neither were God's hands wearied with making one; and yet he made no more. For him who first exceeded that, Lamech, who had two wives, the first was Adah, and Adah signifies cœtum, congregationem; there is company enough, society enough in a wife his other wife was but Zillah, and Zillah is but umbra, but a shadow, but a ghost, that will terrify at last.

To proceed; though God always provide remedies, and supplies of defects, it is not always in the greatest measure, nor in the presentest manner, that we conceive to ourselves. So much may be intimated even in this, that in this remedy of God's provision, the woman, God proceeded not, as he did in the making of man; it is not faciamus, with such a counsel, such a deliberation as was used in that case. When the creation of all the substance of the whole world is expressed, it is creavit Dii, Gods created, as though more Gods were employed; and in the making of him, who was the abridgement of all, of man, it is faciamus, let us make him, as though more persons were employed: it is not so in the woman, for though the first translation of the Bible that ever were and the translation of the Roman church have it in the plural, yet it is not so in the original; it is but faciam. I press no more upon this, but one lesson to ourselves, that if God exercise us with temporal afflictions, narrowness in our fortunes, infirmities in our constitutions, or with spiritual afflictions, ignorance in our understandings, scruples in our conscience, if God come not altogether in his faciamus, to pour down with both hands abundance of his worldly treasures, or of his spiritual light and clearness, let us content ourselves with one hand from him, with that manner and that measure that he gives, and that time and that leisure which he takes. And then one lesson also to the other sex, that they will be content, even by this form and change of phrase, to be remembered, that they are the weaker vessel, and that Adam was not deceived but the woman was 20. For whether you will ease that with Theodoret's exposition, Adam was not deceived first, but the woman was first deceived; or with Chrysostom's exposition, Adam was not deceived by a serpent, a creature loathsome, and unacceptable, but by a lovely person, with whom he was transported: or with Oecumenius' exposition; 20 1 Tim. ii. 14.

19 Gen. iv. 19.

Adam was not deceived, because there is no charge laid upon him in the Scriptures, no mention that he was deceived in them, as it is said, that Melchizedek had no father nor mother, because there is no record of his pedigree in the Scriptures: or in Ambrose's exposition; that Adam was not deceived in prævaricationem, not so deceived as that he deceived anybody else: take it any way, and it implies a weakness in the woman, and an occasion of suppling her to that just estimation of herself, That she will be content to learn in silence with all subjection"; that as she is not a servant, but a mother in the house, so she is but a daughter, and not a mother of the church.

This is presented more fully in the next, that she is but adjutorium, but a help: and nobody values his staff as he does his legs. It is not an ordinary disease now, to be too uxorious; that needs no great dissuasion. But if any one man in a congregation be obnoxious to any one infirmity, one note is not ill spent and let St. Hierome give this note, Sapiens judicio amat, non affectu, Discretion is the weight of love in a wise man's hand, and not affection. St. Hierome cannot stay there; he adds thus much more, Nihil fœdius, quàm uxorem amare tanquam adulteram, There is not a more uncomely, a poorer thing, than to love a wife like a mistress. St. Augustine makes that comparison, That whensoever the apostles preached, they were glad when their auditory liked their preaching, Non ariditate consequendæ laudis, sed charitate seminandæ virtutis; Not that they affected the praise of the people, but that thereby they saw, that they had done more good upon the people. And in another place he makes that comparison, That a righteous man desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and yet this righteous man dines, and sups, takes ordinary refections and ordinary recreations: so, for marriage, says he, in temperate men, Officiosum, non libidinosum, It is to pay a debt, not to satisfy appetite; lest otherwise she prove in ruinam, who was given in adjutorium, and he be put to the first man's plea, Mulier quam dedisti, The woman whom thou gavest me, gare me my death.

So much then she should be, a helper; for, for that she was made. She is not so, if she remember not those duties which

21 1 Tim. ii. 11.

i

are intimated in the stipulation and contract which she hath made. Call it conjugium, and that is derived à jugo, it is an equal patience in bearing the incommodities of this life. Call it nuptias, and that is derived à nube, a veil, a covering; and that is an estranging, a withdrawing herself from all such conversation as may violate his peace, or her honour. Call it matrimonium, and that is derived from a mother, and that implies a religious education of her children. De latere sumpta, non discedat à latere, says Augustine, Since she was taken out of his side, let her not depart from his side, but show herself so much as she was made for, adjutorium, a helper.

