Page:Wedding ring fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity.pdf/12

 12 these four things : 1. To his piety. 2. To his society. 3. To his progeny, 4. To his prosperity. To his piety, by the ferventness of her excitation. To his society, by the frag- rantress of her conversation. To his progeny, by the fruitfulness of her education. To his prosperity, by her faithful preservation. 1. To his piety, by the ferventness of her excitation, 1 Pet. ii. 7. Husband and wife, should be as the two milch-kine, which were coupled together to carry the ark of God; or as the two cherubims, that looked one upon another, and both upon the mercy-seat; or as the two tables of stone, on each of which were engraven the laws of God. In some families married persons are like Jeremiah's two baş- kets of figs, the one very good, the other very evil ; or like fire and water, whilst the one is flaming in devotion, the other is freezing in corruption. There is a two-fold hindrance of holiness : 1. On the right side. 2. On the left. On the right side ; when the wife would run in God's way, the husband will not let her go, when the fore horse in a team will not draw, he wrongs all the nest; when the gene- ral of the army forbids a march, all the soldiers stands still. Sometimes on the left: How did Solomon's idolatrous wife draw away his heart. from heaven? A sining wife was Satan's first Badder, by which he scaled the wall of Paradise, and took away the fort-royal of Adam's heart from him. Thus she, that should have been the help of his flesh, was the hurt of his faith, his nature's under-proper, became his grace's