THE MUTUAL DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES TOWARDS EACH OTHER.
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 honour, or profit, or pleasure their relation will
afford them, but not what God and man require or expect from them.[9]
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 encouraging reward. Study and
do your parts, and God will certainly do his.
_Direct._ I. The first duty of husbands is to love their wives
(and wives their husbands) with a true, entire, conjugal love. Eph. v.
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 hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,
even as the Lord the church.--Let every one of you in particular so
love his wife, even as himself." See Gen. ii. 24. 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 succour 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.
[Sidenote: Sub-directions to maintain conjugal love.]
The sub-directions for maintaining conjugal love are such as these.
_Direct_. I. 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 for. 3. Be not too hasty, but know
beforehand 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 labours 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 snare to her undoing.
What comfort can she have in her converse with you, and care, and
labour, 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; yet 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 peevishness
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.
_Direct._ II. Another duty of husbands and wives is, cohabitation
and (where age prohibiteth not) a sober and modest conjunction for
procreation: avoiding lasciviousness, 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. vii. 2-5, "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 you
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.
_Direct._ III. Abhor not only adultery itself, but all that
tendeth to unchasteness and the violation of your marriage-covenant.[10]
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.
xx. 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 bestiality; and
perhaps they loathe 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 their 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 Lazarus
his sores, were not used in such a filthy employment as theirs are.
"They are as fed horses in the morning; every one neigheth after his
neighbour's wife," Jer. v. 8. "They declare their sin as Sodom, and
hide it not," Isa. iii. 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 villanies, and even to hate and
persecute godliness, if not civility itself.[11] 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. iv. 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. ii. 10-12. Take heed therefore
of the causes of this odious sin, and of all appearance of it; suffer
not your eye or thought to go after a stranger, nor to begin a breach
in your covenant and conjugal fidelity.
_Direct._ IV. 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 burdens;
and is not the least part of the comfort of the married state.
"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," Prov. v. 18, 19. Therefore a wife is called
"The desire of the eyes," Ezek. xxiv. 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 any thing unseemly in
behaviour, 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
neighbour's houses, than in their own, and find more pleasure in the
company of a stranger, than of one another.
_Direct._ V. It is 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.
[Sidenote: Against dissension.]
1. It is a duty which your union or near relation doth especially
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 is 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 is 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 overrun. 4. Dissension
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 other's 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 every one of those duties do
require. 6. Dissension 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.
[Sidenote: Directions against dissension.]
II. For the avoiding of them observe these sub-directions. 1. Keep up
your conjugal love in a constant heat and vigour. 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 balsamic
quality of love will heal it. But when love once cooleth, small
matters exasperate and breed distaste.
2. Both husband and wife must mortify their pride and passion, which
are the causes of impatiency; and must pray and labour 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 offence
do. A proud heart is troubled and provoked by every word or carriage
that seemeth to tend to their undervaluing. A peevish, 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 crieth; 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
putrid ulcer, would you fall out with her because it stinketh? Did you
not know beforehand, that you married a person of such weaknesses, as
would yield you some matter of daily trial and offence? 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 beforehand, 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 other's fortunes, and the
comforts of each other's 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, and we shall not approve it when this 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
practise these ten directions, your conjugal and family peace may be
preserved.
_Direct._ VI. 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. Endeavour
to quicken you to make conscience of it; and then, 2. Direct you how
to do it.
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 endeavour her salvation? If she were but in bodily pain or
misery, and you refused to do your part to succour her, she would take
it but for cold, unprofitable love, though you were never so kind to
her in compliments and trifles. The devil himself maketh show of such
a love as that; he can vouchsafe men pleasures, and wealth, and
honour, 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 for ever? Never say
you love them, if you will not labour 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.
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![12] 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.
2. Consider also that you live not up to the ends of marriage, nor of
humanity, if you are not helpers to each other's souls. To help each
other only for your bellies, is to live together but like beasts. You
are appointed to live together as "heirs of the grace of life," 1 Pet.
iii. 7. "And husbands must love their wives as Christ loved his
church, who gave himself for it that he might sanctify it and cleanse
it, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, without
spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish," Eph. v. 25-27. That which
is the end of your very life and being, must be the end of your
relations, and your daily converse.
