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Title: A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics

Author: Richard Baxter

Release date: September 23, 2013 [eBook #43800]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTIAN
DIRECTORY, PART 2: CHRISTIAN ECONOMICS ***

Transcriber's Note:
The text of Part II of A Christian Directory (or, a sum of Practical
Theology and Cases of Conscience) has been transcribed from
pages 394 to 547 of Volume I of Baxter's Practical Works, as

lithographed from the 1846 edition. Part II addresses family
duties. A table of contents has been inserted to assist the reader.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation, and apparent typographical errors
(both English and Greek) have been corrected. The anchor for
footnote 34, in chapter XIII, has been inserted after consulting
another edition of the text.
The table in Chapter XXIII, that presents the structure of the
Lord's Prayer, contains numerous braces that extend over several
lines and cannot be reproduced here. Instead horizontal lines
have been inserted to clarify its structure. The table may not
display clearly in a hand-held device.

PART II.

CHRISTIAN ECONOMICS:
OR,

THE FAMILY DIRECTORY, CONTAINING DIRECTIONS FOR THE
TRUE PRACTICE OF ALL
DUTIES BELONGING TO FAMILY RELATIONS, WITH THE
APPURTENANCES.

Table of Contents.
Page
I. Directions about marriage; for choice and contract. 394
II. Directions for the right choice of servants and
masters. 407
III. A disputation, or arguments to prove the necessity of
family worship and holiness, or directions against
the cavils of the profane, and some sectaries, who
deny it to be a thing required by God. 409
IV. General directions for the holy government of
families. 422
V. Special motives to persuade men to the holy
governing of their families. 424
VI. More special motives for a holy and careful
education of children. 427
VII. The mutual duties of husbands and wives towards
each other. 431
VIII. The special duties of husbands to their wives. 438
IX. The special duties of wives to husbands. 440
X. The duties of parents for their children. 449
XI. The special duties of children towards their parents. 454
XII. The special duties of children and youth towards
God. 457
XIII. The duties of servants to their masters. 458
XIV. The duties of masters towards their servants. 460
XV. The duties of children and fellow-servants to one
another. 463
XVI. Directions for holy conference of fellow-servants or
others. 464

XVII. Directions for each particular member of the family
how to spend every ordinary day of the week. 466
XVIII. Directions for the order of holy duties. 470
XIX. Directions for profitable hearing the word preached. 473
XX. Directions for profitable reading the holy scriptures. 477
XXI. Directions for reading other books. 478
XXII. Directions for the right teaching of children and
servants, so as may be most likely to have success. 479
XXIII. Directions for prayer. 483
XXIV. Brief directions for families, about the sacrament of
the body and blood of Christ. 493
XXV. Directions for fearful, troubled christians, that are
perplexed with doubts of their sincerity and
justification. 502
XXVI. Directions for declining or backsliding christians: and
about perseverance. 505
XXVII. Directions for the poor. 514
XXVIII. Directions for the rich. 517
XXIX. Directions for the aged (and weak). 519
XXX. Directions for the sick. 522
XXXI. Directions to the friends of the sick, that are about
them. 534

CHAPTER I.

DIRECTIONS ABOUT MARRIAGE; FOR CHOICE AND CONTRACT.

As the persons of christians in their privatest capacities are holy, as being
dedicated and separated unto God, so also must their families be:
HOLINESS TO THE LORD must be as it were written on their doors, and
on their relations, their possessions, and affairs. To which it is requisite, 1.
That there be a holy constitution of their families. 2. And a holy government
of them, and discharge of the several duties of the members of the family.
To the right constituting of a family, belongeth, (1.) The right contracting of
marriage, and, (2.) The right choice and contract betwixt masters and their
servants. For the first,
Direct. I. Take heed that neither lust nor rashness do thrust you into a
married condition, before you see such reasons to invite you to it, as may
assure you of the call and approbation of God. For, 1. It is God that you
must serve in your married state, and therefore it is meet that you take his
counsel before you rush upon it; for he knoweth best himself what
belongeth to his service. 2. And it is God that you must still depend upon,
for the blessing and comforts of your relation: and therefore there is very
great reason that you take his advice and consent, as the chief things
requisite to the match: if the consent of parents be necessary, much more is
the consent of God.
Quest. But how shall a man know whether God call him to marriage, or
consent unto it? Hath he not here left all men to their liberties, as in a thing
indifferent?
Answ. God hath not made any universal law
Whether marriage be
indifferent.
commanding or forbidding marriage; but in this regard
hath left it indifferent to mankind: yet not allowing all
to marry (for undoubtedly to some it is unlawful). But he hath by other
general laws or rules directed men to know, in what cases it is lawful, and in

what cases it is a sin. As every man is bound to choose that condition in
which he may serve God with the best advantages, and which tendeth most
to his spiritual welfare, and increase in holiness. Now there is nothing in
marriage itself which maketh it commonly inconsistent with these benefits,
and the fulfilling of these laws: and therefore it is said, that "he that
marrieth doth well,"[1] that is, he doth that which of itself is not unlawful,
and which to some is the most eligible state of life. But there is something
in a single life which maketh it, especially to preachers and persecuted
christians, to be more usually the most advantageous state of life, to these
ends of christianity; and therefore it is said, that "he that marrieth not, doth
better." And yet to individual persons, it is hard to imagine how it can
choose but be either a duty or a sin; at least except in some unusual cases.
For it is a thing of so great moment as to the ordering of our hearts and
lives, that it is hard to imagine that it should ever be indifferent as a means
to our main end, but must either be a very great help or hinderance. But yet
if there be any persons whose case may be so equally poised with accidents
on both sides, that to the most judicious man it is not discernible, whether a
single or married state of life is like to conduce more to their personal
holiness or public usefulness, or the good of others, to such persons
marriage in the individual circumstantiated act is a thing indifferent.
By these conditions following you may know, what
Who are called to
marry. persons have a call from God to marry, and who have
not his call or approbation. 1. If there be the peremptory
will or command of parents to children that are under their power and
government, and no greater matter on the contrary to hinder it, the
command of parents signifieth the command of God: but if parents do but
persuade and not command, though their desires must not be causelessly
refused, yet a smaller impediment may preponderate than in case of a
peremptory command. 2. They are called to marry who have not the gift of
continence, and cannot by the use of lawful means attain it, and have no
impediment which maketh it unlawful to them to marry. "But if they cannot
contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn," 1 Cor. vii. 9.
But here the divers degrees of the urgent and the hindering causes must be
compared, and the weightiest must prevail. For some that have very strong
lusts may yet have stronger impediments: and though they cannot keep that

chastity in their thoughts as they desire, yet in such a case they must
abstain. And there is no man but may keep his body in chastity if he will do
his part: yea, and thoughts themselves, may be commonly, and for the most
part, kept pure, and wanton imaginations quickly checked, if men be godly,
and will do what they can. But on the other side, there are some that have a
more tameable measure of concupiscence, and yet have no considerable
hinderance, whose duty it may be to marry, as the most certain and
successful means against that small degree, as long as there is nothing to
forbid it. 3. Another cause that warranteth marriage is, when upon a wise
casting up of all accounts, it is apparently most probable that in a married
state, one may be most serviceable to God and the public good: that there
will be in it greater helps and fewer hinderances to the great ends of our
lives; the glorifying of God, and the saving of ourselves and others. And
whereas it must be expected that every condition should be more helpful to
us in one respect, and hinder us more in another respect; and that in one we
have most helps for a contemplative life, and in another we are better
furnished for an active, serviceable life, the great skill therefore in the
discerning of our duties, lieth in the prudent pondering and comparing of
the commodities and discommodities, without the seduction of fantasy, lust,
or passion, and in a true discerning which side it is that hath the greatest
weight.[2]
Here it must be carefully observed, 1. That the two
Observations.
first reasons for marriage, (concupiscence and the will
of parents,) or any such like, have their strength but in subordination to the
third (the final cause, or interest of God and our salvation). And that this
last reason (from the end) is of itself sufficient without any of the other, but
none of the other are sufficient without this. If it be clear that in a married
state you have better advantages for the service of God, and doing good to
others, and saving your own souls, than you can have in a single state of
life, then it is undoubtedly your duty to marry; for our obligation to seek our
ultimate end is the most constant, indispensable obligation. Though parents
command it not, though you have no corporal necessity, yet it is a duty if it
certainly make most for your ultimate end. 2. But yet observe also, that no
pretence of your ultimate end itself will warrant you to marry, when any
other accident hath first made it a thing unlawful, while that accident

continueth. For we must not do evil that good may come by it. Our
salvation is not furthered by sin; and though we saw a probability that we
might do more good to others, if we did but commit such a sin to
accomplish it, yet it is not to be done. For our lives and mercies being all in
the hand of God, and the successes and acceptance of all our endeavours
depending wholly upon him, it can never be a rational way to attain them,
by wilful offending him by our sin! It is a likely means to public good for
able and good men to be magistrates and ministers; and yet he that would
lie, or be perjured, or commit any known sin that he may be a magistrate, or
that he may preach the gospel, might better expect a curse on himself and
his endeavours, than God's acceptance, or his blessing and success; so he
that would sin to change his state for the better, would find that he changed
it for the worse: or if it do good to others, he may expect no good but ruin to
himself, if repentance prevent it not. 3. Observe also, that if the question be
only which state of life it is (married or single) which best conduceth to this
ultimate end, then any one of the subordinate reasons will prove that we
have a call, if there be not greater reasons on the contrary side. As in case
you have no corporal necessity, the will of parents alone may oblige you, if
there be no greater thing against it: or if parents oblige you not, yet corporal
necessity alone may do it: or if neither of these invite you, yet a clear
probability of the attaining of such an estate or opportunity, as may make
you more fit to relieve many others, or be serviceable to the church, or the
blessing of children who may be devoted to God, may warrant your
marriage, if no greater reasons lie against it; for when the scales are equal,
any one of these may turn them.
By this also you may perceive who they be that have
Who may not marry.
no call to marry, and to whom it is a sin. As, 1. No man
hath a call to marry, who laying all the commodities and discommodities
together, may clearly discern that a married state is like to be a greater
hinderance of his salvation, or to his serving or honouring God in the world,
and so to disadvantage him as to his ultimate end.
Quest. But what if parents do command it? or will set against me if I
disobey?

Answ. Parents have no authority to command you any thing against God
or your salvation, or your ultimate end. Therefore here you owe them no
formal obedience: but yet the will of parents, with all the consequents, must
be put into the scales with all other considerations, and if they make the
discommodities of a single life to become the greater, as to your end, then
they may bring you under a duty or obligation to marry; not necessitate
præcepti, as obedience to their command; but necessitate medii, as a means
to your ultimate end, and in obedience to that general command of God,
which requireth you to "seek first" your ultimate end, even "the kingdom of
God, and his righteousness," Matt. vi. 33.
Quest. But what if I have a corporal necessity, and yet I can foresee that
marriage will greatly disadvantage me as to the service of God and my
salvation?
Answ. 1. You must understand that no corporal necessity is absolute: for
there is no man so lustful but may possibly bridle his lust by other lawful
means; by diet, labour, sober company, diverting business, solitude,
watching the thoughts and senses, or at least by the physician's help; so that
the necessity is but secundum quid, or an urgency rather than a simple
necessity. And then, 2. This measure of necessity must be itself laid in the
balance with the other accidents; and if this necessity will turn the scales by
making a single life more disadvantageous to your ultimate end, your lust
being a greater impediment to you than all the inconveniencies of marriage
will be, then the case is resolved, "it is better to marry than to burn." But if
the hinderances in a married state are like to be greater, than the
hinderances of your concupiscence, then you must set yourself to the
curbing and curing of that concupiscence; and in the use of God's means
expect his blessing.
2. Children are not, ordinarily, called of God to
Of parents' wills.
marry, when their parents do absolutely and
peremptorily forbid it. For though parents' commands cannot make it a duty,
when we are sure it would hinder the interest of God our ultimate end; yet
parents' prohibitions may make it a sin, when there is a clear probability
that it would most conduce to our ultimate end, were it not prohibited.
Because, (1.) Affirmatives bind not semper et ad semper, as negatives or

prohibitions do. (2.) Because the sin of disobedience to parents will cross
the tendency of it unto good, and do more against our ultimate end, than all
the advantages of marriage can do for it. A duty is then to us no duty, when
it cannot be performed without a chosen, wilful sin. In many cases we are
bound to forbear what a governor forbiddeth, when we are not bound to do
the contrary if he command it. It is easier to make a duty to be no duty, than
to make a sin to be no sin. One bad ingredient may turn a duty into a sin,
when one good ingredient will not turn a sin into a duty, or into no sin.
Quest. But may not a governor's prohibition be overweighed by some
great degrees of incommodity? It is better to marry than to burn. 1. What if
parents forbid children to marry absolutely until death, and so deprive them
of the lawful remedy against lust? 2. And if they do not so, yet if they forbid
it them when it is to them most seasonable and necessary, it seemeth little
better. 3. Or if they forbid them to marry where their affections are so
engaged, as that they cannot be taken off without their mutual ruin? May
not children marry in such cases of necessity as these, without and against
the will of their parents?
Answ. I cannot deny but some cases may be imagined or fall out, in
which it is lawful to do what a governor forbiddeth, and to marry against
the will of parents: for they have their power to edification, and not unto
destruction. As if a son be qualified with eminent gifts for the work of the
ministry, in a time and place that needeth much help; if a malignant parent,
in hatred of that sacred office, should never so peremptorily forbid him, yet
may the son devote himself to the blessed work of saving souls: even as a
son may not forbear to relieve the poor (with that which is his own) though
his parents should forbid him; nor forbear to put himself into a capacity to
relieve them for the future; nor forbear his own necessary food and raiment
though he be forbidden: as Daniel would not forbear praying openly in his
house, when he was forbidden by the king and law. When any inseparable
accident doth make a thing, of itself indifferent, become a duty, a governor's
prohibition will not discharge us from that duty, unless the accident be
smaller than the accident of the ruler's prohibition, and then it may be
overweighed by it; but to determine what accidents are greater or less is a
difficult task.

And as to the particular questions, to the first I answer, If parents forbid
their children to marry while they live, it is convenient and safe to obey
them until death, if no greater obligation to the contrary forbid it: but it is
necessary to obey them during the time that the children live under the
government of their parents, as in their houses, in their younger years
(except in some few extraordinary cases). But when parents are dead,
(though they leave commands in their wills,) or when age or former
marriage hath removed children from under their government, a smaller
matter will serve to justify their disobedience here, than when the children
in minority are less fit to govern themselves. For though we owe parents a
limited obedience still, yet at full age the child is more at his own disposal
than he was before. Nature hath given us a hint of her intention in the
instinct of brutes, who are all taught to protect, and lead, and provide for
their young ones, while the young are insufficient for themselves; but when
they are grown to self-sufficiency, they drive them away or neglect them. If
a wise son that hath a wife and many children, and great affairs to manage
in the world, should he bound to as absolute obedience to his aged parents,
as he was in his childhood, it would ruin their affairs, and parents'
government would pull down that in their old age, which they built up in
their middle age.
And to the second question I answer, that, 1. Children that pretend to
unconquerable lust or love, must do all they can to subdue such inordinate
affections, and bring their lusts to stoop to reason and their parents' wills.
And if they do their best, there are either none, or not one of many
hundreds, but may maintain their chastity together with their obedience. 2.
And if any say, I have done my best, and yet am under a necessity of
marriage; and am I not then bound to marry though my parents forbid me? I
answer, it is not to be believed: either you have not done your best, or else
you are not under a necessity. And your urgency being your own fault,
(seeing you should subdue it,) God still obligeth you both to subdue your
vice, and to obey your parents. 3. But if there should be any one that hath
such an (incredible) necessity of marriage, he is to procure some others to
solicit his parents for their consent, and if he cannot obtain it, some say, it is
his duty to marry without it: I should rather say that it is minus malum, the
lesser evil: and that having cast himself into some necessity of sinning, it is

still his duty to avoid both, and to choose neither; but it is the smaller sin to
choose to disobey his parents, rather than to live in the flames of lust and
the filth of unchastity. And some divines say, that in such a case a son
should appeal to the magistrate, as a superior authority above the father. But
others think, 1. That this leaveth it as difficult to resolve what he shall do, if
the magistrate also consent not: and, 2. That it doth but resolve one
difficulty by a greater; it being very doubtful whether in domestic cases the
authority of the parent or the magistrate be the greater.
3. The same answer serveth as to the third question, when parents forbid
you to marry the persons that you are most fond of. For such fondness
(whether you call it lust or love) as will not stoop to reason and your
parents' wills, is inordinate and sinful. And therefore the thing that God
bindeth you to, is by his appointed means to subdue it, and to obey: but if
you cannot, the accidents and probable consequents must tell you which is
the lesser evil.
Quest. But what if the child have promised marriage, and the parents be
against it? Answ. If the child was under the parents' government, and short
of years of discretion also, the promise is void for want of capacity. And if
the child was at age, yet the promise was a sinful promise, as to the
promising act, and also as to the thing promised during the parents' dissent.
If the actus promittendi only had been sinful, (the promise making,) the
promise might nevertheless oblige (unless it were null as well as sinful).
But the materia promissa being sinful, (the matter promised,) to marry
while parents do dissent, such a child is bound to forbear the fulfilling of
that promise till the parents do consent or die. And yet he is bound from
marrying any other, (unless he be disobliged by the person that he hath
made the promise to,) because he knoweth not but his parents may consent
hereafter; and whenever they consent or die, the promise then is obligatory,
and must be performed.
The third chapter of Numbers enableth parents to disoblige a daughter
that is in their house, from a vow made to God, so be it they disallow it at
the first hearing. Hence there are two doubts arise: 1. Whether this power
extend not to the disobliging of a promise or contract of matrimony. 2.
Whether it extend not to a son as well as a daughter. And most expositors

are for the affirmative of both cases. But I have showed you before that it is
upon uncertain grounds: 1. It is uncertain whether God, who would thus
give up his own right in case of vowing, will also give away the right of
others, without their consent, in case of promises or contracts. And, 2. It is
uncertain whether this be not an indulgence only of the weaker sex, seeing
many words in the text seem plainly to intimate so much. And it is
dangerous upon our own presumptions, to stretch God's laws to every thing
we imagine there is the same reason for; seeing our imaginations may so
easily be deceived; and God could have expressed such particulars if he
would. And therefore (when there is not clear ground for our inferences in
the text) it is but to say, Thus and thus should God have said, when we
cannot say, Thus he hath said. We must not make laws under the pretence of
expounding them: whatsoever God commandeth thee, take heed that thou
do it: thou shalt add nothing thereto, nor take ought therefrom, Deut. xii. 32.
Quest. If the question therefore be not of the sinfulness, but the nullity of
such promises of children, because of the dissent of parents, for my part I
am not able to prove any such nullity. It is said, that they are not sui juris,
their own, and therefore their promises are null: but if they have attained to
years and use of discretion, they are naturally so far sui juris as to be
capable of disposing even of their souls, and therefore of their fidelity. They
can oblige themselves to God or man; though they are not so far sui juris as
to be ungoverned: for so, no child, no subject, no man is sui juris; seeing all
are under the government of God. And yet if a man promise to do a thing
sinful, it is not a nullity, but a sin; not no promise, but a sinful promise. A
nullity is, when the actus promittendi is reputative nullus vel non actus. And
when no promise is made, then none can be broken.
Quest. But if the question be only how far such promises must be kept, I
answer by summing up what I have said: 1. If the child had not the use of
reason, the want of natural capacity proveth the promise null: here
ignorantis non est consensus. 2. If he was at age and use of reason, then, 1.
If the promising act only was sinful, (as before I said of vows,) the promise
must be both repented of and kept. It must be repented of because it was a
sin; it must be kept because it was a real promise, and the matter lawful. 2.
If the promising act was not only a sin but a nullity (by any other reason)
then it is no obligation. 3. If not only the promising act be sin, but also the

matter promised, (as is marrying without parents' consent,) then it must be
repented of, and not performed till it become lawful; because an oath or
promise cannot bind a man to violate the laws of God.
Quest. But what if the parties be actually married without the parents'
consent? must they live together, or be separated? Answ. 1. If marriage be
consummated per carnalem concubitum, by the carnal knowledge of each
other, I see no reason to imagine that parents can dissolve it, or prohibit
their cohabitation: for the marriage (for aught I ever saw) is not proved a
nullity, but only a sin, and their concubitus is not fornication; and parents
cannot forbid husband and wife to live together: and in marriage they do
(really though sinfully) forsake father and mother and cleave to each other,
and so are now from under their government (though not disobliged from
all obedience). 2. But if marriage be only by verbal conjunction, divines are
disagreed what is to be done. Some think that it is no perfect marriage ante
concubitum, and also that their conjunction hath but the nature of a promise
(to be faithful to each other as husband and wife): and therefore the matter
promised is unlawful till parents consent, and so not to be done. But I rather
think (as most do) that it hath all that is essential to marriage ante
concubitum; and that this marriage is more than a promise of fidelity de
futuro, even an actual delivery of themselves to one another de præsenti
also; and that the thing promised in marriage is lawful. For though it be a
sin to marry without parents' consent, yet when that is past, it is lawful for
married persons to come together though parents consent not; and therefore
that such marriage is valid, and to be continued, though it was sinfully
made.
3. A third sort that are not called of God to marry, are
Of vows of chastity.
they that have absolutely vowed not to marry. Such
may not marry, unless Providence disoblige them, by making it become an
indispensable duty. And I can remember but two ways by which this may be
done. 1. In case there be any of so strong lust, as no other lawful means but
marriage can suffice to maintain their chastity. To such marriage is as great
a duty, as to eat or drink, or cover one's nakedness, or to hinder another
from uncleanness, or lying, or stealing, or the like. And if you should make
a vow that you will never eat or drink, or that you will go naked, or that you
will never hinder any one from uncleanness, lying, or stealing, it is unlawful

to fulfil this vow. But all the doubt is, whether there be any such persons
that cannot overcome or restrain their lust by any other lawful means. I
suppose it is possible there may be such; but I believe it is not one of a
hundred. If they will but practise the directions before given, part i. chap.
viii. part v. tit. 1 and 2, I suppose their lust may be restrained: and if that
prevail not, the help of a physician may: and if that prevail not, some think
the help of a surgeon may be lawful, to keep a vow, in case it be not an
apparent hazard of life. For Christ seemeth to allow of it, in mentioning it
without reproof, Matt. xix. 12, if that text be to be understood of castration:
but most expositors think it is meant only of a confirmed resolution of
chastity: and ordinarily other means may make this needless: and if it be
either needless or perilous, it is unlawful without doubt.
2. The second way by which God may dispense with a vow of chastity is,
by making the marriage of a person become of apparent necessity to the
public safety. And I am able to discern but one instance that will reach the
case; and that is, if a king have vowed chastity, and in case he marry not, his
next heir being a professed enemy of christianity, the religion, safety, and
happiness of the whole nation, is apparently in danger to be overthrown. I
think the case of such a king is like the case of a father that had vowed
never to provide food or raiment for his children: or as if Ahab had vowed
that no well should be digged in the land; and when the drought cometh, it
is become necessary to the saving of the people's lives: or as if the ship-
master should vow that the ship shall not be pumped; which when it leaketh
doth become necessary to save their lives. In these cases God disobligeth
you from your vow by a mutation of the matter; and a pastor may dispense
with it declaratively. But for the pope or any mortal man to pretend to more,
is impiety and deceit.
Quest. May the aged marry, that are frigid, impotent, and uncapable of
procreation? Answ. Yes, God hath not forbidden them: and there are other
lawful ends of marriage, as mutual help and comfort, &c. which may make
it lawful.[3]
Direct. II. To restrain your inordinate forwardness to marriage, keep the
ordinary inconveniencies of it in memory. Rush not into a state of life, the
inconveniencies of which you never thought on. If you have a call to it, the

knowledge of the difficulties and duties will be necessary to your
preparation, and faithful undergoing them; if you have no call, this
knowledge is necessary to keep you off. I shall first name the
inconveniencies common to all, and then some that are proper to the
ministers of the gospel, which have a greater reason to avoid a married life
than other men have.
1. Marriage ordinarily plungeth men into excess of worldly cares; it
multiplieth their business, and usually their wants. There are many things to
mind and do; there are many to provide for. And many persons you will
have to do with, who have all of them a selfish disposition and interest, and
will judge of you but according as you fit their ends. And among many
persons and businesses, some things will frequently fall cross: you must
look for many rubs and disappointments. And your natures are not so
strong, content, and patient, as to bear all these without molestation.
2. Your wants in a married state are hardlier supplied, than in a single
life. You will want so many things which before you never wanted, and
have so many to provide for and content, that all will seem little enough, if
you had never so much. Then you will be often at your wit's end, taking
thought for the future, what you shall eat, and what you shall drink, and
wherewith shall you and yours be clothed.
3. Your wants in a married state are far hardlier borne than in a single
state. It is far easier to bear personal wants ourselves, than to see the wants
of wife and children: affection will make their sufferings pinch you. And
ingenuity will make it a trouble to your mind, to need the help of servants,
and to want that which is fit for servants to expect. But especially the
discontent and impatience of your family will more discontent you than all
their wants. You cannot help your wife, and children, and servants to
contented minds. Oh what a heart-cutting trial is it to hear them repining,
murmuring, and complaining! to hear them call for that which you have not
for them, and grieve at their condition, and exclaim of you, or of the
providence of God, because they have it not! And think not that riches will
free you from these discontents; for as the rich are but few, so they that
have much have much to do with it. A great foot must have a great shoe.
When poor men want some small supplies, rich men may want great sums,

or larger provisions, which the poor can easily be without. And their
condition lifting them up to greater pride, doth torment them with greater
discontents. How few in all the world that have families, are content with
their estates!
4. Hereupon a married life containeth far more temptations to worldliness
or covetousness, than a single state doth. For when you think you need
more, you will desire more: and when you find all too little to satisfy those
that you provide for, you will measure your estate by their desires, and be
apt to think that you have never enough. Birds and beasts that have young
ones to provide for, are most hungry and rapacious. You have so many now
to scrape for, that you will think you are still in want: it is not only till death
that you must now lay up; but you must provide for children that survive
you. And while you take them to be as yourselves, you have two
generations now to make provisions for: and most men are as covetous for
their posterity, as if it were for themselves.
5. And hereupon you are hindered from works of charity to others: wife
and children are the devouring gulf that swalloweth all. If you had but
yourselves to provide for, a little would serve; and you could deny your
own desires of unnecessary things; and so might have plentiful provision
for good works. But by that time wife and children are provided for, and all
their importunate desires satisfied, there is nothing considerable left for
pious or charitable uses. Lamentable experience proclaimeth this.
6. And hereby it appeareth how much a married state doth ordinarily
hinder men from honouring their profession. It is their vows of single life
that hath occasioned the papists to do so many works of public charity, as is
boasted of for the honour of their sect. For when they have no children to
bequeath it to, and cannot keep it themselves, it is easy to them to leave it to
such uses as will pacify their consciences most, and advance their names.
And if it should prove as good a work and as acceptable to God, to educate
your own children piously for his service, as to relieve the children of the
poor, yet it is not so much regarded in the world, nor bringeth so much
honour to religion. One hundred pounds given to the poor shall more
advance the reputation of your liberality and virtue, than a thousand pounds
given to your own children, though it be with as pious an end, to train them

up for the service of the church. And though this is inconsiderable as your
own honour is concerned in it, yet it is considerable as the honour of
religion and the good of souls are concerned in it.
7. And it is no small patience which the natural imbecility of the female
sex requireth you to prepare. Except it be very few that are patient and
manlike, women are commonly of potent fantasies, and tender, passionate,
impatient spirits, easily cast into anger, or jealousy, or discontent; and of
weak understandings, and therefore unable to reform themselves. They are
betwixt a man and a child: some few have more of the man, and many have
more of the child; but most are but in a middle state. Weakness naturally
inclineth persons to be froward and hard to please; as we see in children,
old people, and sick persons. They are like a sore, distempered body; you
can scarce touch them but you hurt them. With too many you can scarce tell
how to speak or look but you displease them. If you should be very well
versed in the art of pleasing, and set yourselves to it with all your care, as if
you made it your very business and had little else to do, yet it would put
you hard to it, to please some weak, impatient persons, if not quite surpass
your ability and skill. And the more you love them, the more grievous it
will be, to see them still in discontents, weary of their condition, and to hear
the clamorous expressions of their disquiet minds. Nay, the very multitude
of words that very many are addicted to, doth make some men's lives a
continual burden to them. Mark what the Scripture saith: Prov. xxi. 9, "It is
better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a
wide house." Ver. 19, "It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a
contentious and angry woman." So chap. xxv. 24, and xxvii. 15, "A
continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."
Eccles. vii. 28, "One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman
among all those have I not found."
8. And there is such a meeting of faults and imperfections on both sides,
that maketh it much the harder to bear the infirmities of others aright. If one
party only were froward and impatient, the stedfastness of the other might
make it the more tolerable; but we are all sick, in some measure, of the
same disease. And when weakness meeteth with weakness, and pride with
pride, and passion with passion, it exasperateth the disease and doubleth the
suffering. And our corruption is such, that though our intent be to help one

another in our duties, yet we are apter far to stir up one another's
distempers.
9. The business, care, and trouble of a married life, is a great temptation
to call down our thoughts from God, and to divert them from the "one thing
necessary," Luke x. 42; and to distract the mind, and make it undisposed to
holy duty, and to serve God with a divided heart, as if we served him not.
How hard is it to pray or meditate with any serious fervency, when you
come out of a crowd of cares and business! Hear what Saint Paul saith,
1 Cor. vii. 7, 8, "For I would that all men were as I myself.—I say to the
unmarried and the widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I." Ver.
26-28, "I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, that it is
good for a man so to be:—such shall have trouble in the flesh." Ver. 32, 33,
"But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for
the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married
careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife." Ver. 34, 35,
"The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be
holy in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the
world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own
profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely,
and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction." Ver. 37, 38, "He
that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over
his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin,
doth well. So then he that marrieth doth well, but he that marrieth not doth
better." And mark Christ's own words, Matt. xix. 11, "His disciples say unto
him, If the case of a man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he
said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is
given—He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."
10. The business of a married state doth commonly devour almost all
your time, so that little is left for holy contemplations, or serious thoughts
of the life to come. All God's service is contracted and thrust into a corner,
and done as it were on the by: the world will scarce allow you time to
meditate, or pray, or read the Scripture; you think yourselves (as Martha)
under a greater necessity of despatching your business, than of sitting at
Christ's feet to hear his word. Oh that single persons knew (for the most

part) the preciousness of their leisure, and how free they are to attend the
service of God, and learn his word, in comparison of the married!
11. There is so great a diversity of temperaments and degrees of
understanding, that there are scarce any two persons in the world, but there
is some unsuitableness between them. Like stones that have some
unevenness, that maketh them lie crooked in the building; some crossness
there will be of opinion, or disposition, or interest, or will, by nature, or by
custom and education, which will stir up frequent discontents.
12. There is a great deal of duty which husband and wife do owe to one
another; as to instruct, admonish, pray, watch over one another, and to be
continual helpers to each other in order to their everlasting happiness; and
patiently to bear with the infirmities of each other: and to the weak and
backward heart of man, the addition of so much duty doth add to their
weariness, how good soever the work be in itself: and men should feel their
strength, before they undertake more work.
13. And the more they love each other, the more they participate in each
other's griefs; and one or other will be frequently under some sort of
suffering. If one be sick, or lame, or pained, or defamed, or wronged, or
disquieted in mind, or by temptation fall into any wounding sin, the other
beareth part of the distress. Therefore before you undertake to bear all the
burdens of another, and suffer in all another's hurts, it concerneth you to
observe your strength, how much more you have than your own burdens do
require.
14. And if you should marry one that proveth ungodly, how exceeding
great would the affliction be! If you loved them, your souls would be in
continual danger by them; they would be the powerfulest instruments in the
world to pervert your judgments, to deaden your hearts, to take you off
from a holy life, to kill your prayers, to corrupt your lives, and to damn
your souls. And if you should have the grace to escape the snare, and save
yourselves, it would be by so much the greater difficulty and suffering, as
the temptation is the greater. And what a heart-breaking would it be to
converse so nearly with a child of the devil, that is like to lie for ever in
hell! The daily thoughts of it would be a daily death to you.

15. Women especially must expect so much suffering in a married life,
that if God had not put into them a natural inclination to it, and so strong a
love to their children, as maketh them patient under the most annoying
troubles, the world would ere this have been at an end, through their refusal
of so calamitous a life. Their sickness in breeding, their pain in bringing
forth, with the danger of their lives, the tedious trouble night and day which
they have with their children in their nursing in their childhood; besides
their subjection to their husbands, and continual care of family affairs;
being forced to consume their lives in a multitude of low and troublesome
businesses: all this, and much more, would have utterly deterred that sex
from marriage, if nature itself had not inclined them to it.
16. And oh what abundance of duty is incumbent upon both the parents
towards every child for the saving of their souls![4] What uncessant labour
is necessary in teaching them the doctrine of salvation! which made God
twice over charge them to teach his word diligently (or sharpen them) "unto
their children, and to talk of them when they sit in their houses, and when
they walk by the way, and when they lie down, and when they rise up,"
Deut. vi. 6, 7; xi. 19. What abundance of obstinate, rooted corruptions are in
the hearts of children, which parents must by all possible diligence root up!
Oh how great and hard a work is it, to speak to them of their sins and
Saviour, of their God, their souls, and the life to come, with that reverence,
gravity, seriousness, and unwearied constancy, as the weight of the matter
doth require! and to suit all their actions and carriage to the same ends!
Little do most that have children know, what abundance of care and labour
God will require of them, for the sanctifying and saving of their children's
souls. Consider your fitness for so great a work before you undertake it.
17. It is abundance of affliction that is ordinarily to be expected in the
miscarriages of children, when you have done your best, much more if you
neglect your duty, as even godly parents too often do. After all your pains,
and care, and labour, you must look that the foolishness of some, and the
obstinacy of others, and the unthankfulness of those that you have loved
best, should even pierce your hearts. You must look that many vices should
spring up and trouble you; and be the more grievous by how much your
children are the more dear. And oh what a grief it is to breed up a child to be
a servant of the devil, and an enemy of God and godliness, and a persecutor

of the church of God! and to think of his lying in hell for ever! And alas!
how great is the number of such!
18. And it is not a little care and trouble that servants will put you to; so
difficult is it to get those that are good, much more to make them good; so
great is your duty, in teaching them, and minding them of the matters of
their salvation; so frequent will be the displeasures about your work and
worldly business, and every one of those displeasures will hinder them for
receiving your instructions; that most families are houses of correction or
affliction.
19. And these marriage crosses are not for a year, but during life; they
deprive you of all hope of relief while you live together. There is no room
for repentance, nor casting about for a way to escape them. Death only must
be your relief. And therefore such a change of your condition should be
seriously forethought on, and all the troubles be foreseen and pondered.
20. And if love make you dear to one another, your parting at death will
be the more grievous. And when you first come together, you know that
such a parting you must have; through all the course of your lives you may
foresee it: one of you must see the body of your beloved turned into a cold
and ghastly clod; you must follow it weeping to the grave, and leave it there
in dust and darkness; there it must lie rotting as a loathsome lump, whose
sight or smell you cannot endure; till you shortly follow it, and lie down
yourself in the same condition. All these are the ordinary concomitants and
consequents of marriage; easily and quickly spoken, but long and hard to be
endured! No fictions, but realities, and less than most have reason to expect.
And should such a life be rashly ventured on in a pang of lust? or such a
burden be undertaken without forethought?
But especially the ministers of the gospel should
Of ministers'
marriage.
think what they do, and think again, before they enter
upon a married life. Not that it is simply unlawful for
them, or that they are to be tied from it by a law, as they are in the kingdom
of Rome, for carnal ends and with odious effects. But so great a hinderance
ordinarily is this troublesome state of life to the sacred ministration which
they undertake, that a very clear call should be expected for their
satisfaction. That I be not tedious, consider well but of these four things: 1.

