of government to your husbands, when yet 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 obe dience.

Direct. 111. 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.' "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 a;" (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.)

a."

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." 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 husband's 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 b Prov. xii. 1. X. 17. xv. 10. 31, 32. xvii. 10.

a 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35.

them against your husbands. If God have made your near est 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. vr. 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 impa tient, discontented wife. Many a poor man can easily bear his poverty himself, that yet is not able to bear his wife's im patience 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 be trayed 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 calam ity 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 disqui etness 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. 111. 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. "A meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price." (Write those words in your bed-chamber on the walls where they may be, daily before your eyes.) "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. "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 overmind 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 (O 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

c1 Pet. iii, 4.

d Col. iii. 12.

e 1 Pet. v. 5.

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. "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 "." 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. "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." "The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. The beginning 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 Matt. xii. 36. Eccles. v. 3. 7. h Eccles. x 12-14.

f Prov. x. 19.

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, x1, 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, without his knowledge and consent.' You are not only to 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 case1. 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 the 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, iSee Dr. Gouge on Family Relations, who saith the most against women's giving.