3. Consider also, if you neglect each other's souls, what enemies you
are to one another, and how you prepare for your everlasting sorrows:
when you should be preparing for your joyful meeting in heaven, you
are laying up for yourselves everlasting horror. What a dreadful
meeting and greeting will you have at the bar of Christ, or in the
flames of hell, when you shall find there how perversely you have
done![13] Is it not better to be praising God together in glory, than
to be raging against each other in the horror of your consciences, and
flying in the faces of one another with such accusations as these?--"O
cruel husband! O merciless, deceitful wife! It was long of you that I
came to this miserable, woeful end! I might have lived with Christ and
his saints in joy, and now I am tormented in these flames in
desperation! You were commanded by God to have given me warning, and
told me of my sin and misery, and never to let me rest in it, but to
have instructed and entreated me, till I had come home by Christ, that
I might not have come to this place of torment; but you never so much
as spake to me of God, and my salvation, unless it were lightly in
jest or in your common talk! If the house had been on fire, you would
have been more earnest to have quenched it, than you were to save my
soul from hell! You never told me seriously of the misery of a
natural, unrenewed state! nor of the great necessity of regeneration
and a holy life! nor ever talked to me of heaven and hell, as matters
of such consequence should have been mentioned; but morning and night
your talk was nothing but about the world and the things of the
world.[14] Your idle talk, and jesting, and froward, and carnal, and
unprofitable discourse, was it that filled up all the time; and we had
not one sober word of our salvation. You never seriously foretold me
of this day; you never prayed with me, nor read the Scripture and good
books to me. You took no pains to help me to knowledge, nor to humble
my hardened heart for my sins, nor to save me from them, nor to draw
me to the love of God and holiness by faith in Christ: you did not go
before me with the good example of a holy and heavenly conversation;
but with the evil example of an ungodly, fleshly, worldly life. You
neither cared for your own soul, nor mine; nor I for yours or mine
own. And now we are justly condemned together, that would not live in
holiness together!" O foolish, miserable souls, that by your
ungodliness and negligence in this life, will prepare each other for
such a life of endless woe and horror!
[Sidenote: Directions to help each other to salvation.]
O therefore resolve without delay, to live together as heirs of
heaven, and to be helpers to each other's souls. To which end I will
give you these following sub-directions, which if you will faithfully
practise, may make you to be special blessings to each other.
_Direct._ I. If you would help to save each other's souls, you
must each of you be sure that you have a care of your own; and retain
a deep and lively apprehension of those great and everlasting matters,
of which you are to speak to others.[15] It cannot be reasonably
expected that he should have a due compassion to another's soul, that
hath none to his own; and that he should be at the pains that is
needful to help another to salvation, that setteth so little by his
own, as to sell it for the base and momentary ease and pleasure of the
flesh. Nor is it to be expected that a man should speak with any
suitable weight and seriousness about those matters whose weight his
heart did never feel, and about which he was never serious himself.
First see that you feel thoroughly, that which you would speak
profitably; and that you be what you persuade another to be; and that
all your counsel may be perceived to arise from the bottom of your
hearts, and that you speak of things which by experience you are well
acquainted with.
_Direct._ II. Take those opportunities which your ordinary
nearness and familiarity affordeth you, to be speaking seriously to
each other about the matters of God, and your salvation. When you lie
down and rise together, let not your worldly business have all your
talk; but let God and your souls have the first and the last, and at
least the freest and sweetest of your speech, if not the most. When
you have said so much of your common business as the nature and
despatch of it requireth, lay it by, and talk together of the state
and duty of your souls towards God, and of your hopes of heaven, as
those that take these for their greatest business. And speak not
lightly, or unreverently, or in a rude and wrangling manner; but with
gravity and sobriety, as those that are advising together about the
greatest matter that ever they had to do in the world.