How well will a life of so much care and business agree to you, that have
time little enough for the greater work which you have undertaken? Do you
know what you have to do in public and private? in reading, meditating,
praying, preaching, instructing personally, and from house to house? And
do you know of how great importance it is? even for the saving of men's
souls? And have you time to spare for so much worldly cares and business?
Are you not charged, "Meditate on these things: give thyself wholly to
them," 1 Tim. iv. 15. "No man that warreth, entangleth himself with the
affairs of this life, that he may please him that hath chosen him to be a
soldier," 2 Tim. ii. 4. Is not this plain? Soldiers use not to look to farms and
servants. If you are faithful ministers, I dare confidently say, you will find
all your time so little for your proper work, that many a time you will groan
and say, Oh how short and swift is time! and, Oh how great and slow is my
work and duty! 2. Consider how well a life of so great diversions,
avocations, and distractions, doth suit with a mind devoted to God, that
should be always free and ready for his service. Your studies are on such
great and mysterious subjects, that they require the whole mind, and all too
little. To resolve the many difficulties that are before you, to prepare those
suitable convincing words, which may pierce and persuade the hearers'
hearts, to get within the bosom of a hypocrite, to follow on the word till it
attain its effect, and to deal with poor souls according to their great
necessity, and handle God's word according to its holiness and majesty,
these are things that require a whole man, and are not employments for a
divided or distracted mind. The talking of women, and the crying of
children, and the cares and business of the world, are ill preparations or
attendants on these studies.[5] 3. Consider well whether a life of so great
disturbance be agreeable to one whose affections should be taken up for
God; and whose work must be all done, not formally and affectedly with the
lips alone, but seriously with all the heart. If your heart and warm affections
be at any time left behind, the life, and power, the beauty, and glory of your
work are lost. How dead will your studies, and praying, and preaching, and
conference be! And can you keep those affections warm and vigorous for
God, and taken up with heaven and heavenly things, which are disturbed
with the cares and the crosses of the world, and taken up with carnal
matters? 4. And consider also how well that indigent life will agree to one

that by charity and good works should second his doctrine, and win men's
souls to the love of holiness.[6] If you feed not the bodies of the poor, they
will less relish the food of the soul. Nay, if you abound not above others in
good works, the blind, malicious world will see nothing that is good in you;
but will say, You have good words, but where are your good works? What
abundance have I known hardened against the gospel and religion, by a
common fame, that these preachers are as covetous, and worldly, and
uncharitable as any others! and it must be something extraordinary that
must confute such fame. And what abundance of success have I seen of the
labours of those ministers, who give all they have in works of charity! And
though a rich and resolved man may do some good in a married state, yet
commonly it is next to nothing, as to the ends now mentioned; wife, and
children, and family necessities devour all, if you have never so much. And
some provision must be made for them, when you are dead: and the
maintenance of the ministry is not so great as to suffice well for all this,
much less for any eminent works of charity besides! Never reckon upon the
doing of much good to the poor, if you have wives and children of your
own! Such instances are rarities and wonders. All will be too little for
yourselves. Whereas if all that were given to the poor which goeth to the
maintenance of your families, you little know how much it would reconcile
the minds of the ungodly, and further the success of your ministerial work.
Direct. III. If God call you to a married life, expect all these troubles, or
most of them; and make particular preparation for each temptation, cross,
and duty which you must expect. Think not that you are entering into a state
of mere delight, lest it prove but a fool's paradise to you. See that you be
furnished with marriage strength and patience, for the duties and sufferings
of a married state, before you venture on it. Especially, 1. Be well provided
against temptations to a worldly mind and life: for here you are like to be
most violently and dangerously assaulted. 2. See that you be well provided
with conjugal affections: for they are necessary both to the duties and
sufferings of a married life. And you should not enter upon the state without
the necessary preparations. 3. See that you be well provided with marriage
prudence and understanding, that you may be able to instruct and edify your
families, and may live with them as men of knowledge, 1 Pet. iii. 7, and
may manage all your business with discretion, Psal. cxii. 15. 4. See that you

be provided with resolvedness and constancy, that you vex not yourself and
relations by too late repentings; and come not off with, had I wist, or non
putaram. Levity and mutability is no fit preparative for a state that only
death can change. Let the love and resolutions which brought you into that
state, continue with you to the last. 5. See that you be provided with a
diligence answerable to the greatness of your undertaken duties. A slothful
mind is unfit for one that entereth himself voluntarily upon so much
business; as a cowardly mind is unfit for him that listeth himself a soldier
for the wars. 6. See that you are well provided with marriage patience; to
bear with the infirmities of others, and undergo the daily crosses of your
life, which your business and necessities, and your own infirmities, will
unavoidably infer. To marry without all this preparation, is as foolish as to
go to sea without the necessary preparations for your voyage, or to go to
war without armour or ammunition, or to go to work without tools or
strength, or to go to buy meat in the market when you have no money.
Direct. IV. Take special care, that fancy and passion overrule not reason,
and friends' advice, in the choice of your condition, or of the person. I know
you must have love to those that you match with; but that love must be
rational, and such as you can justify in the severest trial, by the evidences of
worth and fitness in the person whom you love. To say you love, but you
know not why, is more beseeming children or mad folks, than those that are
soberly entering upon a change of life of so great importance to them. A
blind love which maketh you think a person excellent and amiable, who in
the eyes of the wisest that are impartial, is nothing so, or maketh you
overvalue the person whom you fancy, and be fond of one as some
admirable creature, that in the eyes of others is next to contemptible, this is
but the index and evidence of your folly. And though you please yourselves
in it, and honour it with the name of love, there is none that is acquainted
with it, that will give it any better name than lust or fancy. And the marriage
that is made by lust or fancy will never tend to solid content or true felicity;
but either it will feed till death on the fuel that kindled it, and then go out in
everlasting shame; or else more ordinarily it proveth but a blaze, and
turneth into loathing and weariness of each other. And because this passion
of lust (called love) is such a besotting, blinding thing, (like the longing of a
woman with child,) it is the duty of all that feel any touch of it to kindle

upon their hearts, to call it presently to the trial, and to quench it effectually;
and till that be done (if they have any relics of wit or reason) to suspect
their own apprehensions, and much more to trust the judgment and advice
of others.
The means to quench this lust called love, I have
How to cure lustful
love.
largely opened before. I shall now only remember you
of these few. 1. Keep asunder, and at a sufficient
distance from the person that you dote upon. The nearness of the fire and
fuel causeth the combustion. Fancy and lust are inflamed by the senses.
Keep out of sight, and in time the fever may abate. 2. Overvalue not vanity.
Think not highly of a silken coat, or of the great names of ancestors, or of
money, or lands, or of a painted or a spotted face, nor of that natural
comeliness called beauty: judge not of things as children, but as men: play
not the fools in magnifying trifles, and overlooking inward, real worth.
Would you fall in love with a flower or picture at this rate? Bethink you
what work the pox, or any other withering sickness, will make with that
silly beauty which you so admire: think what a spectacle death will make it;
and how many thousands once more beautiful, are turned now to common
earth! and how many thousand souls are now in hell, that by a beautiful
body were drowned in lust, and tempted to neglect themselves! and how
few in the world you can name that were ever much the better for it! What a
childish thing it is to dote on a book of tales and lies, because it hath a
beautiful, gilded cover! and to undervalue the writings of the wise, because
they have a plain and homely outside! 3. Rule your thoughts, and let them
not run masterless as fancy shall command them. If reason cannot call off
your thoughts from following a lustful desire and imagination, no wonder if
one that rideth on such an unbridled colt be cast into the dirt. 4. Live not
idly, but let the business of your callings take up your time, and employ
your thoughts. An idle, fleshly mind is the carcass where the vermin of lust
doth crawl, and the nest where the devil hatcheth both this and many other
pernicious sins. 5. Lastly and chiefly, forget not the concernments of your
souls: remember how near you are to eternity, and what work you have to
do for your salvation: forget not the presence of God, nor the approach of
death. Look oft by faith into heaven and hell, and keep conscience tender;
and then I warrant you, you will find something else to mind than lust, and

greater matters than a silly carcass to take up your thoughts; and you will
feel that heavenly love within you, which will extinguish earthly, carnal
love.
Direct. V. Be not too hasty in your choice or resolution, but deliberate
well, and thoroughly know the person on whom so much of the comfort or
sorrow of your life will necessarily depend. Where repentance hath no
place, there is the greater care to be used to prevent it. Reason requireth you
to be well acquainted with those that you trust but with an important secret,
much more with all your honour or estates; and most of all, with one whom
you must trust with so much of the comfort of your lives, and your
advantages for a better life. No care and caution can be too great in a matter
of so great importance.
Direct. VI. Let no carnal motives persuade you to join yourself to an
ungodly person; but let the holy fear of God be preferred in your choice
before all worldly excellency whatsoever. Marry not a swine for a golden
trough; nor an ugly soul for a comely body. Consider, 1. You will else give
cause of great suspicion that you are yourselves ungodly: for they that know
truly the misery of an unrenewed soul, and the excellency of the image of
God, can never be indifferent whether they be joined to the godly or the
ungodly. To prefer things temporal before things spiritual habitually, and in
the predominant acts of heart and life, is the certain character of a graceless
soul! And he that in so near a case doth deliberately prefer riches or
comeliness in another, before the image and fear of God, doth give a very
dangerous sign of such a graceless heart and will. If you set more by beauty
or riches than by godliness, you have the surest mark that you are ungodly.
If you do not set more by them, how come you deliberately to prefer them?
How could you do a thing that detecteth your ungodliness, and condemneth
you more clearly? And do you not show that you either believe not the word
of God, or else that you love him not, and regard not his interest? Otherwise
you would take his friends as your friends, and his enemies as your
enemies. Tell me, would you marry an enemy of your own, before any
change and reconciliation? I am confident you would not. And can you so
easily marry an enemy of God? If you know not that all the ungodly and
unsanctified are his enemies, you know not, or believe not, the word of
God; which telleth you that "the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is

not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be: so then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God," Rom. viii. 7, 8. 2. If you fear God yourselves,
your chief end in marriage will be to have one that will be a helper to your
soul, and further you in the way to heaven: but if you marry with a person
that is ungodly, either you have no such end, or else you may easily know
you have no wiselier chosen the means, than if you had chosen water to
kindle the fire, or a bed of snow to keep you warm. Will an ignorant or
ungodly person assist you in prayer and holy watchfulness, and stir you up
to the love of God, and a heavenly mind? And can you so willingly lose all
the spiritual benefit, which you should principally desire and intend? 3.
Nay, instead of a helper, you will have a continual hinderer: when you
should go to prayer, you will have one to pull you back, or to fill your
minds with diversions or disquietments! When you should keep close to
God in holy meditations, you will have one to cast in worldly thoughts, or
trouble your minds with vanity or vexation. When you should discourse of
God and heavenly things, you will have one to stifle such discourse, and fill
your ears with idle, impertinent, or worldly talk. And one such a hinderance
so near you, in your bosom, will be worse than a thousand further off. As an
ungodly heart which is next of all to us, is our greatest hinderance, so an
ungodly husband or wife, which is next to that, is worse to us than many
ungodly neighbours. And if you think that you can well enough overcome
such hinderances, and your heart is so good, that no such clogs can keep it
down, you do but show that you have a proud, unhumbled heart, that is
prepared for a fall. If you know yourselves, and the badness of your hearts,
you will know that you have no need of hinderances in any holy work, and
that all the helps in the world are little enough, and too little, to keep your
souls in the love of God. 4. And such an ungodly companion will be to you
a continual temptation to sin. Instead of stirring you up to good, you will
have one to stir you up to evil, to passion, or discontent, or covetousness, or
pride, or revenge, or sensuality. And can you not sin enough without such a
tempter? 5. And what a continual grief will it be to you, if you are believers,
to have a child of the devil in your bosom! and to think how far you must be
separated at death! and in what torments those must lie for ever, that are so
dear unto you now! 6. Yea, such companions will be uncapable of the
principal part of your love. You may love them as husbands or wives, but

you cannot love them as saints and members of Christ. And how great a
want this will be in your love, those know that know what this holy love is.
Quest. But how can I tell who are godly, when there is so much
hypocrisy in the world. Answ. At least you may know who is ungodly if it
be palpably discovered. I take not a barren knowledge for ungodliness, nor
a nimble tongue for godliness: judge of them by their love: such as a man's
love is, such is the man. If they love the word, and servants, and worship of
God, and love a holy life, and hate the contrary, you may close with such,
though their knowledge be small, and their parts be weak; but if they have
no love to these, but had rather live a common, careless, carnal life, you
may well avoid them as ungodly.
Quest. But if ungodly persons may marry, why may not I marry with one
that is ungodly? Answ. Though dogs and swine may join in generating, it
followeth not men or women may join with them. Pardon the comparison,
(while Christ calleth the wicked dogs and swine, Matt. vii. 6,) it doth but
show the badness of your consequence. Unbelievers may marry, and yet we
may not marry with unbelievers. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and
what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of
the living God—Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing," &c. 2 Cor. vi. 14-16.
Quest. But I make no doubt but they may be converted: God can call
them when he will: if there be but love, they will easily be won to be of the
mind as those they love are? Answ. 1. Then it seems because you love an
ungodly person, you will be easily turned to be ungodly. If so, you are not
much better already. If love will not draw you to their mind to be ungodly,
why should you think love will draw them to your mind to be godly? Are
you stronger in grace than they are in sin? 2. If you know well what grace
is, and what a sinful, unrenewed soul is, you would not think it so easy a
matter to convert a soul. Why are there so few converted, if it be so easy a
thing? You cannot make yourselves better by adding higher degrees to the
grace you have: much less can you make another better, by giving them the

grace which they have not. 3. It is true that God is able to convert them
when he will; and it is true that for aught I know it may be done. But what
of that? Will you in so weighty a case take up with a mere possibility? God
can make a beggar rich, and for aught you know to the contrary, he will do
it; and yet you will not therefore marry a beggar: nor will you marry a leper,
because God can heal him; why then should you marry an ungodly person,
because God can convert him? See it done first, if you love your peace and
safety.
Quest. But what if my parents command me to marry an ungodly person?
Answ. God having forbidden it, no parent hath authority to command you to
do so great a mischief to yourself, no more than to cut your own throats, or
to dismember your bodies.
Quest. But what if I have a necessity of marrying, and can get none but
an ungodly person? Answ. If that be really your case, that your necessity be
real, and you can get no other, I think it is lawful.
Quest. But is it not better have a good-natured person that is ungodly,
than an ill-natured person that is religious, as many such are? And may not
a bad man be a good husband? Answ. 1. A bad man may be a good tailor, or
shoemaker, or carpenter, or seaman, because there is no moral virtue
necessary to the well-doing of their work. But a bad man cannot be simply a
good magistrate, or minister, or husband, or parent, because there is much
moral virtue necessary to their duties. 2. A bad nature unmortified and
untamed is inconsistent with true godliness; such persons may talk and
profess what they please; but "if any man among you seem to be religious
and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion
is vain," James i. 26. 3. I did not say that godliness alone is all that you
must look after; though this be the first, yet more is necessary.
Direct. VII. Next to the fear of God, make choice of a nature or
temperament that is not too much unsuitable to you. A crossness of
dispositions will be a continual vexation; and you will have a domestic war
instead of love. Especially make sure of these following qualities. 1. That
there be a loving, and not a selfish nature, that hath no regard to another but
for their own end. 2. That there be a nature competently quiet and patient,
and not intolerably froward and unpleasable. 3. That there be a competency

of wit; for no one can live lovingly and comfortably with a fool. 4. That
there be a competent humility; for there is no quietness to be expected with
the proud. 5. That there be a power to be silent, as well as to speak; for a
babbling tongue is a continual vexation.
Direct. VIII. Next to grace and nature, have a due and moderate respect
to person, education, and estate. 1. So far have respect to the person as that
there be no unhealthfulness to make your condition over-burdensome; nor
any such deformity as may hinder your affections. 2. And so far have
respect to parentage and education, as that there be no great unsuitableness
of mind, nor any prejudicate opinions in religion, which may make you too
unequal. Differing opinions in religion are much more tolerable in persons
more distant, than in so near relations. And those that are bred too high in
idleness and luxury, must have a thorough work of grace to make them fit
for a low condition, and cure the pride and sensuality which are taken for
the honourable badges of their gentility; and it is scarce considerable how
rich such are; for their pride and luxury will make even with all, and be still
in greater want, than honest, contented, temperate poverty.
Direct. IX. If God call you to marriage, take notice of the helps and
comforts of that condition, as well as of the hinderances and troubles; that
you may cheerfully serve God in it, in the expectation of his blessing.
Though man's corruption have filled that and every state of life with snares
and troubles, yet from the beginning it was not so; God appointed it for
mutual help, and as such it may be used. As a married life hath its
temptations and afflictions, so it hath its peculiar benefits, which you are
thankfully to accept and acknowledge unto God. See Eccles. iv. 10-12. 1. It
is a mercy in order to the propagating of a people on earth to love and
honour their Creator, and to serve God in the world and enjoy him for ever.
It is no small mercy to be the parents of a godly seed; and this is the end of
the institution of marriage, Mal. ii. 15. And this parents may expect, if they
be not wanting on their part; however sometimes their children prove
ungodly. 2. It is a mercy to have a faithful friend, that loveth you entirely,
and is as true to you as yourself, to whom you may open your mind and
communicate your affairs, and who would be ready to strengthen you, and
divide the cares of your affairs and family with you, and help you to bear
your burdens, and comfort you in your sorrows, and be the daily companion

of your lives, and partaker of your joys and sorrows. 3. And it is a mercy to
have so near a friend to be a helper to your soul; to join with you in prayer
and other holy exercises; to watch over you and tell you of your sins and
dangers, and to stir up in you the grace of God, and remember you of the
life to come, and cheerfully accompany you in the ways of holiness. Prov.
xix. 14, "A prudent wife is from the Lord." Thus it is said, Prov. xviii. 22,
"Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the
Lord." See Prov. xxxi. 10-12, &c.
Direct. X. Let your marriage covenant be made understandingly,
deliberately, heartily, in the fear of God, with a fixed resolution faithfully to
perform it. Understand well all the duties of your relation before you enter
into it; and run not upon it as boys to a play, but with the sense of your duty,
as those that engage themselves to a great deal of work of great importance
towards God and towards each other. Address yourselves therefore
beforehand to God for counsel, and earnestly beg his guidance and his
blessing, and run not without him, or before him. Reckon upon the worst,
and foresee all temptations which would diminish your affections, or make
you unfaithful to each other; and see that you be fortified against them all.
Direct. XI. Be sure that God be the ultimate end of your marriage, and
that you principally choose that state of life, that in it you may be most
serviceable to him; and that you heartily devote yourselves and your
families unto God; that so it may be to you a sanctified condition. It is
nothing but making God our guide and end that can sanctify our state of
life. They that unfeignedly follow God's counsel, and aim at his glory, and
do it to please him, will find God owning and blessing their relation. But
they that do it principally to please the flesh, to satisfy lust, and to increase
their estates, and to have children surviving them to receive the fruits of
their pride and covetousness, can expect to reap no better than they sow;
and to have the flesh, the world, and the devil the masters of their family,
according to their own desire and choice.
Direct. XII. At your first conjunction (and through the rest of your lives)
remember the day of your separation. And think not that you are settling
yourselves in a state of rest, or felicity, or continuance, but only assuming a
companion in your travels. Whether you live in a married or an unmarried

life, remember that you are hasting to the everlasting life, where there is
neither "marrying nor giving in marriage," 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. You are going
as fast to another world in one state of life as in the other. You are but to
help each other in your way, that your journey may be the easier to you, and
that you may happily meet again in the heavenly Jerusalem. When
worldlings marry, they take it for a settling themselves in the world; and as
regenerate persons begin the world anew, by beginning to lay up a treasure
in heaven, so worldlings call their marriage their beginning the world,
because then, as engaged servants to the world, they set themselves to seek
it with greater diligence than ever before. They do but in marriage begin (as
seekers) that life of foolery, which when he had found what he sought, that
rich man ended, Luke xii. 19, 20, with a "This I will do: I will pull down
my barns, and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my
goods; and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for
many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry: but God said unto
him, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee: then whose
shall those things be which thou hast provided?" If you would not die such
fools, do not marry and live such worldlings.

Tit. 2. Cases of Marriage.

Quest. I. What should one follow as a certain rule, about the prohibited
degrees of consanguinity or affinity? seeing, 1. The law of Moses is not in
force to us. 2. And if it were, it is very dark, whether it may by parity of
reason be extended to more degrees than are named in the text. 3. And
seeing the law of nature is so hardly legible in this case.[7]
Answ. 1. It is certain that the prohibited degrees are not so statedly and
universally unlawful, as that such marriage may not be made lawful by any
necessity. For Adam's sons did lawfully marry their own sisters.
2. But now the world is peopled, such necessities as will warrant such
marriages must needs be very rare, and such as we are never like to meet
with.
3. The law of nature is it which prohibiteth the degrees that are now
unlawful; and though this law be dark as to some degrees, it is not so as to

others.
4. The law of God to the Jews, Lev. xviii. doth not prohibit those degrees
there named, because of any reason proper to the Jews, but as an exposition
of the law of nature, and so on reasons common to all.
5. Therefore, though the Jewish law cease (yea, never bound other
nations) formally as that political national law; yet as it was God's
exposition of his own law of nature, it is of use, and consequential
obligation to all men, even to this day; for if God once had told but one
man, This is the sense of the law of nature, it remaineth true, and all must
believe it; and then the law of nature itself, so expounded, will still oblige.
6. The world is so wide for choice, and a necessity of doubtful marriage
is so rare, and the trouble so great, that prudence telleth every one that it is
their sin, without flat necessity, to marry in a doubtful degree; and therefore
it is thus safest, to avoid all degrees that seem to be equal to those named
Lev. xviii. and to have the same reason, though they be not named.
7. But because it is not certain that indeed the unnamed cases have the
same reason, (while God doth not acquaint us with all the reasons of his
law,) therefore when the thing is done, we must not censure others too
deeply, nor trouble ourselves too much about those unnamed, doubtful
cases. We must avoid them beforehand, because else we shall cast ourselves
into doubts and troubles unnecessarily; but when it is past, the case must be
considered of as I shall after open.
Quest. II. What if the law of the land forbid more or fewer degrees than
Lev. xviii. doth?
Answ. If it forbid fewer, the rest are nevertheless to be avoided as
forbidden by God. If it forbid more, the forbidden ones must be avoided in
obedience to our rulers.
Quest. III. Is the marriage of cousin-germans, that is, of brothers'
children, or sisters' children, or brothers' and sisters' children, unlawful?
Answ. I think not; 1. Because not forbidden by God. 2. Because none of
that same rank are forbidden; that is, none that on both sides are two
degrees from the root. I refer the reader for my reasons to a Latin Treatise

of Charles Butler on this subject, for in those I rest. As all the children of
Noah's sons did marry their cousin-germans, (for they could not marry in
any remoter degree,) so have others since without reproof, and none are
forbidden. 3. But it is safest to do otherwise, because there is choice enough
beside, and because many divines being of the contrary opinion, may make
it matter of scruple and trouble afterwards, to those that venture upon it
without need.
Quest. IV. What would you have those do that have married cousin-
germans, and now doubt whether it be lawful so to do?
Answ. I would have them cast away such doubts, or at least conclude that
it is now their duty to live peaceably in the state in which they are; and a
great sin for them to be separated on such scruples. The reason is, because,
if it be not certain that the degree is lawful, at least no man can be sure that
it is unlawful. And for husband and wife to break their covenants and part,
without a necessary cause, is a great sin; and that which no man can prove
to be a sin, is no necessary or lawful cause of a divorce. Marriage duties are
certainly commanded to the married, but the marriage of cousin-germans is
not certainly forbidden. Therefore if it were a sin to marry so, to them that
doubted; or if they are since fallen into doubt whether it was not a sin; yet
may they be sure that the continuance of it is a duty, and that all they have
to do is to repent of doing a doubtful thing, but not to part, nor to forbear
their covenanted duties. No, nor to indulge or suffer those troublesome
scruples, which would hinder the cheerful discharge of their duties, and the
comfortable serving of God in their relations.
Quest. V. What should those do that are married in those degrees which
are not forbidden by name in Lev. xviii. and yet are at the same distance
from the root with those that are named, and seem to have the same reason
of unlawfulness?
Answ. If there be clearly a parity of degree, and also of the reason of the
prohibition, then no doubt but they must part as incestuous, and not
continue in a forbidden state. But because divines are disagreed whether
there be in all instances a parity of the reason of the prohibition, where there
is an equal distance as to degrees; and so in those cases some think it a duty
to be separated, and others think it enough to repent of their conjunction

and not to be separated, because the case is doubtful, (as the controversy
showeth,) I shall not venture to cast in my judgment in a case, where so
many and such men are disagreed; but shall only advise all to prevent such
troublesome doubts beforehand, and not by rashness to run themselves into
perplexities, when there is no necessity; unless they will call their carnal
ends or sinful passions a necessity.
Quest. VI. But if a man do marry in a degree expressly there forbidden, is
it in all cases a sin to continue in that state? If necessity made such marriage
a duty to Adam's children, why may not necessity make the continuance
lawful to others? As suppose the king or parents command it? suppose the
woman will die or be distracted with grief else? suppose one hath made a
vow to marry no other, and yet cannot live single, &c.? Here I shall
suppose, that if a lustful person marry a kinswoman that he may have
change, as foreknowing that he must be divorced, punishment, and not
continuance in the sin, must be his sentence; and if one that hath married a
kinswoman be glad to be divorced, because he hateth her or loveth change,
punishment must rebuke him, but he must not continue in incest.
Answ. 1. Natural necessity justified Adam's children, and such would now
justify you. Yea, the benediction "Increase and multiply," did not only
allow, but oblige them then to marry, to replenish the earth (when else
mankind would soon have ceased); but so it doth not us now when the earth
is replenished. Yet I deny not, but if a man and his sister were cast alone
upon a foreign wilderness, where they justly despaired of any other
company, if God should bid them there "increase and multiply," it would
warrant them to marry. But else there is no necessity of it, and therefore no
lawfulness. For, 2. A vicious necessity justifieth not the sin. If the man or
woman that should abstain will be mad or dead with passion, rather than
obey God, and deny and mortify their lust, it is not one sin that will justify
them in another. The thing that is necessary, is to conform their wills to the
law of God; and if they will not, and then say, They cannot, they must bear
what they get by it. 3. And it is no necessity that is imposed by that
command of king or parents, which is against the law of God. 4. No, nor by
a vow neither; for a vow to break God's law is not an obligation to be kept,
but to be repented of; nor is the necessity remediless which such a one

bringeth on himself, by vowing never to marry any other; seeing chastity
may be kept.
Quest. VII. Is it lawful for one to marry, that hath vowed chastity during
life, and not to marry, and afterward findeth a necessity of marrying, for the
avoiding of lust and fornication?
Answ. I know that many great divines have easily absolved those, that
under popery vowed chastity. The principal part of the solution of the
question, you must fetch from my solution of the Case of Vows, part iii.
chap. v. tit. 2. At the present this shall suffice to be added to it. 1. Such
vows of chastity that are absolute, without any exceptions of after
alterations or difficulties that may arise, are sinfully made, or are unlawful
quoad actum jurandi.[8]
2. If parents or others impose such oaths and vows on their children or
subjects, or induce them to it, it is sinfully done of them, and the actus
imperantium is also unlawful.
3. Yet as long as the materia jurata, the matter vowed, remaineth lawful,
the vow doth bind, and it is perfidiousness to break it. For the sinfulness of
the imposer's act proveth no more, but that such a command did not oblige
you to vow. And a vow made arbitrarily without any command, doth
nevertheless bind. And the sinfulness of the making of the vow, doth only
call for repentance; (as if you made it causelessly, rashly, upon ill motives,
and to ill ends, or in ill circumstances, &c.) But yet that vow which you
repent that ever you made, must be nevertheless kept, if the thing vowed be
a lawful thing, and the act of vowing be not made a nullity (though it was a
sin). And when it is a nullity, I have showed in the forecited place.
4. A vow of celibate or chastity during life, which hath this condition or
exception expressed or implied in the true intent of the votary, (unless any
thing fall out which shall make it a sin to me not to marry,) may in some
cases be a lawful vow; as to one that foreseeth great inconveniences in
marriage, and would by firm resolution fortify himself against temptations
and mutability.
5. If there were no such excepting thought in the person vowing, yet
when the thing becometh unlawful, the vow is not to be kept; though it

oblige us under guilt for sinful making it, yet God commandeth us not to
keep it, because we vowed that which he forbad us not only to vow but to
do.
6. Either the papists suppose such exceptions to be always implied by
their votaries, or at least that they are contained in the law of God, or else
sure they durst never pretend that the pope hath power to dispense with
such vows (as they have oft done for princes, men and women, that they
might be taken from a monastery to a crown). For if they suppose, that the
persons before the dispensation are under the obligation of their vow, and
bound by God to keep it, then it would be too gross and odious blasphemy
for the pope to claim a power of disobliging them, and dissolving God's
commands; and not only antichristianity, but antitheistical, or a setting
himself above God Almighty, under pretence of his own commission. But if
they only pretend to dissolve such vows judicially or decisively, by judging
when the person is no longer obliged to keep them by God's law, then they
suppose, that the obligation of God's law is ceased, before they judicially
declare it to be ceased. And if that were all that the pope undertook, he had
no power to do it out of his own parish, nor more than any lawful bishop
hath in his proper charge.
7. The matter of a vow of celibate or chastity is then unlawful, when it
cannot be kept without greater sin than that life of chastity escapeth, and
which would be escaped if it were forsaken; or without the omission of
greater duty, and omission of greater good, than that life of chastity
containeth or attaineth. For the further opening of this, let it be noted, that,
8. It is not every degree of sin which marriage would cure, that will
warrant the breach of a vow of chastity. As if I had some more lustful
thoughts or instigations and irritations in a single life than I should have if I
married. The reason is, because, 1. No man liveth without some sin, and it
is supposed that there are greater sins of another kind, which by a life of
chastity I avoid. And the breach of the vow itself is a greater matter than a
lustful thought.
9. So it is not every degree of good which by marriage I may attain or do,
that will warrant it against a vow of chastity. Because I may do and get a
greater good by chastity, and because the evil of perjury is not to be done

that good may be done by it; till I can prove, that it is not only good in
itself, but a duty hic et nunc to me.
10. A man should rather break his vow of celibate, than once commit
fornication, if there were a necessity that he must do the one. Because
fornication is a sin which no vow will warrant any man to commit.
11. A man should rather break his vow of celibate, than live in such
constant or ordinary lust, as unfitteth him for prayer, and a holy life, and
keepeth him in ordinary danger of fornication, if there were a necessity that
he must do the one. The reason is also because now the matter vowed is
become unlawful, and no vow can warrant a man to live in so great sin
(unless there were some greater sin on the other side which could not be
avoided in a married life, which is hardly to be supposed, however popish
priests think disobedience to the pope, and the incommodity and disgrace of
a married life, &c. to be a greater sin than fornication itself).
12. If a prince vow chastity, when it is like to endanger the kingdom for
want of a safe and sure succession, he is bound to break that vow; because
he may not lawfully give away the people's right, nor do that which is
injurious to so many.
13. Whether the command of a parent or prince may dissolve the
obligation of a vow of celibate, I have answered already. I now say but this,
1. When parents or princes may justly command it, we may justly obey
them. But this is not one of those accidental evils, which may be lawfully
done, though unlawfully commanded. 2. It is parents that God hath
committed more of this care and power to, about children's marriage, than
to princes. 3. Parents not princes may not lawfully command the breach of
such a vow, (not nullified at first,) except in such cases as disoblige us,
whether they do it or not; so that the resolving of the main case doth suffice
for all.
14. He that by lawful means can overcome his lust, to the measure before
mentioned, is under no necessity of violating his vow of single life.
15. I think that it is not one of twenty that have bodies so unavoidably
prone to lust, but that by due means it might be so far (though not totally)
overcome, without marriage, fornication, wilful self-pollution, or violent,

vexatious, lustful thoughts. That is, 1. If they employ themselves constantly
and diligently in a lawful calling, and be not guilty of such idleness, as
leaveth room in their minds and imaginations for vain and filthy thoughts. If
they follow such a calling as shall lay a necessity upon them to keep their
thoughts close employed about it. 2. If they use such abstinence and
coarseness in their diet, as is meet to tame inordinate lusts, without
destroying health: and not only avoid fulness and gulosity, and vain sports
and pleasures, but also use convenient fasting, and tame the body by
necessary austerities. 3. If they sufficiently avoid all tempting company and
sights, and keep at a meet distance from them. 4. If they set such a restraint
upon their thoughts as they may do. 5. If they use such a quality of diet and
physic, as is aptest for the altering of those bodily distempers, which are the
cause. 6. And lastly, If they are earnest in prayer to God, and live in
mortifying meditations, especially in a constant familiarity with a crucified
Christ, and with the grave, and with the heavenly society. He that breaketh
his vow to save himself the labour and suffering of these ungrateful means,
I take to be perfidious, though perhaps he sinfully made that vow. And no
greater number are excusable for continence after such a vow, than these
that have bodies so extraordinary lustful, as no such other means can tame,
and those forementioned that have extraordinary accidents to make a single
life unlawful.
16. It must not be forgotten here, that if men trust to marriage itself alone
as the cure of their lust, without other means, such violent lusts as nothing
else will cure, may possibly be much uncured afterwards. For adulterers are
as violent in their lusts as the unmarried, and ofttimes find it as hard to
restrain them. And therefore the married, as well as others, have need to be
careful to overcome their lust. And the rather because it is in them a double
sin.
17. But yet when all other means do fail, marriage is God's appointed
means, to quench those flames from which men's vows cannot, in cases of
true necessity, disoblige them.

FOOTNOTES

[1] 1 Cor. vii. 7, 38.

[2] Unmarried men are the best friends, the best masters, the best servants;
but not always the best subjects: for they are light to run away, and
therefore venturous, &c. Lord Bacon, Essay 8.
[3] Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for the middle age, and
old men's nurses. So that a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will.
Lord Bacon, Essay.
[4] Art thou discontented with thy childless state? Remember that of all
the Roman kings, not one of them left the crown to his son. Plutarch. de
Tranq. Anim.
[5] Non bene fit quod occupato animo fit. Hieron. Epist. 5. 3. ad Paulin.
[6] A single life doth well with churchmen: for charity will hardly water
the ground, where it must fill a pool. Lord Bacon, Essay 8. The greatest
works and foundations have been from childless men, who have sought to
express the image of their minds that have none of their body: so the care of
posterity hath been most in them that had no posterity. Lord Bacon,
Essay 7. He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.
For they are impediments to great enterprises.—The best works, and of
greatest merit, for the public, have proceeded from unmarried and childless
men. Id. ibid. Essay 8.
[7] The case of polygamy is so fully and plainly resolved by Christ, that I
take it not to be necessary to decide it, especially while the law of the land
doth make it death.
[8] By this you may see how to resolve the cases about vows and
covenants which are the grand controversies of this time among us.

CHAPTER II.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE RIGHT CHOICE OF SERVANTS AND
MASTERS.

PART I.

Directions for the right Choice of Servants.

Servants being integral parts of the family, who contribute much to the
holiness or unholiness of it, and to the happiness or misery of it, it much
concerneth masters to be careful in their choice. And the harder it is to find
such as are indeed desirable, the more careful and diligent in it should you
be.
Direct. I. To bid you choose such as are fittest for your service, is a
direction which nature and interest will give you, without any persuasions
of mine. And indeed it is not mere honesty or piety that will make a good
servant, nor do your work. Three things are necessary to make a servant fit
for you: 1. Strength. 2. Skill. 3. Willingness. And no two of these will serve
without the third. Strength and skill without willingness, will do nothing:
skill and willingness without strength, can do nothing: strength and
willingness without skill, will do as bad or worse than nothing. No less than
all will make you a good servant. Therefore choose one, 1. That is healthful.
2. That hath been used to such work as you must employ him in: and, 3.
One that is not of a flesh-pleasing, or lazy, sluggish disposition. For to exact
labour from one that is sickly will seem cruelty; and to expect labour from
one that is unskilful and unexercised will seem folly; and heavy, fleshly,
slothful persons, will do all with so much unwillingness, and pain, and
weariness, that they will think all too much, and their service will be a
continual toil and displeasure to them, and they will think you wrong them,
or deal hardly with them, if you will not allow them in their fleshliness and

idleness. Yea, though they should have grace, a phlegmatic, sluggish, heavy
body, will never be fit for diligent service, any more than a tired horse for
travel.
Direct. II. If it be possible, choose such as have the fear of God, or at
least such as are tractable and willing to be taught, and not such as are
ungodly, sensual, and profane. For, 1. "God hateth all the workers of
iniquity," Psal. v. 5. And it tendeth not to the blessing or safety of your
family, to have in it such as are enemies to God, and hated by him. You
cannot expect an equal blessing on their labours, as you may on the service
of those that fear him. The wicked may bring a curse on the families where
they are (if you wilfully entertain them); when a Joseph may be a blessing
even to the house of an unbeliever. A wicked man will be renewing those
crimes, which will be the shame of your family, and a grief to your hearts, if
you have any love to God yourselves; when a godly servant will pray for a
blessing from God upon his labours, and is himself under a promise, that
"whatever he doth shall prosper," Psal. i. 3. 2. Ungodly servants for the
most part will be mere eye-servants; they will do little more than they find
necessary to escape reproof and blame: some few of them, indeed, out of
love to their masters, or out of a desire of praise, or to make their places the
better to themselves, will be diligent and trusty: but ordinarily they are
deceitful, and study more to seem good servants, than to be such, and to
hide their faults, than to avoid them; for they make no great matter of
conscience of it, nor do they regard the eye of God: whereas a truly godly
servant will do all your service in obedience to God, as if God himself had
bid him do it, and as one that is always in the presence of that Master,
whose favour he preferreth before all the world. He is more careful to
please God, who commandeth him to be faithful, than to please you by
seeming better than he is: he is moved more to his duty by the reward which
God hath promised him, than by the wages which he expecteth from you:
he hath a tender, purified conscience, which will hold him to his duty, as
well when you know it not, as when you stand by. 3. Ordinarily, ungodly
servants will be false, if they have but opportunity to enrich themselves by
deceiving you; especially those that are intrusted in laying out money, in
buying and selling. As long as I name no particular persons, I think it no
untrustiness, but my duty, to warn masters whom they trust, by my

experience from the confessions of those that have been guilty. Many
servants whom God hath converted to his love and fear, have told me how
constantly they deceived their masters in buying and selling before their
conversion; even of so great sums of money, that some of them were not
able to restore it (when I made them know it was their duty so far as they
were able): and some of them had so much unquietness of conscience till it
was restored, that I have been fain to give them money to restore, when I
have convinced them of it: so that I know by such confessions, that such
deceit and robbing of their masters is a very ordinary thing among ungodly
servants that have, opportunity, that yet pass for very trusty servants, and
are never discovered. 4. Also an ungodly servant will be a tempter to the
rest, and will be drawing them to sin: especially to secret wantonness, and
uncivil carriage, if not to actual fornication; and to revellings, and
merriments, and fleshly courses: by swearing, and taking God's name in
vain, and cursing, and lying, they will teach your children and other
servants to do the like; and so be an infectious pestilence in your families.
5. And they will hinder any good which you would do on others. If there be
any in your family under convictions, and in a hopeful way to a better
condition, they will quench all, and discourage them, and hinder their
conversion; partly by their contradicting cavils, and partly by their scorns,
and partly by their diverting, idle talk, and partly by their ill examples, and
alluring them to accompany them in their sin. Whereas, on the contrary, a
godly servant will be drawing the rest of your family to godliness, and
hindering them from sin, and persuading them to be faithful in their duty
both to God and you.
Direct. III. Yet measure not the godliness of a servant by his bare
knowledge or words, but by his love and conscience. A great deal of self-
conceited talkativeness about religion may stand with an unsanctified heart
and life; and much weakness in knowledge and utterance, may stand with
sincerity. But you may safely judge those to be truly godly, 1. Who love
godliness, and love the word and servants of God, and hate all wickedness.
2. And those that make conscience to do their duty, and to avoid known sin
both openly and in secret.
Direct. IV. If necessity constrain you to take those that are unfit and bad,
remember that there is the greater duty incumbent on you, to carry yourself

towards them in a diligent, convincing manner, so as tendeth most to make
them better. Take them not as you buy a horse or an ox, with a purpose only
to use them for your work; but remember they have immortal souls which
you take charge of.

PART II.

Directions for the right Choice of Masters.

