Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (2).pdf/11

 What the ſin against the Holy Ghoſt is, in point of divinity, that is unthankfulneſs, in point of morality, an offence unpardonable. Pity it is, but that moon ſhould be ever in an eclipse, that will not acknowledge her beams to be borrowed from the ſun. He that praiſes not the giver, prizes not the gift. And ſo I paſs from the Agent to the Object, A help.

She muſt be ſo much, and no leſs; and ſo much, and no more. Our ribs were not ordained to be our rulers. They are not made of the head, to claim ſuperiority; but out of the ſide, to be content with equality. They deſert the Author of nature, who invert the order of nature. The woman was made for the man's comfort, but the man was nat made for woman's command. Thoſe ſhoulders aſpire too high that content not themſelves with a room below their head.

It is between a man and his wife in the houſe, as it is between the ſun and the moon in the heavens, when the greater light goes down, the leſſer light gets up; when the one ends in ſetting, the other begins in ſhining. The wife may be a ſovereign in her huſband's abſence, but ſhe muſt be ſubject in her huſband's preſence.

As Pharaoh ſaid to Joſeph, ſo ſhould the huſband ſay to his wife, Gen. xli. 40. "Thou ſhalt be over my houſe, and according to thy word ſhall all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be greater than thou." The body of that houſehold can never make any good motion, whose bones are out of place.

The woman must be a help to the man in theſe