A Christian Directory, Part 2: Christian Economics

Direct. VI. Live in a cheerful contentedness with your condition; and take heed of an impatient, murmuring spirit. It is a continual burden to a man to have an impatient, discontented wife. Many a poor man can easily bear his poverty himself, that yet is not able to bear his wife's impatience under it. To hear her night and day complaining, and speaking distrustfully, and see her live disquietedly, is far heavier than his poverty itself. If his wife could bear it as patiently as he, it would be but light to him. Yea, in case of suffering for righteousness' sake, the impatience of a wife is a greater trial to a man than all the suffering itself; and many a man that could easily have suffered the loss of his estate, or banishment, or imprisonment for Christ, hath betrayed his conscience, and yielded to sin, because his wife hath grieved him with impatiency, and could not bear what he could bear. Whereas a contented, cheerful wife doth help to make a man cheerful and contented in every state.

Direct. VII. In a special manner strive to subdue your passions, and to speak and do all in meekness and sobriety. The rather because that the weakness of your sex doth usually subject you more to passions than men; and it is the common cause of the husband's disquietness, and the calamity of your relation. It is the vexation and sickness of your own minds; you find not yourselves at ease within as long as you are passionate. And then it is the grief and disquietness of your husbands: and being provoked by you, they provoke you more; and so your disquietness increaseth, and your lives are made a weary burden to you. By all means therefore keep down passion, and keep a composed, patient mind.

Direct. VIII. Take heed of a proud and contentious disposition; and maintain a humble, peaceable temper. Pride will make you turbulent and unquiet with your husbands, and contentious with your neighbours: it will make you foolish and ridiculous, in striving for honour and precedency, and envying those that exceed you, or go before you. In a word, it is the devil's sin, and would make you a shame and trouble to the world. But humility is the health, the peace, and the ornament of the soul. 1 Pet. iii. 4, "A meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price." (Write those words in your bedchamber on the walls where they may be daily before your eyes.) Col. iii. 12, "Put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another." If this be the duty of all to one another; much more of wives to husbands. 1 Pet. v. 5, "Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." Proud women oft ruin their husbands' estates, and quietness, and their own souls.

Direct. IX. Affect not a childish gaudiness of apparel, nor a vain, or costly, or troublesome curiosity in any thing about you. Uncleanness and nastiness is a fault, but very small in comparison of this pride and curiosity. It dishonoureth your sex and selves to be so childish, as to over-mind such toyish things. If you will needs be proud, be proud of somewhat that is of worth and proper to a man: to be proud of reason, or wisdom, or learning, or goodness, is bad enough; but this is to be proud of something. But to be proud of fashions and fine clothes, of spots and nakedness, of sumptuous entertainments and neat rooms, is to be proud of your shame, and not your virtue; and of that which you are not so much as commendable for. And the cost, the time (oh precious time!) which themselves and their servants must lay out, upon their dressings, entertainments, and other curiosities, will be the shame and sorrow of their souls, whenever God shall open their eyes, and make them know what time was worth, and what greater matters they had to mind. If vain and empty persons like yourselves, commend you for your bravery or curiosity, so will not any judicious, sober person whose commendation is much worth. And yet I must here with grief take notice, that when some few that in other matters seem wise and religious, are themselves a little tainted with this childish curiosity and pride, and let fall words of disparagement against those whose dress, and dwellings, and entertainments, are not so curious as their own; this proves the greatest maintainer of this sin, and the most notable service to the devil: for then abundance will plead this for this sinful curiosity and pride, and say, I shall else be accounted base or sordid; even such and such will speak against me. Take heed, if you will needs be such yourselves, that you prate not against others that are not as vain and curious as you: for the nature of man is more prone to pride and vanity, than to humility, and the improvement of their time and cost in greater matters; and while you think that you speak but against indecency, you become the devil's preachers, and do him more service than you consider of. You may as wisely speak against people for using to eat or drink too little, when there is not one of a multitude that liveth not ordinarily in excess; and so excess will get advantage by it.