Seeing the happiness of a servant, the safety of his soul, and the comfort of
his life, depend very much upon the family and place which he liveth in, it
much concerneth every prudent servant to be very careful in what place or
family he take up his abode, and to make the wisest choice he can.
Direct. I. Above all, be sure that you choose not for mere fleshly ease and
sensuality, and take not that for the best place for you, where you may have
most of your own carnal will and pleasure. I know that fleshly, graceless
servants, will hear this direction with as ill a will, as a dog when he is
forbidden his meat or carrion. I know I speak against their very nature, and
therefore against their very hearts, and therefore they will think I speak
against their interest and good; and therefore I may persuade them to this
course a hundred times, before they will believe me, or obey my counsel.
All ungodly, fleshly servants, do make these the only signs of a good place,
or desirable service for them: 1. If they may do what work they will, and
avoid that which they dislike; if they may do that which is easy, and not that
which is hard; and that which is an honour to them, and not that which
seemeth inferior and base. 2. If they may work when they will, and give
over when they will. 3. If they may rise when they will, and go to bed when
they will. 4. If they may eat and drink what they will, and fare well to the
pleasing of their appetites. 5. If they may speak when they will, and what
they have a mind to speak. 6. If they may have leave when they will to
sport, and play, and be wanton and vain, and waste their time, which they
call being merry. 7. If they may wear the best apparel and go fine. 8. If their
masters will be liberal to them, to maintain all this, and will give them what
they would have. 9. If their masters and fellow-servants carry it respectfully
to them, and praise them, and make somebody of them, and do not

dishonour them, nor give them any displeasing words. 10. And if they are
not troubled with the precepts of godliness, nor set to learn the Scripture, or
catechized, nor called to account about the state of their souls, or the ground
of their hopes for the life to come, nor troubled with much praying, or
repeating sermons, or religious exercise or discourse, or any thing that
tendeth to their salvation; nor be restrained from any sin, which they have a
mind to, nor reproved for it when they have done it. These are an ungodly,
carnal person's conditions, or signs of a good service. Which is, in a word,
to have their own wills and fleshly desires, and not to be crossed by their
masters' wills, or the will of God: which in effect is, to have the greatest
helps to do the devil's will, and to be damned.
Direct. II. See that it be your first and principal care, to live in such a
place where you have the greatest helps and smallest hinderances to the
pleasing of God, and the saving of your souls; and in such a place where
you shall have no liberty to sin, nor have your fleshly will fulfilled, but
shall be best instructed to know and do the will of God, and under him the
will of your superiors. It is the mark of those whom God forsaketh, to be
given up to their own wills, or "to their own hearts' lusts, to walk in their
own counsels," Psal. lxxxi. 12. "To live after the flesh," is the certain way to
endless misery, Rom. viii. 8, 13. To be most subject to the will of God, with
the greatest mortification and denial of our own wills, is the mark of the
most obedient, holy soul. Seeing then that holiness and self-denial, the
loving of God, and the mortifying of the flesh, are the life of grace, and the
health and rectitude of the soul, and the only way (under Christ) to our
salvation; you have great reason to think that place the best for you, in
which you have most helps for holiness and self-denial: and not only to bear
patiently the strictness of your superiors, and the labour which they put you
upon for your souls, but also to desire and seek after such helps, as the
greatest mercies upon earth. "First seek the kingdom of God and his
righteousness: labour not (first) for the food that perisheth, but for that
which endureth to everlasting life," Matt. vi. 33; John vi. 27. Take care first
that your souls be provided for, and take that for the best service which
helpeth you most in the service of God, to your salvation.
Direct. III. If it be possible, live where there is a faithful, powerful,
convincing minister, whose public teaching and private counsel you may

make use of for your souls. Live not, if you can avoid it, under an ignorant,
dead, unprofitable teacher, that will never afford you any considerable help
to lift up your hearts to a heavenly conversation. But seeing you must spend
the six days in your labour, live where you have the best helps to spend the
Lord's day, for the quickening and comfort of your souls; that in the
strength of that holy food, you may cheerfully perform your sanctified
labours on the week days following. Be not like those brutish persons, that
live as if there were no life but this; and therefore take care to get a place,
where their bodies may be well fed and clothed, and may have ease, and
pleasure, and preferment for the world; but care not much what teacher
there is, to be their guide to heaven; nor whether ever they be seriously
foretold of the world to come, or not.
Direct. IV. Live, if you can obtain so great a mercy, with superiors that
fear God, and will have a care of your souls, as well as of your bodies, and
will require you to do God's service as well as their own: and not with
worldly, ungodly masters, that will use you as they do their beasts, to do
their work, and never take care to further your salvation. For, 1. The curse
of God is in the families of the ungodly; and who would willingly live in a
house that God hath cursed, any more than in a house that is haunted with
evil spirits? But God himself doth dwell with the godly, and by many
promises hath assured them of his love and blessing. "The curse of the Lord
is in the house of the wicked; but he blesseth the habitation of the just,"
Prov. iii. 33. "The wicked are overthrown, and are not; but the house of the
righteous shall stand," Prov. xii. 7. "The house of the wicked shall be
overthrown; but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish," Prov. xiv. 11;
so Prov. xv. 25. "The righteous man wisely considereth the house of the
wicked: God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness," Prov. xxi. 12.
Go not into a falling house. 2. A master that feareth God, will help to save
you from sin and hell, and help your souls to life eternal: he may do more
for you, than if he made you kings and rulers of the earth. He will hinder
you from sin: he will teach you to know God, and to prepare for your
salvation. Whereas ungodly masters will rather discourage you, and by
mocks or threatenings seek to drive you from a holy life, and use their wit,
and work, and authority, to hinder your salvation: or at best will take little
care of your souls, but think if they provide you food and wages, they have

done their parts. 3. A master that feareth God will do you no wrong, but will
love you as a christian, and his fellow-servant of Christ, while he
commandeth and employeth you as his own servant, which cannot be
expected from ignorant, ungodly, worldly men.
Direct. V. Yet choose such a service as you are fit to undergo, with the
least hinderance of the service of God, and of your souls. Neither a life of
idleness, nor of excess of business, should be chosen, if you have your
choice. For when the mind is overwhelmed with the cares of your service,
and your bodies tired with excessive labour, you will have little time, or
heart, or power, to mind the matters of your souls with any seriousness. Yea,
the Lord's day will be spent with little comfort, when the toil of the week
days hath left the body fit for nothing but to sleep. A service which alloweth
you no time at all to pray, or read the Scripture, or mind your everlasting
state, is a life more fit for beasts than men.
Direct. VI. If you can attain it, live where your fellow-servants fear God,
as well as the master of the family. For fellow-servants usually converse
with one another more frequently and familiarly than their masters do with
any of them. And therefore if a master give you the most heavenly
instructions, the idle, frothy talk of fellow-servants may blot out all from
your memories and hearts. And their derision of a holy life, or their bad
examples, may do more hurt, than the precepts of the governors can do
good. Whereas when a master's counsels are seconded by the good
discourse and practice of fellow-servants, it is a great encouragement to
good, and keepeth the heart in a continual warmth and resolution.
Direct. VII. If you want any one of these accommodations, be the more
diligent in such an improvement of the rest, as may make up your want. If
you have a good teacher and a bad master, improve the helps of your
teacher the more diligently. If you have a bad master and good fellow-
servants, or a good master and bad fellow-servants, thank God for that
which you have, and make the best of it.
Direct. VIII. If you would be accommodated yourselves with the best
masters and usage, labour to be the best servants; and then it is two to one
but you may have your choice. Good servants are so scarce, and so much
valued, that the best places would strive for you, if you will strive to be

such. Excel others in labour, and diligence, and trustiness, and obedience,
and gentleness, and patience, and then you may have almost what places
you desire. But if you will yourselves be idle, and slothful, and deceitful,
and false, and disobedient, and unmannerly, and self-willed, and
contentious, and impatient, and yet think that you must be respected, and
used as good and faithful servants, it is but a foolish expectation. For what
obligation is there upon others, in point of justice, to give you that which
you deserve not? Indeed if any be bound to keep you in mere charity, then
you may plead charity with them and not desert; but if they take you but as
servants, they owe you nothing but what your work and virtues shall
deserve.

CHAPTER III.

A DISPUTATION, OR ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THE NECESSITY OF
FAMILY WORSHIP AND HOLINESS, OR DIRECTIONS AGAINST
THE CAVILS OF THE PROFANE, AND SOME SECTARIES, WHO
DENY IT TO BE A THING REQUIRED BY GOD.

Whether the solemn Worship of God, in and by Families as such, be of
Divine Appointment? Aff.

That excellent speech of Mirandula is oft in mind, Veritatem philosophia
quærit, theologia invenit, religio possidet. I do therefore with greater
alacrity and delight dispute these points that are directly religious, that is,
immediately practical, than those that are only remotely such: and though I
am loth we should see among us any wider division inter philosophum
theologum et religiosum, than between the fantasy, the intellect, and the
will, which never are found disjunct in any act; or rather, than between the
habits of practical natural knowledge, and the habits of practical
supernatural knowledge, and the practical resolutions, affections, and
endeavours, into which both the former are devolved; yet may we safely
and profitably distinguish, where it would be mortal to divide. If disputing
in our present case, do but tend to, and end in, a religious performance, we
shall then be able to say, we disputed not in vain; when by experience of the
delight and profit of God's work, we perceive that we do not worship him in
vain: otherwise to evince by a dispute, that God should be worshipped, and
not to worship him when we have done, is but to draw forth our learning,
and sharpen our wits, to plead for our condemnation; as if the accuser
wanted our help, or the Judge of all the world did want evidence or
arguments against us, unless he had it from our own mouth. Concerning the
sense of the terms, I shall say somewhat, both as to the subject, and the

predicate, that we contend not in the dark; and yet but little, lest I trouble
myself and you with needless labours.
1. By the worship of God we mean not only, nor principally, obedience as
such, or service in common things, called Δουλεία: but we mean a religious
performance of some sacred actions, with an intention of honouring God as
God; and that more directly than in common works of obedience. This
being commonly called Λατρεία, is by Austin, and since him by all the
orthodox, appropriated to God alone; and indeed to give it to any other is
contradictory to its definition.
This worship is of two sorts, whereof the first is by an excellency called
worship, viz. When the honouring of God is so directly the end and whole
business of the work, that our own advantage falls in but impliedly, and in
evident subordination: such are the blessed works of praise and
thanksgiving, which we here begin and shall in heaven perpetuate. Yet see a
more admirable mystery of true religion; we indeed receive more largely
from God, and enjoy more fully our own felicity in him, in these acts of
worship, that give all to God, than in the other, wherein we more directly
seek for somewhat from him. And those are the second sort of worship
actions, viz. When the substance or matter of the work is a seeking or
receiving somewhat from God, or delivering something religiously in his
name, and so is more directly for ourselves; though yet it is God that should
be our ultimate end in this too. You may perceive I make this of three sorts.
Whereof the first consisteth in our religious addresses to God for something
that we want; and is called prayer. The second consisteth in our religious
addresses to God to receive somewhat from him; viz. 1. Instructions,
precepts, promises, threatenings, from his mouth, messengers, &c. 2. The
sacramental signs of his grace in baptism and the Lord's supper. The third
is, when the officers of Christ do in his name solemnly deliver either his
laws or sacraments. His laws either in general by ordinary preaching, or by
a more particular application in acts of discipline.
2. The word solemn signifies sometimes any thing usual, and so some
derive it, Solenne est quod fieri solet. Sometimes that which is done but on
one set day in the year; and so some make solenne to be quasi solum semel
in anno. But vulgarly it is taken, and so we take it here, for both celebre et

usitatum, that is, a thing that is not accidentally and seldom, but statedly
and ordinarily to be done, and that with such gravity and honourable
seriousness as beseems a business of such weight.
3. By family we mean, not a tribe or stock of kindred, dwelling in many
houses, as the word is taken oft in Scripture, but I mean a household.
Domus et familia, a household and family, are indeed in economics
somewhat different notions, but one thing. Domus is to familia as civitas to
respublica, the former is made the subject of the latter, the latter the finis
internus of the former. And so Domus est societas naturæ consentanea, e
personis domesticis, vitæ in dies omnes commode sustentandæ causa,
collecta. Familia est ordo domus per regimen patris-familias in personas
sibi subjectas.
Where note, that to a complete family must go four integral parts, Pater-
familias, mater-familias, filius, servus, A father, mother, son, and servant.
But to the essence of a family it sufficeth if there be but the pars imperans,
et pars subdita, one head or governor, either father, mother, master, or
mistress; and one or more governed under this head.
Note therefore, that the governor is an essential part of the family, and so
are some of the governed, (viz. that such there be,) but not each member. If
therefore twenty children or servants shall worship God without the father,
or master of the family, either present himself, or in some representative, it
is not a family worship in strict sense. But if the head of the family in
himself (or delegate or representative) be present, with any of his children
or servants, though all the rest be absent, it is yet a family duty; though the
family be incomplete and maimed (and so is the duty therefore, if culpably
so performed).
4. When I say in and by a family, I mean not that each must do the same
parts of the work, but that one (either the head, or some one deputed by
him, and representing him) be the mouth, and the rest performing their parts
by receiving instructions, or mentally concurring in the prayers and praise
by him put up. Lastly, By divine appointment I mean any signification of
God's will, that it is men's duty to perform this; whether a signification by
natural means or supernatural, directly or by consequence, so we may be

sure it is God's will. The sum of the question then is, whether any sacred
actions religiously and ordinarily to be performed to God's honour by the
head of the family, with the rest, be by God's appointment made our duty?
My thoughts of this question I shall reduce to these heads, and propound in
this order. 1. I shall speak of family worship in general. 2. Of the sorts of
that worship in special. 3. Of the time.
I. Concerning the first, I lay down my thoughts in these propositions
following, for limitation and caution, and then prove the main conclusion.
Prop. 1. It is not all sorts of God's worship which he hath appointed to be
performed by families as such; there being some proper to more public
assemblies.
2. More particularly the administration of the sacraments of baptism and
the Lord's supper, are proper to the ministerial or organized churches, and
not common to families: for as they are both of them committed only to
ministers of the gospel, and have been only used by them for many hundred
years in the church; (except that some permitted others to baptize in case of
necessity); so the Lord's supper was appointed for a symbol and means of a
more public communion than that of families. And though some conjecture
the contrary, from its first institution, and think that as there is a family
prayer and church prayer, family teaching and church teaching, so there
should be family sacraments and church sacraments, yet it is a mistake. For
though Christ administered it to his family, yet it was not as a family, but as
a church. For that which is but one family may possibly be a church also.
This exposition we have from the doctrine and practice of the apostles, and
constant custom of all the churches, which have never thought the Lord's
supper to be a family duty, but proper to larger assemblies, and
administrable only by ordained ministers. Nor will the reasons drawn from
circumcision and the passover prove the contrary: both because particular
churches were not then instituted as now, and therefore families had the
more to do; and because there were some duties proper to families in the
very institution of those sacraments; and because God gave them a power in
those, which he hath not given to masters of families now in our
sacraments.

3. Many thousands do by their own viciousness and negligence disable
themselves, so that they cannot perform what God hath made their duty; yet
it remains their duty still: some disability may excuse them in part, but not
in whole.
I shall now prove, that the solemn worship of God in and by families as
such, is of divine appointment.
Argument I. If families are societies of God's institution, furnished with
special advantages and opportunities for God's solemn worship, having no
prohibition so to use them; then the solemn worship of God in and by
families as such, is of divine appointment. But the antecedent is true;
therefore so is the consequent.
For the parts of the antecedent; 1. That families are societies of God's
institution, needeth no proof.
2. That they are furnished with special advantages and opportunities may
appear by an enumeration of particulars. (1.) There is the advantage of
authority in the ruler of the family, whereby he may command all that are
under him in God's worship, yea, and may inflict penalties on children and
servants that refuse; yea, may cast some out of the family if they be
obstinate. (2.) He hath the advantage of a singular interest in wife and
children, by which he may bring them to it willingly, that so they may
perform a right evangelical worship. (3.) He hath the advantage of a
singular dependence of all upon him for daily provisions; and of his
children for their portions for livelihood in the world, whereby he may yet
further prevail with them for obedience; he having a power to reward, as
well as to punish and command. (4.) They have the opportunity of
cohabitation, and so are still at hand, and more together, and so in readiness
for such employments. (5.) Being nearest in relation, they are stronglier
obliged to further each other's salvation, and help each other in serving
God. (6.) They have hereby an advantage against all prejudices and
jealousies, which strangeness and mistakes may raise and cherish among
those that live at a greater distance, and so may close more heartily in God's
worship. And their nearness of relation and natural affections do singularly
advantage them for a more affectionate conjunction, and so for a more
forcible and acceptable worship of God, when they are in it as of one heart

and soul. (7.) If any misunderstanding or other impediment arise, they being
still at hand, have opportunity to remove them, and to satisfy each other;
and if any distempers of understanding, heart, or life, be in the family, the
ruler, by familiarity and daily converse, is enabled more particularly to fit
his reproofs and exhortations, confessions and petitions, accordingly, which
even ministers in the congregations cannot so well do. So that I have made
it evident in this enumeration, that families have advantages, yea, special
and most excellent advantages and opportunities for the solemn worship of
God.
3. The last part of the antecedent was, that they have no prohibition to use
these advantages and opportunities to God's solemn worship. I add this, lest
any should say, though they have such advantages, yet God may restrain
them for the avoiding some greater inconveniencies another way; as he hath
restrained women from speaking in the assemblies. But, (1.) God hath
neither restrained them in the law of nature, nor in the written law; therefore
not at all. He that can show it in either, let him do it. (2.) I never yet read or
heard any knowing christian once affirm that God hath forbidden families
solemnly to worship him, and therefore I think it needless to prove a
negative, when no man is known to hold the affirmative. Indeed for some
kinds of worship, as preaching and expounding Scripture, some have
prohibited them; but not reading, catechizing, all instructing, praying,
praises, singing psalms, much less all solemn worship wholly. So much for
the antecedent.
I now come to prove the consequence. The foresaid advantages and
opportunities are talents given by God, which they that receive, are obliged
faithfully to improve for God; therefore families having such advantages
and opportunities for God's solemn worship, are bound to improve them
faithfully for God, in the solemn worshipping of him. For the antecedent, 1.
It is unquestionable that these are talents, that is, improvable mercies given
by God. For as none dare deny them to be mercies, so none dare (I hope)
say that God is not the giver of them. And then, 2. That such talents must be
improved faithfully for God, from whom they are received, is plain, from
Matt. xxv. throughout, especially ver. 14-31. And Luke xx. 10, he requireth
the fruits of his vineyard; and Matt. x. 42, if he intrust us with a cup of cold
water, he expecteth it for a prophet when he calleth for it. And if he intrust

us with outward riches, he expecteth that "we give to him that asketh,"
Matt. v. 42; Luke vi. 30, 38; xi. 41; xii. 33. His stewards must give an
account of their stewardships, Luke xvi. 2. Christ telleth us of all our talents
in general, Luke xii. 48, that "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall
be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they
will ask the more." And of our words in particular Christ tells us, Matt. xii.
36, that "of every idle word men shall give an account at the day of
judgment." Much more for denying to use both our tongues and hearts in
God's worship, when he gives us such opportunities. "It is required in
stewards, that a man be found faithful," 1 Cor. iv. 2. "As every man hath
received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good
stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as
the oracles of God," &c. 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11. Many more of the like scriptures
prove the antecedent of the enthymeme, and the consequent needs no proof.
Arg. II. The solemn worship of God in and by families as such, is
required by the very law of nature, therefore it is of divine institution. The
consequence can be denied by no man that renounceth not reason and
nature itself; denying the law of nature to be God's law, which is indeed
partly presupposed in the law supernatural, and partly rehearsed in it, but
never subverted by it. Positives are more mutable than naturals are.
The antecedent is thus manifested. 1. Natural reason (or the law of
nature) requireth that all men do faithfully improve all the talents that God
hath intrusted them with, to his honour; therefore natural reason (or the law
of nature) doth require, that God be solemnly worshipped in families, he
having given them such advantages as aforesaid thereunto. 2. The law of
nature requireth, that all societies that have God for their founder or
institutor, should, to their utmost capacities, be devoted to him that founded
and instituted them: but that God is the founder and institutor of families, is
known by the light of nature itself; therefore the law of nature requireth,
that families be to the utmost of their capacities devoted to God; and
consequently, that they solemnly worship him, they being capable of so
doing. I need not prove the major, because I speak only to men that are
possessed of the law of nature mentioned in it; and therefore they know it
themselves to be true. Yet let me so far stay on the illustration, as to tell you
the grounds of it. And, 1. God is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,

the principal efficient and ultimate end of all; and therefore of families. And
therefore they should be for him, as well as they are from him: for "of him,
and through him, and to him are all things." This argument I draw from
nature, which can have no beginning but God, nor any end but God. The 2.
I draw from the divine intention, in the fabrication and ordination of all
things. God made all things for himself, and can have no ultimate end
below himself. The 3. I draw from his jus dominii, his right of propriety
which he hath over all things, and so over families as such; they are all
absolutely his own alone. And that which is solely or absolutely a man's
own, should be for his use, and employed to his honour and ends: much
more that which is God's, seeing man is not capable of such a plenary
propriety of any thing in the world, as God hath in all things. 4. I argue a
jure imperii, from God's right of government. If he have a full right of
government of families, as families, then families as families must honour
and worship him according to their utmost capacities. But he hath a full
right of absolute government over families as families; therefore—The
consequence of the major is grounded on these two things: 1. That God
himself is the end of his own government: this is proper to his regimen. All
human government is said by politicians to be terminated ultimately in the
public good of the society. But God's pleasure and glory is the end of his
government, and is, as it were, the public or universal good. 2. In that nature
teacheth us, that supreme honour is due to all that are supreme governors;
therefore they are to have the most honourable titles, of majesty, highness,
excellency, &c. and actions answerable to those titles: Mal. i. 6, "If I be a
father, where is mine honour? if I be a master, where is my fear?" Fear is oft
put for all God's worship. If then there be no family whereof God is not the
Father or Founder, and the Master, or Owner and Governor, then there is
none but should honour and fear him, or worship him, and that not only as
single men, but as families; because he is not only the Father and Master,
the Lord and Ruler of them as men, but also as families. Honour is as due to
the rector, as protection to the subjects, and in our case much more. God is
not a mere titular but real Governor. All powers on earth are derived from
him, and are indeed his power. All lawful governors are his officers, and
hold their places under him, and act by him. As God therefore is the proper
Sovereign of every commonwealth, and the Head of the church, so is he the
Head of every family. Therefore as every commonwealth should perform

such worship or honour to their earthly sovereign, as is due to man; so each
society should, according to their capacities, perform divine worship and
honour to God. And if any object, That by this rule commonwealths, as
such, must meet together to worship God, which is impossible; I answer,
They must worship him according to their natural capacities; and so must
families according to theirs. The same general precept obligeth to a diverse
manner of duty according to the divers capacities of the subject.
Commonwealths must, in their representatives at least, engage themselves
to God as commonwealths, and worship him in the most convenient way
that they are capable of. Families may meet together for prayer, though a
nation cannot. As an association of churches, called a provincial or national
church, is obliged to worship God, as well as particular congregations, yet
not in one place; because it is impossible: nature limiteth and maketh the
difference.
And that the obligation of families to honour and worship God, may yet
appear more evidently, consider that God's right of propriety and rule is
twofold, yet each title plenary alone. 1. He is our Owner and Ruler upon his
title of creation. 2. So he is by his right of redemption. By both these he is
not only Lord and Ruler of persons, but families; all societies being his; and
the regimen of persons being chiefly exercised over them in societies. "All
power in heaven and earth is given unto Christ," Matt. xviii. 18; "and all
judgment committed unto him," John v. 22; "and all things delivered into
his hands," John xiii. 3; "and therefore to him shall every knee bow, both of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;" (either
with a bowing of worship, or of forced acknowledgment;) and "every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father," Phil. ii. 10. Bowing to and confessing Christ voluntarily to God's
glory, is true worship; all must do this according to their several capacities;
and therefore families according to theirs.
A third consideration, which I thought to have added but for illustration,
may well stand as an argument itself; and it is this:
Arg. III. If besides all the forementioned opportunities and obligations,
families do live in the presence of God, and ought by faith to apprehend that

presence, then is it God's will that families as such should solemnly worship
him. But the former is true, therefore the latter.
The consequence of the major, which alone requires proof, I prove by an
argument a fortiori, from the honour due to all earthly governors. Though
when a king, a father, a master are absent, such actual honour, to be
presented to them, is not due, because they are not capable of receiving it
(further than mediante aliqua persona, vel re, which beareth some
representation of the superior, or relation to him); yet when they stand by, it
is a contemptuous subject, a disobedient child, that will not perform actual
honour or human worship to them. Now God is ever present, not only with
each person as such, but also with every family as such. As he is said to
walk among the golden candlesticks in his churches, so doth he in the
families of all by his common presence, and of his servants by his gracious
presence. This they easily find by his directing them, and blessing the
affairs of their families. If any say, We see not God, else we would daily
worship him in our families. Answ. Faith seeth him who to sense is
invisible. If one of you had a son that were blind and could not see his own
father, would you think him therefore excusable, if he would not honour his
father, when he knew him to be present? We know God to be present,
though flesh be blind and cannot see him.
Arg. IV. If christian families (besides all the forementioned advantages
and obligations) are also societies sanctified to God, then is it God's will
that families, as such, should solemnly worship him; but christian families
are societies sanctified to God; therefore, &c.
The reason of the consequence is, because things sanctified must in the
most eminent sort, that they are capable, be used for God. To sanctify a
person or thing, is to set it apart, and separate it from a common or unclean
use, and to devote it to God, to be employed in his service. To alienate this
from God, or not to use it for God, when it is dedicated to him, or sanctified
by his own election and separation of it from common use, is sacrilege. God
hath a double right (of creation and redemption) to all persons. But a treble
right to the sanctified. Ananias his fearful judgment was a sad example of
God's wrath, on those that withhold from him what was devoted to him. If

christian families as such be sanctified to God, they must as such worship
him in their best capacity.
That christian families are sanctified to God I prove thus: 1. A society of
holy persons must needs be a holy society. But a family of christians is a
society of holy persons; therefore, 2. We find in Scripture not only single
persons, but the societies of such, sanctified to God. Deut. vii. 6, "Thou art
an holy people unto the Lord thy God; he hath chosen thee to be a special
people to himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth." So
Deut. xiv. 20, 21. So the body of that commonwealth did all jointly enter
into covenant with God, and God to them, Deut. xxix.; xxx.; and xxvi. 17-
19, "Thou hast vouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his
ways; and the Lord hath vouched thee this day to be his peculiar people,
that thou mayst be an holy people to the Lord." So chap. xxviii. 9; Dan. viii.
24; xii. 7. Joshua, chap. xxiv. devoteth himself and his house to the Lord; "I
and my house will serve the Lord." And Abraham by circumcision (the
covenant, or seal of the covenant of God) consecrated his whole household
to God; and so were all families after him to do (as to the males, in whom
the whole was consecrated). And whether besides the typifying intent, there
were not somewhat more in the sanctifying of all the first-born to God, who
if they lived, were to be the heads of the families, may be questioned.
The passover was a family duty, by which they were yet further
sanctified to God. Yea, it is especially to be observed how in the New
Testament, the Holy Ghost doth imitate the language of the Old, and speak
of God's people as of holy societies, as the Jews were. As in many
prophecies it was foretold that nations and kingdoms should serve him (of
which I have spoken more in my book of Baptism); and among those who
should "mourn over him whom they have pierced" in gospel times, when
the spirit of grace and supplication is poured forth, are "the family of the
house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of
Nathan apart, and their wives apart; every family, even all the families that
remained, apart, and their wives apart," Zech. xi. 12-14. So Christ sendeth
his disciples to "baptize nations," having discipled them; and "the kingdoms
of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord, and his Christ." And
as, Exod. xix. 5, 6, God saith of the Jews, "Ye shall be a peculiar treasure to
me above all people; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a

holy nation;" so doth Peter say of all christians, 1 Pet. ii. 5-7, 9, "Ye also, as
living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. But ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that you
should show forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness
into his marvellous light." Mark how fully this text doth prove all that we
are about. It speaks of christians collectively, as in societies, and in societies
of all the most eminent sorts: "a generation;" which seems especially to
refer to tribes and families: "a priesthood, nation, people;" which
comprehendeth all the orders in the nation ofttimes. And in all these
respects they are holy, and peculiar, and chosen, to show, that God's people
are sanctified in these relations and societies. And then mark the end of this
sanctification; ver. 5, "to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ;" ver. 9, "to show forth the praises of him that hath called you,"
&c.
Yea, it seems that there was a special dedication of families to God. And
therefore we read so frequently of households converted and baptized:
though none at age were baptized, but such as seemed believers; yet when
they professed faith, they were all together initiated as a household. And it
seems, the master's interest and duty were taken to be so great for the
conversion of the rest, that as he was not content himself with his own
conversion, but to labour presently, even before his baptism, that his
household should join with him, that so the whole family at once might be
devoted to God; so God did bless this his own order and ordinance to that
end: and where he imposed duty on masters, he usually gave success, so
that commonly the whole family was converted and baptized with the ruler
of the family. So Acts xviii. 8, "Crispus believed on the Lord with all his
house, and they were baptized;" and Acts xvi. 32, Paul promiseth the jailer,
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house;
and he and all his were baptized straightway; for he believed in God with
all his house," ver. 33, 34. And Lydia is described a "worshipper of God,"
Acts xvi. 14; and ver. 15, "she was baptized and her household." And the
angel told Cornelius, that Peter should tell him "words whereby he and all
his household should be saved," who were baptized accordingly, Acts
xi. 14. And 1 Cor. i. 16, Paul baptized the household of Stephanas. And

Christ told Zaccheus, salvation was come that day unto his house, "and he
and all his household believed." So that nobleman, John iv. 53. Therefore
when Christ sent forth his disciples, he saith, "If the house be worthy, let
your peace come upon it, but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to
you." So that as it is apparently the duty of every christian sovereign, to do
what he is able to make all his people God's people; and so to dedicate them
to God as a holy nation, in a national covenant, as the Israelites were: so is
it the unquestionable duty of every christian ruler of a family, to improve
his interest, power, and parts to the uttermost, to bring all his family to be
people of Christ in the baptismal covenant, and so to dedicate all his family
to Christ. Yet further I prove this, in that believers themselves being all
sanctified to God, it must needs follow, that all their lawful relations, and
especially all commanded states of relation, are also sanctified to God; for
when themselves are dedicated to God, it is absolutely without reserve, to
serve him with all that they have, and in every relation and capacity that he
shall set them. It were a madness to think, that a christian totally devoted
unto God when he is a private man, if he were after made a soldier, a
minister, a magistrate, a king, were not bound by his dedication now to
serve God as a soldier, a minister, a magistrate, a king. So he that is devoted
to God in a single state, is bound to serve him as a husband, a father, a
master, when he comes into that state: we do devote all that we have to
God, when we devote ourselves to him.
Moreover the Scripture tells us, that to "the pure all things are pure," Tit.
i. 15, 16. And "all things are sanctified to them by the word and prayer,"
1 Tim. iv. 5; which is in that they are made the goods and enjoyments,
actions and relations of a sanctified people, who are themselves devoted or
sanctified to God: so that all sanctification referreth ultimately and
principally to God; Quod sanctum Deo sanctum est; though it may be said
subordinately to be sanctified to us. Seeing then it is past all doubt that
every christian is a man sanctified and devoted to God, and that whenever
any man is so devoted to God, he is devoted to serve him to the utmost
capacity in every state, relation, or condition that he is in, and with all the
faculties he possesseth, it followeth that those relations are sanctified to
God, and in them he ought to worship him and honour him.

Yet further we find in Scripture, that the particular family relations are
expressly sanctified. The family complete consisteth of three pairs of
relations; husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants.
Husbands must love their wives with a holy love in the Lord, even as "the
Lord loved the church, who gave himself for it, to sanctify and cleanse it by
the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a
glorious church," Eph. v. 25-27. "Wives must submit themselves to their
husbands as unto the Lord; and be subject to them, as the church is to
Christ," Eph. v. 22-24. "Children must obey their parents in the Lord," Eph.
vi. 1. "Parents must bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord," Eph. vi. 4. "Servants must be obedient unto their masters as unto
Christ, and as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from their hearts
with good will, doing service as to the Lord, and not to man; knowing that
what good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord,
whether he be bond or free: and masters must do the same to them, knowing
that their Master is in heaven," Eph. vi. 5-9. So that it is evident that every
distinct family relation is dedicated or holy to God and to be used to the
utmost for God. I shall have occasion to make further use anon of these
texts for the particular sorts of worship, though I now make use of them as
for worship in general.
Arg. V. The several sorts of solemn worship in and by christian families,
are found, appointed, used, and commanded in the Scripture, therefore it
may well be concluded of worship in the general; seeing the genus is in
each species. But this argument brings me to the second part of my
undertaking; viz. to prove the point as to some special kinds of worship;
which I the more hasten to, because in so doing I prove the general also.
II. Concerning God's worship in special, I shall speak but to two or three
of the chief parts of it, which belong to families.
And, 1. of teaching, under which I comprise,
1. Teaching the letter of the Scripture, (1.) By reading it. (2.) By teaching
others to read it. (3.) Causing them to learn it by memory, which is a kind of
catechising.
2. Teaching the sense of it.

3. Applying what is so taught by familiar reproofs, admonitions, and
exhortations.
Prop. II. It is the will of God that the rulers of families should teach those
that are under them the doctrine of salvation, i.e. the doctrine of God
concerning salvation, and the terms on which it is to be had, and the means
to be used for attaining it, and all the duties requisite on our parts in order
thereunto.
Before I come to the proof, take these cautions: 1. Where I say men must
thus teach, I imply they must be able to teach, and not teach before they are
able; and if they be not able it is their own sin, God having vouchsafed
them means for enablement. 2. Men must measure their teaching according
to their abilities, and not pretend to more than they have, nor attempt that
which they cannot perform, thereby incurring the guilt of proud self-
conceitedness, profanation, or other abuse of holy things. For example, men
that are not able judiciously to do it, must not presume to interpret the
original, or to give the sense of dark prophecies, and other obscure texts of
Scripture, nor to determine controversies beyond their reach. 3. Yet may
such conveniently study what more learned, able men say to such cases; and
tell their families, this is the judgment of fathers, or councils, or such and
such learned divines. 4. But ordinarily it is the safest, humblest, wisest, and
most orderly way for the master of the family to let controversies and
obscure Scriptures alone, and to teach the plain, few necessary doctrines
commonly contained in catechisms, and to direct in matters of necessary
practice. 5. Family teaching must stand in a subordination to ministerial
teaching, as families are subordinate to churches; and therefore, (1.) Family
teaching must give place to ministerial teaching, and never be set against it;
you must not be hearing the master of a family, when you should be in a
church hearing the pastor; and if the pastor send for servants or children to
be catechised in any fit place or at any fit time, the master is not then to be
doing it himself, or to hinder them, but they must go first to the pastor to be
taught; also if a pastor come into a family, the master is to give place, and
the family to hear him first. (2.) And therefore when any hard text or
controversies fall in, the master should consult with the pastor for their
exposition, unless it fall out that the master of the family be better learned
in the Scripture than the pastor is, which is rare, and rarer should be, seeing

unworthy ministers should be removed, and private men that are worthy
should be made ministers. And the pastors should be the ablest men in the
congregation. Now to the proof (remembering still that whatsoever proves it
the ruler's duty to teach, must needs prove it the family's duty to learn, and
to hearken to his teaching that they may learn).
Arg. I. From Deut. xi. 18-21, "Therefore shall you lay up these my words
in your hearts, and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand,
that they may be as frontlets between your eyes; and you shall teach them
your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when
thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest
up; and thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon
your gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your
children." The like words are in Deut. vi. 6-8, where it is said, "And thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." So Deut. iv. 9, "Teach them
thy sons, and thy sons' sons."
Here there is one part of family duty, viz. teaching children the laws of
God, as plainly commanded as words can express it.
Arg. II. From these texts which commend this. Gen. xviii. 18, 19, "All the
nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, for I know him that he will
command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the
way of the Lord;" and it was not only a command at his death what they
should do when he was dead; for, 1. It cannot be imagined that so holy a
man should neglect a duty all his lifetime, and perform it but at death, and
be commended for that. 2. He might then have great cause to question the
efficacy. 3. As God commandeth a diligent inculcating precepts on children,
so no doubt it is a practice answerable to such precepts that is here
commended; and it is not bare teaching, but commanding, that is here
mentioned, to show that it must be an improvement of authority, as well as
of knowledge and elocution.
So 2 Tim. iii. 15. From a child Timothy knew the Scripture by the
teaching of his parents, as appeareth, 2 Tim. i. 5.
Arg. III. Eph. vi. 4, "Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord;" παιδεία, translated nurture, signifieth both instruction and correction,

showing that parents must use both doctrine and authority, or force, with
their children for the matters of the Lord; and νουθεσία, translated
admonition, signifieth such instruction as putteth doctrine into the mind,
and chargeth it on them, and fully storeth their minds therewith; and it also
signifieth chiding, and sometimes correction. And it is to be noted, that
children must be brought up in this; the word ἐκτρέφετε, signifying
carefully to nourish, importeth that as you feed them with milk and bodily
food, so you must as carefully and constantly feed and nourish them with
the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It is called the nurture and
admonition of the Lord, because the Lord commandeth it, and because it is
the doctrine concerning the Lord, and the doctrine of his teaching, and the
doctrine that leadeth to him.
Arg. IV. Prov. xxii. 6, "Train up a child in the way where he should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Arg. V. From all those places that charge children to hearken to the
instructions of their parents, Prov. i. 8, "My son, hear the instruction of thy
father, and forsake not the law of thy mother." Prov. vi. 20 is the like; and
iii. 22, with many the like. Yea, the son that is stubborn and rebellious
against the instruction and correction of a father or mother in gluttony,
drunkenness, &c. was to be brought forth to the magistrate, and stoned to
death, Deut. xxi. 18-20. Now all the scriptures that require children to hear
their parents, do imply that the parents must teach their children; for there is
no hearing and learning without teaching.
But lest you say that parents and children are not the whole family,
(though they may be, and in Abraham's ease before mentioned, the whole
household is mentioned,) the next shall speak to other relations.
Arg. VI. 1 Pet. iii. 7, "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them (your
wives) according to knowledge;" and Eph. v. 25, 26, "Love your wives as
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and
cleanse it." And this plainly implies that this knowledge must be used for
the instruction and sanctification of the wife. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35, women
must "keep silence in the church, for it is not permitted unto them to speak,
but they are to be under obedience, as also saith the law. If they will learn

any thing, let them ask their husbands at home." Which shows that at home
their husbands must teach them.
Arg. VII. Col. iii. 22-25; Eph. vi. 5-8, "Servants must be obedient unto
their masters as unto Christ, and serve them as serving the Lord Christ," and
therefore ministers must command in Christ.
Arg. VIII. A fortiori, fellow-christians must "exhort one another daily
while it is called to-day, lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin;"
much more must the rulers of families do so to wives, children, and
servants. 1 Pet. iv. 11, "If any speak, it must be as the oracles of God;"
much more to our own families. Col. iii. 16, "Let the word of God dwell in
you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another;" and
much more must a man do this to wife, children, and servants, than to those
more remote.
Arg. IX. Those that are to be chosen deacons or bishops, must be such as
rule their own children and their own household well, 1 Tim. iii. 4, 12. Now
mark, 1. That this is one of those christian virtues which they were to have
before they were made officers, therefore other christians must have and
perform it as well as they. 2. It is a religious, holy governing, such as a
minister is to exercise over his flock, that is here mentioned, which is in the
things of God and salvation, or else the comparison or argument would not
suit; ver. 5, "For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he
rule the church of God?" But of this more before. I would say more on this
point, but I think it so clear in Scripture as to make it needless: I pass
therefore to the next.
Prop. III. Family discipline is part of God's solemn worship or service
appointed in his word. This is not called worship in so near a sense as some
of the rest, but more remotely; yet so it may well be called, in that, 1. It is
an authoritative act done by commission from God; 2. Upon such as
disobey him, and as such; 3. And to his glory; yea, and it should be done
with as great solemnity and reverence, as other parts of worship.
The acts of this discipline are, 1. Denying the ungodly entrance into the
family. 2. Correcting; 3. Or casting out those that are in. I shall be but brief
on these.

1. The first you have 2 John 10, "If there come any to you and bring not
this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed;
for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."
2. The duty of correcting, either by corporal, sensible punishment, or by
withdrawing some benefit, is so commonly required in Scripture, especially
towards children, that I will not stand on it, lest I speak in vain what you all
know already; and how Eli suffered for neglecting it, you know.
3. The discipline of casting the wicked out of the family (servants I mean,
who are separable members) you may find Psal. ci. 2, 3, 7, 8, "I will walk
within my house with a perfect heart, I will set no wicked thing before mine
eyes. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that telleth
lies shall not tarry in my sight."
Prop. IV. Solemn prayer and praises of God in and by christian families
is of divine appointment.
1. For proof of this, I must desire you to look back to all the arguments
which proved the dueness of worship in general, for they will yet more
especially prove this sort of worship, seeing prayer and praise are most
immediately and eminently called God's worship of any; (under praises I
comprehend psalms of praise, and under prayer, psalms of prayer;) yet let
us add some more.
Arg. I. It is God's will that christians who have fit occasions and
opportunities for prayer and praises should improve them, but christian
families have fit occasions and opportunities for prayer and praise, therefore
it is God's will they should improve them.
The major is evident in many Scripture precepts. 1 Tim. ii. 8, "I will
therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath
and doubting." 1 Thess. v. 17, 18, "Pray without ceasing; in every thing give
thanks; for this is the will of God concerning you." Col. iv. 2, "Continue in
prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." Col. iii. 16, 17,
"Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord: and whatsoever ye
do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus; giving thanks unto
God and the Father by him." Rom. xii. 12, "Continuing instant in prayer."