_Direct._ III. When either husband or wife is speaking seriously
about holy things, let the other be careful to cherish, and not to
extinguish and put an end to the discourse. There are two ways to
cherish such discourse: the first is, by taking your turn, and bearing
a due proportion in the discourse with wisdom and gravity; but all
cannot do this; some are but learners, and those must take the second
way, which is, to ask for resolution in matters of which they doubt,
or are uninstructed, and to draw on more by pertinent questions. The
two ways by which such discourse is silenced are these: the first is,
by the constant silence of the hearer; when a man talketh as to a
post, that giveth him no answer, nor putteth any pertinent question,
he will be wearied out at last, and will give over: the second is, by
a cross, contradicting, cavilling, wrangling against what is spoken,
or by interruptions and diversions; when you come in presently with
some worldly or impertinent talk, and wind about from sober conference
to something that is unedifying; and some that will not seem merely
profane, and vain, and worldly, will destroy all holy, fruitful
conference, even by a kind of religious talk; presently carrying you
away from heart-searching and heavenly discourse, to some controversy,
or doctrinal, or formal, or historical matter, that is sufficiently
distant from the heart and heaven. Take heed of these courses, if you
would help each other.
_Direct._ IV. Watch over the hearts and lives of one another, and
labour to discern the state of one another's souls, and the strength
or weakness of each other's sins and graces, and the failings of each
other's lives, that so you may be able to apply to one another the
most suitable help. What you are unacquainted with, you cannot be very
helpful in;[16] you cannot cure unknown diseases; you cannot give wise
and safe advice, about the state of one another's souls, if you are
mistaken in them. God hath placed you nearest to each other, that you
might have so much interest in each other, as to quicken you to a
loving care, and so much acquaintance with each other, as to keep you
from misunderstanding, and so from neglecting or deceiving one
another. And you should be always provided of those fit remedies, that
are most needful and suitable to each other's case. If that preacher
be like to be dull and unsuccessful that is all upon mere doctrine,
and little or nothing in close and lively application, you may
conceive that it will be so also with your familiar conference.
_Direct._ V. See that you neither flatter one another through
fond and foolish love, nor exasperate one another by a passionate or
contemptuous kind of reprehension. Some persons are so blinded with
fond affection, that they can scarce see in husband, wife, or children
any aggravated sin or misery; but they think all is well that they do,
or not so ill as in another they would perceive it; but this is the
same course that self-loving sinners take with their own souls, to
their delusion and perdition. This flattering of yourselves or others,
is but the devil's charm to keep you from effectual repentance and
salvation; and the ease of such anodynes and narcotics doth endure but
a little while. On the other side, some cannot speak to one another of
their faults, without such bitterness of passion, or contempt, as
tendeth to make the stomach of the receiver to loathe the medicine,
and so to refuse it, or to cast it up. If common reproofs to strangers
must all be offered in love, much more between the nearest relations.
_Direct._ VI. Be sure that you keep up true conjugal love to one
another, and that you grow not to disaffect the persons of each other.
For if you do, you will despise each other's counsels and reproofs.
They that slight, or loathe, or are weary of each other, will disdain
reproofs, and scorn advice from one another; when entire affection
greatly disposeth to the right entertainment of instruction.
_Direct._ VII. Discourage not each other from instruction or
reproof by taking it ill, or by churlish reflections, or by obstinate
unreformedness. When you will not learn, or will not amend, you
discourage your instructor and reprover. Men will be apt to give over,
when they are requited with ingratitude, and snappish retortions, or
when they perceive that their labour is all in vain. And as it is the
heaviest judgment of God that befalleth any upon earth, when he
withdraweth his advice and help, and leaveth sinners wholly to
themselves; so it is the saddest condition in your relations, when the
ignorant and sinning party is forsaken by the other, and left to their
own opinions and ways; though indeed it should not be so, because
while there is life there is hope.
_Direct._ VIII. So far as you are able to instruct or quicken one
another, call in for better helps: engage each other in the reading of
the most convincing, quickening books, and in attendance on the most
powerful ministry, and in profitable converse with the holiest
persons. Not so as to neglect your duty to one another ever the more,
but that all helps concurring may be the more effectual. When they
find you speak to them but the same things which ministers and other
christians speak, it will be the more easily received.