Direct. X. Be specially careful in the government of your tongues; and let your words be few, and well considered before you speak them. A double diligence is needful in this, because it is the most common miscarriage of your sex: a laxative, running tongue, is so great a dishonour to you, that I never knew a woman very full of words, but she was the pity of her friends, and the contempt of others; who behind her back will make a scorn of her, and talk of her as some crack-brained or half-witted person; yea, though your talk be good, it will be tedious and contemptible, if it be thus poured out, and be too cheap. Prov. x. 19, "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise." You must answer in judgment for your "idle words," Matt. xii. 36. You will take it ill to be accounted fools, and made the derision of those that talk of you: judge by the Scripture what occasion you give them. Eccles. v. 3, 7, "A dream cometh by the multitude of business, and a fool's voice is known by a multitude of words: in the multitude of dreams, and many words, there are divers vanities." Eccles. x. 12-14, "The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. The beginnings of the words of his mouth is foolishness; and the end of his talk is mischievous madness: a fool also is full of words." Whereas a woman that is cautelous and sparing of her words, is commonly reverenced and supposed to be wise. So that if you had no higher design in it, but merely to be well thought of, and honoured by men, you can scarcely take a surer way, than to let your words be few and weighty; though the avoiding of sin, and unquietness, should prevail with you much more.

Direct. XI. Be willing and diligent in your proper part, of the care and labour of the family. As the primary provision of maintenance belongeth most to the husband, so the secondary provision within doors belongeth specially to the wife. Read over and over the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs. Especially the care of nursing your own children, and teaching them, and watching over them when they are young; and also watching over the family at home, when your husbands are abroad, is your proper work.

May a wife give without the husband's consent

Direct. XII. Dispose not of your husband's estate, without his knowledge and consent. You are not only to consider, whether the work be good that you lay it out upon, but what power you have to do it. Quest. But may a woman give nothing, nor lay out nothing in the house, without her husband's consent? Answ. 1. If she have his general or implicit consent, it may suffice; that is, if he allow her to follow her judgment; or, if he commit such a proportion to her power, to do what she will with it. Or, if she know that, if he knew it, he would not be against it. 2. Or, if the law, or his consent, do give her any propriety in any part of his estate, or make her a joint-proprietor, she may proportionably dispose of it in a necessary case.24 The husband is considerable, either as a proprietor, or as her governor. As a proprietor, he only may dispose of the estate, where he is the sole proprietor: but where consent or the law of the land doth make the woman joint-proprietor, she is not disabled from giving for want of a propriety. But then no law exempteth her from his government; and therefore she is not to give any thing in a way of disobedience, though it be her own: except when he forbiddeth that which is her duty, or which he hath no power to forbid. So that in case of joint-propriety she may give without him, so be it she exceed not her proportion; and also if it be in a case of duty, where he may not hinder her; as to save the lives of the poor in extreme necessity, famine, or imprisonment, or the like. 3. But if the thing be wholly her own, excepted from his propriety, and she be sole proprietor, then she need not ask his consent at all, any other way than as he is her guide, to direct her to the best way of disposing of it: which, if he forbid her instead of directing her to it, she is not thereby excusable before God, for the abusing of her trust and talents. 4. I conceive that ad aliquid as to certain absolutely necessary uses, the very relation maketh the woman as a joint-proprietor:25 as if her husband will not allow her such food and raiment as is necessary to preserve the lives and health of herself, and all her children; she is bound to do it without or against his will, (if she can, and if it be not to a greater hurt, and the estate be his own, and he be able,) rather than let her children contract such diseases, as apparently will follow to the hazard of their lives; yea, and to save the life of another that in famine is ready to perish: for she is not as a stranger to his estate. But out of these cases, if a wife shall secretly waste or give, or lay it out on bravery, or vanity, or set her wit against her husband's; and because she thinks him too strait or penurious, therefore she will dispose of it without his consent; this is thievery, disobedience, and injustice.