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching
thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me
that utterance may be given me," Eph. vi. 18. Many the like texts might be
named, every one of which afford an argument for family praises most
effectual.
1. If men must pray every where, (that is convenient,) then sure in their
families. But, &c. Erg. 2. If men must pray without ceasing, then sure in
their families. 3. If men must in every thing give thanks, then sure in family
mercies, and then, according to the nature of them, together. 4. If men must
continue in prayer and watch in it, (for fit advantages and against
impediments,) and in thanksgiving, then doubtless they must not omit the
singular advantages which are administered in families. 5. If we must
continue instant in prayer and supplication, &c. then doubtless in family
prayer, in our families, unless that be no place and no prayer. Object. But
this binds us no more to prayer in our families than any where else. Answ.
Yes, it binds us to take all fit opportunities; and we have more fit
opportunities in our own families than in other men's, or than in occasional
meetings, or than in any ordinary societies, except the church.
And here let me tell you, that it is ignorance to call for particular express
Scripture, to require praying in families, as if we thought the general
commands did not comprehend this particular, and were not sufficient. God
doth in much wisdom leave out of his written law the express determination
of some of those circumstantials, or the application of general precepts to
some of those subjects, to which common reason and the light of nature
sufficeth to determine and apply them. The Scripture giveth us the general,
"Pray alway with all manner of prayer in all places," that is, omit no fit
advantages and opportunities for prayer. What if God had said no more than
this about prayer in Scripture? It seems some men would have said, God
hath not required us to pray at all, (when he requireth us to pray always,)
because he tells us not when and where, and how oft, and with whom, and
in what words, &c. And so they would have concluded God no where bids
us pray in secret, nor pray in families, nor pray in assemblies, nor pray with
the godly, nor with the wicked, nor pray every day, nor once a week; nor
with a book, nor without a book, and therefore not at all. As if the general
"Pray on all fit occasions" were nothing.

But these men must know that nature also and reason are God's light, and
Providence oft determineth of such subjects and adjuncts: and the general
law, and these together, do put all out of doubt. What if God telleth you, He
that provideth not for his own, especially those of his household, hath
denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel, and do not tell you either who
are your families, and who not, nor what provision you shall make for them,
what food, what clothes, or how oft they must feed, &c.; will you say God
hath not bid you feed or clothe this child, or that servant? It is enough that
God chargeth you to provide for your families, in the Scripture; and that in
nature he tell you which are your families, and what provision to make for
them, and how oft, and in what quantity, &c. And so if God bid you pray in
all places, and at all times, on all occasions, (that are fit for prayer,) and
experience and common reason tell you that families afford most fit times,
place, and occasions for prayer, is not this enough, that there are such
seasons, and opportunities, and occasions for family prayer? I refer you to
the particular discoveries of them in the beginning, where I proved the
dueness of worship in general to be there performed. And I refer you also to
common reason itself, not fearing the contradiction of any man whose
impiety hath not made him unreasonable, and prevailed against the common
light of nature. This first general argument were enough, if men were not so
averse to their duty that they cannot know because they will not: but let us
therefore add some more.
Arg. II. If there be many blessings which the family needeth, and which
they do actually receive from God, then it is the will of God that the family
pray for these blessings when they need them, and give thanks for them
when they have received them: but there are many blessings which the
family (as conjunct) needeth and receiveth of God. Therefore the family
conjunct, and not only particular members secretly, should pray for them
and give thanks for them.
The antecedent is past question; 1. The continuance of the family as such
in being. 2. In well being. 3. And so the preservation and direction of the
essential members. 4. And the prospering of all family affairs are evident
instances: and to descend to mere particulars would be needless
tediousness. The consequence is proved from many scriptures, which
require those that want mercies to ask them, and those that have received

them to be thankful for them. Object. So they may do singly. Answ. It is not
only as single persons, but as a society, that they receive the mercy;
therefore not only as single persons, but as a society, should they pray and
give thanks: therefore should they do it in that manner, as may be most fit
for a society to do it in, and that is, together conjunctly, that it may be
indeed a family sacrifice, and that each part may see that the rest join with
them. And especially that the ruler may be satisfied in this, to whom the
oversight of the rest is committed: to see that they all join in prayer, which
in secret he cannot see, it being not fit that secret prayer should have
spectators or witness, that is, should not be secret. But this I intended to
make another argument by itself; which because we are fallen on it, I will
add next.
Arg. III. If God hath given charge to the ruler of the family to see that the
rest do worship him in that family, then ought the ruler to cause them
solemnly or openly to join in that worship. But God hath given charge to
the ruler of the family, to see that the rest do worship him in that family;
therefore, &c.
The reason of the consequence is, because otherwise he can with no
convenience see that they do it. For, 1. It is not fit that he should stand by
while they pray secretly. 2. Nor are they able vocally to do it, in most
families, but have need of a leader; it being not a thing to be expected of
every woman, and child, and servant, (that had wanted good education,)
that they should be able to pray without a guide, so as is fit for others to
hear. 3. It would take almost all the time of the ruler of many families, to go
to them one after another, and stand by them while they pray, till all have
done: what man in his wits can think this to be so fit a course, as for the
family to join together, the ruler being the mouth?
The antecedent I prove thus: 1. The fourth commandment requireth the
ruler of the family not only to see that himself sanctify the sabbath day, but
also that his son and daughter, and man-servant, and maid-servant, his
cattle, (that is, so far as they are capable,) yea, and the stranger that is
within his gates, should do it. 2. It was committed to Abraham's charge to
see that all in his family were circumcised: so was it afterwards to every
ruler of a family; insomuch as the angel threatened Moses, when his son

was uncircumcised. 3. The ruler of the family was to see that the "passover"
was kept by every one in his family, Exod. xii. 2, 3, &c.; and so the "feast of
weeks," Deut. xxvi. 11, 12. All that is said before tendeth to prove this, and
much more might be said, if I thought it would be denied.
Arg. IV. If God prefer, and would have us prefer, the prayers and praises
of many conjunct, before the prayers and praises of those persons dividedly,
then is it his will that the particular persons of christian families should
prefer conjunct prayer and praises before disjunct: but the antecedent is
true, therefore so is the consequent. Or thus, take it for the same argument
or another. If it be the duty of neighbours, when they have occasion and
opportunity, rather to join together in praises of common concernment, than
to do it dividedly, then much more is this the duty of families: but it is the
duty of neighbours; therefore, &c.
In the former argument the reason of the consequence is, because that
way is to be taken that God is best pleased with. The reason of the
consequence in the latter is, because family members are more nearly
related than neighbours, and have much more advantage and opportunity
for conjunction, and more ordinary reasons to urge them to it, from the
conjunction of their interest and affairs.
There is nothing needs proof but the antecedent, which I shall put past all
doubt by these arguments. 1. Col. iii. 16, "Teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your
hearts unto the Lord." Here is one duty of praise required to be done
together, and not apart only. I shall yet make further use of this text anon. 2.
Acts xii. 12, "Many were gathered together praying in Mary's house, when
Peter came to the door." This was not an assembly of the whole church, but
a small part: they judged it better to pray together than alone. 3. Acts xx. 36,
Paul prayed together with all the elders of the church of Ephesus, when he
had them with him; and did not choose rather to let them pray each man
alone. 4. James v. 15, 16, James commands the sick to "send for the elders
of the church, and let them pray over him, and the prayer of the faithful
shall save the sick," &c. He doth not bid send to them to pray for you; but
he would have them join together in doing it. 5. Church prayers are
preferred before private on this ground, and we commanded not to forsake

the assembling of ourselves together, Heb. x. 25. 6. Striving together in
prayer is desired, Rom. xv. 30. 7. Matt. xviii. 20, "For where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." 8.
Therefore Christ came among the disciples when they were gathered
together, after his resurrection: and sent down the Holy Ghost when they
were gathered together, Acts ii. "And they continued with one accord in
prayer and supplication," Acts i. 14, 24; ii. 42. "And when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they had assembled together, and they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost," &c. Acts iv. 31. 9. Is not this implied, in
Christ's directing his disciples to pray in the plural number, "Our Father,"
&c. "Give us this day," &c. 10. The very necessity of the persons proves it,
in that few societies are such but that most are unable to express their own
wants so largely as to affect their hearts, so much as when others do it that
are better stored with affection and expression. And this is one of God's
ways for communion and communication of grace; that those that have
much may help to warm and kindle those that have less. Experience telleth
us the benefit of this. As all the body is not an eye or hand, so not a tongue,
and therefore the tongue of the church and of the family must speak for the
whole body: not but that each one ought to pray in secret too: but, (1.)
There the heart without the tongue may better serve turn. (2.) They still
ought to prefer conjunct prayer. And, (3.) The communion of saints is an
article of our creed, which binds us to acknowledge it fit to do as much of
God's work as we can in communion with the saints, not going beyond our
callings, nor into confusion.
Arg. V. It is a duty to receive all the mercies that God offereth us: but for
a family to have access to God in joint prayers and praises, is a mercy that
God offereth them; therefore it is their duty to accept it. The major is clear
in nature and Scripture, Because I have offered and ye refused, is God's
great aggravation of the sin of the rebellious. "How oft would I have
gathered you together, and ye would not! All the day long have I stretched
out my hand," &c. To refuse an offered kindness, is contempt and
ingratitude. The minor is undeniable by any christian, that ever knew what
family prayers and praises were. Who dare say that it is no mercy to have
such a joint access to God? Who feels not conjunction somewhat help his
own affections, who makes conscience of watching his heart?

Arg. VI. Part of the duties of families are such that they apparently lose
their chiefest life and excellency if they be not performed jointly; therefore
they are so to be performed.
I mean, singing of psalms, which I before proved an ordinary duty of
conjunct christians, therefore of families. The melody and harmony are lost
by our separation, and consequently the alacrity and quickening which our
affections should get by it. And if part of God's praises must be performed
together, it is easy to see that the rest must be so too. (Not to speak of
teaching, which cannot be done alone.)
Arg. VII. Family prayer and praises are a duty owned by the teaching and
sanctifying work of the Spirit; therefore they are of God.
I would not argue backwards from the Spirit's teaching to the word's
commanding, but on these two suppositions; 1. That the experiment is very
general, and undeniable. 2. That many texts of Scripture are brought already
for family prayer; and that this argument is but to second them and prove
them truly interpreted. The Spirit and the word do always agree: if therefore
I can prove that the Spirit of God doth commonly work men's hearts to a
love and savour of these duties, doubtless they are of God. Sanctification is
a transcript of the precepts of the word on the heart, written out by the Spirit
of God. So much for the consequence.
The antecedent consisteth of two parts; 1. That the sanctified have in
them inclinations to these duties. 2. That these inclinations are from the
Spirit of God. The first needs no proof, being a matter of experience. I
appeal to the heart of every sound and stable christian, whether he feel not a
conviction of this duty and an inclination to the performance of it. I never
met with one such to my knowledge that was otherwise minded. Object.
Many in our times are quite against family prayer, who are good christians.
Answ. I know none of them. I confess I once thought some very good
christians that now are against them, but now they appear otherwise, not
only by this but by other things. I know none that cast off these duties, but
they took up vile sins in their stead, and cast off other duties as well as
these: let others observe and judge as they find. 2. The power of delusion
may for a time make a christian forbear as unlawful, that which his very
new nature is inclined to. As some think it unlawful to pray in our

assemblies, and some to join in sacraments: and yet they have a spirit
within them that inclineth their hearts to it still, and therefore they love it,
and wish it were lawful, even when they forbear it upon a conceit that it is
unlawful. And so it is possible for a time some may do by family duties: but
as I expect that these ere long recover, so for my part I take all the rest to be
graceless: prejudice and error as a temptation may prohibit the exercise of a
duty, when yet the Spirit of God doth work in the heart an inclination to that
duty in sanctifying it. 2. And that these inclinations are indeed from the
Spirit is evident, 1. In that they come in with all other grace. 2. And by the
same means. 3. And are preserved by the same means, standing or falling,
increasing or decreasing, with the rest. 4. And are to the same end. 5. And
are so generally in all the saints. 6. And so resisted by flesh and blood. 7.
And so agreeable to the word, that a christian sins against his new nature,
when he neglects family duties. And God doth by his Spirit create a desire
after them, and an estimation of them in every gracious soul.
Arg. VIII. Family prayer and praises are a duty ordinarily crowned with
admirable, divine, and special blessings: therefore it is of God; the
consequence is evident. For though common, outward prosperity may be
given to the wicked, who have their portion in this life, yet so is not
prosperity of soul.
For the antecedent I willingly appeal to the experience of all the holy
families in the world. Who ever used these duties seriously, and found not
the benefits? What families be they, in which grace and heavenly-
mindedness prosper, but those that use these duties? Compare in all your
towns, cities, and villages, the families that read Scriptures, pray, and praise
God, with those that do not, and see the difference: which of them abound
more with impiety, with oaths, and cursings, and railings, and drunkenness,
and whoredoms, and worldliness, &c.; and which abound most with faith,
and patience, and temperance, and charity, and repentance, and hope, &c.
The controversy is not hard to decide. Look to the nobility and gentry of
England; see you no difference between those that have been bred in
praying families and the rest? I mean, taking them (as we say) one with
another proportionably. Look to the ministers of England; is it praying
families or prayerless families that have done most to the well furnishing of
the universities.

Arg. IX. All churches ought solemnly to pray to God and praise him: a
christian family is a church; therefore, &c.
The major is past doubt; the minor I prove from the nature of a church in
general, which is a society of christians combined for the better
worshipping and serving of God. I say not that a family, formally as a
family, is a church; but every family of christians ought moreover, by such a
combination, to be a church: yea, as christians they are so combined, seeing
christianity tieth them to serve God conjunctly together in their relations. 2.
Scripture expresseth it; 1 Cor. xvi. 19, "Aquila and Priscilla salute you
much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house." He saith not,
which meeteth in their house, but, which is in it. So Philemon 2, "And to
the church in thy house." Rom. xvi. 5, "Likewise greet the church that is in
their house." Col. iv. 15, "Salute the brethren that are at Laodicea, and
Nymphas, and the church which is in his house." Though some learned men
take these to be meant of part of the churches assembling in these houses,
yet Beza, Grotius, and many others, acknowledge it to be meant of a family
or domestic church, according to that of Tertullian, ubi tres licet laici ibi
ecclesia, yet I say not that such a family church is of the same species with
a particular organized church of many families. But it could not (so much as
analogically) be called a church if they might not and must not pray
together, and praise God together: for these therefore it fully concludeth.
Arg. X. If rulers must teach their families the word of God, then must
they pray with them: but they must teach them; therefore, &c. The
antecedent is fully proved by express Scripture already; see also Psal.
lxxviii. 4-6. Ministers must teach from house to house; therefore rulers
themselves must do it, Acts v. 42; xx. 20.
The consequence is proved good: 1. The apostles prayed when they
preached or instructed christians in private assemblies, Acts xx. 36, and
other places. 2. We have special need of God's assistance in reading the
Scriptures, to know his mind in them, and to make them profitable to us;
therefore we must seek it. 3. The reverence due to so holy a business
requireth it. 4. We are commanded "in all things to make our requests
known to God with prayers, supplications, and thanksgiving, and that with
all manner of prayer, in all places, without ceasing;" therefore especially on

such occasions as the reading of Scriptures and instructing others: and I
think that few men that are convinced of the duty of reading Scripture and
solemn instructing their families, will question the duty of praying for God's
blessing on it, when they set upon the work. Yea, a christian's own
conscience will provoke him reverently to begin all with God in the
imploring of his acceptance, and aid, and blessing.
Arg. XI. If rulers of families are bound to teach their families to pray,
then are they bound to pray with them: but they are bound to teach them to
pray; therefore, &c.
In the foregoing argument I speak of teaching in general: here I speak of
teaching to pray in special. The antecedent of the major I prove thus: 1.
They are bound to bring "them up in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord," Eph. vi. 44; therefore to teach them to pray and praise God; for "the
nurture and admonition of the Lord" containeth that. 2. They are bound to
"teach them the fear of the Lord," and "train them up in the way that they
should go," and that is doubtless in the way of prayer and praising God.
The consequence appeareth here to be sound, in that men cannot be well
and effectually taught to pray, without praying with them, or in their
hearing; therefore they that must teach them to pray, must pray with them. It
is like music, which you cannot well teach any man, without playing or
singing to him; seeing teaching must be by practising: and in most practical
doctrines it is so in some degree.
If any question this, I appeal to experience. I never knew any man that
was well taught by man to pray, without practising it before them. They that
ever knew any such, may have the more colour to object; but I did not: or if
they did, yet so rare a thing is not to be made the ordinary way of our
endeavours, any more than we should forbear teaching men the most
curious artifices by ocular demonstration, because some wits have learned
them by few words, or of their own invention: they are cruel to children and
servants that teach them not to pray by practice and example.
Arg. XII. From 1 Tim. iv. 3-5, "Meats which God hath created to be
received with thanksgiving—for it is sanctified by the word of God and
prayer."

Here mark, 1. That all our meat is to be received with thanksgiving; not
only with a disposition of thankfulness. 2. That this is twice repeated here
together expressly, yea, thrice in sense. 3. That God created them so to be
received. 4. That it is made a condition of the goodness, that is, the blessing
of the creature to our use. 5. That the creature is said to be sanctified by
God's word and prayer; and so to be unsanctified to us before. 6. That the
same thing which is called thanksgiving in the two former verses, is called
prayer in the last; else the consequence of the apostle could not hold, when
he thus argues, It is good if it be received with thanksgiving, because it is
sanctified by prayer.
Hence I will draw these two arguments: 1. If families must with
thanksgiving receive their meat as from God, then is the thanksgiving of
families a duty of God's appointment: but the former is true, therefore so is
the latter. The antecedent is plain: all must receive their meat with
thanksgiving; therefore families must. They eat together; therefore they
must give thanks together: and that prayer is included in thanksgiving in
this text, I manifested before.
2. It is the duty of families to use means that all God's creatures may be
sanctified to them: prayer is the means to be used that all God's creatures
may be sanctified to them; therefore it is the duty of families to use prayer.
Arg. XIII. From 1 Pet. iii. 7, "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them
according to knowledge, giving honour to the wife as to the weaker vessel,
and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not
hindered." That prayer which is especially hindered by ignorant and unkind
converse it is, that is especially meant here in this text: but it is conjunct
prayer that is especially so hindered; therefore, &c. I know that secret,
personal prayer is also hindered by the same causes; but not so directly and
notably as conjunct prayer is. With what hearts can husband and wife join
together as one soul in prayer to God, when they abuse and exasperate each
other, and come hot from chidings and dissensions? This seemeth the true
meaning of the text. And so, the conjunct prayer of husband and wife being
proved a duty, (who sometimes constitute a family,) the same reasons will
include the rest of the family also.

Arg. XIV. From Col. iii. 16, 17, to iv. 4, "Let the word of God dwell in
you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms,
and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the
Lord: and 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. Wives, submit
yourselves," &c. Chap. iv. 2, "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same
with thanksgiving."
Hence I may fetch many arguments for family prayers. 1. It appeareth to
be family prayers principally that the apostle here speaketh of; for it is
families that he speaks to: for in ver. 16, 17, he speaketh of prayer and
thanksgiving; and in the next words he speaketh to each family relation,
wives, husbands, children, parents, servants, masters; and in the next words,
continuing his speech to the same persons, he bids them "continue in prayer,
and watch in the same," &c. If neighbours are bound to speak together in
psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, with grace in their hearts to the
Lord, and to continue in prayer and thanksgiving; then families much more,
who are nearlier related, and have more necessities and opportunities, as is
said before. 3. If whatever we do in word or deed, we must do all in the
name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks; then families must needs join in
giving thanks. For they have much daily business in word and deed to be
done together and asunder.
Arg. XV. From Dan. vi. 10, "When Daniel knew that the writing was
signed, he went into his house, and his window being open in his chamber
towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and
prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Then these
men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before
his God." Here note, 1. The nature of the duty. 2. The necessity of it. 1. If it
had not been open, family prayer which Daniel here performed, how could
they have known what he said? It is not probable that he would speak so
loud in secret; nor is it like they would have found him at it. So great a
prince would have had some servants in his outward rooms, to have stayed
them before they had come so near. 2. And the necessity of this prayer is
such, that Daniel would not omit it for a few days to save his life.

Arg. XVI. From Josh. xxiv. 15, "But as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord." Here note, 1. That it is a household that is here engaged:
for if any would prove that it extendeth further, to all Joshua's tribe, or
inferior kindred, yet his household would be most eminently included. 2.
That it is the same thing which Joshua promiseth for his house, which he
would have all Israel do for theirs: for he maketh himself an example to
move them to it.
If households must serve the Lord, then households must pray to him and
praise him: but households must serve him; therefore, &c. The consequence
is proved, in that prayer and praise are so necessary parts of God's service,
that no family or person can be said in general to be devoted to serve God,
that are not devoted to them. Calling upon God is oft put in Scripture for all
God's worship, as being a most eminent part; and atheists are described to
be such as "call not upon the Lord," Psal. xiv. &c.
Arg. XVII. The story of Cornelius, Acts x. proveth that he performed
family worship: for observe, 1. That, ver. 2, he is said to be "a devout man,
and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the
people, and prayed to God always:" and ver. 30, he saith, "At the ninth hour
I prayed in my house:" and ver. 24, "he called together his kindred and near
friends:" so ver. 11, 14, "Thou and all thy house shall he saved:" so that in
ver. 2, fearing God comprehendeth prayer, and is usually put for all God's
worship; therefore when he is said to fear God with all his house, it is
included that he worshipped God with all his house: and that he used to do
it conjunctly with them is implied, in his gathering together his kindred and
friends when Peter came, not mentioning the calling together his household,
as being usual and supposed. And when it is said that he prayed ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ,
in his house, it may signify his household, as in Scripture the word is often
taken. However, the circumstances show that he did it.
Arg. XVIII. From 1 Tim. iii. 4, 5, 12, "One that ruleth well his own
house, having his children in subjection, with all gravity: for if a man know
not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God:
let the deacons be the husbands of one wife; ruling their children and their
own houses well." Here mark, that it is such a ruling of their houses, as is of
the same nature as the ruling of the church, mutatis mutandis, and that is, a

training them up in the worship of God, and guiding them therein; for the
apostle maketh the defect of the one, to be a sure discovery of their
unfitness for the other. Now to rule the church, is to teach and guide them as
their mouth in prayer and praises unto God, as well as to oversee their lives;
therefore it is such a ruling of their houses as is prerequisite to prove them
fit.
They that must so rule well over their own houses, as may partly prove
them not unfit to rule the church, must rule them by holy instructions, and
guiding them as their mouth in the worship of God. But those mentioned
1 Tim. iii. must so rule their houses; therefore, &c.
The pastors' ruling of the church doth most consist in going before them,
and guiding them in God's worship; therefore so doth the ruling of their
own houses, which is made a trying qualification of their fitness hereunto.
Though yet it reach not so high, nor to so many things, and the conclusion
be not affirmative, He that ruleth his own house well is fit to rule the church
of God; but negative, He that ruleth not his own house well, is not fit to rule
the church of God; but that is because, 1. This is a lower degree of ruling,
which will not prove him fit for a higher. 2. And it is but one qualification
of many that are requisite. Yet it is apparent that some degree of aptitude is
proved hence, and that from a similitude of the things. When Paul
compareth ruling the house to ruling the church, he cannot be thought to
take them to be wholly heterogeneous: he would never have said, He that
cannot rule an army, or regiment, or a city, how shall he rule the church of
God? I conclude therefore that this text doth show that it is the duty of
masters of families, to rule well their own families in the right worshipping
of God, mutatis mutandis, as ministers must rule the church.
Arg. XIX. If families have special necessity of family prayer conjunctly,
which cannot be supplied otherwise; then it is God's will that family prayer
should be in use: but families have such necessities; therefore, &c. The
consequent needs no proof; the antecedent is proved by instance. Families
have family necessities, which are larger than to be confined to a closet, and
yet more private than to be brought still into the assemblies of the church. 1.
There are many worldly occasions about their callings and relations, which
it is fit for them to mention among themselves, but unfit to mention before

all the congregation. 2. There are many distempers in the hearts and lives of
the members of the families, and many miscarriages, and disagreements,
which must be taken up at home, and which prayer must do much to cure,
and yet are not fit to be brought to the ears of the church assemblies. 3. And
if it were fit to mention them all in public, yet the number of such cases
would be so great, as would overwhelm the minister, and confound the
public worship; nay, one half of them in most churches could not be
mentioned. 4. And such cases are of ordinary occurrence, and therefore
would ordinarily have all these inconveniencies.
And yet there are many such cases that are not fit to be confined to our
secret prayers each one by himself; because, 1. They often so sin together,
as maketh it fit that they confess and lament it together. 2. And some
mercies which they receive together, it is fit they seek and give thanks for
together. 3. And many works which they do together, it is fit they seek a
blessing on together. 4. And the presence of one another in confession,
petition, and thanksgiving, doth tend to the increase of their fervour, and
warming of their hearts, and engaging them the more to duty, and against
sin; and is needful on the grounds laid down before. Nay, it is a kind of
family schism, in such cases, to separate from one another, and to pray in
secret only; as it is church schism to separate from the church assemblies,
and to pray in families only. Nature and grace delight in unity, and abhor
division. And the light of nature and grace engageth us to do as much of the
work of God in unity, and concord, and communion as we can.
Arg. XX. If before the giving of the law to Moses, God was worshipped
in families by his own appointment, and this appointment be not yet
reversed, then God is to be worshipped in families still. But the antecedent
is certain; therefore so is the consequent.
I think no man denieth the first part of the antecedent; that before the
flood in the families of the righteous, and after till the establishment of a
priesthood, God was worshipped in families or households: it is a greater
doubt whether then he had any other public worship. When there were few
or no church assemblies that were larger than families, no doubt God was
ordinarily worshipped in families. Every ruler of a family then was as a

priest to his own family. Cain and Abel offered their own sacrifices; so did
Noah, Abraham, and Jacob.
If it be objected, that all this ceased, when the office of the priest was
instituted, and so deny the latter part of my antecedent, I reply, 1. Though
some make a doubt of it, whether the office of the priesthood was instituted
before Aaron's time, I think there is no great doubt to be made of it; seeing
we find a priesthood then among other nations, who had it either by the
light of nature, or by tradition from the church; and Melchizedec's
priesthood (who was a type of Christ) is expressly mentioned. So that
though family worship was then the most usual, yet some more public
worship there was. 2. After the institution of Aaron's priesthood family-
worship continued, as I have proved before; yea, the two sacraments of
circumcision and the passover, were celebrated in families by the master of
the house; therefore prayer was certainly continued in families. 3. If that
part of worship that was afterward performed in synagogues and public
assemblies was appropriated to them, that no whit proveth, that the part
which agreed to families as such, was transferred to those assemblies. Nay,
it is a certain proof that part was left to families still, because we find that
the public assemblies never undertook it. We find among them no prayer
but church prayer; and not that which was fitted to families as such at all.
Nor is there a word of Scripture that speaketh of God's reversing of his
command or order for family prayer, or other proper family worship.
Therefore it is proved to continue obligatory still.
Had I not been too long already, I should have urged to this end the
example of Job, in sacrificing daily for his sons; and of Esther's keeping a
fast with her maids, Esth. iv. 16. And Jer. x. 25, "Pour out thy fury on the
heathen that know thee not, and on the families that call not on thy name."
It is true that by "families" here is meant tribes of people, and by "calling on
his name," is meant their worshipping the true God. But yet this is spoken
of all tribes without exception, great and small: and tribes in the beginning
(as Abraham's, Isaac's, Jacob's, &c.) were confined to families. And the
argument holdeth from parity of reason to a proper family: and that calling
on God's name is put for his worship, doth more confirm us, because it
proveth it to be the most eminent part of worship, or else the whole would

not be signified by it; at least no reason can imagine it excluded. So much
for the proof of the fourth proposition.

Objections answered.

Object. I. 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 showed 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 passed over in the gospel, and taken as supposed, acknowledged things.
3. The general precepts (to "pray alway,—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 any more? 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. II. 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 teaching 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 the 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 xxii. 17, 18; Mark xiv. 22, 23, 26; Matt. xxvi. 27, 28, 30,
and therefore it is very probable, prayed with them often, as John xvii.; 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 fulness 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.
Object. III. 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 those 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, Acts viii. 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. lv. 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.
Object. IV. Many masters of families cannot pray in their families
without a book, and that is unlawful.
Answ. I. If their disability be natural, as an idiot's, 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 time 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 fittest 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 to
one, which is unfit to another. For brevity I will join all together in the
proof.
Arg. I. 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 your prayer in general, God may by
providence tell you when and how oft you must pray.
Arg. II. 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. III. From 1 Thess. v. 17, "Pray without ceasing; in all things give
thanks." Col. iv. 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. iii. 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. iv. 6, "Be careful for nothing, but in every
thing 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 every thing—whatsoever ye do," &c.; the phrases seeming
to go much higher.
Arg. IV. Daniel prayed in his house thrice a day; therefore less than twice
under the gospel is to us unreasonable.
Arg. V. 1 Tim. iv. 5, "She that is a widow indeed and desolate, trusteth in
God, and continueth in supplications and prayer 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. VI. From Luke vi. 14; ii. 37; xviii. 17; Acts xxvi. 7; 1 Thess. iii. 10;
2 Tim. i. 3; Rev. vii. 15; Neh. i. 6; Psal. lxxxviii. 1; Josh. i. 8; Psal. i. 2;
which show that night and day Christ himself prayed, and his servants
prayed, and meditated, and read the Scripture.
Arg. VII. Deut. vi. 7; xi. 19, it is expressly 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. VIII. For brevity sake I offer you together, Psal. cxix. 164, David
praised God seven times a day; and cxlv. 2, "Every day will I bless thee."
Psal. v. 3, "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning
will I direct my prayer to thee, and will look up:" lix. 16, "I will sing aloud
of thy mercy in the morning:" lxxxviii. 13, "In the morning shall my prayer
prevent thee:" xcii. 12, "It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing
praises to thy name, O Most High: to show forth thy loving-kindness in the
morning, and thy faithfulness every night:" cxix. 147, 148, "I prevented the
dawning of the morning and cried, I hoped in thy word: mine eyes prevent
the night watches, that I might meditate on thy word:" cxxx. 6, "My soul

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. xxiii. 30; Exod. xxx. 7; xxxvi.
3; Lev. vi. 12; 2 Chron. xiii. 11; Ezek. xlvi. 13-15; Amos iv. 4. And
christians are a "holy priesthood, to offer up sacrifices to God, acceptable
through Jesus Christ," 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9. Expressly saith David, Psal. lv. 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. xvi. 40; 2 Chron. ii. 4; xiii. 11; xxxi. 3; Ezra
iii. 3; 2 Kings xvi. 15; 1 Kings xviii. 29, 36; Ezra ix. 5. And no doubt but
they prayed with the sacrifices. Which David intimateth in comparing them,
Psal. cxli. 2, "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, and the
lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." And God calleth for prayer
and praise as better than sacrifice, Psal. l. 14, 15, 23.
All these I heap together for despatch, which fully show how frequently
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 great 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 necessary, who needeth not so many arguments to
persuade him to feast 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 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 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
weary 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 stop the mouths of
wrangling enemies.

CHAPTER IV.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE HOLY GOVERNMENT OF
FAMILIES.

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, these three things are of greatest
necessity hereunto: I. Authority. II. Skill. III. Holiness and readiness of will.
I. Gen. Direct. Let governors maintain their authority
How to keep up
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 honour
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 sub-
directions.

Direct. I. Let 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?
Direct. II. The more of God appeareth upon you, in your knowledge, and
holiness, and unblamableness 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 honourable.
In the eyes of the faithful a "vile person is contemned; but they honour them
that fear the Lord," Psal. xv. 4. "Righteousness exalteth a nation," (and a
person,) "but sin is a reproach to any people," Prov. xiv. 34. "Those that
honour God he will honour, and those that despise him shall be lightly
esteemed," 1 Sam. ii. 30. They that give up themselves to "vile affections"
and conversations, Rom. i. 26, will seem vile when they have made
themselves so. "Eli's sons made themselves vile by their sin," 1 Sam. iii. 13.
I know men should discern and honour 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. x. 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?
Direct. III. Show 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 order's 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.
Direct. IV. 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 rigour, and a soft subjection, or neglect of
exercising the power of your place, will best preserve you from your
inferiors' contempt.
Direct. V. Lose not your authority by too much familiarity. If you make
your children and servants your play-fellows, 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.
II. Gen. Direct. Labour for prudence and skilfulness
Of skill in governing.
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 is 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 pilot's work; and why cannot you much more
discern it in your own case?
Direct. I. 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 all the days of their lives," Deut. xvii. 18, 19; and
that "it depart not out of their mouths, but that they meditate in it day and
night," Josh. i. 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. vi. 6, 7;
xi. 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.

Direct. II. 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.
Direct. III. You must put much difference between their different faults,
and accordingly suit your reprehensions. Those must be most severely
rebuked that have most wilfulness, and those that are faulty in matters of
greatest weight. Some faults are so much through mere disability and
unavoidable frailty 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 there 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.
Direct. IV. 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 closehanded to them, few
will be ruled by you.
Direct. V. If you would be skilful in governing others, learn first exactly
to command yourselves. 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 true of wicked preachers; and is it not as true of other
governors?
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.
Direct. I. 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 dare disobey God, why should
they fear disobeying you? Can you more severely revenge disobedience, or
more bountifully reward obedience, than God can do? Are you greater and
better than God himself is?
Direct. II. 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 intrusted. 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.
Direct. III. 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 dishonour God, than those that wrong and dishonour 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 honour must be greatest in your family; and his service must have the
pre-eminence of yours; and sin against him, must be the most intolerable
offence.
Direct. IV. 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, Luke x. 42.
Direct. V. 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 labours, 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, 1 Tim. vi. 10.
Direct. VI. 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 in your
minds in holy duty. Some callings I know can hardly be cast into any order
or 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 skilfulness
would save you abundance of labour and vexation.

CHAPTER 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
families, and what mischiefs come by its neglect, there would few that walk
the streets among us, appear so odious as those careless, ungodly governors
that know not nor mind 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 sluggish souls to
do their undertaken work.
Motive I. 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 devil's government. It hath pleased God to settle as a natural, so a
political order in the world, and to honour his creatures to be the
instruments of his own operations; and though he could have produced all
effects without any inferior 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 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?
Motive II. 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 devil's 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 devil's
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 rout the valiantest man is borne 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. Oh 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

Mahometan countries; so there is 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 devil's side.
Motive III. 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 honour 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 any profane and scurrilous talk; what a
sweet and happy life is this! Is it not likest to heaven of any thing 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
brutes, 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, loathsome, 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 is this but to live as
the serpent's seed, to feed on dust, and to be excommunicated from the face
and favour 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.

Motive IV. 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 devil's 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 is 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 betimes, 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 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.
Motive V. 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 catechise 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 labours 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 savour 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 catechising 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 dishonoured 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.
Motive VI. 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 oh! 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!
Motive VII. If the governors of families did faithfully perform their
duties, it would be a great supply as to any defects in the pastor's 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 forbidden 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.
Motive VIII. 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 rout of such as the Sodomites,
perhaps they will say, "This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will
needs be a judge," Gen. xix. 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 to it as your
unquestionable work. And therefore you may do it (among sober people)
with approbation and quietness.
Motive IX. Well-governed families are honourable 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 practised 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 briers 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 he 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 labour 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.
Motive X. Lastly, consider, that holy, well-governed families are blessed
with the special presence and favour 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. i. 3; cxxviii. 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 favour, and forfeit his blessing, by despising his presence, his interest,
and his commands.
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 kingdoms,
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. Oh 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,
Mahometanism, 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.

CHAPTER 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 iii. chap. 14. sect. 11, &c.
and therefore shall be here omitted, yet something shall be inserted, lest the
want here should appear too great.
Motive I. 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
to 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 lords 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 furnace, 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 joys 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, and 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 any thing

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 their negligence, and be guilty of their everlasting misery; but in
parents it is more unnatural, and therefore more inexcusable.
Motive II. 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,
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 sell them to slavery and torment?
Motive III. 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 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 endeavour to destroy?
Motive IV. 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
viciousness 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. xxii. 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 missed 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.
Motive V. 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 betimes, 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 nought. 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. xxii. 15, "Foolishness is 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
endeavours. 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.

Motive VI. 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
endeavours in a pious education of them. 1. You may love your children
upon a 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 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 lords or princes; but
oh 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 tigers.
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 defence. 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
beastly 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 hell he must have endured as the reward of all; 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 honour you, though you are poor and
contemptible in the eyes of others. It will teach them to obey you, and if
you fall into want, to relieve you according to their power: it will fit them to
comfort you in 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 Ham will not cover his father's 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 lives with. 5. And is it not an exceeding joy to think of the
everlasting happiness of your child? and that you may live together in
heaven for ever? when the foreseen misery of a graceless child may grieve
you whenever 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 for
ever. To think that this was conveyed to them by your means, will give you
a larger share in the delights of it.
Motive VII. Remember that your children's original sin and misery is by
you; and therefore, in justice, you that have undone them, are bound to do
your best to save them. If you had but conveyed a leprosy, or some
hereditary disease, to their bodies, would you have not done your best to
cure them? Oh that you could do them but as much good as you do them
hurt! It is more than Adam's sin that runneth down into the natures of your
children, yea, and that bringeth judgments on them; and even Adam's sin
cometh not to them but by you.
Motive VIII. 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 misery, 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; not small, but pernicious, having seized on the heart; deep-rooted
sins, that are not easily plucked up. All the teaching, and diligence, and
watchfulness that you can use, is little enough, and may prove too little.

They are obstinate 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: oh then what
wisdom and diligence is requisite to so great and necessary a work!
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. Oh be not so unmerciful to the souls that you have helped to bring into
the world! Think not so basely of them, as if they were not worth your
labour. 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: oh 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! Oh 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: oh be
not cruel to their souls! Sell them not to Satan, and that for nought! 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 parents.
Remember how comfortable a thing it is, to work with Christ for the saving
of souls. You think the calling of ministers honourable 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

minister's, 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 intrusted you with souls, even your children's souls, will you
betray them? If any rulers should but forbid you the instructing and well-
governing of your families, and restrain you by a law, as they would have
restrained Daniel from praying in his house, Dan. vi. then you would think
them monsters of impiety and inhumanity; 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 honour 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 for ever, 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, it is 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! Oh 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 virtue's sake,
and look for their reward from God alone, and expect that by abstaining
from iniquity they make themselves a prey to wolves, Isa. lix. 15. Wicked
education hath unmanned the world, and subdued it to Satan, and make it
almost like to hell. O do not join with the sons of Belial in this unnatural,
horrid wickedness!

CHAPTER VII.

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.
The sub-directions for maintaining conjugal love are
Sub-directions to
maintain conjugal
such as these. Direct. I. Choose one at first that is truly
love. 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.
1. It is a duty which your union or near relation doth
Against dissension.
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.
II. For the avoiding of them observe these sub-
Directions against
dissension.
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!
O therefore resolve without delay, to live together as
Directions to help
each other to heirs of heaven, and to be helpers to each other's souls.
salvation. 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.