But she must be no more; if she think herself more than a helper, she is not so much. He is a miserable creature, whose creator is his wife. God did not stay to join her in commission with Adam, so far as to give names to the creatures; much less to give essence; essence to the man, essence to her husband. When the wife thinks her husband owes her all his fortune, all his discretion, all his reputation, God help that man himself, for he hath given him no helper yet. I know there are some glasses stronger than some earthen vessels, and some earthen vessels stronger than some wooden dishes; some of the weaker sex, stronger in fortune, and in counsel too; than they to whom God hath given them, but yet let them not impute that in the eye nor ear of the world, nor repeat it to their own hearts, with such a dignifying of themselves, as exceeds the quality of a helper. St. Hierome shall be her remembrancer, She was not taken out of the foot, to be trodden upon, nor out of the head, to be an overseer of him; but out of his side, where she weakens him enough, and therefore should do all she can, to be a helper.

To be so, so much, and no more, she must be as God made Eve, similis ei, meet and fit for her husband. She is fit for any if she have those virtues, which always make the person that hath them good; as chastity, sobriety, taciturnity, verity, and such: for, for such virtues as may be had, and yet the possessor not the better for them, as wit, learning, eloquence, music, memory, cunning, and such, these make her never the fitter. There is a harmony of dispositions, and that requires particular consideration upon emergent occasions; but the fitness that goes through all,

is a sober continency; for without that, matrimonium jurata fornicatio, marriage is but a continual fornication, sealed with an oath and marriage was not instituted to prostitute the chastity of the woman to one man, but to preserve her chastity from the temptations of more men. Bathsheba was a little too fit for David, when he had tried her so far before; for there is no fitness where there is not continency. To end all, there is a moral fitness, consisting in those moral virtues, of which we have spoke enough; and there is a civil fitness, consisting in discretion, and accommodating herself to him; and there is a spirtual fitness, in the unanimity of religion, that they be not of repugnant professions that way. Of which, since we are well assured in both these, who are to be joined now, I am not sorry, if either the hour, or the present occasion call me from speaking anything at all, because it is a subject too mis-interpretable, and unseasonable to admit an enlarging in at this time. At this time therefore, this be enough, for the explication and application of these words.

SERMON LXXXIII.

PREACHED AT A MARRIAGE.

HOSEA ii. 19.

And I will marry thee unto me for ever.

THE word which is the hinge upon which all this text turns, is erash, and erash signifies not only a betrothing, as our later translation hath it, but a marriage; and so is it used by David, Deliver me my wife Michal, whom I married'; and so our former translation had it, and so we accept it, and so shall handle it, I will marry thee unto me for ever.

The first marriage that was made, God made, and he made it in paradise and of that marriage I have had the like occasion as

1 2 Sam. iii. 14.

this to speak before, in the presence of many honourable persons in this company. The last marriage which shall be made, God shall make too, and in paradise too; in the kingdom of heaven: and at that marriage, I hope in him that shall make it, to meet, not some, but all this company. The marriage in this text hath relation to both those marriages: it is itself the spiritual and mystical marriage of Christ Jesus to the church, and to every marriageable soul in the church: and it hath a retrospect, it looks back to the first marriage; for to that the first word carries us, because from thence God takes his metaphor, and comparison, Sponsabo, I will marry; and then it hath a prospect to the last marriage, for to that we are carried in the last word, in æternum, I will marry thee unto me for ever. Be pleased therefore to give me leave in this exercise, to shift the scene thrice, and to present to your religious considerations three objects, three subjects: first, a secular marriage in paradise; secondly, a spiritual marriage in the church; and thirdly, an eternal marriage in heaven. And in each of these three we shall present three circumstances; first the persons, me and tibi, I will marry thee; and then the action, sponsabo, I will marry thee; and lastly the term, in æternum, I will marry thee to me for ever.

In the first acceptation then, in the first, the secular marriage in paradise, the persons were Adam and Eve: ever since they are he and she, man and woman: at first, by reason of necessity, without any such limitation, as now: and now without any other limitation, than such as are expressed in the law of God: as the apostles say in the first general council, We lay nothing upon you but things necessary, so we call nothing necessary but that which is commanded by God. If in heaven I may have the place of a man that hath performed the commandments of God, I will not change with him that thinks he hath done more than the commandments of God enjoined him. The rule of marriage for degrees and distance in blood, is the law of God; but for conditions of men, there is no rule given at all. When God had made Adam and Eve in paradise, God did not place Adam in a monastery on one side, and Eve in a nunnery on the other, and so a They that built walls and cloisters to

river between them.

2 Acts xv. 28.