_Direct._ IX. Conceal not the state of your souls, nor hide your
faults from one another. You are as one flesh, and should have one
heart: and as it is most dangerous for a man to be unknown to himself,
so it is very hurtful to husband or wife to be unknown to one another,
in those cases wherein they have need of help. It is foolish
tenderness of yourselves, when you conceal your disease from your
physician, or your helpful friend; and who should be so tender of you,
and helpful to you, as you should be to one another? Indeed in some
few cases, where the opening of a fault or secret will but tend to
quench affection, and not to get assistance from another, it is wisdom
to conceal it; but that is not the ordinary case. The opening your
hearts to each other is necessary to your mutual help.
_Direct._ X. Avoid as much as may be contrariety of opinions in
religion: for if once you be of different judgments in matters which
you take to be of great concernment, you will be tempted to disaffect,
contemn, or undervalue one another; and so to despise the help which
you might receive: and if you fall into several sects, and follow
several teachers, you will hardly avoid that contention and confusion,
which will prove a great advantage to the devil, and a great
impediment to your spiritual good.
_Direct._ XI. If difference in judgment in matters of religion do
fall out between you, be sure that it be managed with holiness,
humility, love, and peace, and not with carnality, pride,
uncharitableness, or contention. 1. To manage your differences holily,
is to take God for the judge, and to refer the matter to his word, and
to aim at his glory, and the pleasing of his will, and to use his
means for the concord of your judgments; which is, to search the
Scripture, and consult with the faithful, able pastors of the church,
and soberly and patiently to debate the case, and pray together for
the illumination of the Spirit. On the contrary your differences are
carnally managed, when carnal reasons breed or feed them; and when you
run after this or that sect or party, through admiration of the
persons; and value not the persons for the sake of truth, but measure
truth by the opinion and estimate of the persons; and when you end
your differences by selfish, carnal principles and respects: and hence
it comes to pass, that if the husband be a papist or otherwise
erroneous, it is two to one that the wife becometh of his erroneous
religion, not because of any cogent evidence, but because he is of the
stronger parts, and hath constant opportunity to persuade, and because
love prepareth and inclineth her to be of his opinion: and thus man,
instead of God, is the master of the faith of many. 2. Your
differences are managed in humility, when you have a just and modest
suspicion of your own understandings, and debate and practise your
differences with meekness and submission; and do not proudly overvalue
all your own apprehensions, and despise another's reasons as if they
were not worthy of your consideration. 3. Your differences must be so
far managed in love, not that mere love should make you turn to
another's opinion be it true or false, but that you must be very
desirous to be of the same mind, and if you cannot, must take it for a
sore affliction, and must bear with the tolerable mistakes of one
another, as you bear with your own infirmities; that they cool not
love, nor alienate your hearts from one another, but only provoke you
to a tender, healing, compassionate care, and endeavour to do each
other good. 4. And you must manage your differences in quietness,
without any passionate wranglings and dissensions, that no bitter
fruits may be bred by it in your families, among yourselves. Thus all
true christians must manage their differences in matters of religion;
but married persons above all.
_Direct._ XII. Be not either blindly indulgent to each other's
faults, nor yet too censorious of each other's state, lest Satan
thereby get advantage to alienate your affections from one another. To
make nothing of the faults of those whom you love, is to love them
foolishly, to their hurt, and to show that it is not for their virtues
that you love them. And to make too great a matter of one another's
faults, is but to help the tempter to quench your love, and turn your
hearts from one another. Thus many good women that have husbands that
are guilty of too much coldness in religion, or worldly-mindedness, or
falling into ill company, and mispending their time, are first apt to
overlook all possibility of any seed of grace that may be in them, and
then looking on them as ungodly persons, to abate too much their love
and duty to them. There is great wisdom and watchfulness requisite in
this case, to keep you from being carried into either of the extremes.