FOOTNOTES

[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.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF HUSBANDS TO THEIR WIVES.

He that will expect duty or comfort from his wife, must be faithful in doing
the duty of a husband. The failing of yourselves in your own duty, may
cause the failing of another to you, or at least will some other way as much
afflict you, and will be bitterer to you in the end, than if a hundred failed of
their duty to you. A good husband will either make a good wife, or easily
and profitably endure a bad one. I shall therefore give you directions for
your own part of duty, as that which your happiness is most concerned in.
Direct. I. The husband must undertake the principal part of the
government of the whole family, even of the wife herself. And therefore, 1.
He must labour to be fit and able for that government which he undertaketh.
This ability consisteth, 1. In holiness and spiritual wisdom, that he may be
acquainted with the end to which he is to conduct them, and the rule by
which he is to guide them, and the principal works which they are to do. An
ungodly, irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the chiefest part
of family government. 2. His ability consisteth in a due acquaintance with
the works of his calling, and the labours in which his servants are to be
employed. For he that is utterly unacquainted with their business, will be
very unfit to govern them in it: unless he commit that part of their
government to his wife, or a steward that is acquainted with it. 3. And he
must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of
mankind, that he may know how much is to be borne with, and also with
the particular temper, and faults, and virtues of those whom he is to govern.
4. And he must have prudence, to direct himself in all his carriage to them;
and justice, to deal with every one as they deserve: and love, to do them all
the good he can, for soul and body. II. And being thus able, he must make it
his daily work, and especially be sure that he govern himself well, that his
example may be part of his government of others.

Direct. II. The husband must so unite authority and love, that neither of
them may be omitted or concealed, but both be exercised and maintained.
Love must not be exercised so imprudently as to destroy the exercise of
authority; and authority must not be exercised over a wife so magisterially
and imperiously, as to destroy the exercise of love. As your love must be a
governing love, so your commands must all be loving commands. Lose not
your authority; for that will but disable you from doing the office of a
husband to your wife, or of a master to your servants. Yet must it be
maintained by no means inconsistent with conjugal love; and therefore not
by fierceness or cruelty, by threatenings or stripes (unless by distraction or
loss of reason, they cease to be uncapable of the carriage otherwise due to a
wife). There are many cases of equality in which authority is not to be
exercised; but there is no case of inequality or unworthiness so great, in
which conjugal love is not to be exercised; and therefore nothing must
exclude it.
Direct. III. It is the duty of husbands to preserve the authority of their
wives, over the children and servants of the family. For they are joint
governors with them over all the inferiors. And the infirmities of women are
apt many times to expose them to contempt: so that servants and children
will be apt to slight them, and disobey them, if the husband interpose not to
preserve their honour and authority. Yet this must be done with such
cautions as these: 1. Justify not any error, vice, or weakness of your wives.
They may be concealed and excused as far as may be, but never owned or
defended. 2. Urge not obedience to any unlawful command of theirs. No
one hath authority to contradict the law of God, or disoblige any from his
government. You will but diminish your own authority with persons of any
understanding, if you justify any thing that is against God's authority. But if
the thing commanded be lawful, though it may have some inconveniences,
you must rebuke the disobedience of inferiors, and not suffer them to slight
the commands of your wives, nor to set their own reason and wills against
them, and say, We will not do it. How can they help you in government, if
you suffer them to be disobeyed?
Direct. IV. Also you must preserve the honour as well as the authority of
your wives. If they have any dishonourable infirmities, they are not to be
mentioned by children and servants. As in the natural body we cover most

carefully the most dishonourable parts, (for our comely parts have no need,)
1 Cor. xii. 23, 24, so must it be here. Children or servants must not be
suffered to carry themselves contemptuously or rudely towards them, nor to
despise them, or speak unmannerly, proud, or disdainful words to them. The
husband must vindicate them from all such injury and contempt.
Direct. V. The husband is to excel the wife in knowledge, and be her
teacher in the matters that belong to her salvation. He must instruct her in
the word of God, and direct her in particular duties, and help her to subdue
her own corruptions, and labour to confirm her against temptations; if she
doubt of any thing that he can resolve her in, she is to ask his resolution,
and he to open to her at home the things which she understood not in the
congregation, 1 Cor. xiv. 35. But if the husband be indeed an ignorant sot,
or have made himself unable to instruct his wife, she is not bound to ask
him in vain, to teach her that which he understandeth not himself. Those
husbands that despise the word of God, and live in wilful ignorance, do not
only despise their own souls, but their families also; and making themselves
unable for their duties, they are usually themselves despised by their
inferiors: for God hath told such in his message to Eli, 1 Sam. ii. 30, "Them
that honour me, I will honour; and they that despise me, shall be lightly
esteemed."
Direct. VI. The husband must be the principal teacher of the family. He
must instruct them, and examine them, and rule them about the matters of
God, as well as his own service, and see that the Lord's day and worship be
observed by all that are within his gates. And therefore he must labour for
such understanding and ability as is necessary hereunto. And if he be unable
or negligent, it is his sin, and will be his shame. If the wife be wiser and
abler, and it be cast upon her, it is his dishonour; but if neither of them do it,
the sin, and shame, and suffering, will be common to them both.
Direct. VII. The husband is to be the mouth of the family, in their daily
conjunct prayers unto God. Therefore he must be able to pray, and also have
a praying heart. He must be as it were the priest of the household; and
therefore should be the most holy, that he may be fit to stand between them
and God, and to offer up their prayers to him. If this be cast on the wife, it
will be his dishonour.

Direct. VIII. The husband is to be the chief provider for the family
(ordinarily). It is supposed that he is most able for mind and body, and is the
chief disposer of the estate. Therefore he must be specially careful, that wife
and children want nothing that is fit for them, so far as he can procure it.
Direct. IX. The husband must be strongest in family patience; bearing
with the weakness and passions of the wife; not so as to make light of any
sin against God, but so as not to make a great matter of any frailty as
against himself, and so as to preserve the love and peace which is to be as
the natural temper of their relation.
Direct. X. The manner of all these duties must also be carefully regarded.
As, 1. That they be done in prudence, and not with folly, rashness, or
inconsiderateness. 2. That all be done in conjugal love and tenderness, as
over one that is tender, and the weaker vessel; and that he do not teach, or
command, or reprove a wife, in the same imperious manner as a child or
servant. 3. That due familiarity be maintained, and that he keep not at a
distance and strangeness from his wife. 4. That love be confident, without
base suspicions, and causeless jealousies. 5. That all be done in gentleness,
and not in passion, roughness, and sourness. 6. That there be no unjust and
causeless concealment of secrets, which should be common to them both. 7.
That there be no foolish opening of such secrets to her as may become her
snare, and she is not able to bear or keep. 8. That none of their own matters,
which should be kept secret, be made known to others. His teaching and
reproving her, should be for the most part secret. 9. That he be constant, and
not weary of his love or duty. This briefly of the manner.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS.

The wife that expecteth comfort in a husband, must make conscience of all
her own duty to her husband: for though it be his duty to be kind and
faithful to her, though she prove unkind and froward, yet, 1. Men are frail,
and apt to fail in such difficult duties as well as women. 2. And it is so
ordered by God, that comfort and duty shall go together, and you shall miss
of comfort, if you cast off duty.
Direct. I. Be specially loving to your husbands: your natures give you the
advantage in this; and love feedeth love. This is your special requital for all
the troubles that your infirmities put them to.
Direct. II. Live in a voluntary subjection and obedience to them. If their
softness or yieldingness cause them to relinquish their authority; and for
peace they are fain to let you have your wills; yet remember that it is God
that hath appointed them to be your heads and governors. If they are so silly
as to be unable, you should not have chosen such to rule you as are unfit;
but having chosen them, you must assist them with your better
understanding, in a submissive, and not a ruling, masterly way. A servant
that hath a foolish master, may help him without becoming master. And do
not deceive yourselves by giving the bare titles of government to your
husbands, when you must needs in all things have your own wills; for this is
but mockery, and not obedience. To be subject and obedient, is to take the
understanding and will of another to govern you, before (though not
without) your own; and to make your understandings and wills to follow the
conduct of his that governeth you. Self-willedness is contrary to subjection
and obedience.
Direct. III. Learn of your husbands as your appointed teachers, and be
not self-conceited and wise in your own eyes, but ask of them such
instructions as your case requireth. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35, "Let your women

keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted to them to speak; but
they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law: and if
they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home." (Unless
when the husband is so ignorant as to be utterly unable: which is his sin and
shame. For it is vain to ask that of them which they know not.)
Direct. IV. Set yourselves seriously to amend all those faults which they
reprove in you. Do not take it ill to be reproved: swell not against it, as if
they did you harm or wrong: it is a very ill sign to "hate reproof," Prov. xii.
1; x. 17; xv. 10, 31, 32; xvii. 10. And what doth their government of you
signify, if you will not amend the faults that are reproved in you, but
continue impenitent and grudge at the reproof? It is a miserable folly to
desire to be flattered and soothed by any, but especially by one that is bound
to be faithful to you, and whose intimacy should make you as ready to hear
of your faults from him, as to be acquainted with them yourselves; and
especially when it concerneth the safety or benefit of your souls.
Direct. V. Honour your husbands according to their superiority. Behave
not yourselves towards them with unreverence and contempt, in titles,
speeches, or any behaviour: if the worth of their persons deserve not
honour, yet their place deserveth it. Speak not of their infirmities to others
behind their backs; as some twattling gossips use to do, that know not that
their husbands' dishonour is their own, and that to open it causelessly to
others, is their double shame. Those that silently hear you, will tell others
behind your back, how foolishly and shamefully you spake to them against
your husbands. If God have made your nearest friend an affliction to you,
why should you complain to one that is farther off? (Unless it be to some
special, prudent friend, in case of true necessity, for advice.)
Direct. VI. Live in a cheerful contentedness with your condition; and take
heed of an impatient, murmuring spirit. It is a continual burden to a man to
have an impatient, discontented wife. Many a poor man can easily bear his
poverty himself, that yet is not able to bear his wife's impatience under it.
To hear her night and day complaining, and speaking distrustfully, and see
her live disquietedly, is far heavier than his poverty itself. If his wife could
bear it as patiently as he, it would be but light to him. Yea, in case of
suffering for righteousness' sake, the impatience of a wife is a greater trial

to a man than all the suffering itself; and many a man that could easily have
suffered the loss of his estate, or banishment, or imprisonment for Christ,
hath betrayed his conscience, and yielded to sin, because his wife hath
grieved him with impatiency, and could not bear what he could bear.
Whereas a contented, cheerful wife doth help to make a man cheerful and
contented in every state.
Direct. VII. In a special manner strive to subdue your passions, and to
speak and do all in meekness and sobriety. The rather because that the
weakness of your sex doth usually subject you more to passions than men;
and it is the common cause of the husband's disquietness, and the calamity
of your relation. It is the vexation and sickness of your own minds; you find
not yourselves at ease within as long as you are passionate. And then it is
the grief and disquietness of your husbands: and being provoked by you,
they provoke you more; and so your disquietness increaseth, and your lives
are made a weary burden to you. By all means therefore keep down passion,
and keep a composed, patient mind.
Direct. VIII. Take heed of a proud and contentious disposition; and
maintain a humble, peaceable temper. Pride will make you turbulent and
unquiet with your husbands, and contentious with your neighbours: it will
make you foolish and ridiculous, in striving for honour and precedency, and
envying those that exceed you, or go before you. In a word, it is the devil's
sin, and would make you a shame and trouble to the world. But humility is
the health, the peace, and the ornament of the soul. 1 Pet. iii. 4, "A meek
and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price." (Write those words in
your bedchamber on the walls where they may be daily before your eyes.)
Col. iii. 12, "Put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another." If this be the duty of all to one another;
much more of wives to husbands. 1 Pet. v. 5, "Yea, all of you be subject one
to another, and be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and
giveth grace to the humble." Proud women oft ruin their husbands' estates,
and quietness, and their own souls.
Direct. IX. Affect not a childish gaudiness of apparel, nor a vain, or
costly, or troublesome curiosity in any thing about you. Uncleanness and

nastiness is a fault, but very small in comparison of this pride and curiosity.
It dishonoureth your sex and selves to be so childish, as to over-mind such
toyish things. If you will needs be proud, be proud of somewhat that is of
worth and proper to a man: to be proud of reason, or wisdom, or learning,
or goodness, is bad enough; but this is to be proud of something. But to be
proud of fashions and fine clothes, of spots and nakedness, of sumptuous
entertainments and neat rooms, is to be proud of your shame, and not your
virtue; and of that which you are not so much as commendable for. And the
cost, the time (oh precious time!) which themselves and their servants must
lay out, upon their dressings, entertainments, and other curiosities, will be
the shame and sorrow of their souls, whenever God shall open their eyes,
and make them know what time was worth, and what greater matters they
had to mind. If vain and empty persons like yourselves, commend you for
your bravery or curiosity, so will not any judicious, sober person whose
commendation is much worth. And yet I must here with grief take notice,
that when some few that in other matters seem wise and religious, are
themselves a little tainted with this childish curiosity and pride, and let fall
words of disparagement against those whose dress, and dwellings, and
entertainments, are not so curious as their own; this proves the greatest
maintainer of this sin, and the most notable service to the devil: for then
abundance will plead this for this sinful curiosity and pride, and say, I shall
else be accounted base or sordid; even such and such will speak against me.
Take heed, if you will needs be such yourselves, that you prate not against
others that are not as vain and curious as you: for the nature of man is more
prone to pride and vanity, than to humility, and the improvement of their
time and cost in greater matters; and while you think that you speak but
against indecency, you become the devil's preachers, and do him more
service than you consider of. You may as wisely speak against people for
using to eat or drink too little, when there is not one of a multitude that
liveth not ordinarily in excess; and so excess will get advantage by it.
Direct. X. Be specially careful in the government of your tongues; and let
your words be few, and well considered before you speak them. A double
diligence is needful in this, because it is the most common miscarriage of
your sex: a laxative, running tongue, is so great a dishonour to you, that I
never knew a woman very full of words, but she was the pity of her friends,

and the contempt of others; who behind her back will make a scorn of her,
and talk of her as some crack-brained or half-witted person; yea, though
your talk be good, it will be tedious and contemptible, if it be thus poured
out, and be too cheap. Prov. x. 19, "In the multitude of words there wanteth
not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise." You must answer in judgment
for your "idle words," Matt. xii. 36. You will take it ill to be accounted
fools, and made the derision of those that talk of you: judge by the Scripture
what occasion you give them. Eccles. v. 3, 7, "A dream cometh by the
multitude of business, and a fool's voice is known by a multitude of words:
in the multitude of dreams, and many words, there are divers vanities."
Eccles. x. 12-14, "The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the
lips of a fool will swallow up himself. The beginnings of the words of his
mouth is foolishness; and the end of his talk is mischievous madness: a fool
also is full of words." Whereas a woman that is cautelous and sparing of her
words, is commonly reverenced and supposed to be wise. So that if you had
no higher design in it, but merely to be well thought of, and honoured by
men, you can scarcely take a surer way, than to let your words be few and
weighty; though the avoiding of sin, and unquietness, should prevail with
you much more.
Direct. XI. Be willing and diligent in your proper part, of the care and
labour of the family. As the primary provision of maintenance belongeth
most to the husband, so the secondary provision within doors belongeth
specially to the wife. Read over and over the thirty-first chapter of
Proverbs. Especially the care of nursing your own children, and teaching
them, and watching over them when they are young; and also watching over
the family at home, when your husbands are abroad, is your proper work.

Direct. XII. Dispose not of your husband's estate,
May a wife give
without the husband's
without his knowledge and consent. You are not only to
consent. consider, whether the work be good that you lay it out
upon, but what power you have to do it. Quest. But may
a woman give nothing, nor lay out nothing in the house, without her
husband's consent? Answ. 1. If she have his general or implicit consent, it
may suffice; that is, if he allow her to follow her judgment; or, if he commit
such a proportion to her power, to do what she will with it. Or, if she know
that, if he knew it, he would not be against it. 2. Or, if the law, or his
consent, do give her any propriety in any part of his estate, or make her a
joint-proprietor, she may proportionably dispose of it in a necessary case.
[24] The husband is considerable, either as a proprietor, or as her governor.
As a proprietor, he only may dispose of the estate, where he is the sole
proprietor: but where consent or the law of the land doth make the woman
joint-proprietor, she is not disabled from giving for want of a propriety. But
then no law exempteth her from his government; and therefore she is not to
give any thing in a way of disobedience, though it be her own: except when
he forbiddeth that which is her duty, or which he hath no power to forbid.
So that in case of joint-propriety she may give without him, so be it she
exceed not her proportion; and also if it be in a case of duty, where he may
not hinder her; as to save the lives of the poor in extreme necessity, famine,
or imprisonment, or the like. 3. But if the thing be wholly her own,
excepted from his propriety, and she be sole proprietor, then she need not
ask his consent at all, any other way than as he is her guide, to direct her to
the best way of disposing of it: which, if he forbid her instead of directing
her to it, she is not thereby excusable before God, for the abusing of her
trust and talents. 4. I conceive that ad aliquid as to certain absolutely
necessary uses, the very relation maketh the woman as a joint-proprietor:[25]
as if her husband will not allow her such food and raiment as is necessary to
preserve the lives and health of herself, and all her children; she is bound to
do it without or against his will, (if she can, and if it be not to a greater hurt,
and the estate be his own, and he be able,) rather than let her children
contract such diseases, as apparently will follow to the hazard of their lives;
yea, and to save the life of another that in famine is ready to perish: for she
is not as a stranger to his estate. But out of these cases, if a wife shall

secretly waste or give, or lay it out on bravery, or vanity, or set her wit
against her husband's; and because she thinks him too strait or penurious,
therefore she will dispose of it without his consent; this is thievery,
disobedience, and injustice.
Quest. I. But as the case standeth with us in England, hath the wife a
joint-propriety, or not?
Answ. Three ways (at least) she may have a propriety. 1. By a reserve of
what was her own before; which (however some question it) may in some
cases be done in their agreement at marriage. 2. By the law of the land. 3.
By the husband's consent or donation. What the law of the land saith in
case, I leave to the lawyers; but it seemeth to me, that his words at
marriage, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," do signify his consent
to make her a joint-proprietor: and his consent is sufficient to the collation
of a title to that which was his own. Unless any can prove, that law or
custom doth otherwise expound the words, (as an empty formality,) and that
at the contract, this was or should be known to her to be the sense. And the
laws allowing the wife the third part upon death or separation, doth intimate
a joint-propriety before.
Quest. II. If the husband live upon unlawful gain, as cheating, stealing,
robbing by the high-way, &c. is not the wife guilty as a joint-proprietor, in
retaining such ill-gotten goods, if she know it? And is she bound to accuse
her husband, or to restore such goods?
Answ. Her duty is first to admonish her husband of his sin and danger,
and endeavour his repentance, in the mean time disclaiming all consent and
reception of the goods. And if she cannot prevail for his repentance,
restitution, and reformation, she hath a double duty to perform; the one is to
help them to their goods whom he hath injured and robbed (by prudent and
just means); the other is to prevent his robbing of others for the time to
come. But how these must be done is the great difficulty.
1. If she foresee (or may do) that either by her husband's displeasure, or
by the cruel revenge of the injured party, the hurt of discovering the fraud or
robbery will be greater than the good, then I think that she is not bound to

discover it. But by some secret, indirect way, to help the owner to his own;
if it may be done without a greater hurt.
2. To prevent his sin and other men's future suffering by him, she
seemeth to me to be bound to reveal her husband's sinful purposes to the
magistrate, if she can no other way prevail with him to forbear. My reasons
are, because the keeping of God's law, and the law of the land, and the
public order and good, and the preventing of our neighbours' hurt by
robbery or fraud, and so the interest of honesty and right, is of greater
importance than any duty to her husband, or preservation of her own peace,
which seemeth to be against it. But then I must suppose that she liveth
under a magistrate, who will take but a just revenge. For if she know the
laws and magistrate to be so unjust, as to punish a fault with death, which
deserveth it not, she is not to tell such a magistrate, but to preserve her
neighbours' safety by some other way of intimation.
If any one think that a wife may in no case accuse a husband, to the
hazard of his life or estate, let them, 1. Remember what God obliged
parents to do against the lives of incorrigible children, Deut. xxi. 2. And that
the honour of God, and the lives of our neighbours, should be preferred
before the life of one offender, and their estates before his estate alone. 3.
And that the light of reason telleth us, that a wife is to reveal a treason
against the king, which is plotted by a husband; and therefore also the
robbing of the king's treasury, or deceiving him in any matter of great
concernment. And therefore in due proportion, the laws and common good,
and our neighbours' welfare, are to be preserved by us, though against the
nearest relation; only all due tenderness of the life and reputation of the
husband is to be preserved, in the manner of proceedings, as far as will
stand with the interest of justice, and the common good.
Quest. III. May the wife go hear sermons when the husband forbiddeth
her?
Answ. There are some sermons which must not be heard; there are some
sermons which may be heard, and must, when no greater matter doth divert
us; and there are some sermons which must be heard, whoever shall forbid
it. Those which must not be heard are such as are heretical, (ordinarily,) and
such as are superfluous, and at such times when greater duties call us

another way. Those which may be heard, are either occasional sermons, or
such lectures as are neither of necessity to ourselves, nor yet to the owning
of God and his public worship. One that liveth where there are daily or
hourly sermons, may hear them as oft as suiteth with their condition, and
their other duties; but in this case, the command of a husband, with the
inconveniences that will follow disobeying him, may make it a duty to
forbear. But that we do sometimes publicly own God's worship and church
ordinances, and receive ministerial teaching for our edification, is of double
necessity; that we deny not God, and that we betray not, or desert not, our
own souls. And this is especially necessary (ordinarily) on the Lord's days,
which are appointed for these necessary uses. And here the husband hath no
power to forbid the wife, nor should she (formally) obey his prohibition.
But yet as affirmatives bind not ad semper, and no duty is a duty at every
season; so it is possible that on the Lord's day it may extraordinarily
become a duty to forbear sermons or sacraments, or other public worship.
And when any greater duty calleth us away; as to quench a fire; and to save
men's lives; and to save our country from an enemy in the time of war; and
to save our own lives, (if we knew the assembly would be assaulted,) or to
preserve our liberty for greater service. Christ set us to learn the meaning of
this lesson, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. In such a case also a
mischief may be avoided, even from a husband, by the omission of a duty at
that time, (when it would be no duty,) for this is but a transposition of it.
But this is but an act of prudent self-preservation, and not an act of formal
obedience.
Quest. IV. If a woman have a husband so incorrigible in vice, as that by
long trial she findeth that speaking against it maketh him worse, and
causeth him to abuse her, is she bound to continue her dissuasion, or to
forbear?
Answ. That is not here a duty which is not a means to do some good; and
that is no means which we know beforehand is like, if not certain, to do no
good, or to do more harm. We must not by weariness, laziness, or
censoriousness, take a case to be desperate, which is not; nor must we so
easily desist with so near a relation, as with a stranger or a neighbour. But
yet Christ's indulgence of not exposing ourselves to be torn by dogs, and his
word trodden in the dirt by swine, doth extend to relations as well as others.

But then you must observe that she that is justly discouraged from sharp
reproofs, may yet have hope that gentle and humble persuasions may
succeed. And she that is discouraged from open, or frequent, or plain
reproofs; may yet have hope that secret, or more seldom, or more distant
and general admonitions may not be lost. And she that is discouraged from
one way of doing him good, may yet have many other ways (as to set some
minister whom he reverenceth to speak to him; to put some suitable book
into his hand, &c.) And she that is discouraged at the present, ought not
totally to despair, but may make some more attempts hereafter; either in
some sickness, or time of mortality, or danger, or affliction, or when
possibly time and consideration may have better prepared him to hear. And
in the mean time she is to continue all conjugal affection and duty, and a
convincing, winning course of life; which may prove the most effectual
reproof.
Quest. V. What should a woman do in controverted cases of religion,
when her judgment and her husband's differ?
Answ. 1. Some make a controversy of that which with all good christians
or sober persons should be past controversy; and some controversies are
indeed of real, if not insuperable difficulty. 2. Some controversies are about
important, necessary things, and some about things of lesser moment. 3.
Some are about mere opinion, or other men's practice, and some about our
own practice.
(1.) In all differences of judgment the wife must exercise such self-
suspicion, and modesty, and submission, as may signify her due sense, both
of the weakness of her sex, and of her subjection to her husband. (2.) In
things indifferent she must in practice obey her husband; unless when any
superior powers do forbid it, and that in cases where their authority is
greater. (3.) She may modestly give her reasons of dissent. (4.) She must not
turn it to an unpeaceable quarrel, or matter of disaffection, or pretend any
differences against her conjugal duties. (5.) In dark and difficult cases she
should not be peremptory, and self-conceited, nor importunate; but if she
have faith (that is, some more knowledge than he) have it to herself, in
quietness and silence; and seek further information lest she err. (6.) She
must speak no untruth, nor commit any known sin, in obedience to her

husband's judgment. (7.) When she strongly suspecteth it to be sin, she must
not do it merely in obedience to him, but seek for better satisfaction. For
she is sure that he hath no power to force her to sin; and therefore hath no
more assurance of his power in that point than she hath of the lawfulness of
the thing. (8.) But if she prove to be in the error, she will sin on either side,
till she recover. (9.) If a husband be in dangerous error, she must wisely, but
unweariedly, seek his reformation, by herself or others.

Cases about Divorce and Separation.

Quest. I. Is it lawful for husband and wife to be long absent from each
other? and how long, and in what cases?
Answ. It is lawful to be absent either in the case of prayer, which Paul
mentioneth, or in case of the needful affairs of their estates, so long as may
be no danger to either of them as to mental or corporal incontinency, nor to
any other hurt, which will be greater than the benefits of their absence, nor
cause them to be guilty of the neglect of any real duty. Therefore the cases
of several persons do much differ according to the different tempers of their
minds, and bodies, and affairs. He that hath a wife of a chaste, contented,
prudent temper, may stay many months or years in some cases, when, all
things considered, it tendeth to more good than hurt: as lawyers by their
callings are often necessitated to follow their callings at terms and assizes;
and merchants may he some years absent in some weighty cases. But if you
ask, whether the getting of money be a sufficient cause? I answer, that it is
sufficient to those whose families must be so maintained, and their wives
are easily continent, and so the good of their gain is greater than any loss or
danger that cometh by it. But when covetousness puts them upon it
needlessly, and their wives cannot bear it, or in any case when the hurt that
is like to follow is greater than the good, it is unlawful.
Quest. II. May husband and wife be separated by the bare command of
princes, if they make a law that in certain cases they shall part: as suppose it
to ministers, judges, or soldiers?
Answ. You must distinguish between the bare command or law, and the
reasons and ends of that command: and so between a lawful command and
an unlawful. In some cases a prince may justly command a separation for a

time, or such as is like to prove for perpetuity, and in some cases he may
not. If a king command a separation without sufficient cause, so that you
have no motive but his authority, and the question is, whether formally you
are bound to obedience: I answer, No; because what God hath joined no
man hath power to put asunder. Nor can either prince, pope, or prelate
dispense with your marriage covenant. In such a case it is as a private act,
because God hath given them no authority for it; and therefore their
commands or laws are nullities: only if a prince say, he that will be a judge
or a justice shall part with his wife, it is lawful to leave the office, and so
obey the law. But if he say to all ministers of the gospel, you shall forsake
your wives or your ministry, they should do neither, because they are
divinely obliged to both, and he hath no power to forbid them, or to
dispense with that obligation.
But it may fall out, that the ends of the command may be so great as to
make it lawful, and then it must be obeyed both formally for the authority
of the prince, and finally for the reasons of the thing. As if the safety of the
commonwealth should require, that married persons be soldiers, and that
they go far off; yea, though there be no likelihood of returning to their
families, and withal they cannot take their wives with them, without
detriment or danger to their service; in this case men must obey the
magistrate, and are called by God to forsake their wives, as if it were by
death. Nor is it any violation of their marriage covenant, because that was
intended or meant to suppose the exception of any such call of God, which
cannot be resisted when it will make a separation.
Quest. III. May ministers leave their wives to go abroad to preach the
gospel?
Answ. If they can neither do God's work as well at home, nor yet take
their wives with them, nor be excused from doing that part of service, by
other men's doing it who have no such impediment; they may and must
leave their wives to do it. In this case, the interest of the church, and of the
souls of many, must overrule the interest of wife and family. Those pastors
who have fixed stations, must neither leave flock nor family without
necessity, or a clear call from God. But in several cases a preacher may be
necessitated to go abroad; as in case of persecution at home, or of some

necessity of foreign or remote parts, which cannot be otherwise supplied; or
when some door is opened for the conversion of infidels, heretics, or
idolaters, and none else so fit to do that work, or none that will. In any such
case, when the cause of God in any part of the world consideratis
considerandis doth require his help, a minister must leave wife and family,
yea, and a particular flock, to do it. For our obligations are greatest to the
catholic church, and public good; and the greatest good must be preferred.
If a king command a subject to be an ambassador in the remotest part of the
world, and the public good withal requireth it, if wife and children cannot
be taken with him, they must be left behind, and he must go. So must a
consecrated minister of Christ for the service of the church refuse all
entanglements, which would more hinder his work than the contrary
benefits will countervail. And this exception also was supposed in the
marriage contract, that family interests and comforts must give way to the
public interest, and to God's disposals.
And therefore it is, that ministers should not rashly venture upon
marriage, nor any woman that is wise venture to marry a minister, till she is
first well prepared for such accidents as may separate them for a shorter or
a longer time.
Quest. IV. May one leave a wife to save his life, in case of personal
persecution or danger?
Answ. Yes, if she cannot be taken with him; for the means which are for
the helps of life, do suppose the preservation of life itself: if he live, he may
further serve God, and possibly return to his wife and family; but if he die,
he is removed from them all.
Quest. V. May husband and wife part by mutual consent, if they find it be
for the good of both?
Answ. If you speak not of dissolving the bond of their relations, but
withdrawing as to cohabitation, I answer, 1. It is not to be done upon
passions and discontents, to feed and gratify each other's vicious distempers
or interest; for then both the consent and the separation are their sins: but if
really such an uncurable unsuitableness be between them, as that their lives
must needs be miserable by their cohabitation, I know not but they may live

asunder; so be it, that (after all other means used in vain) they do it by
deliberate, free consent. But if one of them should by craft or cruelty
constrain the other to consent, it is unlawful to the constrainer. Nor must
impatience make either of them ungroundedly despair of the cure of any
unsuitableness which is really curable. But many sad instances might be
given, in which cohabitation may be a constant calamity to both, and
distance may be their relief, and further them both in God's service, and in
their corporal concernments. Yet I say not that this is no sin; for their
unsuitableness is their sin: and God still obligeth them to lay down that sin
which maketh them unsuitable; and therefore doth not allow them to live
asunder, it being still their duty to live together in love and peace: and
saying they cannot, freeth them not from the duty. But yet that moral
impotency may make such a separation as aforesaid, to be a lesser sin than
their unpeaceable cohabitation.
Quest. VI. May not the relation itself be dissolved by mutual, free
consent, so that they may marry others?
Answ. As to the relation, they will still be related as those that did
covenant to live in conjugal society, and are still allowed it and obliged to
it, if the impediments were but removed; and it is but the exercise which is
hindered. And they may not consent to marry others: 1. Because the
contracted relation was for life, Rom. vii. 2, and God's law accordingly
obligeth them. Marriages pro tempore, dissoluble by consent, are not of
God's institution, but contrary to it. 2. They know not but their impediments
of cohabitation may be removed. 3. If he that marrieth an innocent divorced
woman commit adultery, by parity of reason (with advantage) it will be so
here. If you say, what if either of them cannot contain? I answer, he that will
not take heed before, must be patient afterwards, and not make advantage of
his own folly, to the fulfilling of his lusts. If he will do what he ought to do
in the use of all means, he may live chastely. And, 4. The public interest
must overrule the private, and that which would be unjust in private
respects, may for public good become a duty: it seemeth unjust here with
us, that the innocent country should repay every man his money, who
between sun and sun is robbed on the road; and yet because it will engage
the country to watchfulness, it is just, as for the common good: and he that
consenteth to be a member of a commonwealth, doth thereby consent to

submit his own right to the common interest. So here, if all should have
leave to marry others when they consent to part, it would bring utter
confusion, and it would encourage wicked men to abuse their wives, till
they forced them to consent. Therefore some must bear the trouble which
their folly hath brought on themselves, rather than the common order
should be confounded.
Quest. VII. Doth adultery dissolve the bond of marriage, or not? Amesius
saith it doth: Mr. Whateley having said so, afterward recanted it by the
persuasion of other divines.
Answ. The difference is only about the name, and not about the matter
itself. The reason which moved Dr. Ames is, because the injured person is
free; therefore not bound: therefore the bond is dissolved. The reason which
Mr. Whateley could not answer is, because it is not fornication, but lawful,
if they continue their conjugal familiarity after adultery: therefore that bond
is not dissolved. In all which it is easy to perceive, that one of them taketh
the word vinculum or bond in one sense, that is, "for their covenant
obligation to continue their relation and mutual duties." And the other
taketh it in another sense, that is, "for the relation itself as by it they are
allowed conjugal familiarity, if the injured person will continue it." The first
vinculum or bond is dissolved, the second is not. In the matter we are
agreed, that the injured man may put away an adulterous wife (in a regular
way) if he please; but withal that he may continue the relation if he please.
So that his continued consent shall suffice to continue it a lawful relation
and exercise; and his will, on the contrary, shall suffice to dissolve the
relation, and disoblige him. (Saving the public order.)
Quest. VIII. But is not the injured party at all obliged to separate, but left
free?
Answ. Considering the thing simply in itself, he is wholly free to do as he
please. But for all that accidents or circumstances may make it one man's
duty to divorce, and another's duty to continue the relation; according as it
is like to do more good or hurt. Sometimes it may be a duty to expose the
sin to public shame, for the prevention of it in others; and also to deliver
oneself from a calamity. And sometimes there may be so great repentance,
and hope of better effects by forgiving, that it may be a duty to forgive: and

prudence must lay one thing with another, to discern on which side the duty
lieth.
Quest. IX. Is it only the privilege of the man, that he may put away an
adulterous wife? or also of the woman, to depart from an adulterous
husband? The reason of the doubt is, because Christ mentioneth the man's
power only, Matt. v. and xix.
Answ. 1. The reason why Christ speaketh only of the man's case is,
because he was occasioned only to restrain the vicious custom of men's
causeless putting away their wives; having no occasion to restrain women
from leaving their husbands. Men having the rule did abuse it to the
woman's injury; which Christ forbiddeth. And as it is an act of power, it
concerneth the man alone; but as it is an act of liberty, it seemeth to me to
be supposed, that the woman hath the same freedom; seeing the covenant is
violated to her wrong. And the apostle in 1 Cor. vii. doth make the case of
the man and of the woman to be equal in the point of infidelity and
desertion. I confess that it is unsafe extending the sense of Scripture beyond
the importance of the words upon pretence of a parity of reason (as many of
the perjured do by Lev. xxx. in case of vows); lest man's deceitful wit
should make a law to itself as divine, upon pretence of interpreting God's
laws: but yet when the plain text doth speak but of one case, (that is, of
men's putting away their wives,) he that will thence gather an exclusion of
the woman's liberty, doth seem by addition to be the corrupter of the law.
And where the context plainly showeth a parity of reason, and that reason is
made the ground of the determination in the text, there it is safe to expound
the law extensively accordingly. Surely the covenant of marriage hath its
conditions on both parts: and some of those conditions are necessary to the
very being of the obligations, though others are but needful to the well-
being of the parties in that state. And therefore though putting away be only
the part of the husband, as being the ruler, and usually the owner of the
habitation, yet departing may be the liberty of the wife. And I know no
reason to blame those countries, whose laws allow the wife to sue out a
divorce, as well as the husband.
Quest. X. May the husband put away the wife without the magistrate, or
the wife depart from the husband, without a public legal divorce or license?

Answ. Where the laws of the land do take care for the prevention of
injuries, and make any determination in the case, (not contrary to the law of
God,) there it is a christian's duty to obey those laws: therefore if you live
under a law which forbiddeth any putting away or departing, without public
sentence or allowance, you may not do it privately upon your own will. For
the civil governors are to provide against the private injuries of any of the
subjects. And if persons might put away or depart at pleasure, it would
introduce both injury and much weakness into the world. But where the
laws of men do leave persons to their liberty in this case, they need then to
look no further than to the laws of God alone. But usually the sentence of
the civil power is necessary only in case of appeal, or complaint of the party
injured; and a separation may be made without such a public divorce, so
that each party may make use of the magistrate to right themselves if
wronged. As, if the adultery be not openly known, and the injuring party
desire rather to be put away privily than publicly, (as Joseph purposed to do
by Mary,) I see not but it is lawful so to do, in case that the law, or the
necessity of making the offender an example, require not the contrary, nor
scandal or other accidents forbid it not. See Grotius's learned notes on Matt.
v. 31, 32, and on Matt. xix. and 1 Cor. vii. about these questions.
Quest. XI. Is not the case of sodomy or buggery a ground for warrantable
divorce as well as adultery?
Answ. Yes, and seemeth to be included in the very word itself in the text,
Matt. v. 31, 32, which signifieth uncleanness; or at least is fully implied in
the reason of it. See Grotius ibid. also of this.
Quest. XII. What if both parties commit adultery? may either of them put
away the other, or depart; or rather must they forgive each other?
Answ. If they do it both at once, they do both forfeit the liberty of seeking
any compensation for the injury; because the injury is equal (however some
would give the advantage to the man): but if one commit adultery first, and
the other after; then either the last offender knew of the first, or not. If not,
then it seemeth all one as if it had been done at once. But if yea, then they
did it either on a supposition of the dissolution of the matrimonial
obligation, as being loosed from the first adulterer, or else upon a purpose
of continuing in the first relation: in the latter case, it is still all one as if it

had been done by them at once, and it is a forfeiture of any satisfaction: but
in the former case, though the last adulterer did sin, yet being before set at
liberty, it doth not renew the matrimonial obligation: but yet, if the first
offender desire the continuance of it, and the return of the first injured
party; shame and conscience of their own sin, will much rebuke them, if
they plead that injury for continuance of the separation.
Quest. XIII. But what if one do purposely commit adultery, to be
separated from the other?
Answ. It is in the other's power and choice, whether to be divorced and
depart, or not, as they find the good or evil consequents preponderate.
Quest. XIV. Doth not infidelity dissolve the relation or obligation; seeing
there is no communion between light and darkness, a believer and an
infidel?
Answ. It maketh it unlawful for a believer to marry an infidel (except in
case of true necessity); because they can have no communion in religion.
But it nullifieth not a marriage already made, nor maketh it lawful to depart
or divorce; because they may have mere conjugal communion still. As the
apostle purposely determineth the case, in 1 Cor. vii.
Quest. XV. Doth not the desertion of one party disoblige the other?
Answ. 1. It must be considered what is true desertion. 2. Whether it be a
desertion of the relation itself for continuance, or only a temporary
desertion of cohabitation, or congress. 3. What the temper and state of the
deserted party is. 1. It is sometimes easy, and sometimes hard to discern
which is the deserting party. If the wife go away from the husband
unwarrantably, though she require him to follow her, and say that she doth
not desert him, yet it may be taken for a desertion, because it is the man
who is to rule and choose the habitation. But if the man go away, and the
woman refuse to follow him, it is not he that is therefore the deserter.
Quest. But what if the man have not sufficient cause to go away, and the
woman hath great and urgent reasons not to go? As suppose that the man
will go away in hatred of an able preacher, and good company, and the
woman if she follow him, must leave all those helps, and go among
ignorant, profane, heretical persons, or infidels; which is the deserter then?