Quest. I. But as the case standeth with us in England, hath the wife a joint-propriety, or not?

Answ. Three ways (at least) she may have a propriety. 1. By a reserve of what was her own before; which (however some question it) may in some cases be done in their agreement at marriage. 2. By the law of the land. 3. By the husband's consent or donation. What the law of the land saith in case, I leave to the lawyers; but it seemeth to me, that his words at marriage, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," do signify his consent to make her a joint-proprietor: and his consent is sufficient to the collation of a title to that which was his own. Unless any can prove, that law or custom doth otherwise expound the words, (as an empty formality,) and that at the contract, this was or should be known to her to be the sense. And the laws allowing the wife the third part upon death or separation, doth intimate a joint-propriety before.

Quest. II. If the husband live upon unlawful gain, as cheating, stealing, robbing by the high-way, &c. is not the wife guilty as a joint-proprietor, in retaining such ill-gotten goods, if she know it? And is she bound to accuse her husband, or to restore such goods?

Answ. Her duty is first to admonish her husband of his sin and danger, and endeavour his repentance, in the mean time disclaiming all consent and reception of the goods. And if she cannot prevail for his repentance, restitution, and reformation, she hath a double duty to perform; the one is to help them to their goods whom he hath injured and robbed (by prudent and just means); the other is to prevent his robbing of others for the time to come. But how these must be done is the great difficulty.

1. If she foresee (or may do) that either by her husband's displeasure, or by the cruel revenge of the injured party, the hurt of discovering the fraud or robbery will be greater than the good, then I think that she is not bound to discover it. But by some secret, indirect way, to help the owner to his own; if it may be done without a greater hurt.

2. To prevent his sin and other men's future suffering by him, she seemeth to me to be bound to reveal her husband's sinful purposes to the magistrate, if she can no other way prevail with him to forbear. My reasons are, because the keeping of God's law, and the law of the land, and the public order and good, and the preventing of our neighbours' hurt by robbery or fraud, and so the interest of honesty and right, is of greater importance than any duty to her husband, or preservation of her own peace, which seemeth to be against it. But then I must suppose that she liveth under a magistrate, who will take but a just revenge. For if she know the laws and magistrate to be so unjust, as to punish a fault with death, which deserveth it not, she is not to tell such a magistrate, but to preserve her neighbours' safety by some other way of intimation.

If any one think that a wife may in no case accuse a husband, to the hazard of his life or estate, let them, 1. Remember what God obliged parents to do against the lives of incorrigible children, Deut. xxi. 2. And that the honour of God, and the lives of our neighbours, should be preferred before the life of one offender, and their estates before his estate alone. 3. And that the light of reason telleth us, that a wife is to reveal a treason against the king, which is plotted by a husband; and therefore also the robbing of the king's treasury, or deceiving him in any matter of great concernment. And therefore in due proportion, the laws and common good, and our neighbours' welfare, are to be preserved by us, though against the nearest relation; only all due tenderness of the life and reputation of the husband is to be preserved, in the manner of proceedings, as far as will stand with the interest of justice, and the common good.

Quest. III. May the wife go hear sermons when the husband forbiddeth her?