_Direct._ XIII. If you are married to one that is indeed an
infidel, or an ungodly person, yet keep up all the conjugal love which
is due for the relation's sake. Though you cannot love them as true
christians, yet love them as husband or wife. Even heathens are bound
to love those that are thus related to them. The apostle hath
determined the case, 1 Cor. vii. that christians must perform their
duties to husbands or wives that are unbelievers. The faults of
another discharge you not from your duty. As Satan hath deceived some
by separating principles about church communion, to deny almost all
God's ordinances to many, to whom they are due; so doth he thus
deceive some persons in family relations, and draw them from the
duties which they owe for one another's good.
_Direct._ XIV. Join together in frequent and fervent prayer.
Prayer doth force the mind into some composedness and sobriety, and
affecteth the heart with the presence and majesty of God. Pray also
for each other when you are in secret, that God may do that work which
you most desire, upon each other's hearts.
_Direct._ XV. Lastly, Help each other by an exemplary life. Be
that yourselves which you desire your husband or wife should be; excel
in meekness, and humility, and charity, and dutifulness, and
diligence, and self-denial, and patience, as far as you do excel in
profession of religion. St. Peter saith, that even those that will not
be won by the word, may be won without it by the conversation of their
wives, 1 Pet. iii. 1; that is, the excellency of religion may so far
appear to them, by the fruits of it in their wives' conversations, as
may first incline them to think well and honourably of it, and so to
inquire into the nature and reason of it, and to hearken to their
wives; and all this without the public ministry. A life of
undissembled holiness, and heavenliness, and self-denial, and
meekness, and love, and mortification, is a powerful sermon; which, if
you be constantly preaching before those that are still near you, will
hardly miss of a good effect. Works are more palpably significant and
persuasive, than words alone.
_Direct._ VII. Another great conjugal duty is, to be helpful to
each other for the health and comfort of their bodies.[17] Not to
pamper each other's flesh, or cherish the vices of pride, or sloth, or
gluttony, or voluptuousness in each other; but to further the health
and cheerfulness of the body, to fit it for the service of the soul
and God. Such cherishing or pleasing of the flesh, which is unlawful
in each person to himself, is also unlawful (ordinarily) to use to
another. But such as you may use for yourself, you may use also for
your wife or husband. Not to live above your estates, nor as servants
to your guts, to serve the appetites of one another by delicious fare;
but to be careful of that health, without which your lives will be
made unserviceable or uncomfortable; and this must proceed from such a
love to one another as you have to yourselves; and that both in time
of health and sickness.
1. In health, you must be careful to provide for each other (not so
much pleasing as) wholesome food, and to keep each other from that
which is hurtful to your health; dissuading each other from gluttony
and idleness, the two great murderers of mankind. If the bodies of the
poor, in hunger, and cold, and nakedness must be relieved, much more
those that are become as your own flesh.
2. Also in sickness, you are to be tenderly regardful of each other;
and not to be sparing of any costs or pains, by which the health of
each other may be restored, or your souls confirmed, and your comforts
cherished.[18] You must not loathe the bodies of each other in the
most loathsome sickness, nor shun them through loathing; no more than
you would do your own.[19] "A friend loveth at all times, and a
brother is born for adversity," Prov. xvii. 17; much more those that
are so nearly bound for sickness and health, till death shall separate
them. It is an odious sin to be weary of a sick or suffering friend,
and desirous that God would take them, merely that you may be eased of
the trouble. And usually such persons do meet with such measure as
they measured to others; and those that they look for help and comfort
from, will perhaps be as weary of them, and as glad to be rid of them.
_Direct._ VIII. Another duty of husbands and wives is, to be
helpful to each other in their worldly business and estates.[20] Not
for worldly ends, nor with a worldly mind; but in obedience to God,
who will have them labour, as well as pray, for their daily bread, and
hath determined that in the sweat of their brows they shall eat their
bread; and that six days they shall labour and do all that they have
to do; and that he that will not work must not eat. The care of their
affairs doth lie upon them both, and neither of them must cast it off
and live in idleness (unless one of them be an idiot, or so witless,
as to be unfit for care, or so sick or lame, as to be unfit for
labour).