Answ. If she be one that is either like to do good to the infidels, heretics,
or bad persons whom they must converse with, she may suppose that God
calleth her to receive good by doing good; or if she be a confirmed, well-
settled christian, and not very like, either by infection, or by want of helps,
to be unsettled and miscarry, it seemeth to me the safest way to follow her
husband. She must lose indeed God's public ordinances by following him:
but it is not imputable to her, as being out of her choice; and she must lose
the benefits and neglect the duties of the conjugal ordinance, if she do not
follow him. But if she be a person under such weaknesses, as make her
removal apparently dangerous as to her perseverance and salvation, and her
husband will by no means be prevailed with to change his mind, the case
then is very difficult, what is her duty, and who is the deserter. Nay, if he
did but lead her into a country where her life were like to be taken away, (as
under the Spanish Inquisition,) unless her suffering were like to be as
serviceable to Christ as her life. Indeed these cases are so difficult, that I
will not decide them; the inconveniencies (or mischiefs rather) are great
which way soever she take: but I most incline to judge as followeth: viz. It
is considerable first, what marriage obligeth her to, simply of its own
nature; and what it may do next, by any superadded contract, or by the law
or custom of the land, or any other accident. As to the first, it seemeth to
me, that every one's obligation is so much first to God, and then to their
own souls and lives; that marriage as such, which is for mutual help, as a
means to higher ends, doth not oblige her to forsake all the communion of
saints, and the place or country where God is lawfully worshipped, and to
lose all the helps of public worship, and to expose her soul both to spiritual
famine and infection, to the apparent hazard of her salvation (and perhaps
bring her children into the same misery); nor hath God given her husband
any power to do her so much wrong, nor is the marriage covenant to be
interpreted to intend it. But what any human law or contract, or other
accident which is of greater public consequence, may do more than
marriage of itself, is a distinct case which must have a particular discussion.
Quest. But what if the husband would only have her follow him, to the
forsaking of her estate, and undoing herself and children in the world (as in
the case of Galeacius Carracciolus, Marquis of Vicum); yea, and if it were
without just cause?

Answ. If it be for greater spiritual gain, (as in his case,) she is bound to
follow him; but if it be apparently foolish, to the undoing of her and her
children without any cause, I see not that marriage simply obligeth a
woman so to follow a fool in beggary, or out of a calling, or to her ruin. But
if it be at all a controvertible case, whether the cause be just or not, then the
husband being governor must be judge. The laws of the land are supposed
to be just, which allow a woman by trustees to secure some part of her
former estate from her husband's disposal; much more may she beforehand
secure herself and children from being ruined by his wilful folly: but she
can by no contract except herself from his true government.
Yet still she must consider, whether she can live continently in his
absence; otherwise the greatest sufferings must be endured, to avoid
incontinency.
2. Moreover, in all these cases, a temporary removal may be further
followed, than a perpetual transmigration, because it hath fewer evil
consequents.
And if either party renounce the relation itself, it is a fuller desertion, and
clearer discharge of the other party, than a mere removal is.
Quest. XVI. What if a man or wife know that the other in hatred doth
really intend by poison, or other murder, to take away their life? May they
not depart?
Answ. They may not do it upon a groundless or rash surmise; nor upon a
danger which by other lawful means may be avoided (as by vigilancy, or
the magistrate, or especially by love and duty). But in plain danger, which is
not otherwise like to be avoided, I doubt not, but it may be done, and ought.
For it is a duty to preserve our own lives as well as our neighbours'. And
when marriage is contracted for mutual help, it is naturally implied, that
they shall have no power to deprive one another of life (however some
barbarous nations have given men power of the lives of their wives). And
killing is the grossest kind of desertion, and a greater injury and violation of
the marriage covenant than adultery; and may be prevented by avoiding the
murderer's presence, if that way be necessary. None of the ends of marriage
can be attained, where the hatred is so great.

Quest. XVII. If there be but a fixed hatred of each other, is it inconsistent
with the ends of marriage? And is parting lawful in such a case?
Answ. The injuring party is bound to love, and not to separate; and can
have no liberty by his or her sin. And to say, I cannot love, or my wife or
husband is not amiable, is no sufficient excuse; because every person hath
somewhat that is amiable, if it be but human nature; and that should have
been foreseen before your choice. And as it is no excuse to a drunkard to
say, I cannot leave my drink; so it is none to an adulterer, or hater of
another, to say, I cannot love them: for that is but to say, I am so wicked that
my heart or will is against my duty. But the innocent party's case is harder
(though commonly both parties are faulty, and therefore both are obliged to
return to love, and not to separate). But if hatred proceed not to adultery, or
murder, or intolerable injuries, you must remember that marriage is not a
contract for years, but for life, and that it is possible that hatred may be
cured (how unlikely soever it may be). And therefore you must do your
duty, and wait, and pray, and strive by love and goodness to recover love,
and then stay to see what God will do; for mistakes in your choice will not
warrant a separation.
Quest. XVIII. What if a woman have a husband that will not suffer her to
read the Scriptures, nor go to God's worship public or private, or that so
beateth or abuseth her, as that it cannot be expected that human nature
should be in such a case kept fit for any holy action; or if a man have a wife
that will scold at him when he is praying or instructing his family, and make
it impossible to him to serve God with freedom, or peace and comfort.
Answ. The woman must (at necessary seasons, though not when she
would) both read the Scriptures, and worship God, and suffer patiently what
is inflicted on her. Martyrdom may be as comfortably suffered from a
husband, as from a prince. But yet if neither her own love, and duty, and
patience, nor friends' persuasion, nor the magistrate's justice, can free her
from such inhuman cruelty, as quite disableth her for her duty to God and
man, I see not but she may depart from such a tyrant. But the man hath
more means to restrain his wife from beating him, or doing such intolerable
things; either by the magistrate, or by denying her what else she might have,
or by his own violent restraining her, as belongeth to a conjugal ruler, and

as circumstances shall direct a prudent man. But yet in case that
unsuitableness or sin be so great, that after long trial there is no likelihood
of any other cohabitation, but what will tend to their spiritual hurt and
calamity, it is their lesser sin to live asunder by mutual consent.
Quest. XIX. May one part from a husband or wife that hath the leprosy,
or that hath the French pox by their adulterous practices, when the innocent
person's life is endangered by it?
Answ. If it be an innocent person's disease, the other must cohabit, and
tenderly cherish and comfort the diseased; yea, so as somewhat to hazard
their own lives; but not so as apparently to cast them away, upon a danger
not like to be avoided, unless the other's life or some greater good be like to
be purchased by it.
But if it be the pox of an adulterer, the innocent party is at liberty by the
other's adultery; and the saving of their own lives, doth add thereto. But
without adultery, the disease alone will not excuse them from cohabitation,
though it may from congress.
Quest. XX. Who be they that may or may not marry again when they are
parted?
Answ. 1. They that are released by divorce upon the others' adultery,
sodomy, &c. may marry again. 2. The case of all the rest is harder. They
that part by consent, to avoid mutual hurt, may not marry again; nor the
party that departeth for self-preservation, or for the preservation of estate, or
children, or comforts, or for liberty of worship, as aforesaid; because it is
but an intermission of conjugal fruition, and not a total dissolution of the
relation; and the innocent party must wait to see whether there be any hope
of a return. Yea, Christ seemeth to resolve it, Matt. v. 31, 32, that he is an
adulterer that marrieth the innocent party that is put away; because the other
living in adultery, their first contracted relation seemeth to be still in being.
But Grotius and some others think, that Christ meaneth this only of the man
that over-hastily marrieth the innocent divorced woman, before it be seen
whether he will repent and reassume her; but how can that hold, if the
husband after adultery free her? May it not therefore be meant, that the
woman must stay unmarried in hope of his reconciliation, till such time as

his adultery with his next married wife doth disoblige her. But then it must
be taken as a law for christians; for the Jew that might have many wives,
disobligeth not one by taking another.
A short desertion must be endured in hope; but in case of a very long, or
total desertion or rejection, if the injured party should have an untamable
lust, the case is difficult. I think there are few but by just means may
abstain. But if there be any that cannot, (after all means,) without such
trouble as overthroweth their peace, and plainly hazardeth their continence,
I dare not say that marriage in that case is unlawful to the innocent.
Quest. I. Is it lawful to suffer or tolerate, yea, or contribute to the matter
of known sin in a family, ordinarily, in wife, child, or servant; and
consequently in any other relations?
Answ. In this some lukewarm men are apt to run into the extreme of
remissness; and some unexperienced young men, that never had families,
into the extreme of censorious rigour, as not knowing what they talk of.
1. It is not lawful either in family, commonwealth, church, or any where,
to allow of sin, nor to tolerate it, or leave it uncured, when it is truly in our
power to cure it. 2. So that all the question is, when it is or is not in our
power? Concerning which, I shall answer by some instances.
I. It is not in our power to do that which we are naturally unable to do.
No law of God bindeth us to impossibilities. And natural impotency here is
found in these several cases. 1. When we are overmatched in strength; when
wife, children, or servants are too strong for the master of the house, so that
he cannot correct them, nor remove them. A king is not bound to punish
rebellious or offending subjects, when they are too strong for him, and he is
unable, either by their numbers or other advantages. If a pastor censure an
offender, and all the church be against the censure, he cannot procure it
executed, but must acquiesce in having done his part, and leave their guilt
upon themselves.
2. When the thing to be done is an impossibility, at least moral. As to
hinder all the persons of a family, church, or kingdom from ever sinning: it
is not in their own power so far to reform themselves; much less in a ruler

so far to reform them: even as to ourselves, perfection is but desired in this
life, but not attained; much less for others.
3. When the principal causes co-operate not with us, and we are but
subservient moral causes; we can but persuade men to repent, believe, and
love God and goodness. We cannot save men without and against
themselves. Their hearts are out of our reach; therefore in all these cases we
are naturally unable to hinder sin.
II. It is not in our power to do any thing which God forbiddeth us. That
which is sinful is to be accounted out of our power in this sense. To cure the
sin of a wife, by such cruelty or harshness as is contrary to our conjugal
relation and to the office of necessary love, is out of our power, because
forbidden, as contrary to our duty; and so of other.
III. Those actions are out of our power, which are acts of higher authority
than we have. A subject cannot reform by such actions as are proper to the
sovereign, nor a layman by actions proper to the pastor, for want of
authority. So a schoolmaster cannot do that which is proper to a patient; nor
the master of a family that which is proper to the magistrate (as to punish
with death, &c.)
IV. We have not power to do that which a superior power forbiddeth us
(unless it be that which God indispensably commandeth us). The wife may
not correct a child or servant, or turn him away, when the husband
forbiddeth it. Nor the master of a family so punish a sin, as the king and
laws forbid on the account of the public interest.
V. We have not power to do that for the cure of sin, which is like to do
more hurt than good; yea, perhaps, to prove a pernicious mischief. If my
correcting a servant would make him kill me, or set my house on fire, I may
not do it. If my sharp reproof is like to do more hurt, or less good, than
milder dealing, if I have reason to believe that correction will make a
servant worse, I am not to use it; because we have our power to edification,
and not to destruction. God hath not tied us just to speak such and such
words, or to use this or that correction, but to use reproofs and corrections
only in that time, measure, and manner as true reason telleth us is likest to

attain their end. To do it, if it would do never so much hurt, with a fiat
justitia etsi peruit mundus, is to be righteous over-much.
Yea, great and heinous sins may be endured in families sometimes, to
avoid a greater hurt, and because there is no other means to cure them. For
instance, a wife maybe guilty of notorious pride, and of malignant deriding
the exercises of religion, and of railing, lying, slandering, backbiting,
covetousness, swearing, cursing, &c. and the husband be necessitated to
bear it; not so far as not to reprove it, but so far as not to correct her, much
less cure her. Divines use to say, that it is unlawful for a man to beat his
wife: but the reason is not, that he wanteth authority to do it; but, 1.
Because he is by his relation obliged to a life of love with her; and therefore
must so rule, as tendeth not to destroy love: and, 2. Because it may often do
otherwise more hurt to herself and the family, than good. It may make her
furious and desperate, and make her contemptible in the family, and
diminish the reverence of inferiors, both to wife and husband, for living so
uncomely a life.
Quest. But is there any case in which a man may silently bear the sins of
a wife, or other inferior, without reproof, or urging them to amend?
Answ. Yes: in case, 1. That reproof hath been tried to the utmost: 2. And it
is most evident by full experience, that it is like to do a great deal more hurt
than good.
The rule given by Christ, extendeth as well to families, as to others; not
to cast pearls before swine, nor to give that which is holy to dogs; because it
is more to the discomposure of a man's own peace, to have a wife turn
again, and all to rend him, than a stranger. As the church may cease
admonishing a sinner, after a certain time of obstinacy, when experience
hath ended their present hopes of bringing the person to repentance, and
thereupon may excommunicate him; so a husband may be brought to the
same despair with a wife, and may be disobliged from ordinary reproof,
though the nearness of the relation forbid him to eject her. And in such a
case where the family and neighbourhood know the intractableness and
obstinacy of the wife, it is no scandal, nor sign of approbation, or neglect of
duty, for a man to be silent at her sin; because they look upon her as at
present incorrigible by that means: and it is the sharpest reproof to such a

one, to be unreproved, and to be let alone in her sin; as it is God's greatest
judgment on a sinner, to leave him to himself, and say, Be filthy still.
And there are some women whose fantasies and passions are naturally so
strong, as that it seemeth to me that in many cases they have not so much as
natural free will or power to restrain them; but if in all other cases they
acted as in some, I should take them for mere brutes, that had no true
reason; they seem naturally necessitated to do as they do. I have known the
long profession of piety, which in other respects hath seemed sincere, to
consist in a wife, with such unmastered, furious passion, that she could not
before strangers forbear throwing what was in her hand in her husband's
face, or thrusting the burning candle into his face; and slandering him of the
filthiest sins; and when the passion was over, confess all to be false, and her
rage to be the reason of her speech and actions; and the man, though a
minister, of more than ordinary wit and strength, yet fain to endure all
without returns of violence till her death. They that never knew such a case
by trial, can tell how all might be cured easily; but so cannot they that are
put upon the cure.
And there are some other women of the same uncurable strength of
imagination and passion, who in other respects are very pious and prudent
too, and too wise and conscionable to wrong their husbands with their
hands or tongues, who yet are utterly unable to forbear any injury of the
highest nature to themselves; but are so utterly impatient of being crossed
of their wills, that it would in all likelihood cast them into melancholy or
madness, or some mortal sickness: and no reason signifieth any thing to
debate such passions. In case of pride, or some sinful custom, they are not
able to bear reproof, and to be hindered in the sin, without apparent danger
of distraction or death. I suppose these cases are but few; but what to do in
such cases when they come, is the present question.
Nay, the question is yet harder, Whether to avoid such inconvenience,
one may contribute towards another's sin, by affording them the means of
committing it?
Answ. 1. No man may contribute to sin as sin, formally considered. 2. No
man may contribute to another's sin, for sinful ends, nor in a manner

forbidden and sinful in himself. 3. No man may contribute to another's sin,
when he is not naturally or morally necessitated to it, but might forbear it.
But as it is consistent with the holiness of God to contribute those natural
and providential mercies, which he knoweth men will abuse to sin, so is it
in some cases with us his creatures to one another. God giveth all men their
lives and time, their reason and free will, which he knoweth they will abuse
to sin: he giveth them that meat, and drink, and riches, and health, and
vigour of senses, which are the usual means of the sin and undoing of the
world.
Object. But God is not under any law or obligation as we are.
Answ. His own perfection is above all law, and will not consist with a
consent or acting of any thing that is contrary to holiness and perfection.
But this I confess, that many things are contrary to the order and duty of the
creature, which are not contrary to the place and perfection of the Creator.
1. When man doth generate man, he knowingly contributeth to a sinful
nature and life; for he knoweth that it is unavoidable, and that which is born
of the flesh is flesh.[26] And yet he sinneth not by so doing, because he is
not bound to prevent sin by the forbearance of generation.
2. When one advanceth another to the office of magistracy, ministry, &c.
knowing that he will sin in it, he contributeth accidentally to his sin; but so
as he is not culpable for so doing.
3. A physician hath to do with a froward and intemperate patient, who
will please his appetite, or else if he be denied, his passion will increase his
disease and kill him. In this case he may lawfully say, let him take a little,
rather than kill him, though by so doing he contribute to his sin; because it
is but a not hindering that which he cannot hinder without a greater evil.
The sin is only his that chooseth it.
And it is specially to be noted, that that which physically is a positive act,
and contributing to the matter of the sin, yet morally is but a not hindering
the sin by such a withholding of materials as we are not obliged to withhold
(which is the case also of God's contributing to the matter of sin). If the
physician in such a case, or the parent of a sick and froward child, do

actually give them that which they sin in desiring, that giving is indeed such
a furthering of the sin as cannot be lawfully forborne, lest we do hurt; and
therefore is morally but a not hindering it, when we cannot hinder it.
4. If a man have a wife so proud that she will go mad, or disturb him and
his family by rage, if her pride be not gratified by some sinful fashions,
curiosities, or excesses, if he give her money or materials to do it with, to
prevent her distraction, it is but like the foresaid case of the physician, or
parents of a sick child.
In these cases I will give you a rule to walk by for yourselves, and a
caution how to judge of others.
1. Be sure that you leave nothing undone that you can lawfully do, for the
cure and prevention of others' sins; and that it be not for want of zeal
against sin, through indifference or slothfulness, that you forbear to hinder
it, but merely through disability. 2. See that in comparing the evil that is like
to follow the impedition, you do not mistake, but be sure that it be indeed a
greater evil which you avoid by not hindering that particular sin. 3. See
therefore that your own carnal interest weigh not with you more than there
is cause; and that you account not mere fleshly suffering a greater evil than
sin. 4. But yet that dishonour which may be cast upon religion, and the good
of souls, which may be hindered by a bodily suffering, may come into the
comparison. 5. And your own duties to men's bodies (as to save men's lives,
or health, or peace) are to be numbered with spiritual things, and the
materials of a sin may in some cases be administered for the discharge of
such a duty. If you knew a man would die if you give him not hot water, and
he will be drunk if you do give it him; in this case you do but your duty, and
he commits the sin: you do that which is good, and are not bound to forbear
it, because he will turn it to sin, unless you see that the hurt by that sin is
like to be so great (besides the sin itself) as to discharge you from the duty
of doing good.
2. As to others, (1.) Put them on to their duty and spare not. (2.) But
censure them not for the sins of their families, till you are acquainted with
all the case. It is usual with rash and carnal censurers, to cry out of some
godly ministers or gentlemen, that their wives are as proud, and their
children and servants as bad as others. But are you sure that it is in their

power to remedy it? Malice and rashness judge at a distance of things which
men understand not, and sin in speaking against sin.
Quest. II. If a gentleman, e.g. of £500, or £1000, or £2000, or £3000, per
annum, could spare honestly half his yearly rents, for his children and for
charitable uses, and his wife be so proud and prodigal, that she will waste it
all in housekeeping and excesses, and will rage, be unquiet, or go mad, if
she be hindered, what is a man's duty in such a case?
Answ. It is but an instance of the forementioned case, and must thence be
answered. 1. It is supposed that she is uncurable by all wise and rational
means of persuasion. 2. He is wisely to compare the greatness of the evil
that will come by crossing her, with the good that may come by the
improvement of his estate, and the forbearance of those excesses. If her
rage, or distraction, or unquietness were like by any accident to do more
hurt than his estate may do good, he might take himself disabled from
hindering the sin; and though he give her the money which she mispendeth,
it is not sinning, but only not hindering sin when he is unable. 3. Ordinarily
some small or tolerable degree of sinful waste and excess may be tolerated
to avoid such mischiefs as else would follow; but not too much. And though
no just measure can be assigned, at what rate a man may lawfully purchase
his own peace, and consequently his liberty to serve God, or at what rate he
may save his wife from madness, or some mortal mischiefs of her
discontent, yet the case must be resolved by such considerations; and a
prudent man, that knoweth what is like to be the consequent on both sides,
may and must accordingly determine it. 4. But ordinarily the life, health, or
preservation of so proud, luxurious, and passionate a woman, is not worth
the saving at so dear a rate, as the wasting of a considerable estate, which
might be used to relieve a multitude of the poor, and perhaps to save the
lives of many that are worthier to live. And, (1.) A man's duty to relieve the
poor and provide for his family is so great, (2.) And the account that all men
must give of the use of their talents is so strict, that it must be a great reason
indeed, that must allow him to give way to very great wastefulness. And
unless there be somewhat extraordinary in the case, it were better deal with
such a woman as a bedlam, and if she will be mad, to use her as the mad are
used, than for a steward of God to suffer the devil to be served with his
Master's goods.

Lastly, I must charge the reader to remember, that both these cases are
very rare; and it is but few women that are so liable to so great mischiefs,
which may not be prevented at cheaper rates; and therefore that the
indulgence given in these decisions, is nothing to the greater part of men,
nor is to be extended to ordinary cases. But commonly men every where sin
by omission of a stricter government of their families, and by Eli's sinful
indulgence and remissness; and though a wife must be governed as a wife,
and a child as a child, yet all must be governed as well as servants. And
though it may be truly said, that a man cannot hinder that sin, which he
cannot hinder but by sin, or by contributing to a greater hurt, yet it is to be
concluded, that every man is bound to hinder sin whenever he is able
lawfully to hinder it.
And by the same measures, tolerations, or not hindering errors and sins
about religion in church and commonwealth, is to be judged of: none must
commit them or approve them; nor forbear any duty of their own to cure
them; but that is not a duty which is destructive, which would be a duty
when it were a means of edifying.

FOOTNOTES

[24] See Dr. Gouge on Family Relations, who saith the most against
women's giving.
[25] 2 Sam. xxv. 18, 29, 30; Prov. xxxi. 11-13, 20; Hos. vi. 6; Matt. ix. 13;
xii. 7; 2 Kings iv. 9, 22.
[26] John iii. 6; Eph. ii. 2, 3.

CHAPTER X.

THE DUTIES OF PARENTS FOR THEIR CHILDREN.

Of how great importance the wise and holy education of children is, to the
saving of their souls, and the comfort of their parents, and the good of
church and state, and the happiness of the world, I have partly told you
before; but no man is able fully to express. And how great that calamity is,
which the world is fallen into through the neglect of that duty, no heart can
conceive; but they that think what a case the heathen, infidel, and ungodly
nations are in, and how rare true piety is grown, and how many millions
must lie in hell for ever, will know so much of this inhuman negligence, as
to abhor it.
Direct. I. Understand and lament the corrupted and miserable state of
your children, which they have derived from you, and thankfully accept the
offers of a Saviour for yourselves and them, and absolutely resign, and
dedicate them to God in Christ in the sacred covenant, and solemnize this
dedication and covenant by their baptism.[27] And to this end understand the
command of God for entering your children solemnly into covenant with
him, and the covenant mercies belonging to them thereupon. Rom. v.
12, 16-18; Eph. ii. 1, 3; Gen. xvii. 4, 13, 14; Deut. xxix. 10-12; Rom. xi.
17, 20; John iii. 3, 5; Matt. xix. 13, 14.
You cannot sincerely dedicate yourselves to God, but you must dedicate
to him all that is yours, and in your power; and therefore your children, as
far as they are in your power. And as nature hath taught you your power and
your duty to enter them in their infancy into any covenant with man, which
is certainly for their good; (and if they refuse the conditions when they
come to age, they forfeit the benefit;) so nature teacheth you much more to
oblige them to God for their far greater good, in case he will admit them
into covenant with him. And that he will admit them into his covenant, (and
that you ought to enter them into it,) is past doubt, in the evidence which the

Scripture giveth us, that from Abraham's time till Christ it was so with all
the children of his people; nay, no man can prove that before Abraham's
time, or since, God had ever a church on earth, of which the infants of his
servants (if they had any) were not members dedicated in covenant to God,
till of late times that a few began to scruple the lawfulness of this. As it is a
comfort to you, if the king would bestow upon your infant children, (who
were tainted by their father's treason,) not only a full discharge from the
blot of the offence, but also the titles and estates of lords, though they
understand none of this till they come to age; so is it much more matter of
comfort to you, on their behalf, that God in Christ will pardon their original
sin, and take them as his children, and give them title to everlasting life;
which are the mercies of his covenant.
Direct. II. As soon as they are capable, teach them what a covenant they
are in, and what are the benefits, and what the conditions, that their souls
may gladly consent to it when they understand it; and you may bring them
seriously to renew their covenant with God in their own persons. But the
whole order of teaching both children and servants, I shall give you after by
itself; and therefore shall here pass by all that, except that which is to be
done more by your familiar converse, than by more solemn teaching.
Direct. III. Train them up in exact obedience to yourselves, and break
them of their own wills. To that end, suffer them not to carry themselves
unreverently or contemptuously towards you; but to keep their distance. For
too much familiarity breedeth contempt, and imboldeneth to disobedience.
The common course of parents is to please their children so long, by letting
them have what they crave, and what they will, till their wills are so used to
be fulfilled, that they cannot endure to have them denied; and so can endure
no government, because they endure no crossing of their wills. To be
obedient, is to renounce their own wills, and be ruled by their parents' or
governor's wills; to use them therefore to have their own wills, is to teach
them disobedience, and harden and use them to a kind of impossibility of
obeying. Tell them oft familiarly and lovingly of the excellency of
obedience, and how it pleaseth God, and what need they have of
government, and how unfit they are to govern themselves, and how
dangerous it is to children to have their own wills; speak often with great

disgrace of self-willedness and stubbornness, and tell others in their hearing
what hath befallen self-willed children.
Direct. IV. Make them neither too bold with you, nor too strange or
fearful; and govern them not as servants, but as children, making them
perceive that you dearly love them, and that all your commands, restraints,
and corrections are for their good, and not merely because you will have it
so. They must be ruled as rational creatures, that love themselves, and those
that love them. If they perceive that you dearly love them, they will obey
you the more willingly, and the easier be brought to repent of their
disobedience, and they will as well obey you in heart as in outward actions,
and behind your back as before your face. And the love of you (which must
be caused by your love to them) must be one of the chiefest means to bring
them to the love of all that good which you commend to them; and so to
form their wills sincerely to the will of God, and make them holy. For if you
are too strange to them, and too terrible, they will fear you only, and not
much love you; and then they will love no books, no practices, that you
commend to them, but like hypocrites they will seek to please you to your
face, and care not what they are in secret and behind your backs. Nay, it will
tempt them to loathe your government, and all that good which you
persuade them to, and make them like birds in a cage, that watch for an
opportunity to get away and get their liberty. They will be the more in the
company of servants and idle children, because your terror and strangeness
maketh them take no delight in yours. And fear will make them liars, as oft
as a lie seemeth necessary to their escape. Parents that show much love to
their children, may safely show severity when they commit a fault. For then
they will see, that it is their fault only that displeaseth you, and not their
persons; and your love reconcileth them to you when they are corrected;
when less correction from parents that are always strange or angry, and
show no tender love to their children, will alienate them, and do no good.
Too much boldness of children leadeth them, before you are aware, to
contempt of parents and all disobedience; and too much fear and
strangeness depriveth them of most of the benefits of your care and
government: but tender love, with severity only when they do amiss, and
this at a reverent, convenient distance, is the only way to do them good.

Direct. V. Labour much to possess their hearts with the fear of God, and a
reverence of the holy Scriptures; and then whatsoever duty you command
them, or whatsoever sin you forbid them, show them some plain and urgent
texts of Scripture for it; and cause them to learn them and oft repeat them;
that so they may find reason and divine authority in your commands: till
their obedience begin to be rational and divine, it will be but formal and
hypocritical. It is conscience that must watch them in private, when you see
them not; and conscience is God's officer and not yours; and will say
nothing to them, till it speak in the name of God. This is the way to bring
the heart itself into subjection; and also to reconcile them to all your
commands, when they see that they are first the commands of God (of
which more anon).
Direct. VI. In all your speeches of God and of Jesus Christ, and of the
holy Scripture, or the life to come, or of any holy duty, speak always with
gravity, seriousness, and reverence, as of the most great and dreadful and
most sacred things: for before children come to have any distinct
understanding of particulars, it is a hopeful beginning to have their hearts
possessed with a general reverence and high esteem of holy matters; for that
will continually awe their consciences, and help their judgments, and settle
them against prejudice and profane contempt, and be as a seed of holiness
in them. For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, Psal. cxi. 10; Prov.
ix. 10; i. 7. And the very manner of the parents' speech and carriage,
expressing great reverence to the things of God, hath a very great power to
leave the like impression on a child: most children of godly parents that
ever came to good, I am persuaded, can tell you this by experience, (if their
parents did their duty in this point,) that the first good that ever they felt
upon their hearts, was a reverence to holy things, which the speech and
carriage of their parents taught them.
Direct. VII. Speak always before them with great honour and praise of
holy ministers and people, and with dispraise and loathing of every sin, and
of ungodly men.[28] For this also is a thing that children will quickly and
easily receive from their parents. Before they can understand particular
doctrines, they can learn in general what kind of persons are most happy or
most miserable, and they are very apt to receive such a liking or disliking
from their parents' judgment, which hath a great hand in all the following

good or evil of their lives. If you possess them with good and honourable
thoughts of them that fear God, they will ever after be inclined to think well
of them, and to dislike those that speak evil of them, and to hear such
preachers, and to wish themselves such christians; so that in this and the
foregoing point it is that the first stirrings of grace in children are ordinarily
felt. And therefore on the other side, it is a most pernicious thing to
children, when they hear their parents speak contemptuously or lightly of
holy things and persons, and irreverently talk of God, and Scripture, and the
life to come, or speak dispraisingly or scornfully of godly ministers or
people, or make a jest of the particular duties of a religious life: these
children are like to receive that prejudice or profane contempt into their
hearts betimes, which may bolt the doors against the love of God and
holiness, and make their salvation a work of much greater difficulty, and
much smaller hope. And therefore still I say, that wicked parents are the
most notable servants of the devil in all the world, and the bloodiest
enemies to their children's souls. More souls are damned by ungodly
parents (and next them by ungodly ministers and magistrates) than by any
instruments in the world besides. And hence it is also, that whole nations
are so generally carried away with enmity against the ways of God; the
heathen nations against the true God, and the infidel nations against Christ,
and the papist nations against reformation and spiritual worshippers:
because the parents speak evil to the children of all that they themselves
dislike; and so possess them with the same dislike from generation to
generation. "Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil, that put
darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter," Isa. v. 20.
Direct. VIII. Let it be the principal part of your care and labour in all
their education, to make holiness appear to them the most necessary,
honourable, gainful, pleasant, delightful, amiable state of life; and to keep
them from apprehending it either as needless, dishonourable, hurtful, or
uncomfortable. Especially draw them to the love of it, by representing it as
lovely. And therefore begin with that which is easiest and most grateful to
them (as the history of the Scripture, and the lives of the martyrs, and other
good men, and some short, familiar lessons). For though in restraining them
from sin, you must go to the highest step at first, and not think to draw them

from it by allowing them the least degree; (for every degree disposeth to
more, and none is to be allowed, and a general reformation is the easiest as
well as absolutely necessary;) yet in putting them upon the practice of
religious duties, you must carry them on by degrees, and put them at first
upon no more than they can bear; either upon the learning of doctrines too
high and spiritual for them, or upon such duty for quality or quantity as is
over-burdensome to them; for if you once turn their hearts against religion,
and make it seem a slavery and a tedious life to them, you take the course to
harden them against it. And therefore all children must not be used alike; as
all stomachs must not be forced to eat alike. If you force some to take so
much as to become a surfeit, they will loathe that sort of meat as long as
they live. I know that nature itself, as corrupt, hath already an enmity to
holiness, and I know that this enmity is not to be indulged in children at all;
but withal I know that misrepresentations of religion, and imprudent
education, is the way to increase it, and that the enmity being in the heart, it
is the change of the mind and love that is the overcoming of it, and not any
such constraint as tendeth not to reconcile the mind by love. The whole skill
of parents for the holy education of their children, doth consist in this, to
make them conceive of holiness as the most amiable and desirable life;
which is by representing it to them in words and practice, not only as most
necessary, but also as most profitable, honourable, and delightful. Prov. iii.
17, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," &c.
Direct. IX. Speak often to them of the brutish baseness and sinfulness of
flesh-pleasing sensuality, and of the greater excellency of the pleasures of
the mind which consist in wisdom, and in doing good. For your chiefest
care must be to save them from flesh-pleasing; which is not only in general
the sum of all iniquity whatsoever, but that which in special children are
most prone to. For their flesh and sense is as quick as others; and they want
not only faith, but clear reason to resist it; and so (besides their natural
pravity) the custom of obeying sense (which is in strength) without reason
(which is in infancy and almost useless) doth much increase this pernicious
sin. And therefore still labour to imprint in their minds an odious conceit of
a flesh-pleasing life; speak bitterly to them against gluttony, and
drunkenness, and excess of sport; and let them often hear or read the

parable of the glutton and Lazarus in the sixteenth of Luke; and let them
learn without book, Rom. viii. 1, 5-9, 13; xiii. 13, 14, and oft repeat them.
Direct. X. To this end, and also for the health of their bodies, keep a strict
guard upon their appetites (which they are not able to guard themselves):
keep them as exactly as you can to the rules of reason, both in the quantity
and quality of their food. Yet tell them the reason of your restraint, or else
they will secretly strive the more to break their bounds. Most parents that
ever I knew, or had any good account of in that point, are guilty of the great
hurt and danger of their children's health and souls, by pleasing and glutting
them with meat and drink. If I should call them devils and murderers to
their own children, they would think I spake too harshly; but I would not
have them give so great occasion for it, as by destroying (as far as lieth in
them) the souls and bodies of their children. They destroy their souls by
accustoming them to gluttony, and to be ruled by their appetites; which all
the teaching in the world will hardly ever after overcome, without the
special grace of God. What is all the vice and villany in the world, but the
pleasing of the desires of the flesh? And when they are habituated to this,
they are rooted in their sin and misery. And they destroy their bodies, by
suffering them to please their appetites, with raw fruits and other hurtful
things; but especially by drowning and overwhelming nature by excess; and
all this is through that beastly ignorance, joined with self-conceitedness,
which maketh them also overthrow themselves. They think that their
appetite is the measure of their eating and drinking, and that if they drink
but when they are thirsty, (as some drunkards are continually,) and eat but
when they are hungry, it is no excess; and because they are not presently
sick, or vomit it not up again, the beasts think it doth them no harm, but
good. You shall hear them like mad people say, I warrant them, it will do
them no harm to eat and drink when they have list, it will make them strong
and healthful; I see not that those that are dieted so strictly are any
healthfuller than others. Whenas all this while they are burdening nature,
and destroying digestion, and vitiating all the humours of the body, and
turning them into a dunghill of phlegm and filth; which is the fuel that
breedeth and feedeth almost all the diseases that after seize upon them
while they live; and usually bringeth them to an untimely end (as I have
fullier opened before, part i. in the directions against gluttony). If therefore

you love either the souls or bodies of your children, use them to temperance
from their infancy, and let not their appetites or craving wills, but your own
reason, be the chooser and the measure of their diet. Use them to eat
sparingly, and (so it moderately please their appetite, or be not such as
nature loatheth) let it be rather of the coarser than the finer sort of diet; see
it measured to them yourselves, and suffer no servant to give them more,
nor to let them eat or drink between meals and out of season; and so you
will help to overcome their sensual inclinations, and give reason the
mastery of their lives; and you will, under God, do as much as any one
thing can do to help them to a healthful temper of body, which will be a
very great mercy to them, and fit them for their duty all their lives.
Direct. XI. For sports and recreations, let them be such, and so much, as
may be needful to their health and cheerfulness; but not so much as may
carry away their minds from better things, and draw them from their books
or other duties, nor such as may tempt them to gaming or covetousness.
Children must have convenient sport for the health of the body and alacrity
of the mind; such as well exerciseth their bodies is best, and not such as
little stirreth them. Cards and dice, and such idle sports, are every way most
unfit, as tending to hurt both body and mind. Their time also must be
limited them, that their play may not be their work; as soon as ever they
have the use of any reason and speech, they should be taught some better
things, and not left till they are five or six years of age, to do nothing, but
get a custom of wasting all their time in play. Children are very early
capable of learning something which may prepare them for more.
Direct. XII. Use all your wisdom and diligence to root out the sin of
pride. And to that end, do not (as is usual with foolish parents, that) please
them with making them fine, and then by telling them how fine they are;
but use to commend humility and plainness to them, and speak
disgracefully of pride and fineness, to breed an averseness to it in their
minds. Cause them to learn such texts of Scripture as speak of God's
abhorring and resisting the proud, and of his loving and honouring the
humble: when they see other children that are finely clothed, speak of it to
them as their shame, that they may not desire to be like them. Speak against
boasting, and every other way of pride which they are liable to: and yet give
them the praise of all that is well, for that is but their due encouragement.

Direct. XIII. Speak to them disgracefully of the gallantry, and pomp, and
riches of the world, and of the sin of selfishness and covetousness, and
diligently watch against it, and all that may tempt them to it. When they see
great houses, and attendance, and gallantry, tell them that these are the
devil's baits, to entice poor sinners to love this world, that they may lose
their souls, and the world to come. Tell them how much heaven excelleth all
this; and that the lovers of the world must never come thither, but the
humble, and meek, and poor in spirit. Tell them of the rich glutton in Luke
xvi. that was thus clothed in purple and silk, and fared deliciously every
day; but when he came to hell, could not get a drop of water to cool his
tongue, when Lazarus was in the joys of paradise. Do not as the wicked,
that entice their children to worldliness and covetousness, by giving them
money, and letting them game and play for money, and promising them to
make them fine or rich, and speaking highly of all that are rich and great in
the world; but tell them how much happier a poor believer is, and withdraw
all that may tempt their minds to covetousness. Teach them how good it is
to love their brethren as themselves, and to give them part of what they
have, and praise them for it; and dispraise them when they are greedy to
keep or heap up all to themselves: and all will be little enough to cure this
pernicious sin. Teach them such texts as Psal. x. 3, "They bless the covetous
whom the Lord abhorreth."
Direct. XIV. Narrowly watch their tongues, especially against lying,
railing, ribald talk, and taking the name of God in vain. And pardon them
many lighter faults about common matters, sooner than one such sin against
God. Tell them of the odiousness of all these sins, and teach them such texts
as most expressly condemn them; and never pass it by or make light of it,
when you find them guilty.
Direct. XV. Keep them as much as may be from ill company, especially
of ungodly play-fellows. It is one of the greatest dangers for the undoing of
children in the world; especially when they are sent to common schools: for
there is scarce any of those schools so good, but hath many rude and
ungodly ill-taught children in it; that will speak profanely, and filthily, and
make their ribald and railing speeches a matter of boasting; besides
fighting, and gaming, and scorning, and neglecting their lessons; and they
will make a scorn of him that will not do as they, if not beat and abuse him.

