many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society; but he that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows; and blessing itself cannot make him happy so that all the commandments of God enjoining a man to "love his wife," are nothing but so many necessities and capacities of joy. "She that is loved is safe; and he that loves is joyful." Love is a union of all things excellent; it contains in it proportion and satisfaction, and rest and confidence; and I wish that this were so much proceeded in that the heathens themselves could not go beyond us in this virtue, and its proper and its appendant happiness. Tiberius Gracchus chose to die for the safety of his wife; and yet, methinks, for a Christian to do so should be no hard thing; for many servants will die for their masters, and many gentlemen will die for their friend; but the examples are not so many of those that are ready to do it for their dearest relatives, and yet some there have been. Baptista Fregosa tells of a Neapolitan that gave himself a slave to the Moors, that he might follow his wife; and Dominicus Catalusius, the prince of Lesbos, kept company with his lady when she was a leper; and these are greater things than to die.

But the cases in which this can be required are so rare and contingent that Holy Scripture instances not the duty in this particular; but it contains in it that the husband should nourish and cherish her, that he should refresh her sorrows and entice her fears into confidence and pretty arts of rest; for even the fig-trees that grew in paradise had sharp-pointed leaves, harshnesses fit to mortify the too-forward lusting after the sweetness of the fruit. But it will concern the prudence of the husband's love to make the cares and evils as simple and easy as he can, by doubling the joys and acts of a careful friendship, by tolerating her infirmities (because by so doing he either cures her or makes himself better), by fairly expounding all the little traverses of society and communication, "by taking everything by the right handle," as Plutarch's expression is; for there is nothing but may be misinterpreted, and yet if it be capable of a fair construction, it is the office of love to make it. Love will

account that to be well said, which, it may be, was not so intended; and then it may cause it to be so another time.

3. Hither also is to be referred that he secure the interest of her virtue and felicity by a fair example; for a wife to a husband is a line or superficies; it hath dimensions of its own, but no motion or proper affections; but commonly puts on such images of virtues or vices as are presented to her by her husband's idea; and if thou beest vicious, complain not that she is infected that lies in thy bosom; the interest of whose love ties her to transcribe thy copy, and write after the characters of thy manners. Paris was a man of pleasure, and Helena was an adulteress, and she added covetousness on her own account. But Ulysses was a prudent man, and a wary counsellor, sober and severe; and he efformed his wife into such imagery as he desired; and she was chaste as the snows on the mountains, diligent as the fatal sisters, always busy, and always faithful: "she had a lazy tongue, and a busy hand."

4. Above all the instances of love, let him preserve towards her an inviolable faith, and an unspotted chastity; for this is the marriage-ring; it ties two hearts by an eternal band; it is like the cherubim's flaming sword, set for the guard of paradise; he that passes into that garden, now that it is immured by Christ and the Church, enters into the shades of death. No man must touch the forbidden tree, that in the midst of the garden, which is the tree of knowledge and life. Chastity is the security of love, and preserves all the mysteriousness like the secrets of a temple. Under this lock is deposited security of families, the union of affections, the repairer of accidental breaches. This is a grace that is shut up and secured by all arts of heaven, and the defence of laws, the locks and bars of modesty, by honor and reputation, by fear and shame, by interest and high regards; and that contract that is intended to be forever is yet dissolved, and broken by the violation of this; nothing but death can do so much evil to the holy rites of marriage as unchastity and breach of faith can. The shepherd Cratis falling in love with a she-goat, had his brains beaten out with a buck as he lay asleep; and by the laws of the Romans, a man might kill his daughter or his wife, if he surprised her in the breach of her holy vows, which are as sacred as the threads of life, secret as the privacies of the sanctuary, and holy as the society of angels; and God

that commanded us to forgive our enemies, left it in our choice, and hath not commanded us to forgive an adulterous husband or a wife; but the offended party's displeasure may pass into an eternal separation of society and friendship. Now in this grace it is fit that the wisdom and severity of the man should hold forth a pure taper, that his wife may, by seeing the beauties and transparencies of that crystal, dress her mind and her body by the light of so pure reflections; it is certain he will expect it from the modesty and retirement, from the passive nature and colder temper, from the humility and fear, from the honor and love, of his wife, that she be pure as the eye of heaven; and therefore it is but reason that the wisdom and nobleness, the love and confidence, the strength and severity, of the man, should be as holy and certain in this grace, as he is a severe exactor of it at her hands, who can more easily be tempted by another, and less by herself.

These are the little lines of a man's duty, which, like threads of light from the body of the sun, do clearly describe all the regions of his proper obligations. Now concerning the woman's duty, although it consists in doing whatsoever her husband commands, and so receives measures from the rules of his government, yet there are also some lines of life depicted on her hands, by which she may read and know how to proportion out her duty to her husband.

