Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (5).pdf/16

16 the sky. Like motes in the sun. Like snuffs in the candle. Like weeds in the garden.

It is not good to play the butcher with that naked sex, that hath no arms but for embraces. A preacher should not be silent for those who are silenced from preaching; because they are the weaker vessels, shall they be broken all to pieces: Thou that sayest women are evil, it may be thy expression flows from thy experience: But I shall never take that mariner for my pilot, that hath no better knowledge than the splitting of his own ship. Wilt thou condemn the frame of all, for the fault of one? As if it were true logic, because some are evil, therefore none are good. He hath ill eyes that disdains all objects; to blast thy helper, is to blame thy Maker. In a word, we took our rise from their bowels, and may take our rest in their bosoms.

2. Is the woman to be a help to the man? Then let the man be a help to the woman. What makes these debtors to be such ill paymasters, but because they look at what is owing to them, but not to what is owing by them. If thou wouldest have thy wife's reverence, let her have thy respect. To force a tear from this relation, is that which neither benefits the husband's authority to enjoin, nor the wife's duty to perform. A wife must not be sharply driven, but sweetly drawn. Compassion may bend her, but compulsion will break her. Husband and wife should act towards each other with consent, not by constraint. There are