And there is such tinder in nature for these sparks to catch upon, that there
are very few children, but when they hear others take God's name in vain,
or sing wanton songs, or talk filthy words, or call one another by
reproachful names, do quickly imitate them: and when you have watched
over them at home as narrowly as you can, they are infected abroad with
such beastly vices, as they are hardly ever after cured of. Therefore let those
that are able, either educate their children most at home, or in private and
well ordered schools; and those that cannot do so, must be the more
exceeding watchful over them, and charge them to associate with the best;
and speak to them of the odiousness of these practices, and the wickedness
of those that use them; and speak very disgracefully of such ungodly
children: and when all is done, it is a great mercy of God, if they be not
undone by the force of the contagion, notwithstanding all your antidotes.
Those therefore that venture their children into the rudest schools and
company, and after that to Rome, and other profane or popish countries, to
learn the fashions and customs of the world, upon pretence, that else they
will be ignorant of the course of the world, and ill-bred, and not like others
of their rank, may think of themselves and their own reasonings as well as
they please: for my part, I had rather make a chimney-sweeper of my son,
(if I had any,) than be guilty of doing so much to sell or betray him to the
devil.
Quest. But is it not lawful for a man to send his son to travel?
Answ. Yes, in these cases: 1. In case he be a ripe, confirmed christian, that
is, not in danger of being perverted, but able to resist the enemies of the
truth, and to preach the gospel, or to do good to others; and withal have
sufficient business to invite him. 2. Or if he go in the company of wise and
godly persons, and such be his companions, and the probability of his gain
be greater, than of his loss and danger. 3. Or if he go only into religious
countries, among more wise and learned men than he converseth with at
home, and have sufficient motives for his course. But to send young, raw,
unsettled persons among papists, and profane, licentious people, (though
perhaps some sober person be in company with them,) and this only to see
the countries and fashions of the world, is an action unbeseeming any
christian that knoweth the pravity of human nature, and the mutability of
young, unfurnished heads, and the subtlety of deceivers, and the

contagiousness of sin and error, and the worth of a soul, and will not do as
some conjurers or witches, even sell a soul to the devil, on condition he
may see and know the fashions of the world; which alas, I can quickly
know enough of to grieve my heart, without travelling so far to see them. If
another country have more of Christ, and be nearer heaven, the invitation is
great; but if it have more of sin and hell, I had rather know hell, and the
suburbs of it too, by the map of the word of God, than by going thither. And
if such children return not the confirmed children of the devil, and prove
not the calamity of their country and the church, let them thank special
grace, and not their parents or themselves. They overvalue that vanity
which they call breeding, who will hazard the substance, (even heavenly
wisdom, holiness, and salvation,) to go so far for so vain a shadow.
Direct. XVI. Teach your children to know the preciousness of time, and
suffer them not to mispend an hour. Be often speaking to them how
precious a thing time is, and how short man's life is, and how great his
work, and how our endless life of joy or misery dependeth on this little
time: speak odiously to them of the sin of those that play and idle away
their time; and keep account of all their hours, and suffer them not to lose
any by excess of sleep, or excess of play, or any other way; but engage them
still in some employment that is worth their time.
Train up your children in a life of diligence and labour, and use them not
to ease and idleness when they are young.[29] Our wandering beggars, and
too many of the gentry, utterly undo their children by this means, especially
the female sex. They are taught no calling, nor exercised in any
employment, but only such as is meet for nothing but ornament and
recreation at the best; and therefore should have but recreation hours, which
is but a small proportion of their time. So that by the sin of their parents,
they are betimes engaged in a life of idleness, which afterward it is
wondrous hard for them to overcome; and they are taught to live like swine
or vermin, that live only to live, and do small good in the world by living:
to rise, and dress, and adorn themselves, and take a walk, and so to dinner,
and thence to cards or dice, or chat and idle talk, or some play, or visit, or
recreation, and so to supper, and to chat again, and to bed, is the lamentable
life of too many that have great obligations to God, and greater matters to
do, if they were acquainted with them. And if they do but interpose a few

hypocritical, heartless words of prayer, they think they have piously spent
the day; yea, the health of many is utterly ruined, by such idle, fleshly
education. So that disuse doth disable them from any considerable motion
or exercise, which is necessary to preserve their health. It would move one's
heart with pity, to see how the houses of some of the higher sort are like
hospitals; and education hath made, especially, the females like the lame, or
sick, or bedrid; so that one part of the day that should be spent in some
profitable employment, is spent in bed, and the rest in doing nothing, or
worse than nothing; and most of their life is made miserable by diseases, so
that if their legs be but used to carry them about, they are presently out of
breath, and are a burden to themselves, and few of them live out little more
than half their days. Whereas, poor creatures, if their own parents had not
betrayed them into the sins of Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and
abundance of idleness, they might have been in health, and lived like honest
christian people, and their legs and arms might have served them for use, as
well as for integrality and ornament.
Direct. XVII. Let necessary correction be used with discretion, according
to these following rules. 1. Let it not be so seldom (if necessary) as to leave
them fearless, and so make it uneffectual; and let it not be so frequent as to
discourage them, or breed in them a hatred of their parents. 2. Let it be
different according to the different tempers of your children; some are so
tender and timorous, and apt to be discouraged, that little or no correction
may be best; and some are so hardened and obstinate, that it must be much
and sharp correction that must keep them from dissoluteness and contempt.
3. Let it be more for sin against God (as lying, railing, filthy speaking,
profaneness, &c.) than for faults about your worldly business. 4. Correct
them not in passion, but stay till they perceive that you are calmed; for they
will think else, that your anger rather than your reason is the cause. 5.
Always show them the tenderness of your love, and how unwilling you are
to correct them, if they could be reformed any easier way; and convince
them that you do it for their good. 6. Make them read those texts of
Scripture which condemn their sin, and then those which command you to
correct them. As for example, if lying be their sin, turn them first to Prov.
xii. 22, "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are
his delight." And xiii. 5, "A righteous man hateth lying." John viii. 44, "Ye

are of your father the devil,—when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his
own; for he is a liar, and the father of it." Rev. xxii. 15, "For without are
dogs—and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." And next turn him to Prov.
xiii. 24, "He that spareth his rod, hateth his son; but he that loveth him
chasteneth him betimes." Prov. xxix. 15, "The rod and reproof give wisdom;
but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." Prov. xxii. 15,
"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall
drive it far from him." Prov. xxiii. 13, 14, "Withhold not correction from the
child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die; thou shalt beat
him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." Prov. xix. 18,
"Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his
crying." Ask him whether he would have you by sparing him, to disobey
God, and hate him, and destroy his soul. And when his reason is convinced
of the reasonableness of correcting him, it will be the more successful.
Direct. XVIII. Let your own example teach your children that holiness,
and heavenliness, and blamelessness of tongue and life, which you desire
them to learn and practise. The example of parents is most powerful with
children, both for good and evil. If they see you live in the fear of God, it
will do much to persuade them, that it is the most necessary and excellent
course of life, and that they must do so too; and if they see you live a carnal,
voluptuous, and ungodly life, and hear you curse or swear, or talk filthily or
railingly, it will greatly imbolden them to imitate you. If you speak never so
well to them, they will sooner believe your bad lives, than your good words.
Direct. XIX. Choose such a calling and course of life for your children,
as tendeth most to the saving of their souls, and to their public usefulness
for church or state. Choose not a calling that is most liable to temptations
and hinderances to their salvation, though it may make them rich; but a
calling which alloweth them some leisure for the remembering the things of
everlasting consequence, and fit opportunities to get good, and to do good.
If you bind them apprentices, or servants, if it be possible, place them with
men fearing God; and not with such as will harden them in their sin.
Direct. XX. When they are marriageable, and you find it needful, look
out such for them as are suitable betimes. When parents stay too long, and

do not their duties in this, their children often choose for themselves to their
own undoing; for they choose not by judgment, but blind affection.
Having thus told you the common duties of parents for their children, I
should next have told you what specially belongeth to each parent; but to
avoid prolixity, I shall only desire you to remember especially these two
directions. 1. That the mother who is still present with children when they
are young, be very diligent in teaching them, and minding them of good
things. When the fathers are abroad, the mothers have more frequent
opportunities to instruct them, and be still speaking to them of that which is
most necessary, and watching over them. This is the greatest service that
most women can do for God in the world: many a church that hath been
blessed with a good minister, may thank the pious education of mothers;
and many a thousand souls in heaven may thank the holy care and diligence
of mothers, as the first effectual means. Good women this way (by the good
education of their children) are ordinarily great blessings both to church and
state. (And so some understand 1 Tim. ii. 15, by "child-bearing," meaning
bringing up children for God; but I rather think it is by Mary's bearing
Christ, the promised seed.)
2. By all means let children be taught to read, if you are never so poor,
and whatever shift you make; or else you deprive them of a singular help to
their instruction and salvation. It is a thousand pities that a Bible should
signify no more than a chip to a rational creature, as to their reading it
themselves: and that so many excellent books as be in the world, should be
as sealed or insignificant to them.
But if God deny you children, and save you all this care and labour,
repine not, but be thankful, believing it is best for you. Remember what a
deal of duty, and pains, and heart's grief he hath freed you from, and how
few speed well, when parents have done their best: what a life of misery
children must here pass through, and how sad the fear of their sin and
damnation would have been to you.

FOOTNOTES

[27] See my Treatise for Infant Baptism.

[28] Isa. iii. 7-9, 11; Psal. xv. 4; ci.; x. 2-4.
[29] It was one of the Roman laws of the twelve tables, Filius arte carens,
patris incuria, eidem vitæ necessaria ne præstato. Alioqui parentes nutrire
cogitor. A son that is taught no trade to live by, shall not be bound to keep
his parents in want, but others shall. Ezek. xvi. 49.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF CHILDREN TOWARDS THEIR PARENTS.

Though precepts to children are not of so much force as to them of riper
age, because of their natural incapacity, and their childish passions and
pleasures which bear down their weak degree of reason; yet somewhat is to
be said to them, because that measure of reason which they have is to be
exercised, and by exercise to be improved: and because even those of riper
years, while they have parents, must know and do their duty to them; and
because God useth to bless even children as they perform their duties.
Direct. I. Be sure that you dearly love your parents; delight to be in their
company; be not like those unnatural children, that love the company of
their idle play-fellows better than their parents, and had rather be abroad
about their sports, than in their parents' sight. Remember that you have your
being from them, and come out of their loins: remember what sorrow you
have cost them, and what care they are at for your education and provision;
and remember how tenderly they have loved you, and what grief it will be
to their hearts if you miscarry, and how much your happiness will make
them glad: remember what love you owe them both by nature and in justice,
for all their love to you, and all that they have done for you: they take your
happiness or misery to be one of the greatest parts of the happiness or
misery of their own lives. Deprive them not then of their happiness, by
depriving yourselves of your own; make not their lives miserable, by
undoing yourselves. Though they chide you, and restrain you, and correct
you, do not therefore abate your love to them. For this is their duty, which
God requireth of them, and they do it for your good. It is a sign of a wicked
child, that loveth his parents the less because they correct him, and will not
let him have his own will. Yea, though your parents have many faults
themselves, yet you must love them as your parents still.

Direct. II. Honour your parents both in your thoughts, and speeches, and
behaviour. Think not dishonourably or contemptuously of them in your
hearts. Speak not dishonourably, rudely, unreverently, or saucily, either to
them or of them. Behave not yourselves rudely and unreverently before
them. Yea, though your parents be never so poor in the world, or weak of
understanding, yea, though they were ungodly, you must honour them
notwithstanding all this; though you cannot honour them as rich, or wise, or
godly, you must honour them as your parents. Remember that the fifth
commandment hath a special promise of temporal blessing; "Honour thy
father and mother that thy days may be long in the land," &c. And
consequently the dishonourers of parents have a special curse even in this
life: and the justice of God is ordinarily seen in the execution of it; the
despisers and dishonourers of their parents seldom prosper in the world.
There are five sorts of sinners that God useth to overtake with vengeance
even in this life. 1. Perjured persons and false witnesses. 2. Murderers. 3.
Persecutors. 4. Sacrilegious persons. And, 5. The abusers and dishonourers
of their parents. Remember the curse on Ham, Gen. ix. 22, 25. It is a fearful
thing to see and hear how some ill-bred ungodly children will talk
contemptuously and rudely to their parents, and wrangle and contend with
them, and contradict them, and speak to them as if they were their equals:
(and it is commonly long of the parents themselves that breed them to it:)
and at last they will grow even to abuse and vilify them. Read Prov. xxx.
17, "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother,
the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it."
Direct. III. Obey your parents in all things (which God forbiddeth not).
Remember that as nature hath made you unfit to govern yourselves, so God
in nature hath mercifully provided governors for you. Here I shall first tell
you what obedience is, and then tell you why you must be thus obedient. I.
To obey your parents is to do that which they command you, and forbear
that which they forbid you, because it is their will you should do so. You
must, 1. Have in your minds a desire to please them, and be glad when you
can please them, and sorry when you offend them; and then, 2. You must
not set your wit or your will against theirs, but readily obey their
commands, without unwillingness, murmuring, or disputing: though you
think your own way is best, and your own desires are but reasonable, yet

your own wit and will must be subjected unto theirs, or else how do you
obey them? II. And for the reasons of your obedience, 1. Consider it is the
will of God that it should be so, and he hath made them as his officers to
govern you; and in disobeying them, you disobey him. Read Eph. vi. 1-3,
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honour thy father
and mother, (which is the first commandment with promise,) that it may be
well with thee, and thou mayst live long on the earth." Col. iii. 20,
"Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the
Lord." Prov. xxiii. 22, "Hearken to thy father that begat thee, and despise
not thy mother when she is old." Prov. xiii. 1, "A wise son heareth his
father's instruction." Prov. i. 8, 9, "My son, hear the instruction of thy father,
and forsake not the law of thy mother; for they shall be an ornament of
grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck." 2. Consider also, that your
parents' government is necessary to your own good; and it is a government
of love: as your bodies would have perished, if your parents or some others
had not taken care for you, when you could not help yourselves; so your
minds would be untaught and ignorant, even like to brutes, if you had not
others to teach and govern you. Nature teacheth the chickens to follow the
hen, and all things when they are young, to be led and guided by their dams;
or else what would become of them? 3. Consider also, that they must be
accountable to God for you; and if they leave you to yourselves, it may be
their destruction as well as yours, as the sad example of Eli telleth you.
Rebel not therefore against those that God by nature and Scripture hath set
over you; though the fifth commandment require obedience to princes, and
masters, and pastors, and other superiors, yet it nameth your father and
mother only, because they are the first of all your governors, to whom by
nature you are most obliged.
But perhaps you will say, that though little children must be ruled by
their parents, yet you are grown up to riper age, and are wise enough to rule
yourselves. I answer, God doth not think so; or else he would not have set
governors over you. And are you wiser than he? It is but few in the world
that are wise enough to rule themselves; else God would not have set
princes, and magistrates, and pastors, and teachers over them, as he hath
done. The servants of the family are as old as you, and yet are unfit to be

rulers of themselves. God loveth you better than to leave you masterless, as
knowing that youth is rash and unexperienced.
Quest. But how long are children under the command and government of
their parents?
Answ. There are several acts and degrees of parents' government,
according to the several ends and uses of it. Some acts of their government
are but to teach you to go and speak, and some to teach you your labour and
calling, and some to teach you good manners, and the fear of God, or the
knowledge of the Scriptures, and some are to settle you in such a course of
living, in which you shall need their nearer oversight no more. When any
one of these ends are fully attained, and you have all that your parents'
government can help you to, then you are past that part of their government.
But still you owe them, not only love, and honour, and reverence; but
obedience also in all things in which they are still appointed for your help
and guidance: even when you are married from them, though you have a
propriety in your own estates, and they have not so strict a charge of you as
before; yet if they command you your duty to God or them, you are still
obliged to obey them.
Direct. IV. Be contented with your parents' provision for you, and
disposal of you. Do not rebelliously murmur against them, and complain of
their usage of you; much less take any thing against their wills. It is the part
of a fleshly rebel, and not of an obedient child, to be discontent and murmur
because they fare not better, or because they are kept from sports and play,
or because they have not better clothes, or because they have not money
allowed them, to spend or use at their own discretion. Are not you under
government? and the government of parents, and not of enemies? Are your
lusts and pleasures fitter to govern you, than your parents' discretion? Be
thankful for what you have, and remember that you deserve it not, but have
it freely: it is your pride or your fleshly sensuality that maketh you thus to
murmur, and not any wisdom or virtue that is in you. Get down that pride
and fleshly mind, and then you will not be so eager to have your wills.
What if your parents did deal too hardly with you, in your food, or raiment,
or expenses? What harm doth it do you? Nothing but a selfish, sensual mind
would make so great a matter of it. It is a hundred times more dangerous to

your souls and bodies to be bred too high, and fed too full and daintily, than
to be bred too low, and fed too hardly. One tendeth to pride, and gluttony,
and wantonness, and the overthrow of health and life; and the other tendeth
to a humble, mortified, self-denying life, and to the health and soundness of
the body. Remember how the earth opened, and swallowed all those
rebellious murmurers that grudged, against Moses and Aaron, Num. xvi.;
read it, and apply it to your case; and remember the story of rebellious
Absalom; and the folly of the prodigal, Luke xv.; and desire not to be at
your own disposal; nor be eager to have the vain desire of your hearts
fulfilled. While you contentedly submit to your parents, you are in God's
way, and may expect his blessing; but when you will needs be carvers for
yourselves, you may expect the punishment of rebels.
Direct. V. Humble yourselves and submit to any labour that your parents
shall appoint you to. Take heed, as you love your souls, lest either a proud
heart make you murmur and say, This work is too low and base a drudgery
for me; or lest a lazy mind and body make you say, This work is too hard
and toilsome for me; or lest a foolish, playful mind do make you weary of
your book or labour, that you may be at your sports, and say, This is too
tedious for me. It is little or no hurt that is like to befall you by your labour
and diligence; but it is a dangerous thing to get a habit or custom of idleness
and voluptuousness in your youth.
Direct. VI. Be willing and thankful to be instructed by your parents, or
any of your teachers, but especially about the fear of God, and the matters
of your salvation. These are the matters that you are born and live for; these
are the things that your parents have first in charge to teach you. Without
knowledge and holiness all the riches and honours of the world are nothing
worth; and all your pleasures will but undo you.[30] Oh what a comfort is it
to understanding parents to see their children willing to learn, and to love
the word of God, and lay it up in their hearts, and talk of it, and obey it, and
prepare betimes for everlasting life! If such children die before their
parents, how joyfully may they part with them as into the arms of Christ,
who hath said, "That of such is the kingdom of heaven," Matt. xix. 14. And
if the parents die first, how joyfully may they leave behind them a holy
seed, that is like to serve God in their generation, and to follow them to
heaven, and live with them for ever. But, whether they live or die, what a

heart-breaking to the parents are ungodly children, that love not the word
and way of God, and love not to be taught or restrained from their own
licentious courses.
Direct. VII. Patiently submit to the correction which your parents lay
upon you. Consider, that God hath commanded them to do it, and that to
save your souls from hell; and that they hate you, if they correct you not
when there is cause; and that they must not spare for your crying, Prov. xiii.
24; xxii. 15; xxix. 15; xxiii. 13, 14; xix. 18. It is not their delight, but for
your own necessity. Avoid the fault, and you may escape the correction.
How much rather had your parents see you obedient, than hear you cry! It is
not long of them, but of yourselves, that you are corrected. Be angry with
yourselves, and not with them. It is a wicked child, that instead of being
better by correction, will hate his parents for it, and so grow worse.
Correction is a means of God's appointment; and therefore go to God on
your knees in prayer, and entreat him to bless and sanctify it to you, that it
may do you good.
Direct. VIII. Choose not your own company, but use such company as by
your parents is appointed you. Bad company is the first undoing of a child.
When for the love of sport you choose such play-fellows as are idle, and
licentious, and disobedient, and will teach you to curse, and swear, and lie,
and talk filthily, and draw you from your book or duty, this is the devil's
high-way to hell. Your parents are fittest to choose your company.
Direct. IX. Choose not your own calling or trade of life, without the
choice or consent of your parents. You may tell them what you are most
inclined to, but it belongeth more to them than to you to make the choice;
and it is your part to bring your wills to theirs. Unless your parents choose a
calling for you that is unlawful; and then you may (with humble
submissiveness) refuse it. But if it be only inconvenient, you have liberty
afterward to change it for a better, if you can, when you are from under their
disposal and government.
Direct. X. Marry not without your parents' consent. Nay, if it may be, let
their choice determine first of the person, and not your own: unexperienced
youth doth choose by fancy and passion, when your experienced parents
will choose by judgment. But if they would force you to join yourselves to

such as are ungodly, and like to make your lives either sinful or miserable,
you may humbly refuse them. But you must remain unmarried, while by the
use of right means you can live in chastity, till your parents are in a better
mind. But if indeed you have a flat necessity of marrying, and your parents
will consent to none but one of a false religion, or one that is utterly unfit
for you, in such a case they forfeit their authority in that point, which is
given them for their edification, and not for your destruction; and then you
should advise with other friends that are more wise and faithful: but if you
suffer your fond affections to contradict your parents' wills, and pretend a
necessity, (that you cannot change your affections,) as if your folly were
uncurable; this is but to enter sinfully into that state of life, which should
have been sanctified to God, that he might have blessed it to you.
Direct. XI. If your parents be in want, it is your duty to relieve them
according to your ability; yea, and wholly to maintain them, if there be
need. For it is not possible by all that you can do, that ever you can be on
even terms with them; or ever requite them for what you have received of
them. It is base inhumanity, when parents come to poverty, for children to
put them off with some short allowance, and to make them live almost like
their servants, when you have riches and plenty for yourselves. Your parents
should still be maintained by you as your superiors, and not as inferiors. See
that they fare as well as yourselves; yea, though you got not your riches by
their means, yet even for your being you are their debtors for more than
that.
Direct. XII. Imitate your parents in all that is good, both when they are
living, and when they are dead. If they were lovers of God, and of his word
and service, and of those that fear him, let their example provoke you, and
let the love that you have to them, engage you in this imitation. A wicked
child of godly parents is one of the most miserable wretches in the world.
With what horror do I look on such a person! How near is such a wretch to
hell! When father or mother were eminent for godliness, and daily
instructed them in the matters of their salvation, and prayed with them, and
warned them, and prayed for them, and after all this the children shall prove
covetous or drunkards, or whoremongers, or profane, and enemies to the
servants of God, and deride or neglect the way of their religious parents, it
would make one tremble to look such wretches in the face. For though yet

there is some hope of them, alas, it is so little, that they are next to
desperate; when they are hardened under the most excellent means, and the
light hath blinded them, and their acquaintance with the ways of God hath
but turned their hearts more against them, what means is left to do good to
such resisters of the grace of God as these? The likeliest is some heavy
dreadful judgment. Oh what a woeful day will it be to them, when all the
prayers, and tears, and teachings, and good examples of their religious
parents shall witness against them! How will they be confounded before the
Lord! And how sad a thought is it to the heart of holy, diligent parents, to
think that all their prayers and pains must witness against their graceless
children, and sink them deeper into hell! And yet, alas, how many such
woeful spectacles are there before our eyes! and how deeply doth the
church of God suffer by the malice and wickedness of the children of those
parents that taught them better, and walked before them in a holy,
exemplary life! But if parents be ignorant, superstitious, idolatrous, popish,
or profane, their children are forward enough to imitate them. Then they can
say, Our forefathers were of this mind, and we hope they are saved; and we
will rather imitate them, than such innovating reformers as you. As they
said to Jeremiah, chap. xliv. 16-18, "As for the word that thou hast spoken
to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken to thee. But we will—
burn incense to the queen of heaven—as we have done, we and our fathers,
our kings, and our princes in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of
Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no
evil: but since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven,—we have
wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the
famine." Thus they walk "after the imagination of their hearts, and after
Baalim (the false worship) which their fathers taught them," Jer. ix. 14.
"And they forget God's name as their fathers did forget it," Jer. xxiii. 27.
"They and their fathers have transgressed to this day," Ezek. ii. 3. Yea,
"They harden their necks, and do worse than their fathers," Jer. vii. 26. Thus
in error and sin they can imitate their forefathers, when they should rather
remember, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19, that it cost Christ his blood "to redeem men from
their vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers." And they
should penitently confess, as Dan. ix. 8, "O Lord, to us belong confusion of
face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have
sinned against thee," ver. 16. And as Psal. cvi. 6, "We have sinned with our

fathers," &c. Saith God, Jer. xvi. 11-13, "Behold, your fathers have forsaken
me—and have not kept my law; and ye have done worse than your fathers:
therefore I will cast you out," &c. Jer. xliv. 9, 10, "Have ye forgotten the
wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and
your own wickedness? They are not humbled even unto this day." See ver.
21. Zech. i. 4, "Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have
cried, saying, Turn ye now from your evil ways, but they did not hear." Mal.
iii. 7, "Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine
ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto
you." Ezek. xx. 18, "Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers." So
ver. 27, 30, 36. Follow not your fathers in their sin and error, but follow
them where they follow Christ, 1 Cor. xi. 1.

FOOTNOTE

[30] Read Mr. Tho. White's little book for little children. Mark ix. 36; x.
14, 16.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH TOWARDS
GOD.

Though I put your duty to your parents first, because it is first learned, yet
your duty to God immediately is your greatest and most necessary duty.
Learn these following precepts well.
Direct. I. Learn to understand the covenant and vow which in your
baptism you made with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, your
Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator: and when you well understand it,
renew that covenant with God in your own persons, and absolutely deliver
up yourselves to God, as your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, your
Owner, your Ruler, and your Father and felicity. Baptism is not an idle
ceremony, but the solemn entering into covenant with God, in which you
receive the greatest mercies, and bind yourselves to the greatest duties. It is
but the entering into that way which you must walk in all your lives, and
avowing that to God which you must be still performing. And though your
parents had authority to promise for you, it is you that must perform it; for
it was you that they obliged. If you ask by what authority they obliged you
in covenant to God, I answer, by the authority which God hath given them
in nature, and in Scripture; as they oblige you to be subjects of the king, or
as they enter your names into any covenant, by lease or other contract,
which is for your benefit; and they do it for good, that you may have part in
the blessings of the covenant; and if you grudge at it, and refuse your own
consent when you come to age, you lose the benefits. If you think they did
you wrong, you may be out of covenant when you will, if you will renounce
the kingdom of heaven. But it is much wiser to be thankful to God, that
your parents were the means of so great a blessing to you, and to do that
again more expressly by yourselves which they did for you; and openly

with thankfulness to own the covenant in which you are engaged, and live
in the performance and in the comforts of it all your days.
Direct. II. Remember that you are entering into the way to everlasting
life, and not into a place of happiness or continuance. Presently therefore
set your hearts on heaven, and make it the design of all your lives, to live in
heaven with Christ for ever. O happy you, if God betimes will thoroughly
teach you to know what it is that must make you happy; and if at your first
setting out, your end be right, and your faces be heavenward! Remember
that as soon as you begin to live, you are hasting towards the end of your
lives: even as a candle as soon as it beginneth to burn, and the hour-glass as
soon as it is turned, is wasting, and hasting to its end; so as soon as you
begin to live, your lives are in a consumption, and posting towards your
final hour. As a runner, as soon as he beginneth his race, is hasting to the
end of it; so are your lives, even in your youngest time. It is another kind of
life that you must live for ever, than this trifling, pitiful, fleshly life. Prepare
therefore speedily for that which God sent you hither to prepare for. O
happy you, if you begin betimes, and go on with cheerful resolution to the
end! It is blessed wisdom to be wise betimes, and to know the worth of time
in childhood, before any of it be wasted and lost upon the fooleries of the
world. Then you may grow wise indeed, and be treasuring up
understanding, and growing up in sweet acquaintance with the Lord, when
others are going backwards, and daily making work for sad repentance or
final desperation. Eccl. xxi. 1, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of
thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou
shalt say, (of all things here below,) I have no pleasure in them."
Direct. III. Remember that you have corrupted natures to be cured, and
that Christ is the Physician that must cure them; and the Spirit of Christ
must dwell within you, and make you holy, and give you a new heart and
nature, which shall love God and heaven above all the honour and pleasures
of the world: rest not therefore till you find that you are born anew, and that
the Holy Ghost hath made you holy, and quickened your hearts with the
love of God, and of your dear Redeemer.[31] The old nature loveth the
things of this world, and the pleasures of this flesh; but the new nature
loveth the Lord that made you, and redeemed and renewed you, and the

endless joys of the world to come, and that holy life which is the way
thereto.
Direct. IV. Take heed of loving the pleasures of the flesh, in over-much
eating, or drinking, or play. Set not your hearts upon your belly or your
sport; let your meat, and sleep, and play be moderate. Meddle not with
cards or dice, or any bewitching or riotous sports: play not for money, lest it
stir up covetous desires, and tempt you to be over-eager in it, and to lie, and
wrangle, and fall out with others. Use neither food or sports which are not
for your health; a greedy appetite enticeth children to devour raw fruits, and
to rob their neighbours' orchards, and at once to undo both soul and body.
And an excessive love of play doth cause them to run among bad
companions, and lose their time, and destroy the love of their books, and
their duty, and their parents themselves, and all that is good. You must eat,
and sleep, and play for health, and not for useless, hurtful pleasure.[32]
Direct. V. Subdue your own wills and desires to the will of God and your
superiors, and be not eagerly set upon any thing which God or your parents
do deny you. Be not like those self-willed, fleshly children, that are
importunate for any thing which their fancy or appetite would have, and cry
or are discontent if they have it not. Say not that I must have this or that, but
be contented with any thing which is the will of God and your superiors. It
is the greatest misery and danger in the world, to have all your own wills,
and to be given up to your hearts' desire.[33]
Direct. VI. Take heed of a custom of foolish, filthy railing, lying, or any
other sinful words. You think it is a small matter, but God thinketh not so; it
is not a jesting matter to sin against the God that made you: it is fools that
make a sport with sin, Prov. xiv. 9; x. 23; xxvi. 19. One lie, one curse, one
oath, one ribald, or railing, or deriding word, is worse than all the pain that
ever your flesh endured.
Direct. VII. Take heed of such company and play-fellows, as would
entice and tempt you to any of these sins, and choose such company as will
help you in the fear of God. And if others mock at you, care no more for it,
than for the shaking of a leaf, or the barking of a dog. Take heed of lewd
and wicked company, as ever you care for the saving of your souls. If you
hear them rail, or lie, or swear, or talk filthily, be not ashamed to tell them,

that God forbiddeth you to keep company with such as they, Psal. cxix. 63;
Prov. xiii. 20; xviii. 7; 1 Cor. v. 12; Eph. v. 11.
Direct. VIII. Take heed of pride and covetousness. Desire not to be fine,
nor to get all to yourselves; but be humble, and meek, and love one another,
and be as glad that others are pleased as yourselves.
Direct. IX. Love the word of God, and all good books which would make
you wiser and better; and read not play-books, nor tale-books, nor love-
books, nor any idle stories. When idle children are at play and fooleries, let
it be your pleasure to read and learn the mysteries of your salvation.
Direct. X. Remember that you keep holy the Lord's day. Spend not any of
it in play or idleness: reverence the ministers of Christ, and mark what they
teach you, and remember it is a message from God about the saving of your
souls. Ask your parents when you come home, to help your understandings
and memories in any thing which you understood not or forgot. Love all the
holy exercises of the Lord's day, and let them be pleasanter to you than your
meat or play.
Direct. XI. Be as careful to practise all, as to hear and read it. Remember
all is but to make you holy, to love God, and obey him: take heed of sinning
against your knowledge, and against the warnings that are given you.
Direct. XII. When you grow up, by the direction of your parents choose
such a trade or calling, as alloweth you the greatest helps for heaven, and
hath the fewest hinderances, and in which you may be most serviceable to
God before you die. If you will but practise these few directions, (which
your own hearts must say have no harm in any of them,) what happy
persons will you be for ever!

FOOTNOTES

[31] 2 Cor. v. 17; Rom. viii. 9, 13; John iii. 3, 5, 6.
[32] 1 Cor. x. 31.
[33] Psal. lxxxi. 10-12.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE DUTIES OF SERVANTS TO THEIR MASTERS.

If servants would have comfortable lives, they must approve themselves
and their service unto God, because from him they must have their
comforts; which may be done by following these directions.
Direct. I. Reverence the providence of God which calleth you to a
servant's life, and murmur not at your labour, or your low condition; but
know your mercies, and be thankful for them. Though perhaps you have
more labour than your masters, yet, have you not less care than they? Most
servants may have quieter lives, if it were not for their unthankful,
discontented hearts. You are not troubled with the care of providing your
landlord's rent, or meat, and drink, and wages for your servants, nor with
the wants and desires of wives and children, nor with the faults and
naughtiness of such as you must use or trust; nor with the losses and crosses
which your masters are liable to. Be thankful to God, who for a little bodily
labour, doth free you from the burden of all these cares.
Direct. II. Take your condition as chosen for you by God, and take
yourselves as his servants, and your work as his, and do all as to the Lord,
and not only for man; and expect from God your chief reward. You will be
else but eye-servants and hypocrites, if the fear of God do not awe your
consciences: and if you were the best servants to your masters in the world,
and did not all in obedience to God, it were but a low, unprofitable service;
if you believe that there is an infinite distance between God and man, you
may conceive what a difference there is between serving God and man:
your wages is all your reward from man, but eternal life is God's reward:
and the very same work and labour which one man hath but his year's
wages for, another hath everlasting life for, (though not of merit, yet of the
bounty of our Lord,) Rom. vi. 23; because he doth it in love and obedience
to that God who hath promised this reward. "Servants, obey in all things

your masters according to the flesh: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers,
but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily
as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward of the inheritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ: but he that doeth
wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no
respect of persons," Col. iii. 22-25. The like is in Eph. vi. 5-8. So much doth
God respect the heart, that the very same action hath such different
successes and rewards, as it is done to different ends, and from different
principles: your lowest service may be thus sanctified and acceptable to
God.
Direct. III. Be conscionable and faithful in performing all the labour and
duty of a servant. Neglect not such business as you are to do; nor do it
lazily, and deceitfully, and by the halves. As it is thievery or deceit for a
man in the market to sell another the whole of his commodity, and when he
hath done, to keep back and defraud him of a part; so is it no less for a
servant that selleth his time and labour to another, to defraud him of part of
that time and service which you sold him. Think not therefore that it is no
sin, to idle away an hour which is not your own, or to slubber over the work
which you undertake to do. Slothfulness and unconscionableness make
servants deceitful: such care not how they do their work, if they can but
make their masters believe that it is done well: they are hypocrites in their
service, that take more care to seem painful, trusty servants, than to be so;
and to hide their faults and slothfulness, than to avoid them; as if it were as
easy to hide them also from God, who hath resolved to punish all the wrong
they do their masters, Col. iii. 25. If they can but loiter and take their ease,
and their masters know it not, they are never troubled at it as a sin against
God: laziness and fleshly-mindedness doth so blind them, that they think it
is no sin to take as much ease as they can, so they carry it fair and smoothly
with their masters, and to slubber over their business any how, so that it will
but serve the turn: whereas if their masters should keep back any of their
wages, or put more work upon them than is meet, they would easily be
persuaded that this were a sin. If your labour be such as would hurt your
health, (as by wet or cold, &c.) you may foresee it, and avoid it in your
choice of places: but if it be only the labour that you grudge at, it is a sign
of a fleshly and unfaithful person; as long as it is not excessive to wrong

your health, nor hurt your souls, by denying you leisure for your duty to
God. The Lord himself commandeth you to be obedient in singleness of
heart, as unto Christ, not as eye-servants; and whatever you do, to do it
heartily, knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he
receive of the Lord, Eph. vi. 5, 6, 8; Col. iii. 23.
Direct. IV. Be more careful about your duty to your masters, than about
their duty or carriage to you. Be much more careful what to do, than what to
receive; and to be good servants, than to be used as good servants. Not but
you may modestly expect your due, and to be used as servants should be
used; but your duty is much more to be regarded; for if your master wrong
you, that is his sin, and none of yours: God will not be offended with you
for another's faults, but for your own; not for being wronged, but for doing
wrong: and it is better suffer the greatest wrong, than offend God by
committing the smallest sin.
Direct. V. Be true and faithful in all that is committed to your trust:
dispose not of any thing that is your master's without his consent; though
you may think it never so reasonable, or well done, yet remember that it is
none of your own: if you would relieve the poor, or please a fellow-servant,
or do a kindness to a neighbour, do it of your own, and not of another's,
unless you have his allowance. Be as thrifty for your master, as you would
be for yourselves. Waste no more of his goods, than you would do if it were
your own. Say not as false servants do, My master is rich enough, and it
will do him no harm, and therefore we may make bold, and not be so
sparing and niggardly. The question is not, what he should do, but what you
should do. If you take any of your rich neighbour's goods or money, to give
to the poor, you may be hanged as thieves, as well as if you stole it for
yourselves. To take any thing of another's against his will, is to rob or steal:
let the value be never so small, if it be but the worth of a penny that you
steal or defraud another of, the sin is not small: nay, it aggravateth the sin,
that you will presume to break God's law for such a trifle, and venture your
soul for so small a thing: though it be taken from one that may never so
well spare it, that is no excuse to you; it is none of yours. Especially let
those servants think of this, that are trusted with buying and selling, or with
provisions. If you defraud your masters because you can conceal it, believe
it, God that knoweth it will reveal it; and if you repent of it, you must make

restitution of all that ever you thus robbed them of, if you have any thing to
do it with; and if you have nothing, you must with sorrow and shame
confess it to them, and ask forgiveness: but if you repent not, you must pay
dearer for it in hell, than this comes to. Object. But did not the Lord
commend the unjust steward? Luke xvi. 8. Answ. Yes, for his wit in
providing for himself, but not for his unjustness. He only teacheth you
there, that if the wicked worldlings have wit to provide for this life, much
more should you have the wit to make provision for the life to come. It is
faithfulness that is a steward's duty, 1 Cor. iv. 2.
Direct. VI. Honour your masters, and behave yourselves towards them
with that respect and reverence as your place requireth.[34] Behave not
yourselves rudely or contemptuously towards them, in word or deed. Be not
so proud as to disdain to keep the distance and reverence which is due. You
should scorn to be servants, if you scorn to behave yourselves as servants.
Give them not saucy, provoking, or contemptuous language; not wording it
out with them in bold contending, and justifying yourselves when your
faults are reprehended. Mark the apostle's words, Tit. ii. 9, 10, "Exhort
servants to be obedient to their own masters, and to please them well in all
things, not answering again; not purloining, but showing all good fidelity,
that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." And
1 Tim. vi. 1-4, "Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own
masters worthy of all honour;" (yea, though they were infidels or poor,)
"that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." (For wicked
men will say, Is this your religion? when servants professing religion, are
disobedient, unreverent, and unfaithful.) "And they that have believing
masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do
them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.
These things teach and exhort: if any man teach otherwise, and consent not
to wholesome words—he is proud, knowing nothing."
Direct. VII. Go not unwillingly or murmuringly about your business, but
take it as your delight. An unwilling mind doth lose God's reward, and
man's acceptance. Grudging and unwillingness maketh your work of little
value, be it never so well done. "Do service heartily, and with good will as
to the Lord," Eph. vi. 7; Col. iii. 23.

