A Christian Directory

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.