Advice to an Only Child, Chapter 19 – Chapter 20
CHAP. XIX. How to manage your Relative Condition.
1. BE earneſt in Prayer to the God of all Grace, to furniſh you with ſuitable Grace for the Relations you ſtand in. Hath God called you to be a Wife? pray for the ſpirit of a Wife. There's no Relation that we enter into, but it calls for new duties from us. No Relation but hath its peculiar temptations and ſins, to which it is prone. Conſider then what are your Relation-temptations, and your Relation-ſins, and what are your Relation-duties, and pray for ſtrength againſt thoſe particular temptations and ſins, and for thoſe particular duties. No duties are more momentous, and yet none leſs obſerved uſually. It's a common fault to neglect our own work, and too much to complain of others neglecting theirs; and ſo like Planets we eclipſe one another. Many Wives are apt to pick quarrels, becauſe their Husbands do not their duties, when themſelves omit their own. And ſo many unnatural Children complain of their Parents for being ſo, when it is next door to an impoſſibility for a Patent to be unnatural. O mind well your Relation defects, and be very careful that Religion may form and mould your demeanour towards all your Relations whatſoever. This will be your excellency; thus will you be like a fixed Star, ſhining in that proper Orb, in that very ſphere and ſtation, where God hath fixt you, without eccentrick motions.
2. If you would know how the caſe ſtands betwixt God and your Soul, conſider what you are in all your ſeveral Relations, and how you manage them. Judge not your ſelf ſo much by your praying, and hearing, and other duties of Religion in your general Calling, as a Chriſtian, as by the practice of your Religion at home in your Relations Obſerve ſpecially how your Religion works in your Relative condition, and the temptations thereof. She is not a good Woman, that is not a good Wife, or not a good Daughter.
3. Live in a free and chearful ſubmiſſion and obedience to your Huſband: You have this command given in ſeveral places of Scripture. Wives ſubmit your ſelves to your own Husbands, as unto the Lord; Eph. 5.22. Col. 3.18. 1 Pet. 3.1. This ſubmiſſion includes both Reverence and Obedience to the Husband, and this Obedience muſt be ſhewed both to his commands, his deſires, his reſtraints, and his rebukes; nay, if his rebukes ſhould turn to revilings, the Wife may not revile again; for that would be to ſhoot with the Devil in his own Bow; but ſhe may ſweetly admoniſh him in things that ſhe certainly knows to be ſinful and hurtful. Your ſubjection doth not hinder you from provoking him to love and good works, as the Apoſtle uſeth the phraſe; Heb. 10 24. but yet even this provocation muſt be without paſſion: You may lovingly admoniſh him thereunto, but with a care, that in ſo doing, you provoke him not to wrath, leſt you do like thoſe, who take hot water to heat the Stomach, and thereby enflame the Liver. The Wife in Nathan's Parable is called a Lamb; ſhe muſt be a Lamb for meekneſs. The Apoſtle Peter having ſaid, Ye were as Sheep going aſtray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd of your Souls; 1 Pet. 2.25. He immediately adds in the next words; Ye Wives be in ſubjection to your own Huſbands. Wives are Chriſts Sheep, and muſt not be the Devils Shrews.