Direct. VIII. Obey your masters in all things (which God forbiddeth not,
and which their place enableth them to command you); and set not your
own conceits and wills against their commands.[35] It is not obedience, if
you will do no more of their commands, than what agreeth with your own
opinions and wills. What if you think another way best, or another work
best, or another time best; are you to govern or obey? If the work be not
yours, but another's, let his will and not yours be fulfilled, and do his
service in his own way. It is God's command, "Servants, obey your masters
in all things," Col. iii. 22.
Direct. IX. Reveal not any of the secrets of your masters, or of the family.
[36] Talk not to others of what is said or done at home; be not over-familiar
at other men's houses, where you may be tempted to talk of your masters'
businesses; many words may have mischievous effects, which were well
intended. That servant is unfit for a wise man's family, that hath some
familiar abroad, to whom he must tell all that he heareth or seeth at home;
for his familiar hath another familiar, and so a man shall be betrayed by
those of his own household, Mic. vii. 6, as Christ by Judas.
Direct. X. Grudge not at the meanness of the provisions of the family. If
you have not that which is needful to your health, remove to another place
as soon as you can, without reproaching the place where you are. But if you
have your daily bread, that is, your necessary, wholesome food, how coarse
soever, your murmuring for want of more delicious fare, is but your shame,
and showeth that your hearts are sunk into your bellies, and that you are
fleshly-minded persons.[37]
Direct. XI. Pray daily for a blessing on your labours and on the family,
both privately and with the rest. A praying servant may prevail with God,
for more than all their labour cometh to; and their labours are liker to be
blessed, than the labours of a prayerless, ungodly person. You are not
worthy to partake of the mercies of the family, if you will not join in
prayers for those mercies.
Direct. XII. Willingly submit to the teaching and government of your
masters about the right worshipping of God, and for the good of your own
souls. Bless God, if you live with religious masters that will instruct you
and catechise you, and pray with you, and restrain you from breaking the

Lord's day, and other sins, and will examine you of your profiting, and
watch over your souls, and sharply rebuke you when you do that which is
evil. Be glad of their instructions, and murmur not at them, as ignorant,
ungodly servants do. These few directions carefully followed will make
your service better to you, than lordships and kingdoms are to the ungodly.

FOOTNOTES

[34] Exod. xx. 12; Rom. xiii. 7.
[35] Acts x. 7.
[36] Prov. xxv. 9; xi. 13; xx. 19.
[37] Phil. iii. 18, 19.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DUTIES OF MASTERS TOWARDS THEIR SERVANTS.

If you would have good servants, see that you be good masters, and do your
own duty, and then either your servants will do theirs, or else all their
failings shall turn to your greater good.[38]
Direct. I. Remember that in Christ they are your brethren and fellow-
servants; and therefore rule them not tyrannically, but in tenderness and
love; and command them nothing that is against the laws of God, or the
good of their souls. Use not wrath and unmanlike fury with them; nor any
over-severe or unnecessary rebukes or chastisements. Find fault in season,
with prudence and sobriety, when your passions are down, and when it is
most likely to do good. If it be too little, it will imbolden them in doing ill;
if it be too much, or frequent, or passionate, it will make them slight it and
despise it, and utterly hinder their repentance: they will be taken up in
blaming you for your rashness and violence, instead of blaming themselves
for the fault.
Direct. II. Provide them work convenient for them, and such as they are
fit for; not such or so much as to wrong them in their health, or hinder them
from the necessary means of their salvation; nor yet so little as may cherish
their idleness, or occasion them to lose their precious time. It is cruelty to
lay more on your horse than he can carry; or to work your oxen to skin and
bones. Prov. xii. 10, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast;" much
more of his servant. Especially put not your servants on any labour which
hazardeth their health or life, without true necessity to some greater end.
Pity and spare them more in their health than in their bare labour. Labour
maketh the body sound; but to take deep colds, or go wet of their feet, do
tend to their sickness and death. And should another man's life be cast away
for your commodity? Do as you would be done by, if you were servants
yourselves and in their case; and let not their labours be so great, as shall

allow them no time to pray before they go about it, or as shall so tire them
as to unfit them for prayer, or instruction, or the worship of the Lord's day,
and shall lay them like blocks, as fitter to lie to sleep or rest themselves,
than to pray, or hear, or mind any thing that is good. And yet take heed that
you suffer them not to be idle, as many great men use their serving men, to
the undoing of their souls and bodies. Idleness is no small sin itself, and it
breedeth and cherisheth many others: their time is lost by it; and they are
made unfit for any honest employment or course of life, to help themselves
or any others.
Direct. III. Provide them such wholesome food and lodging, and such
wages as their service doth deserve, or as you have promised them.[39]
Whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, let their food and lodging be healthful.
It is so odious an oppression and injustice to defraud a servant or labourer
of his wages, (yea, or to give him less than he deserveth,) that methinks I
should not need to speak much against it among christians. Read James v.
1-5, and I hope it will be enough.
Direct. IV. Use not your servants to be so bold and familiar with you, as
may tempt them to despise you; nor yet so strange and distant, as may
deprive you of opportunity of speaking to them for their spiritual good, or
justly lay you open to be censured as too magisterial and proud. Both these
extremes have ill effects; but the first is the commonest, and is the disquiet
of many families.
Direct. V. Remember that you have a charge of the souls in your family,
and are as a priest and teacher in your own house; and therefore see that you
keep them to the constant worshipping of God, especially on the Lord's day,
in public and private; and that you teach them the things that concern their
salvation (as is afterward directed). And pray for them daily, as well as for
yourselves.
Direct. VI. Watch over them that they offend not God: bear not with
ungodliness or gross sin in your family. Read Psal. ci. Be not like those
ungodly masters, that look only that their own work be done, and bid God
look after his work himself, and care not for their servants' souls, because
they care not for their own; and mind not whether God be served by others,

because they serve him not (unless with hypocritical lip-service)
themselves.
Direct. VII. Keep your servants from evil company, and from being
temptations to each other, as far as you can. If you suffer them to frequent
alehouses, or riotous assemblies, or wanton or malignant company, when
they are infected themselves, they will bring home the infection, and all the
house may fare the worse for it. And when Judas groweth familiar with the
Pharisees, he will be seduced by them to betray his Master. You cannot be
accountable for your servants if you suffer them to be much abroad.
Direct. VIII. Go before them as examples of holiness and wisdom, and all
those virtues and duties which you would teach them. An ignorant or a
swearing, cursing, railing, ungodly master, doth actually teach his servants
to be such; and if his words teach them the contrary, he can expect but little
reverence or success.
Direct. IX. Patiently bear with those tolerable frailties which their
unskilfulness, or bodily temperature, or other infirmity, make them liable to
against their wills. A willing mind is an excuse for many frailties; much
must be put up with, when it is not from wilfulness or gross neglect: make
not a greater matter of every infirmity or fault, than there is cause. Look not
that any should be perfect upon earth; reckon upon it, that you must have
servants of the progeny of Adam, that have corrupted natures, and bodily
weaknesses, and many things that must be borne with. Consider how
faultily you serve your heavenly Master, and how much he daily beareth
with that which is amiss in you, and how many faults and oversights you
are guilty of in your own employment, and how many you should be
overtaken with if you were in their stead. Eph. vi. 9, "And ye masters, do
the same things to them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master
also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him." Col. iv. 1,
"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal," &c.
Direct. X. See that they behave themselves well to their fellow-servants:
of which I shall speak anon.

Tit. 2. Directions to those Masters in foreign Plantations who have Negroes
and other Slaves; being a solution of several cases about them.

Direct. I. Understand well how far your power over your slaves
extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto.
As, 1. Sufficiently difference between men and brutes. Remember that
they are of as good a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable creatures as
well as you, and born to as much natural liberty. If their sin have enslaved
them to you, yet nature made them your equals. Remember that they have
immortal souls, and are equally capable of salvation with yourselves. And
therefore you have no power to do any thing which shall hinder their
salvation. No pretence of your business, necessity, commodity, or power,
can warrant you to hold them so hard to work, as not to allow them due
time and seasons for that which God hath made their duty.
2. Remember that God is their absolute Owner, and that you have none
but a derived and limited propriety in them. They can be no further yours,
than you have God's consent, who is the Lord of them and you; and
therefore God's interest in them and by them must be served first.
3. Remember that they and you are equally under the government and
laws of God. And therefore all God's laws must be first obeyed by them,
and you have no power to command them to omit any duty which God
commandeth them, nor to commit any sin which God forbiddeth them; nor
can you, without rebellion or impiety, expect that your work or commands
should be preferred before God's.
4. Remember that God is their reconciled, tender Father, and if they be as
good, doth love them as well as you. And therefore you must use the
meanest of them no otherwise, than beseemeth the beloved of God to be
used; and no otherwise than may stand with the due signification of your
love to God, by loving those that are his.
5. Remember that they are the redeemed ones of Christ, and that he hath
not sold you his title to them. As he bought their souls at a price invaluable,
so he hath not given the purchase of his blood to be absolutely at your
disposal. Therefore so use them, as to preserve Christ's right and interest in
them.
Direct. II. Remember that you are Christ's trustees, or the guardians of
their souls; and that the greater your power is over them, the greater your

charge is of them, and your duty for them. As you owe more to a child than
to a day-labourer, or a hired servant, because, being more your own, he is
more intrusted to your care; so also by the same reason, you owe more to a
slave, because he is more your own; and power and obligation go together.
As Abraham was to circumcise all his servants that were bought with
money, and the fourth commandment requireth masters to see that all within
their gates observe the sabbath day; so must you exercise both your power
and love to bring them to the knowledge and faith of Christ, and to the just
obedience of God's commands.
Those therefore that keep their negroes and slaves from hearing God's
word, and from becoming christians, because by the law they shall then be
either made free, or they shall lose part of their service, do openly profess
rebellion against God, and contempt of Christ the Redeemer of souls, and a
contempt of the souls of men; and indeed they declare, that their worldly
profit is their treasure and their god.
If this come to the hands of any of our natives in Barbadoes, or other
islands or plantations, who are said to be commonly guilty of this most
heinous sin, yea, and to live upon it, I entreat them further to consider as
followeth: 1. How cursed a crime is it to equal men and beasts! Is not this
your practice? Do you not buy them and use them merely to the same end,
as you do your horses? to labour for your commodity, as if they were baser
than you, and made to serve you?
2. Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you
vilify them as savages and barbarous wretches? Did they ever do any thing
more savage, than to use not only men's bodies as beasts, but their souls as
if they were made for nothing but to actuate their bodies in your worldly
drudgery? Did the veriest cannibals ever do any thing more cruel or odious,
than to sell so many souls to the devil for a little worldly gain? Did ever the
cursedest miscreants on earth, do any thing more rebellious, and contrary to
the will of the most merciful God, than to keep those souls from Christ, and
holiness, and heaven, for a little money, who were made and redeemed for
the same ends, and at the same precious price as yours? Did your poor
slaves ever commit such villanies as these? Is not he the basest wretch and

the most barbarous savage, who committeth the greatest and most inhuman
wickedness? And are theirs comparable to these of yours?
3. Doth not the very example of such cruelty, besides your keeping them
from christianity, directly tend to teach them and all others, to hate
christianity, as if it taught men to be so much worse than dogs and tigers?
4. Do you not mark how God hath followed you with plagues? and may
not conscience tell you that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies
of so many? Remember the late fire at the bridge in Barbadoes: remember
the drowning of your governor and ships at sea, and the many judgments
that have overtaken you; and at the present the terrible mortality that is
among you.
5. Will not the example and warning of neighbour countries rise up in
judgment against you and condemn you? You cannot but hear how odious
the Spanish name is made (and thereby, alas! the christian name also,
among the West Indians) for their most inhuman cruelties in Hispaniola,
Jamaica, Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and other places, which is described by
Josep. a Costa, a Jesuit of their own; and though I know that their cruelty
who murdered millions, exceedeth yours, who kill not men's bodies, yet
yours is of the same kind, in the merchandise which you make with the
devil for their souls, whilst you that should help them with all your power,
do hinder them from the means of their salvation. And on the contrary, what
an honour is it to those of New England, that they take not so much as the
native soil from them, but by purchase! that they enslave none of them, nor
use them cruelly, but show them mercy, and are at a great deal of care, and
cost, and labour for their salvation! Oh how much difference between holy
Mr. Elliot's life and yours! His, who hath laboured so many years to save
them, and hath translated the holy Bible into their language, with other
books; and those good men's in London who are a corporation for the
furtherance of his work; and theirs that have contributed so largely towards
it; and yours that sell men's souls for your commodity!
6. And what comfort are you like to have at last, in that money that is
purchased at such a price? Will not your money and you perish together?
will you not have worse than Gehazi's leprosy with it; yea, worse than
Achan's death by stoning; and as bad as Judas his hanging himself, unless

repentance shall prevent it? Do you not remember the terrible words in Jude
11, "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran
greedily after the errors of Balaam." And 2 Pet. ii. 3, 14, 15, "Through
covetousness—they make merchandise of you.—An heart they have
exercised with covetous practices; cursed children (or children of a curse)
which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way
of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but
was rebuked for his iniquity; the dumb ass speaking with man's voice
forbad the madness of the prophet." When you shall every one hear, "Thou
fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and then whose shall those
things be which thou hast provided?" Luke xii. 19-21; will it not then cut
deep in your perpetual torments, to remember that you got that little pelf by
betraying so many souls to hell? What men in the world doth James speak
to, if not to you? Jam. v. 1-4, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for
your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your
garments are moth-eaten: your gold and silver are cankered; and the rust of
them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire:
ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the
labourers which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back
by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped, are entered into
the ears of the Lord of sabaoth." How much more the cry of betrayed souls!
And here we may seasonably answer these cases. Quest. 1. Is it lawful
for a christian to buy and use a man as a slave? Quest. 2. Is it lawful to use a
christian as a slave? Quest. 3. What difference must we make between a
free servant and a slave?
To Quest. 1. I answer, There is a slavery to which some men may be
lawfully put; and there is a slavery to which none may be put; and there is a
slavery to which only the criminal may be put, by way of penalty.
1. No man may be put to such a slavery as under the first direction is
denied, that is, such as shall injure God's interest and service, or the man's
salvation. 2. No man, but as a just punishment for his crimes, may be so
enslaved, as to be deprived of those liberties, benefits, and comforts, which
brotherly love obligeth every man to grant to another for his good, as far as
is within our power, all things considered. That is, the same man is a servant

and a brother, and therefore must at once be used as both. 3. Though
poverty or necessity do make a man consent to sell himself to a life of lesser
misery to escape a greater, or death itself; yet is it not lawful for any other
so to take advantage by his necessity, as to bring him into a condition that
shall make him miserable, or in which we shall not exercise so much love,
as may tend to his sanctification, comfort, and salvation: because no justice
is beseeming a christian or a man, which is not conjoined with a due
measure of charity.
But, 1. He that deserveth it by way of penalty may be penally used. 2. He
that stole and cannot restore may be forced to work it out as a servant; and
in both these cases more may be done against another's ease or liberty, than
by mere contract or consent. He that may hang a flagitious offender doth
him no wrong if he put him to a slavery, which is less penal than death. 3.
More also may be done against enemies taken in a lawful war, than could be
done against the innocent by necessitated consent. 4. A certain degree of
servitude or slavery is lawful by the necessitated consent of the innocent.
That is, so much, (1.) As wrongeth no interest of God. (2.) Nor of mankind
by breaking the laws of nations. (3.) Nor the person himself, by hindering
his salvation, or the needful means thereof; nor those comforts of life,
which nature giveth to man as man. (4.) Nor the commonwealth or society
where we live.
Quest. 2. To the second question I answer, 1. As men must be variously
loved according to the various degrees of amiableness in them, so various
degrees of love must be exercised towards them; therefore good and real
christians must be used with more love and brotherly tenderness than
others. 2. It is meet also, that infidels have so much mercy showed them in
order to the saving of their souls, as that they should be invited to
christianity by fit encouragements; and so, that they should know that if
they will turn christians, they shall have more privileges and emoluments
than the enemies of truth and piety shall have. It is therefore well done of
princes who make laws that infidel slaves shall be free-men, when they are
duly christened. 3. But yet a nominal christian, who by wickedness
forfeiteth his life or freedom, may penally be made a slave as well as
infidels. 4. And a poor and needy christian may sell himself into a harder
state of servitude than he would choose, or we could otherwise put him into.

But, 5. To go as pirates and catch up poor negroes or people of another land,
that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is
one of the worst kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be
taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use
them as beasts, for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect
their souls, are fitter to be called incarnate devils than christians, though
they be no christians whom they so abuse.
Quest. 3. To the third question, I answer, That the solution of this case is
to be gathered from what is said already. A servant and a voluntary slave
were both free-men, till they sold or hired themselves; and a criminal
person was a free-man till he forfeited his life or liberty. But afterwards the
difference is this; that, 1. A free servant is my servant, no further than his
own covenant made him so; which is supposed to be, (1.) To a certain kind
and measure of labour, according to the meaning of his contract. (2.) For a
limited time, expressed in the contract, whether a year, or two, or three, or
seven.
2. A slave by mere contract is one that, (1.) Usually selleth himself
absolutely to the will of another as to his labour both for kind and measure;
where yet the limitations of God and nature after (and before) named, are
supposed among christians to take place. (2.) He is one that selleth himself
to such labour, during life.
3. A slave by just penalty, is liable to so much servitude as the magistrate
doth judge him to, which may be, (1.) Not only such labour, as aforesaid, as
pleaseth his master to impose. (2.) And that for life. (3.) But it may be also
to stripes and severities which might not lawfully be inflicted on another.
1. The limitations of a necessitated slavery by contract or consent through
poverty are these: (1.) Such a one's soul must be cared for and preserved,
though he should consent to the contrary. He must have time to learn the
word of God, and time to pray, and he must rest on the Lord's day, and
employ it in God's service; he must be instructed, and exhorted, and kept
from sin. (2.) He may not be forced to commit any sin against God. (3.) He
may not (though he forcedly consent) be denied such comforts of this life,
as are needful to his cheerful serving of God in love and thankfulness,
according to the peace of the gospel state; and which are called by the name

of our daily bread. No man may deny a slave any of this, that is not a
criminal, punished slave.
2. And the most criminal slave may not be forced to sin, nor denied
necessary helps to his salvation. But he may penally be beaten and denied
part of his daily bread; so it be not done more rigorously than true justice
doth require.
Quest. But what if men buy negroes or other slaves of such as we have
just cause to believe did steal them by piracy, or buy them of those that
have no power to sell them, and not hire or buy them by their own consent,
or by the consent of those that had power to sell them, nor take them
captives in a lawful war, what must they do with them afterward?
Answ. 1. It is their heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to
deliver them. 2. Having done it, undoubtedly they are presently bound to
deliver them; because by right the man is his own, and therefore no man
else can have just title to him.
Quest. But may I not sell him again and make my money of him, seeing I
leave him but as I found him?
Answ. No; because when you have taken possession of him, and a
pretended propriety, then the injury that is done him is by you; which before
was only by another. And though the wrong be no greater than the other did
him, yet being now done by you it is your sin.
Quest. But may I not return him to him that I bought him of?
Answ. No; for that is but injuring him by delivering him to another to
continue the injury. To say as Pilate, "I am innocent of the blood of this just
man," will be no proof of your innocency; yea, God's law bindeth you to
love, and works of love, and therefore you should do your best to free him.
He that is bound to help to save a man, that is fallen into the hand of thieves
by the high-way, if he should buy that man as a slave of the thieves, may
not after give him up to the thieves again. But to proceed in the directions.
Direct. III. So serve your own necessities by your slaves as to prefer
God's interest, and their spiritual and everlasting happiness. Teach them the
way to heaven, and do all for their souls which I have before directed you to

do for all your other servants. Though you may make some difference in
their labour, and diet, and clothing, yet none as to the furthering of their
salvation. If they be infidels, use them so as tendeth to win them to Christ,
and the love of religion, by showing them that christians are less worldly,
less cruel and passionate, and more wise, and charitable, and holy, and
meek, than any other persons are. Woe to them that by their cruelty and
covetousness, do scandalize even slaves, and hinder their conversion and
salvation!
Direct. IV. By how much the hardness of their condition doth make their
lives uncomfortable, and God hath cast them lower than yourselves, by so
much the more let your charity pity them, and labour to abate their burden,
and sweeten their lives to them, as much as your condition will allow. And
remember that even a slave may be one of those neighbours that you are
bound to love as yourselves, and to do to as you would be done by, if your
case were his. Which if you do, you will need no more direction for his
relief.
Direct. V. Remember that you may require no more of an innocent slave,
than you would or might do of an ordinary servant, if he were at your will,
and did not by contract except something as to labour or usage which else
you would think just and meet to have required of him.
Direct. VI. If they are infidels, neither be too hasty in baptizing them,
when they desire it, nor too slow. Not so hasty as to put them on it, before
they understand what the baptismal covenant is; or before you see any
likelihood that they should be serious in making such a covenant. Nor yet
so slow as to let them alone to linger out their lives in the state of those
without the church. But hasten them to learn, and stir up their desires, and
look after them, as the ancient churches did after their catechumens; and
when you see them fit by knowledge, belief, desire, and resolution, to vow
themselves to God on the terms of the holy covenant, then put them on to
be baptized. But if you should feel an abatement of your desires of their
conversion, because you shall lose their service, (much more if ever you
had a wish that they might not be converted, which is plain devilism,) let it
be the matter of your deep humiliation and repentance.

Direct. VII. Make it your chief end in buying and using slaves, to win
them to Christ, and save their souls. Do not only endeavour it on the by,
when you have first consulted your own commodity; but make this more of
your end, than your commodity itself; and let their salvation be far more
valued by you than their service: and carry yourselves to them, as those that
are sensible that they are redeemed with them by Christ from the slavery of
Satan, and may live with them in the liberty of the saints in glory.

FOOTNOTES

[38] Rom. viii. 28.
[39] Col. iv. 1.

CHAPTER XV.

THE DUTIES OF CHILDREN AND FELLOW-SERVANTS TO ONE
ANOTHER.

It is not easy to resolve, whether good governors, or good fellow-servants,
in a family, be the greater help and benefit, to each of the inferiors. For
servants are so much together, and so free and familiar with each other, that
they have the more opportunity to be useful to each other, if they have but
abilities and hearts. It is needful, therefore, that you know your duty to one
another, both for doing and getting that good which otherwise will be lost.
Direct. I. Love one another unfeignedly as yourselves; avoid all
contention and falling out with one another, or any thing that would weaken
your love to one another; especially differences about your personal
interests, in point of profit, provision, or reputation. Take heed of the spirit
of envy, which will make your hearts rise against those that are preferred
before you, or that are used better than you. Remember the sin and misery
of Cain, and take warning by him. Give place to others, and in honour
prefer others, and seek not to be preferred before them, Rom. xii. 10, 16.
God delighteth to exalt the humble that abase themselves, and to cast down
those that exalt themselves. When the interest of your flesh can make you
hate or fall out with each other, what a fearful sign is it of a fleshly mind!
Rom. viii. 6, 13.
Direct. II. Take heed of using provoking words against each other. For
these are the bellows to blow up that which the apostle calleth "the fire of
hell," James iii. 6. A foul tongue setteth on fire the course of nature; and
therefore it may set a family on fire, James iii. 5, 6. "Where envying and
strife is, there is confusion and every evil work," ver. 16. If ye be angry,
refrain your tongues "and sin not, and let not the sun go down upon your
wrath: neither give place to the devil," Eph. iv. 26, 27. "Let all bitterness,
and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from

you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you," ver.
31, 32. 1 Cor. vi. 10, "Revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Direct. III. Help one another with love and willingness in your labours;
and do not grudge at one another, and say such a one doth less than I; but be
as ready to help another, as you would be helped yourselves. It is very
amiable to see a family of such children and servants, that all take one
another's concernments as their own, and are not selfish against each other.
Psal. cxxxiii. 1, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to
dwell together in unity!"
Direct. IV. Take heed that you prove not tempters to draw each other to
sin and misery. Either by joining together in riotousness, or wronging your
masters, or secret revelling, and then in lying to conceal it; or lest immodest
familiarity draw those of different sexes into a snare. Abundance of sin and
misery hath followed such tempting familiarity of men and maids that were
fellow-servants. Their nearness giveth them opportunity, and the devil
provoketh them to take their opportunity; and from immodest, wanton
dalliance, and unchaste words, they proceed at last to more lasciviousness,
to their own undoing. Bring not the straw to the fire, if you would not have
it burn.
Direct. V. Watch over one another for mutual preservation against the sin
and temptations which you are most in danger of. Agree to tell each other of
your faults, not proudly or passionately, but in love; and resolve to take it
thankfully from each other. If any one talk foolishly and idly, or wantonly
and immodestly, or tell a lie, or take God's name in vain, or neglect their
duty to God or man, or deal unfaithfully in their trust or labour, let the other
seriously tell him of his sin, and call him to repentance. And let not him that
is guilty take it ill, and angrily snap at the reprover, or justify or excuse the
fault, or hit him presently in the teeth with his own; but humbly thank him
and promise amendment. Oh how happy might servants be, if they would
faithfully watch over one another!
Direct. VI. When you are together, and your work will allow it, let your
discourse be such as tendeth to edification, and to the spiritual good of the
speaker or the hearers. Some work there is that must be thought on, and

talked of, while it is doing, and will not allow you leisure to think or speak
of other things, till it is done; but very much of the work of most servants
may be as well done, though they think and speak together of heavenly
things; besides all other times when their work is over. O take this time to
be speaking of good to one another. It is like, that some one of you hath
more knowledge than the rest; let the rest be asking his counsel and
instructions, and let him bend himself to do them good: or if you are equal
in knowledge, yet stir up the grace that is in you, if you have any; or stir up
your desires after it, if you have none. Waste not your precious time in
vanity; multiply not the sin of idle words. Oh what a load doth lie on many
a soul that feeleth it not, in the guilt of these two sins, loss of time, and idle
words! To be guilty of the same sins over and over, every day, and make a
constant practice of them, and this against your own knowledge and
conscience, is a more grievous case than many think of; whereas, if you
would live together as the heirs of heaven, and provoke one another to the
love of God, and holy duty, and delightfully talk of the word of God, and
the life to come, what blessings might you be to one another! and your
service and labour would be a sanctified and comfortable life to you all.
Eph. iv. 29, 30, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth,
but that which is good to the use of edifying, and may minister grace to the
hearers: and grieve not the holy Spirit of God." And chap. v. 3, 4, "But
fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness, (or rather, inordinate,
fleshly desire,) let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient;
but rather giving of thanks." Of this more anon.
Direct. VII. Patiently bear with the failings of one another towards
yourselves, and hide those faults, the opening of which will do no good, but
stir up strife; but conceal not those faults which will be cherished by
concealment, or whose concealment tendeth to the wrong of your master, or
any other. For it is in your power to forgive a fault against yourselves, but
not against God, or another. And to know when you should reveal it, and
when not, you must wisely foreknow which way is like to do more good or
harm. And if yet you be in doubt, open it first to some secret friend, that is
wise to advise you, whether it should be further opened or not.

Direct. VIII. If weakness, or sickness, or want afflict a brother, or sister,
or fellow-servant, be kind and helpful to them according to your power.
"Love not in word only, but in deed and truth," 1 John iii. 18; James ii.

CHAPTER XVI.

DIRECTIONS FOR HOLY CONFERENCE OF FELLOW-SERVANTS OR
OTHERS.

Because this is a duty so frequently to be performed; and therefore the
peace and edification of christians is very much concerned in it, I shall give
a few brief directions about it.
Direct. 1. Labour most for a full and lively heart, which hath the feeling
of those things which your tongues should speak of. For, 1. Such a heart
will be like a spring which is always running, and will continually feed the
streams. Forced and feigned things are of short continuance; the hypocrite's
affected, forced speech, is exercised but among those where it may serve his
pride and carnal ends; at other times, and in other company, he hath another
tongue like other men. It is like a land-flood that is quickly gone; or like the
bending of a bow, which returneth to its place as soon as it is loosed. 2. And
that which cometh from your hearts, will be serious and hearty, and likeliest
to do good to others; for words do their work upon us, not only by
signifying the matter which is spoken, but also by signifying the affections
of the speaker. And that which will work affections, must express affection
ordinarily. If it come not from the heart of the speaker, it is not so like to go
to the hearts of the hearers. A hearty preacher, and a hearty, feeling
discourse of holy things, do pierce heart-deep, and do that good, which
better composed words that are heartless do not.
Direct. II. Yet for all that, when your hearts are cold, and dull, and barren,
do not think that your tongues must therefore neglect their duty, and be
silent from all good, till your hearts be better, but force your tongues to do
their duty, if they will not do it freely without constraint. For, 1. Duty is
duty, whether you be well-disposed to it or not: if all duty should cease
when men are ill-disposed to it, no wicked man would be bound to any
thing that is truly holy. 2. And if heart and tongue be both obliged, it is

worse to omit both than one. 3. And there may be sincerity in a duty, when
the heart is cold and dull. 4. And beginning to do your duty as well as you
can, is the way to overcome your dulness and unfitness; when you force
your tongues at first to speak of that which is good, the words which you
speak or hear, may help to bring you into a better frame. Many a man hath
begun to pray with coldness, that hath got him heat before he had done; and
many a man hath gone unwillingly to hear a sermon, that hath come home a
converted soul. 5. And when you set yourselves in the way of duty, you are
in the way of promised grace.
Object. But is not this to play the hypocrite, to let my tongue go before
my heart; and speak the things which my heart is not affected with?
Answ. If you speak falsely and dissemblingly, you play the hypocrite; but
you may force yourselves to speak of good, without any falsehood or
hypocrisy. Words signify, as I told you, the matter spoken, and the speaker's
mind. Now your speaking of the things of God doth tell no more of your
mind but this, that you take them to be true, and that you desire those that
you speak to, to regard them: and all this is so; and therefore there is no
hypocrisy in it. Indeed if you told the hearers, that you are deeply affected
with these things yourselves, when it is not so, this were hypocrisy. But a
man may exhort another to be good, without professing himself to be good;
yea, though he confess himself to be bad. Therefore all the good discourses
of a wicked man are not hypocrisy; much less the good discourse of a
sincere christian, that is dull and cold in that discourse. And if a duty had
some hypocrisy in it, it is not the duty, but the hypocrisy, that God disliketh,
and you must forsake: as if there be coldness in a duty, it is the coldness,
and not the duty, that is to be blamed and forborne. And wholly to omit the
duty, is worse than to do it with some coldness or hypocrisy, which is not
the predominant complexion of the duty.
Object. But if it be not the fruit of the Spirit, it is not acceptable to God;
and that which I force my tongue to, is none of the fruits of the Spirit.
Therefore I must stay till the Spirit move me.
Answ. 1. There are many duties done by reason, and the common
assistances of God, that are better than the total omission of them is. Else no
unsanctified man should hear the word, or pray, or relieve the poor, or obey

his prince or governors, or do any duty towards children or neighbours,
because whatsoever is not the fruit of the special grace of the Spirit, is sin;
and without faith it is impossible to please God; and all men have not faith,
Heb. xi. 6; 2 Thess. iii. 2. 2. It is a distracted conceit of the quakers, and
other fanatics, to think that reason and the Spirit of God are not conjunct
principles in the same act. Doth the Spirit work on a man as on a beast or
stone? and cause you to speak as a clock that striketh it knoweth not what?
or play on man's soul, as on an instrument of music that hath neither
knowledge of the melody, nor any pleasure in it? No, the Spirit of God
supposeth nature, and worketh on man as man, by exciting your own
understanding and will to do their parts. So that when, against all the
remnant of dulness and backwardness that is in you, you can force
yourselves to do your duty, it is because the Spirit of God assisteth you to
take that resolution, and use that force. For thus the Spirit striveth against
the flesh, Gal. v. 17; Rom. vii. 16-18. Though it is confessed, that there is
more of the Spirit, where there is no backwardness or resistance, or need of
forcing.
Direct. III. By all means labour to be furnished with understanding in the
matters of God. For, 1. An understanding person hath a mine of holy matter
in himself, and never is quite void of matter for good discourse. He is the
good scribe, that is instructed to the kingdom of God, that bringeth out of
his treasury things new and old, Matt. xiii. 52. 2. And an understanding
person will speak discreetly, and so will much further the success of his
discourse, and not make it ridiculous, contemptuous, or uneffectual through
his indiscretion. But yet if you are ignorant and wanting in understanding,
do not therefore be silent; for though your ability is least, your necessity is
greatest. Let necessity therefore constrain you to ask instruction, as it
constraineth the needy to beg for what they want. But spare no pains to
increase your knowledge.
Direct. IV. If your own understandings and hearts do not furnish you with
matter, have recourse to those manifold helps that God vouchsafeth you. As,
1. You may discourse of the last sermon that you heard, or some one lately
preached that nearly touched you. 2. Or of something in the last book you
read. 3. Or of some text of Scripture obvious to your thoughts. 4. Or of
some notable (yea, or ordinary) providence which did lately occur. 5. Or of

some examples of good or evil that are fresh before you. 6. Or of the right
doing of the duty that you are about, or any such like helps.
Direct. V. Talk not of vain, unprofitable controversies, nor often of small,
circumstantial matters that make but little to edification. For there may be
idle talking about matters of religion, as well as about other smaller things.
Especially see that the quarrels of the times engage not your thoughts and
speeches too far, into a course of unprofitableness or contention.
Direct. VI. Furnish yourselves beforehand with matter for the most
edifying discourse, and never go abroad empty. And let the matter be
usually, 1. Things of weight, and not small matters. 2. Things of certainty,
and not uncertain things. Particularly the fittest subjects for your ordinary
discourse are these: 1. God himself, with his attributes, relations, and
works. 2. The great mystery of man's redemption by Christ; his person,
office, sufferings, doctrine, example, and work; his resurrection, ascension,
glory, intercession, and all the privileges of his saints. 3. The covenant of
grace, the promises, the duties, the conditions, and the threatenings. 4. The
workings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul, and every grace of the Spirit
in us; with all the signs, and helps, and hinderances of it. 5. The ways and
wiles of Satan, and all our spiritual enemies; the particular temptations
which we are in danger of; what they are and how to avoid them, and what
are the most powerful helps against them. 6. The corruption and
deceitfulness of the heart; the nature and workings, effects, and signs of
ignorance, unbelief, hypocrisy, pride, sensuality, worldliness, impiety,
injustice, intemperance, uncharitableness, and every other sin; with all the
helps against them all. 7. The many duties to God and man which we have
to perform, both internal and external, and how to do them, and what are the
chiefest hinderances and helps. (As in reading, hearing, meditating, prayer,
giving alms, &c.) And the duties of our relations, and several places, with
the contrary sins. 8. The vanity of the world, and deceitfulness of all earthly
things. 9. The powerful reasons used by Christ to draw us to holiness, and
the unreasonable madness of all that is brought against it, by the devil or by
wicked men. 10. Of the sufferings which we must expect and be prepared
for. 11. Of death, and the preparations that will then be found necessary;
and how to make ready for so great a change. 12. Of the day of judgment,
and who will then be justified, and who condemned. 13. Of the joys of

heaven, the employment, the company, the nature, and duration. 14. Of the
miseries of the damned, and the thoughts that they then will have of their
former life on earth. 15. Of the state of the church on earth, and what we
ought to do in our places for its welfare. Is there not matter enough in all
these great and weighty points, for your hourly meditation and conference?
Direct. VII. Take heed of proud self-conceitedness in your conference.
Speak not with supercilious, censorious confidence. Let not the weak take
on them to be wiser than they are. Be readier to speak by way of question as
learners, than as teachers of others, unless you are sure that they have much
more need to be taught by you, than you by them. It is ordinary for novices
in religion to cast all their discourse into a teaching strain, or to make
themselves preachers before they understand. It is a most loathsome and
pitiful hearing (and yet too ordinary) to hear a raw, self-conceited,
ungrounded, unexperienced person to prate magisterially, and censure
confidently the doctrine, or practices, or persons of those that are much
better and wiser than themselves. If you meet with this proud, censorious
spirit, rebuke it first, and read to them James iii.; and if they go on, turn
away from them, and avoid them, for they know not what manner of spirit
they are of: they serve not the Lord Jesus, whatever they pretend or think
themselves, but are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions,
and making divisions in the church of God, and ready to fall into the
condemnation of the devil, 1 Tim. iii. 6; vi. 3-5; Rom. xvi. 17; Luke ix. 55.
Direct. VIII. Let the wisest in the company, and not the weakest, have
most of the discourse: but yet if any one that is of an abler tongue than the
rest, do make any determinations in doubtful, controverted points, take heed
of a hasty receiving his judgment, let his reasons seem never so plausible or
probable; but put down all such opinions as doubts, and move them to your
teachers, or some other impartial, able men, before you entertain them.
Otherwise, he that hath most wit and tongue in the company, might carry
away all the rest into what error or heresy he please, and subvert their faith
when he stops their mouths.
Direct. IX. Let the matter of your speech be suitable to your end, even to
the good of yourselves or others, which you seek. The same subject that is
fit for one company is very unfit for others. Learned men and ignorant men,

pious men and profane men, are not fit for the same kind of discourse. The
medicine must be carefully fitted to the disease.
Direct. X. Let your speech be seasonable, when prudence telleth you it is
not like to do more harm than good. There is a season for the prudent to be
silent, and refrain even from good talk, Amos v. 17; Psal. xxxix. 1, 2. "Cast
not pearls before swine, and give not holy things to dogs, that you know
will turn again and rend you," Matt. vii. 6. Yea, and among good people
themselves, there is a time to speak, and a time to be silent, Eccles. iii. 7.
There may possibly be such excess as tendeth to the tiring of the hearers;
and more may be crammed in than they can digest; and surfeiting may
make them loathe it afterwards. You must give none more than they can
bear; and also the matters of your business and callings, must be talked of in
their time and place.
Direct. XI. Let all your speech of holy things be with the greatest
seriousness and reverence that you are able. Let the words be never so
good, yet levity and rudeness may make them to be profane. God and holy
things should not be talked of in a common manner; but the gravity of your
speech should tell the hearers, that you take them not for small or common
matters. If servants and others that live near together would converse and
speak as the oracles of God, how holy, and heavenly, and happy would such
families or societies be!

CHAPTER XVII.

DIRECTIONS FOR EACH PARTICULAR MEMBER OF THE FAMILY
HOW TO SPEND EVERY ORDINARY DAY OF THE WEEK.

It somewhat tendeth to make a holy life more easy to us, when we know the
ordinary course and method of our duties, and every thing falleth into its
proper place; as it helpeth the husbandman or tradesman to know the
ordinary course of his work, that he need not go out of it, unless in
extraordinary cases. Therefore I shall here give you some brief directions
for the holy spending of every day.
Direct. I. Proportion the time of your sleep aright, (if it be in your power,)
that you waste not your precious morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let
the time of your sleep be rationally fitted to your health and labour, and not
sensually to your slothful pleasure. About six hours is meet for healthful
people, and seven hours for the less healthful, and eight for the more weak
and aged, ordinarily. The morning hours are to most the preciousest of all
the day, for all our duties; especially servants that are scanted of time, must
take it then for prayer, if possible, lest they have none at all.
Direct. II. Let God have your first awaking thoughts: lift up your hearts
to him reverently and thankfully for the rest of the night past, and briefly
cast yourselves upon him for the following day; and use yourselves so
constantly to this, that your consciences may check you, when common
thoughts shall first intrude. And if you have a bed-fellow to speak to, let
your first speech be agreeable to your thoughts. It will be a great help
against the temptations that may else surprise you, and a holy engagement
of your hearts to God, for all the day.
Direct. III. Resolve, that pride and the fashions of the times shall never
tempt you into such a garb of attire, as will make you long in dressing you
in the morning; but wear such clothing as is soon put on. It is dear-bought