Two Marriage Sermons, Dedication 2
TO THE WORSHIPFVLL AND RELIGIOVS, Mr GEORGE WILMER Esquire, and Mrs MARGERET WILMER his Wife, increase of spirituall grace, and mutuall comfort in CHRIST IESVS.
WORSHIPFVLL AND beloued in Christ; At the solemne knitting of you togither, was this Sermon preached by that worthy Seruant of God, and our common frend, now with God, then first (as I hauehave heard him say) performing that office that then he did. Which of late lighting vponupon, among other his loose papers, I thought it would not be amisse rather to send it abroad, then to suffer it (as it might soone perhaps otherwise) to miscary and so perish▪ The piety and pithines of the discourse it selfe seemed to require no lesse of me: that which any indicious & religious, I assure my self, will with me easily acknowledge. The rarity likewise of the subiect the rather encited me thereunto. He treadeth a tracke not so vsually beaten. Of Mariage Sermons, that entreat of Mariage duties, there are extant not a few. Such as handle the religious managing of Mariage Feasts, I suppose not many; I remember not to hauehave seene any. It is that, that this holy Man of God doth here principally insist vponupon: and it is a point very necessarie, and of no small vse. For to let passe that grosse abuse, too too frequent among the prophaner sort, that esteeme such meetings neuer well seasoned, or aright celebrated, vnlesse filthy discourse andaQualia fuerunt veterum quorundā Epithalamia: & Iescenini versus de quibus Festus & Seruius ad Aen. l. 7. non, vt illi, ab opido Campano; nec à fascino, credo, depellendo sic dicti; sed à fascino, quod obscoenitatis notio…em habeat apud Horat. epod. 8. & Varro orig. lib. 6. obscene songs be as common as any ordinarie seruice; as if they were not dealing with a sacred ordinance of God, but were about the sacrilegious rites of some impure Idoll; and so, like the idolatrous Iewes, that turned b Bethel into c Beth-aven, making a Brothel-house of a Bride-house: As also to passe by the brutish and swinish disposition of those that thinke there is no true welcome, nor good fellowship, as they tearme it, vnlesse there be deepe carousing and drinking of healths to Bride and Bridegroome, and eueryevery idle fellowes Mistris, till the whole companies wits be sodforeign. Synes. de insom. Mergit mentē extrema potatio. Sen. ep. 12. Vnde foreign dixit Pythagoras; foreign Chrysippus; Ebrietatē insaniam voluntariam Augustinus ad sacr. virg. & Basilius Ebriū foreign. drownd in drinke, that not religion onelyonly, but*foreign. quod de Ira. nescio quis apud Plut. reason it selfe is vtterly exiled, and the meeting may well seeme to be rather a drunken match then a Mariage Feast. To let passe, I say, the palpable loosenes and lewdnes of such: euen the best at such meetings are too prone by ouer-sight, and forgetfulnes of their dutie to ouer-shoot themselues, and to exceed that Christian decorum that in such solemnities ought to be obserued. It was not without cause thateIob 1. 5. Iob was so iealous of his Children, what time they held their mutuall meetings of somewhat the like nature.fEccles. 11. 7, 10. Youth, andgProv. 23. 31, 32 wine, and mirth, and other delights, are pleasing and enticing obiects, andhHinc Prouerbiū foreign. Vinolentia clavum non habet. Eustath. Odyss. l. Et foreign. Insanire facit sapientes copia vini. Sthenelus apud Athen. dipnos. l. 10. foreign. Homer. cary the wisest oft vnawares further then Religion well warranteth. iforeign. Clom. Alex. paedag lib. 2. cap. 1. L…gatur Plut. sympos. lib. 7. cap. 5, 7, 8.Which yet is not spoken simply to condemne such solemnities: (It was wisely and wittily said of the Heathen Man, thatkforeign. Demoerit. Amans life without festiuities, … like along and wearisome w… without Innes:) but to shew what neede there is o… direction and admonition for Christian cariage in that kinde.lforeign. Plut. de aud. poet. Lycurgus did not well nor wisely, when he cut downe all the vines in his countrey, because the wine that came of them was too much abused by many. Neither ought Mariage Feasts to be vtterly abandoned, nor Musicke, or other honest mirth be exiled and banished from them, because too many ordinarily exceed in the one, and not a few wretchedly abuse the other. Yea, if mirth and festiuitie be euer seasonable, it is at such times:mMath. 9. 15. & 22▪ 1, 2. Genes. 29. 22. Ier. 7. 34. & 16. 9. & 25. 10 & 33. 11. Legatur Plutarch. sympos. l. 4. c▪ 3. Christ himselfe and the Spirit of God yeeld and approue it. OnelyOnly Christiannforeign. Hi… rax de Iustitia apud Stob▪ cap 5. Sobriety ought then to be both ouroforeign. loan. 2. 8, 9. foreign. Plut. sympos. l. 1. c. 4. qui tamen foreign pronunciat. Arbiter bibendi Horat. …arm. 1. 3. In convivijs potandi (malè, putandi) Modiperat…res magistri. No…nius ex Varrone rerum human. lib. 20. Feast-Master, and our Mirth-Master, our Lord of Rule, not of Misrule, to moderate both our diet and our mirth at such meetings. And the rather should Sobriety and Modestie be at such times obserued, not onelyonly in regard of pHeb. 13. 4.the holinesse and honourablenes of that blessed Ordinance of God that then we deale with, that we mayqAct. 10. 15. not pollute that, that God hath purified, nor dishonor that, that he hath honoured; but for that also we are then laying as it were the first foundation of a new Familie: andrforeign. Eurip. Herc. fur. the building proueth commonly as the foundation is well or euill laid.sIn solido extruendum. Vitruv. architect. lib. 1. cap. 5. & lib. 3. cap. 3. It is euill building on a quagmire; and laying a foundation in wet weather. A sober and a modest entrance giueth good hope of the like progresse; astforeign. Hinc Diogenes stolido & amenti adolescentulo, foreign. Ebrius pater te genuit. Plut. de liber. educ. the contrary is a foule presage of euill after-demeanure. This how to preuent is breifely, but effectually here shewed. That which I hauehave therefore thought fit to present You rather with, then any other of the Authors frends; that vnderunder your names that might come abroad to the vse of others, that was principally at the first intended for your good; and partly also thereby to renew with you the remembrance of him, by whose holy hand you were publikely at first ioyned togither. Which coniunction God in mercy of his good pleasure long continue, and so blesse and sanctifie vntounto you, that you may hauehave mutuall comfort either in other by sincere holinesse here, and eternall coniunction either with other in perfect happinesse els-where.
Yours in Christ, Thomas Gataker.