1. The first is obedience; which, because it is nowhere enjoined that the man should exact of her, but often commanded to her to pay, gives demonstration that it is a voluntary cession that is required-such a cession as must be without coercion and violence on his part, but on fair inducements and reasonableness in the thing, and out of love and honor on her part. When God commands us to love Him, He means we should obey Him" This is love, that ye keep my commandments;" and " If ye love me," said our Lord, " keep my commandments." Now as Christ is to the Church, so is man to the wife, and therefore obedience is the best instance of her love, for it proclaims her submission, her humility, her opinion of his wisdom, his preeminence in the family, the right of his privilege, and the injunction imposed by God on her sex, that although in sorrow she bring forth children, yet with love and choice she should obey. The man's authority is love, and the woman's love is

obedience; and it was not rightly observed of him that said, when the woman fell, "God made her timorous that she might be ruled," apt and easy to obey, for this obedience is no way founded in fear, but in love and reverence; receptæ reverentiæ est si mulier viro subsit, said the law. Unless also that we will add that it is an effect of that modesty which like rubies adorns the necks and cheeks of women. Said the maiden in the comedy," It is modesty to advance and highly to honor them, who have honored us by making us to be the companions" of their dearest excellences. For the woman that went before the man in the way of death is commanded to follow him in the way of love; and that makes the society to be perfect, and the union profitable, and the harmony complete. For then the soul and body make a perfect man, when the soul commands wisely, or rules lovingly, and cares profitably, and provides plentifully, and conducts charitably that body which is its partner, and yet the inferior. But if the body shall give laws, and by the violence of the appetite first abuse the understanding, and then possess the superior portion of the will and choice, the body and the soul are not apt company, and the man is a fool, and miserable. If the soul rules not, it cannot be a companion; either it must govern or be a slave. Never was king deposed and suffered to live in the state of peerage and equal honor, but made a prisoner or put to death; and those women that had rather lead the blind than follow prudent guides, rule fools and easy men than obey the powerful and wise, never made a good society in a house. A wife never can become equal but by obeying, but so her power, while it is in minority, makes up the authority of the man integral, and becomes one government as themselves are one man. Male and female created He them, and called their name Adam," saith the Holy Scripture; they are but one, and therefore the several parts of this one man must stand in the place where God appointed, that the lower parts may do their offices in their own station, and promote the common interest of the whole. A ruling woman is intolerable. It is a sad calamity for a woman to be joined to a fool or a weak person; it is like a guard of geese to keep the Capitol; or as if a flock of sheep should read grave lectures to their shepherd, and give him orders where he shall conduct them to pasture. "To be ruled by weaker people," "to have a fool to one's master," is

the fate of miserable and unblessed people; and the wife can be no ways happy, unless she be governed by a prudent lord, whose commands are sober counsels, whose authority is paternal, whose orders are provisions, and whose sentences are charity.

For although in those things which are of the necessary parts of faith and holy life the woman is only subject to Christ, who only is and can be Lord of consciences, and commands alone where the conscience is instructed and convinced, yet, as it is part of the man's office to be a teacher and a prophet, and a guide and a master, so also it will relate very much to the demonstration of their affections to obey his counsels, to imitate his virtues, to be directed by his wisdom, to have her persuasion measured by the lines of his excellent religion. "It were hugely decent," saith Plutarch, "that the wife should acknowledge her husband for her teacher and her guide," for then when she is what he please to efform her, he hath no cause to complain if she be no better. "His precepts and wise counsels can draw her off from vanities;" and as he said of geometry, that if she be skilled in that she will not easily be a gamester or a dancer, may perfectly be said of religion; if she suffers herself to be guided by his counsel and efformed by his religion, either he is an ill master in his religion, or he may secure in her, and for his advantage, an excellent virtue. And although in matters of religion the husband hath no empire and command, yet if there be a place left to persuade, and entreat, and induce by arguments, there is not in a family a greater endearment of affections than the unity of religion, and anciently it was not permitted to a woman to have a religion by herself, and the rites which a woman performs severally from her husband are not pleasing to God, and therefore Pomponia Græcina, because she entertained a stranger religion, was permitted to the judgment of her husband Plantius. And this whole affair is no stranger to Christianity, for the Christian woman was not suffered to marry an unbelieving man; and although this is not to be extended to different opinions within the limits of the common faith, yet thus much advantage is won or lost by it, that the compliance of the wife, and submission of her understanding to the better rule of her husband in matters of religion, will help very much to warrant her though she should be mispersuaded in a matter less necessary, yet nothing can warrant her in her