_Direct._ IX. Also you must be careful of the lawful honour and
good names of one another.[21] You must not divulge, but conceal, the
dishonourable failings of each other; (as Abigail, except in any case
compassion or justice require you to open them to any one for a cure,
or to clear the truth). The reputation of each other must be as dear
to you as your own. It is a sinful and unfaithful practice of many,
both husbands and wives, who among their companions are opening the
faults and infirmities of each other, which they are bound in
tenderness to cover. As if they perceived not that by dishonouring one
another, they dishonour themselves. Love will cover a multitude of
faults, 1 Pet. iv. 8. Nay, many disaffected, peevish persons will
aggravate all the faults of one another behind their backs to
strangers; and sometimes slander them, and speak more than is truth.
Many a man hath been put to clear his good name from the slanders of a
jealous or a passionate wife: and an open enemy is not capable of
doing one so much wrong as she that is in his bosom, because she will
easily be believed, as being supposed to know him better than any
other.
_Direct._ X. It is also a great part of the duty of husbands and
wives, to be helpful to one another in the education of their
children, and in the government of the inferiors of the family.[22]
Some men cast all the care of the children while they are young upon
their wives; and many women by their passion and indiscretion do make
themselves unfit to help their husbands in the government either of
their children or servants: but this is one of the greatest parts of
their employment. As to the man's part, to govern his house well, it
is a duty unquestionable. And it is not to be denied of the wife.
1 Tim. v. 14, "I will that the younger women marry, bear children,
guide the house." Bathsheba taught Solomon, Prov. xxxi. 1. Abigail
took better care of Nabal's house than he did himself. They that have
a joint interest, and are one flesh, must have a joint part in
government; although their power be not equal, and one may better
oversee some business, and the other, other business; yet in their
places, they must divide the care, and help each other; and not as it
is with many wicked persons, who are the most unruly part of the
family themselves, and the chiefest cause that it is ungoverned and
ungodly, or one party hindereth the other from keeping order, or doing
any good.
_Direct._ XI. Another part of their duty is, to help each other
in works of charity and hospitality.[23] While they have opportunity
to do good to all, but especially to them of the household of faith;
and to sow to the Spirit, that of the Spirit they may reap everlasting
life: yea, to sow plentifully that they may reap plentifully, Gal. vi.
that if they are able their houses may afford relief and entertainment
for the needy; especially for Christ's servants for their Master's
sake; who hath promised that "He that receiveth a prophet in the name
of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward: and he that receiveth a
righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a
righteous man's reward: and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of
these little ones, a cup of cold water, in the name of a disciple,
verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward," Matt. x.
41, 42. The woman of Shunem lost nothing by the entertainment of
Elisha, when she said to her husband, "Behold, now I perceive that
this is an holy man of God which passeth by us continually: let us
make him a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall, and let us set
for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and
it shall be when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither,"
2 Kings iv. 9, 10. But now how common is it for the people to think all
too little for themselves; and if one of them be addicted to works of
charity, the other is covetous and is always hindering them.
_Direct._ XII. Lastly, it is a great part of the duty of husbands
and wives, to be helpers and comforters of each other in order to a
safe and happy death. 1. In the time of health, you must often and
seriously remember each other of the time when death will make the
separation; and live together in your daily converse, as those that
are still expecting the parting hour. Help to awaken each other's
souls, to make ready all those graces which then will prove necessary,
and to live in a constant preparation for your change. Reprove all
that in one another, which wilt be unsavoury and ungrateful to your
review at death. If you see each other dull and slow in your
preparations, or to live in vanity, worldliness, or sloth, as if you
had forgotten that you must shortly die, stir up one another to do all
that without delay which the approach of such a day requireth. 2. And
when death is at hand, oh then what abundance of tenderness, and
seriousness, and skill, and diligence, is needful for one, that hath
the last office of love to perform, to the departing soul of so near a
friend! Oh then what need will there be of your most wise, and
faithful, and diligent help! When nature faileth, and the pains of
flesh divert the mind, and temptations are strongest while the body is
weakest; when a languishing body, and a doubting, fearful, troubled
mind, do call for your compassion and help, oh then what skill and
holy seriousness will be necessary! Oh what a calamity is it to have a
carnal, unsanctified husband or wife, which will neither help you to
prepare for death, nor can speak a serious word of counsel or comfort
to you at a dying hour: that can do nothing but stand by and weep over
you; but have not a sensible word to say, about the life that you are
going to, nor about the duty of a departing soul, nor against the
temptations and fears which then may be ready to overwhelm you. They
that are utterly unprepared and unfit to die themselves, can do little
to prepare or help another. But they that live together as the heirs
of heaven, and converse on earth as fellow-travellers to the land of
promise, may help and encourage the souls of one another, and joyfully
part at death, as expecting quickly to meet again in life eternal.