Answ. There are some sermons which must not be heard; there are some sermons which may be heard, and must, when no greater matter doth divert us; and there are some sermons which must be heard, whoever shall forbid it. Those which must not be heard are such as are heretical, (ordinarily,) and such as are superfluous, and at such times when greater duties call us another way. Those which may be heard, are either occasional sermons, or such lectures as are neither of necessity to ourselves, nor yet to the owning of God and his public worship. One that liveth where there are daily or hourly sermons, may hear them as oft as suiteth with their condition, and their other duties; but in this case, the command of a husband, with the inconveniences that will follow disobeying him, may make it a duty to forbear. But that we do sometimes publicly own God's worship and church ordinances, and receive ministerial teaching for our edification, is of double necessity; that we deny not God, and that we betray not, or desert not, our own souls. And this is especially necessary (ordinarily) on the Lord's days, which are appointed for these necessary uses. And here the husband hath no power to forbid the wife, nor should she (formally) obey his prohibition. But yet as affirmatives bind not ad semper, and no duty is a duty at every season; so it is possible that on the Lord's day it may extraordinarily become a duty to forbear sermons or sacraments, or other public worship. And when any greater duty calleth us away; as to quench a fire; and to save men's lives; and to save our country from an enemy in the time of war; and to save our own lives, (if we knew the assembly would be assaulted,) or to preserve our liberty for greater service. Christ set us to learn the meaning of this lesson, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. In such a case also a mischief may be avoided, even from a husband, by the omission of a duty at that time, (when it would be no duty,) for this is but a transposition of it. But this is but an act of prudent self-preservation, and not an act of formal obedience.

Quest. IV. If a woman have a husband so incorrigible in vice, as that by long trial she findeth that speaking against it maketh him worse, and causeth him to abuse her, is she bound to continue her dissuasion, or to forbear?

Answ. That is not here a duty which is not a means to do some good; and that is no means which we know beforehand is like, if not certain, to do no good, or to do more harm. We must not by weariness, laziness, or censoriousness, take a case to be desperate, which is not; nor must we so easily desist with so near a relation, as with a stranger or a neighbour. But yet Christ's indulgence of not exposing ourselves to be torn by dogs, and his word trodden in the dirt by swine, doth extend to relations as well as others. But then you must observe that she that is justly discouraged from sharp reproofs, may yet have hope that gentle and humble persuasions may succeed. And she that is discouraged from open, or frequent, or plain reproofs; may yet have hope that secret, or more seldom, or more distant and general admonitions may not be lost. And she that is discouraged from one way of doing him good, may yet have many other ways (as to set some minister whom he reverenceth to speak to him; to put some suitable book into his hand, &c.) And she that is discouraged at the present, ought not totally to despair, but may make some more attempts hereafter; either in some sickness, or time of mortality, or danger, or affliction, or when possibly time and consideration may have better prepared him to hear. And in the mean time she is to continue all conjugal affection and duty, and a convincing, winning course of life; which may prove the most effectual reproof.

Quest. V. What should a woman do in controverted cases of religion, when her judgment and her husband's differ?

Answ. 1. Some make a controversy of that which with all good christians or sober persons should be past controversy; and some controversies are indeed of real, if not insuperable difficulty. 2. Some controversies are about important, necessary things, and some about things of lesser moment. 3. Some are about mere opinion, or other men's practice, and some about our own practice.

(1.) In all differences of judgment the wife must exercise such self-suspicion, and modesty, and submission, as may signify her due sense, both of the weakness of her sex, and of her subjection to her husband. (2.) In things indifferent she must in practice obey her husband; unless when any superior powers do forbid it, and that in cases where their authority is greater. (3.) She may modestly give her reasons of dissent. (4.) She must not turn it to an unpeaceable quarrel, or matter of disaffection, or pretend any differences against her conjugal duties. (5.) In dark and difficult cases she should not be peremptory, and self-conceited, nor importunate; but if she have faith (that is, some more knowledge than he) have it to herself, in quietness and silence; and seek further information lest she err. (6.) She must speak no untruth, nor commit any known sin, in obedience to her husband's judgment. (7.) When she strongly suspecteth it to be sin, she must not do it merely in obedience to him, but seek for better satisfaction. For she is sure that he hath no power to force her to sin; and therefore hath no more assurance of his power in that point than she hath of the lawfulness of the thing. (8.) But if she prove to be in the error, she will sin on either side, till she recover. (9.) If a husband be in dangerous error, she must wisely, but unweariedly, seek his reformation, by herself or others.

