Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n
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A33544
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The dignity and duty of a married state in a sermon preach'd at the celebration of a marriage in the English Episcopal Church at Amsterdam / by John Cockburn.
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Cockburn, John, 1652-1729.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing C4806; ESTC R29616
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11,220
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20
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more Noble any Being is the more it affects Society and Fellowship Because God is infinitely good He created other Beings to partake of Himself and by that participation to declare his Glory Man was made after the Image of God and consequently it must be natural to Man to seek the Fellowship of others that are after his own likeness When God made Man an consider'd him He saw 't was not good for him to be alone and for that cause proceeded to make Woman to be a Help meet for Man The Dominion of the World and over all Creatures would not have given unto Man full Satisfaction if he had been left alone without such a Companion Let outward Circumstances be never so good there is but half Contentment without a Friend and Copartner 'T is true there is and may be a dear a sweet and intimate Friendship between one Man and another but the Pleasure and Benefit of such a Friendship cannot be always enjoy'd Duty and Interest often separate them whereas marriage by these very Ties of Duty and Interest makes one sure of a faithful loving and inseparable Friend at all Times and in all Circumstances whether better or worse A Man must leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife and so must the Wife do to her Husband Besides God has so framed the Nature of Woman and given her such particular Endowments as render her Conversation more grateful and agreeable The Friendship of a Man may chance to be more instructive and may sometimes have the preference for Counsel and Advice but a good Woman has more Charms to divert the Fancy to ease the Spirit and to alleviate the Mind It is a true and notable Saying of the Son of Syrach Eccles. xl 23. A Friend and Companion never meet amiss but above both is a Wife with her Husband The Sweetness and Delicacy of her Temper is proper to file off that Roughness which is ready to grow upon the Nature of Man Therefore commonly single Persons are more morose and surly and less conversible than those who are well married especially if naturally peevish and melancholly for these grow upon Men by the lonesomness of a single Life Indeed an ill Woman frets the Spirit and crushes the Mind but an excellent Wife is to her Husband as David's Harp to Saul she charms away the evil Spirit of Melancholy which is apt to seize men by the Vexation of Business the Incumbrances of Affairs and the Impertinencies of the World Again Marriage is of great Advantage to private Persons because of the mutual help which they give to each other God did not intend that the Woman should be a Clog or Burden or Incumbrance to a Man He did not ordain her to live idlely or sumptuously on the Sweat of his Face but he made her to be a Help unto him that is to be both a Companion and Assistant to partake of his Labours to bear half of his Burden as well as to share of his Happiness He that has a prudent Wife has double the Hands the Eyes the Ears and the Feet of a single Person He can be at Home and Abroad at once She can manage the Affairs of the House while he is transacting Business Abroad and so is in a better way of Thriving of promoting the end of Life and of providing for the Necessities and Comforts of it Some may think that all this may be as well done by Servants but a little Reflection on Experience shew it a mistake for though great Wages may make a Servant faithful they cannot give that Concernment which a Wife hath Wherefore the wise Author I last quoted saith Blessed is the Man that hath a virtuous Wife for the number of his Days shall bedouble A virtuous Woman rejoyceth her Husband and he shall fulfil the Years of his Life in peace A good Wife is a good portion which shall be given in the portion of them that fear the Lord. The Grace of a Wife delighteth her Husband and her Discretion will fat his Bones A silent and loving Woman is a gift of the Lord and there is nothing so much worth to a mind well instructed A modest and faithful Woman is a double Grace and her continent mind cannot be valued As the Sun when it riseth in the high Heaven so is the Beauty of a Wife in the ordering of her House Again he saith The Beauty of a Woman cheareth the Countenance and a Man loveth nothing better if there be kindness meekness and comfort in her Tongue then is not her Husband like other Men. He that getteth a Wife beginneth a possession a help like unto himself and a pillar of Rest. Eccles. xxvi and xxxvii Thus private Persons have great Advantage by marriage In the next place the Publick receiveth no less Profit by it For by this means Children are multiplied and the People increased which is the Strength Security and Glory of a State Unlawful Liberties without Wedlock add little to the Increase of People nor even in those Countries where pluralities of Wives are allowed is it common and usual to have so many Children as with us by one Man and one Woman So marriage according to its first Institution is more for the multiplication of Mankind than any other way And as it tendeth to the Increase of People which is for the good of the Publick so it is the best Security of a good Education to them that are born which is no less for the publick Good If Children were not taken care of they could not live to be Men and if they were not well educated and train'd up to some Art or Profession they would be of little use when grown up both which would be very much neglected if Children were not born as now in lawful Wedlock Women perhaps might have some regard to the Fruit of their Womb but Men would take little thought of those whom they knew not whether they were their own But as it is now Parents love their Children and lay themselves out to provide for them to educate them well and to make them happy all which turneth to the Advantage of the Publick It was very inadvertently said of a * Lord Bacon in his Essays Great Man That Wives and Children were Impediments to great Enterprises of either Virtue or Mischief and that the best Works and of greatest Merit to the Publick were perform'd by unmarried or Childless Men For the very contrary may be proved from History And who can be thought more concerned for the Publick than they who are to leave with it their Darlings and the Pledges of their Affection Commonly single Persons look no further than their own Times but those who are married extend their Thoughts and Care to Posterity Nor are they who are married and have Children more obnoxious to Bribery and perverting of publick Justice for a Servant may be worse than a Wife and do often abuse the Master's Ear more Nor are Wife
