12
The woman must be a help to the man in these four things :—1. To his piety. 2. To his society. 3. To his progeny. 4. To his prosperity. To his piety, by the ferventness of her excitation. To his society, by the fragrantness of her conversation. To his progeny, by the fruitfulness of her education. To his prosperity, by her faithful preservation.
1. To his piety, by the ferventness of her excitation, 1 Pet. ii. 7. Husband and wife should be as the two milch-kine, which were coupled together to carry the ark of God; or as the two cherubims, that looked one upon another, and both upon the mercy-seat; or as the two tables of stone, on each of which were engraven the laws of God. In some families married persons are like Jeremiah's two basket of figs, the one very good, the other very evil; or like fire and water, whilst the one is flaming in devotion, the other is freezing in corruption. There is a two-fold hinderance of holiness: 1. On the right side. 2. On the left. On the right side; when the wife would run in God's way, the husband will not let her go; when the forehorse in a team will not draw, he wrongs all the rest; when the general of an army forbids a march, all tho soldiers stand still. Sometimes on the left: How did Solomon's idolatrous wife draw away his heart from heaven? A sinning wife was Satan's first ladder, by which he scaled the wall of Paradise, and took away the fort-royal of Adam's heart from him. Thus she, that should have been the help of his flesh, was the hurt of his faith; his nature's under-proper, became his grace's underminer; and she that should be a crown on the head, is a cross on the shoulders. The wife is often to the husband as the ivy is to the oak, which draws away his sap from him.