4. Is God calling you to be a Mother (having formed a work in you unſeen to any other Eye but his) take great care, that you give up, and ſeriouſly devote and dedicate the fruit of your womb to God, to be his Servants, ſo that all the Children that God ſhall give you, may be (as Bathſheba called Solomon) Children of your Vows. And in the educating of them, ſee that you be continually inſtilling and dropping into them the Milk of wholſom Inſtructions, that ſo it may be ſaid of you, as of Solomon's virtuous Woman; her Children riſe up and call her bleſſed; Prov. 31.28. How careful have holy Women been in theſe caſes? While Monica the Mother of Saint Austin was with Child with him, ſhe did often devote him to the Chriſtian Religion, and the Service of the great God; and afterwards in his Education, ſhe ſo affectionately tendred the good of his Soul, that he was called the Child of her Prayers and Tears. It was Timothy's happineſs that he had a good Mother and a good Grand-mother; for ſo he learned the Scriptures from a Child. And the Mother of holy Bernard, as ſoon as her Children were born, gave them up to the Lord Jeſus, to be his Servants: And no leſs careful was ſhe of of their Inſtructions, as ſoon as they came to be capable thereof, and the ſucceſs was happy, in that all of them became holy Children of God. Children while young are moſt with the Mother, and in her company, and uſually have the moſt love to her, and therefore are the moſt likely to take her Inſtructions; therefore be you careful to improve that advantage. And begin betimes with them, ſo ſoon as you ſee the firſt buddings of reaſon. Gardiners begin to graft at the firſt riſing of the Sap in the Spring, and when the Bud of the Stock firſt begins to ſwell and enlarge. The Wax, while it is ſoft and tender, will eaſily take Impreſſion. Labour by all means to imprint upon the Children that God ſhall give you, a ſtamp of Holineſs. Philip King of Macedon gave to one a piece of Metal, without any ſtamp, who after returned it again to the King with his Son Alexander's Picture engraven on it, which very much pleaſed the King. You will receive your Children from God unpoliſht, without any form; ſee that you return them back to him with his Son Chriſts Image on them, which is the Image of Holineſs.
5. How ſadly accented an account have thoſe Mothers to give to God, who neglect giving of good Inſtructions to their Children betimes? What a terrible ſpeech was that of a dying Lady to her ungodly Mother? It's too late now to ſpeak of God to me, I am going to Hell before, and you will certainly follow after.
CHAP. XX. How to manage all Natural and Civil actions religiouſly.
1. MAnage all your Natural and Civil actions by the Rules of Religion, making the very drift and ſcope of them all to be the pleaſing and glorifying of God. Let the Needle in the Compaſs of your Soul, ſtand directly and ſteddily to this Pole, God's Glory; and then you will ſteer your courſe aright. Mind this end, not only in acts of Devotion, and the direct duties of Religion, but in the courſe of your civil converſation.
2. And do not ſatisfie your ſelf with making God your end in the general courſe of your life, but mind this end actually and expreſly in every ſolemn action of every day. If you eat or drink, do it not to gratifie your carnal ſenſe or appetite, but to preſerve your health, that by your health and ſtrength you may be better enabled to do God ſervice. And ſo in all your domeſtick affairs, level your Arrow at the ſame mark, aim at this White chiefly and ultimately, the Glory of God. Thus you will make both your Natural and Civil actions to ſlide into Religion, and become parts of God's ſervice. Thus you will ſerve God in your lying down, and in your riſing up, in your eating, drinking, ſleeping, viſiting, journeying, and all other your lawful actions.
3. But I do not here bid you to mind this end actually in every ordinary action throughout the whole day, or in every bit of Bread that you put in your mouth; this cannot be done; but yet you may do it in every ſolemn action of the day; you may at every meal when you ſit down actually and obſervedly mind this end, though not in every bit you eat. Or in a morning when you riſe, you may have a reſolved intention to do all that day in the Name of God, and for his Glory; and you may by a ready unobſerved act of a ſtrong habit order all particulars that day to the ſame end, which you did actually propound to your ſelf at firſt riſing in the morning; and ſtill all the day do propound to your ſelf in the general habitual diſpoſition, frame, and purpoſe of the heart. Thus then, though the Glory of God, and good of the Soul, cannot be diſtinctly and actually intended in every ſingle action of the day; yet a ſincere habitual intention of God's Glory, well fixed and rivetted within, will be ſufficient to ſteer and influence all the particulars of that day into that end. As a man that ſets forward in a Journey with a full intention to go to London, though he do not actually think of London in every ſtep that he takes, yet by virtue of the firſt ſettled intention, every particular ſtep is ordered to that end.