“1. Let her be in subjection to her head,

(1.) By a reverent and humble persuasion of his precedency and authority over her, grounded and engraven in her resolution principally, 1. By virtue of Divine ordinance, Gen. iii. 16, Eph. v. 24; 2. The very law of nature; 3. Her husbands headship; 4. Womanly infirmity may also be a powerful motive to this purpose. For, if her heart begin to swell, and be lifted up with an overweening conceit of a sufficiency above her sex, so that she grow discontented, and impatient of contradiction and command, she brings a world of unnecessary misery and molestation into her own house, and lies in a grand transgression and grievous sin against the institution of the marriage state. It is no nobleness of birth, greatness of portion, nimbleness of tongue, fullness of wit, or any other excellency incident to her sex, which can give her any right or privilege to seize upon the sovereignty, and take the reins into her own hands. Some servants also may be wiser than their masters, some subjects more politic than their prince; but that gives them no warrant: nay, for all that, it were monstrous and unnatural villany for any servant thereupon to domineer, or private man to rush into the royal throne… No pretence then, or plea on the woman’s part, can possibly procure any dispensation, against God and nature, of unwomanly domineering and deposing her head.

(2.) By a hearty and cheerful submission. 1. To all his lawful and honest dictates and directions in respect to her personal behaviour; that it may be fashioned and addressed with an ingenuous and loving accommodation of herself to him all the honour, and give him all the contentment, she can possibly with good conscience. Also for educating, ordering, and disposing her children, servants, and other domestic affairs (wherein, notwithstanding there are some passages more proper and native to her sex, in which, except she be senseless, graceless, and strangely weak, it will be very unmanly, dishonourable, and unworthy for him to be too meddling, prying and pragmatical.). But, above all, for guiding her aright in the sweet and glorious path of Christianity, that after their nearest and dearest comfort, and communion in the best things and spiritual blessings…they may for ever be crowned together in heaven. 2. To all his reasonable and religious restraints, not only from wicked haunts and customs, sinful fashions, and passions, but in case of inconvenience, dishonour, or just displeasure; for the abridging or abandoning her ease, will, desires, delights, this or that company, and conformity to the times in her attire. For the spouse, for Christ’s sake, sovereignty, and love, doth deny herself, her own reason and wisdom, her natural wit and wilfulness, her passions, pleasures, and profits, her ease, and liberty…Eph. v. 24. 3. To all his motions, admonitions, counsels, comforts, reproofs, commands, countermands, even in every thing, only in the Lord. So we see the body to rest upon the head’s motion, either for rest or motion. In a word, she ought, like a true looking-glass, faithfully to represent and return to her husband’s heart, with a sweet and pleasing pliableness, the exact lineaments and proportions of all his honest desires and demands, and that without discontent, thwarting, or sourness. For her subjection in this kind should be as to Christ, sincere, hearty, and free.

2. Let her be a helper, Gen. ii. 18, and do him good all the days of her life, at all times, upon all occasions, in all conditions…and that with kindness and constancy.

Helpfulness to her husband must be universal; apprehending and improving, with all readiness and love, all opportunities to do him good in soul or body, name or estate. In a special manner she must learn and labour, with all meekness of wisdom and patient discretion, to forecast, contrive, and manage, as her proper and particular charge, household affairs and businesses within doors. For which see a right noble glorious pattern, Prov. xxxi… But, above all, let her be assistant to him in setting up and forwarding the rich royal trade of grace, in erecting and establishing Christ’s glorious kingdom, both in their own hearts and in their house. This is that one necessary thing, without which their family is but Satan’s seminary, and a nursery for hell. And therefore…she should labour by all wise, modest, seasonable insinuations, to stir up and quicken her husband to constancy and fervency in religious exercises of prayer, reading, catechising, conference, days of humiliation, and other household holy duties. As the two greater lights of heaven do govern this great world with their natural, so let the husband and wife guide the little world of their family with the spiritual light of Divine knowledge and discretion. When the sun is present in our firmament, the moon, out of a sense, as it were, of a natural reverence to the fountain of all her beauty and light, doth veil her splendour, and withdraw her beams. But when he is departed to the other hemisphere, she shows herself, and shines as a princess among the lesser lights. When the husband is at home, let the wife only, if need be, serve as a loving remembrancer to him, to keep his turns and times of enlightening and informing the ignorant, dark, and earthly hearts of their people. But in his absence comes her course, when her graces of knowledge and prayer ought to show forth themselves, and shine upon them, to preserve them from coldness…”

(Robert Bolton's ‘General Directions for a Comfortable Walking with God’)

posted by Graciana@Home at 3:02 am