A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian EconomicsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
12. There is a great deal of duty which husband and wife do owe to one
another; as to instruct, admonish, pray, watch over one another, and
to be continual helpers to each other in order to their everlasting
happiness; and patiently to bear with the infirmities of each other:
and to the weak and backward heart of man, the addition of so much
duty doth add to their weariness, how good soever the work be in
itself: and men should feel their strength, before they undertake more
work.
13. And the more they love each other, the more they participate in
each other's griefs; and one or other will be frequently under some
sort of suffering. If one be sick, or lame, or pained, or defamed, or
wronged, or disquieted in mind, or by temptation fall into any
wounding sin, the other beareth part of the distress. Therefore before
you undertake to bear all the burdens of another, and suffer in all
another's hurts, it concerneth you to observe your strength, how much
more you have than your own burdens do require.
14. And if you should marry one that proveth ungodly, how exceeding
great would the affliction be! If you loved them, your souls would be
in continual danger by them; they would be the powerfulest instruments
in the world to pervert your judgments, to deaden your hearts, to take
you off from a holy life, to kill your prayers, to corrupt your lives,
and to damn your souls. And if you should have the grace to escape the
snare, and save yourselves, it would be by so much the greater
difficulty and suffering, as the temptation is the greater. And what a
heart-breaking would it be to converse so nearly with a child of the
devil, that is like to lie for ever in hell! The daily thoughts of it
would be a daily death to you.
15. Women especially must expect so much suffering in a married life,
that if God had not put into them a natural inclination to it, and so
strong a love to their children, as maketh them patient under the most
annoying troubles, the world would ere this have been at an end,
through their refusal of so calamitous a life. Their sickness in
breeding, their pain in bringing forth, with the danger of their
lives, the tedious trouble night and day which they have with their
children in their nursing in their childhood; besides their subjection
to their husbands, and continual care of family affairs; being forced
to consume their lives in a multitude of low and troublesome
businesses: all this, and much more, would have utterly deterred that
sex from marriage, if nature itself had not inclined them to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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