent Country should repay every man his money, who between Sun and Sun is robbed on the Road: And yet because it will engage the Country to watchfulness, it is just as for the common good: And he that consenteth to be a member of a Commonwealth, doth thereby consent to submit his own right to the common interest So here; If all should have leave to marry others when they consent to part, it would bring utter confusion, and it would encourage wicked men, to abuse their Wives, till they forced them to consent. Therefore some must bear the trouble which their folly hath brought on themselves, rather than the common order should be confounded.
Quest. 7. Doth Adultery dissolve the bond of Marriage, or not? Ames saith, it doth. And Mr. Whateley having said so, afterward recanted it by the persuasion of other Divines.
Answ. The difference is only about the Name and not about the Matter itself. The Reason which moved Dr. Ames is, Because the injured person is free; therefore not bound: therefore the bond is dissolved: The reason which Mr. Whateley could not answer is, Because it is not fornication, but lawful, if they continue their conjugal familiarity after adultery: therefore that bond is not dissolved. In all which it is easy to perceive, that one of them taketh the word Vinculum or Bond in one sense, that is, [For their Covenant-obligation to continue their Relation and mutual duties.] And the other taketh it in another sense, that is, [For the Relation itself as by it they are allowed conjugal familiarity, if the injured person will continue it.] The first Vinculum or Bond is dissolved, the second is not. In the Matter we are agreed, that the injured man may put away an adulterous Wife (in a regular way) if he please; but withal that he may continue the Relation if he please. So that his continued Consent shall suffice to continue it a lawful Relation and exercise; and his Will on the contrary shall suffice to dissolve the Relation, and disoblige him. (Saving the public order.)
Quest. 8. But is not the injured party at all obliged to separate, but left free?
Answ. Considering the thing simply in itself, he is wholly free to do as he please. But for all that Accidents or Circumstances may make it one man's duty to divorce, and another's duty to continue the Relation; according as it is like to do more good or hurt. Sometimes it may be a duty to expose the sin to public shame, for the prevention of it in others; and also to deliver ones self from a calamity. And sometimes there may be so great repentance, and hope of better effects by forgiving, that it may be a duty to forgive: And prudence must lay one thing with another, to discern on which side the duty lieth.
Quest. 9. Is it only the privilege of the Man, that he may put away an adulterous Wife? or also of the Woman, to depart from an adulterous Husband? The reason of the doubt is, because Christ mentioneth the man's power only, Matth. 5. & 19.
Answ. 1. The reason why Christ speaketh only of the man's case, is, because he was occasioned only to restrain the vicious custom of men's causeless putting away their Wives; having no occasion to restrain Women from leaving their Husbands. Men having the Rule did abuse it to the Womens injury; which Christ forbiddeth. And as it is an act of power, it concerneth the man alone: But as it is an act of Liberty, it seemeth to me to be supposed, that the Woman hath the same freedom: Seeing the Covenant is violated to her wrong. And the Apostle in 1 Cor. 7. doth make the Case of the Man and of the Woman to be equal in the point of Infidelity and desertion. I confess that it is unsafe extending the sense of Scripture beyond the importance of the words upon pretence of a parity of reason (as many of the Perjured do by Levite. 30. in case of Vows:) Lest man's deceitful wit should make a Law to itself as Divine, upon pretence of interpreting God's Laws: But yet when the plain Text doth speak but of one case (that is, of Men's putting away their Wives ), he that will thence gather an exclusion of the Woman's liberty, doth seem by addition to be the corrupter of the Law. And where the Context plainly showeth a Parity of reason, and that reason is made the ground of the determination in the Text, there it is safe to expound the Law extensively accordingly. Surely the Covenant of Marriage hath its Conditions on both parts: and some of those Conditions are necessary to the very being of the Obligations, though others are but needful to the well-being of the parties in that state. And therefore though Putting away be only the part of the Husband, as being the Ruler, and usually the Owner of the habitation, yet Departing may be the Liberty of the Wife. And I know no reason to blame those Countries, whose Laws allow the Wife to Sue out a divorce, as well as the Husband.
Quest. 10. May the Husband put away the Wife without the Magistrate, or the Wife depart from the Husband without a public legal divorce or license?
Answ. Where the Laws of the Land do take care for the prevention of injuries, and make any determination in the case (not contrary to the Law of God,) there it is a Christians duty to obey those Laws: Therefore if you live under a Law which forbiddeth any Putting away or Departing, without public sentence or allowance, you may not do it privately upon your own will. For the Civil Governors are to provide against the private injuries of any of the Subjects. And if persons might put away or depart at pleasure, it would introduce both injury and much wickedness into the world. But where the Laws of men do leave persons to their liberty in this case, they need then to look no further than to the Laws of God alone. But usually the sentence of the Civil power, is necessary only in case of appeal, or complaint of the party injured: and a separation may be made without such a public divorce, so that each party may make use of the Magistrate to right themselves if wronged. As if the Adultery be not openly known, and the injuring party desire rather to be put away privily than publicly (as Joseph purposed to do by Mary ) I see not but it is lawful so to do, in case that the Law, or the necessity of making the offender an Example require not the contrary, nor scandal or other accidents forbid it not. See Grotius 's learned Notes on