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

Rh many creatures to serve him, yet he wanted a creature to solace him; when he was compounded in creation, he must be compleated by conjunction; when he had no sin to hurt him, then he must have a wife to help him. It is not good that man should be alone.

Secondly, As it is lengthened to all men, and so it is taken universally, Heb. viii. 4. Marriage is honourable unto all. It is not only warrantable, but honourable. The whole Trinity have conspired together to set a crown of glory upon the head of matrimony.

1. God the Father; marriage was a tree planted within the walls of paradise, the flower first grew in God's garden.

2. The Son; marriage is a crystal glass, wherein Christ and the saints do see each other's faces.

3 The Holy Ghost; by his overshadowing of the blessed Virgin.—Well might the world, when it saw her pregnancy, suspect her virginity; but her matrimonial condition was a grave to that suspicion; without this, her innocency had not prevented her infamy; she needed a shield to defend that chastity abroad, which was kept inviolable at home.

Too many that have not worth enough to preserve their virginity, have yet will enough to cover their unchastity: Turning the medicine of frailty into the mantle of filthiness. Certainly she is mad that cuts off her leg to get her a crutch, or that venoms her face to wear a mask.

Paul makes it one of the characters of those