Cases about Divorce and Separation

Quest. I. Is it lawful for husband and wife to be long absent from each other? and how long, and in what cases?

Answ. It is lawful to be absent either in the case of prayer, which Paul mentioneth, or in case of the needful affairs of their estates, so long as may be no danger to either of them as to mental or corporal incontinency, nor to any other hurt, which will be greater than the benefits of their absence, nor cause them to be guilty of the neglect of any real duty. Therefore the cases of several persons do much differ according to the different tempers of their minds, and bodies, and affairs. He that hath a wife of a chaste, contented, prudent temper, may stay many months or years in some cases, when, all things considered, it tendeth to more good than hurt: as lawyers by their callings are often necessitated to follow their callings at terms and assizes; and merchants may he some years absent in some weighty cases. But if you ask, whether the getting of money be a sufficient cause? I answer, that it is sufficient to those whose families must be so maintained, and their wives are easily continent, and so the good of their gain is greater than any loss or danger that cometh by it. But when covetousness puts them upon it needlessly, and their wives cannot bear it, or in any case when the hurt that is like to follow is greater than the good, it is unlawful.

Quest. II. May husband and wife be separated by the bare command of princes, if they make a law that in certain cases they shall part: as suppose it to ministers, judges, or soldiers?

Answ. You must distinguish between the bare command or law, and the reasons and ends of that command: and so between a lawful command and an unlawful. In some cases a prince may justly command a separation for a time, or such as is like to prove for perpetuity, and in some cases he may not. If a king command a separation without sufficient cause, so that you have no motive but his authority, and the question is, whether formally you are bound to obedience: I answer, No; because what God hath joined no man hath power to put asunder. Nor can either prince, pope, or prelate dispense with your marriage covenant. In such a case it is as a private act, because God hath given them no authority for it; and therefore their commands or laws are nullities: only if a prince say, he that will be a judge or a justice shall part with his wife, it is lawful to leave the office, and so obey the law. But if he say to all ministers of the gospel, you shall forsake your wives or your ministry, they should do neither, because they are divinely obliged to both, and he hath no power to forbid them, or to dispense with that obligation.

But it may fall out, that the ends of the command may be so great as to make it lawful, and then it must be obeyed both formally for the authority of the prince, and finally for the reasons of the thing. As if the safety of the commonwealth should require, that married persons be soldiers, and that they go far off; yea, though there be no likelihood of returning to their families, and withal they cannot take their wives with them, without detriment or danger to their service; in this case men must obey the magistrate, and are called by God to forsake their wives, as if it were by death. Nor is it any violation of their marriage covenant, because that was intended or meant to suppose the exception of any such call of God, which cannot be resisted when it will make a separation.

Quest. III. May ministers leave their wives to go abroad to preach the gospel?

Answ. If they can neither do God's work as well at home, nor yet take their wives with them, nor be excused from doing that part of service, by other men's doing it who have no such impediment; they may and must leave their wives to do it. In this case, the interest of the church, and of the souls of many, must overrule the interest of wife and family. Those pastors who have fixed stations, must neither leave flock nor family without necessity, or a clear call from God. But in several cases a preacher may be necessitated to go abroad; as in case of persecution at home, or of some necessity of foreign or remote parts, which cannot be otherwise supplied; or when some door is opened for the conversion of infidels, heretics, or idolaters, and none else so fit to do that work, or none that will. In any such case, when the cause of God in any part of the world consideratis considerandis doth require his help, a minister must leave wife and family, yea, and a particular flock, to do it. For our obligations are greatest to the catholic church, and public good; and the greatest good must be preferred. If a king command a subject to be an ambassador in the remotest part of the world, and the public good withal requireth it, if wife and children cannot be taken with him, they must be left behind, and he must go. So must a consecrated minister of Christ for the service of the church refuse all entanglements, which would more hinder his work than the contrary benefits will countervail. And this exception also was supposed in the marriage contract, that family interests and comforts must give way to the public interest, and to God's disposals.