unreasonable and dangerous that they appointed a Fine both for them who married not at all and for them who were late or long a marrying How honourable Marriage was is evident from the Solemnities every where used at the entring into it for this was and is a publick Declaration that it was an honourable State and that they were worthy of Honour who enter'd into it Hence came the Saying That every one had Three Days of chief Honour the Day of one's Birth the Day of Marriage and the Day of Death or Burying 2. But Secondly Christians have a better Precedent for honouring Marriage than the Example of Men and Nations We have the Example of Christ the Eternal Son of God whose Example outweighs the Authority and Practice of all others in the World Indeed he Himself did not marry nor could He because a marriage with any single Person on Earth could not suit with his Dignity nor the end of his Coming to the World But he would be born of a Woman join'd in lawful Wedlock and He gave the first Manifestation of his Glory at a marriage in Cana of Galilee where he turned Water into Wine not for the simple Ostentation of his own Power but also to contribute to that innocent Joy which was suitable to that Occasion This He would not have done if marriage was either unlawful or trivial and not worthy of all Honour And as his shewing Himself thus first at a Marriage was not Accidental or Occasional but Choice so he chose to do it that he might set forth the Honourableness of this State foreseeing that some false Spirits would arise to discredit and disparage marriage And certainly whoever speak against it whoever represent it as unlawful or as mean and unbecoming a good or wise Man or the aim or study of Perfection I say whoever do so do thereby shew that they are not of God For 3. Thirdly Marriage is a Divine Institution God is the Author of it 'T was no Invention of Man nor were they led into it by Policy Necessity or Experience as into many other common Customs but God himself from the Beginning did ordain it He at the first made Man male and female and joined them together that the two might become one Flâ—sh for an Example to others that should follow He commanded and ordained them to multiply and bring forth their Kind but only in the State of Wedlock and by the Imitation of that Example which he had set them in the first Man and Woman If therefore all Divine Ordinances and Institutions should be honoured for God's sake so should marriage nor can any speak dishonourably of it without blaspheming God and reflecting on either his Authority or Wisdom 4. Fourthly The time when marriage was instituted adds to the Honour of it This was before the Fall in the State of Innocence while Man was in his Uprightness as he came from the Hands of God which proves Marriage to be suitable to the greatest Perfection and Purity of this present Life It came not as a Remedy to After-Corruption 't was not prescribed to avoid greater Inconveniencies but the Wisdom of God saw it agreeable to a Paradise to the purest and most perfect Condition of humane Life Therefore they talk falsly who make this State inconsistent with Religion and they are weak and ignorant Persons who pretend that it is a clog or hindrance to their Virtue and Devotion yea even to the Perfection of them Indeed we read of some who when they were called to the Divine Feast excused themselves because they were married I have married a Wife and cannot come but this was only a Pretext to cover their Aversion and Unwillingness for if they had valued the mercy of the Call and been willing to embrace it their marriage needed not to have hindred them they would have come and brought their Wives with them Turn over the History of all the Celibates from the beginning can any be shewed more just and upright than Noah more constant in his Faith and Obedience than Abraham more holy and devout than Job and yet they as all the other Scripture Worthies were married and some of them but very indifferently too Indeed there are Temptations and Incumbrances in a married State and so there are in a single Life God may be served in the one as well as the other and who excuse themselves on the account of either do but declare that they have not a real mind to it Finally Marriage ought to be held most honourable for the important End of it and the good Effects which were intended by it and which will follow those who seek and study them aright When God had finished the Creation He viewed all his Works and saw them all very good Now Woman was included in these Works therefore she also was found good and consequently marriage is very good and useful for the Woman was created for that end As all God's Works are good so are all his Ordinances and Institutions and particularly this of Marriage Therefore Prov. 18. 22. saith Solomon Whosever findeth a Wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favour of the Lord meaning as he explains himself in other places a prudent virtuous Wife one that deserves that Honour and answers the Character suitable to it God by ordaining marriage intended the Good both of private Persons and the Publick because it was most agreeable to our Nature and did naturally tend to further the Happiness of all in this present Life Indeed marriage is a Yoke which once taken on cannot be put off till Death or that which is worse than Death I mean the heinous Sin and Guilt of one or other of the Parties but it is a profitable Yoke and it may be made easie too if Persons have the Understanding to use it aright I. First Marriage bringeth great Advantage to private Persons by securing them of a constant intimate and familiar Friend Society and Friendship are the Life of Life Nothing is more agreeable to our Nature nothing more desirable It is as natural for Man to crave them as for the Sparks to fly upward Hence Aristotle observed that what delighted in solitariness must be either above or below a Man that is either a God or a Beast A God because Self-sufficient or a Beast without Sense or Understanding and so unable to communicate it self as insensible of the Benefit of mutual Communication But as most Beasts except the Savage Kind even love to herd together so if this Philsopher had had that Light of Revelation which we are bless'd with he would have found that the Godhead is not solitary though Unity be one of its Essential Attributes Our Religion shews us Three Persons in the Godhead which are one in Nature and intimately united both in their Counsels and in the Execution of them which makes the Felicity of the Godhead equal to the Perfection of its Nature both of them Incomprehensible and Infinite The