Were it not lest I be over-tedious, I should next speak of the manner
how husbands and wives must perform their duties to each other: as, 1.
That it should be all done in such entire love, as maketh the case of
one another to you as your own. 2. That therefore all must be done in
patience and mutual forbearance. 3. And in familiarity, and not with
strangeness, distance, sourness, nor affected compliment. 4. And in
secrecy; where I should have showed you in what cases secrecy may be
broken, and in what not. 5. And in confidence of each other's
fidelity, and not in suspicion, jealousy, and distrust. 6. And in
prudence, to manage things aright, and to foresee and avoid
impediments and inconveniencies. 7. And in holiness, that God may be
the first and last, and all in all. 8. And in constancy, that you
cease not your duties for one another until death. But necessary
abbreviation alloweth me to say no more of these.
[9] Gen. ii. 18; Prov. xviii. 22.
[10] Matt. v. 31, 32; xix. 9; John viii. 4, 5, of adultery; Heb.
xiii. 4; Prov. xxii. 14; Hos. iv. 2, 3; Prov. ii. 17; 1 Cor. vi. 15, 19;
Mal. ii. 15; Prov. vi. 32, 35; Deut. xxiii. 2; Lev. xxi. 9; xviii. 28;
Numb. xxv. 9; Jer. v. 7-9; Gen. vi. 2, 3, &c.; xxxiv. 27; 2 Sam. xiii.
22; xii. 10; Judg. xx. 10; Jer. xxiii. 14.
[11] Rev. xxi. 8; Prov. v. 20; 2 Pet. ii. 10, 12, 14. Read before part
i. ch. 8. part 5. tit. 1.
[12] 1 Kings xi. 4; Acts v. 2. Eve is Adam's tempter. Job ii. 9.
[13] 1 Thess. v. 11; Heb. xii. 15; Col. ii. 19; Eph. iv. 16; 1 Cor.
vii. 5; Gen. xxxv. 2, 4; Lev. xix. 17.
[14] Numb. xvi. 27, 32.
[15] Gen. ii. 18.
[16] Matt. xxvii. 19.
[17] Rom. xiii. 13, 14; Eph. v. 29, 31; Gen. ii. 18.
[18] Gen. xxvii. 14.
[19] Eph. v. 29, 31; Job xix. 17; ii. 9.
[20] See Prov. xxxi; Gen. xxxi. 40; Tit. ii. 5; 1 Tim. v. 14; v. 8.
[21] 1 Sam. xxv. 25; Matt. xviii. 16; i. 19; 2 Sam. xi. 7; Prov. xxxi.
28; Eccl. vii. 3; Prov. xxii. 1; 2 Sam. vi. 20; Gen. ix. 22, 25.
[22] 1 Tim. ii. 4, 12; Gen. xviii. 19; xxxv. 2, &c.; Josh. xxiv. 14;
Psal. ci.
[23] Heb. xiii. 2; Gen. xviii. 6, &c.; Rom. xii. 13; 2 Cor. ix. 6;
Luke xvi. 9; 1 Tim. iii. 2; v. 10; Prov. xi. 20, 28; Neh. viii. 1;
Prov. xix. 17; Job xxix. 13; xxxi. 20; Acts xx. 35.