all these characters of his pattern husband. The tone of his counsels, moreover, is more Jewish than Christian. Here is his description of marital forbearance. The good husband, he says, bears with his wife's infirmities:
"All hard using of her he detests; desiring therein to do not what may be lawful, but fitting. And, grant her to be of a servile nature, such as may be bettered by beating; yet he remembers he hath enfranchised her by marrying her. On her wedding-day she was, like St. Paul, free-born,' and privileged from any servile punishment."
Fuller, in selecting the patriarch as the model husband, did but follow the example of the Prayer-Book which proposes Sarah as the model wife in the often-criticised paragraph with which the homily in the marriage service ends:
"For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement."
In England a part of the ancient papal power of issuing dispensations was reserved, and
