William Secker

“ A wife takes sanctuary not only in her husband's house, but in his heart. The tree of love should grow up in the family, as the tree of life grew up in the garden. They that chuse their love, should love their choice. ”

“ May that Spirit seal them unto the day of redemption! At that glorious period, may I meet you all amongst the redeemed of the Lord, happy to see you shining with immortal splendour, in the general assembly and church of the first-born! transported to think that I shall live with you for ever, and joining in the gratulations of your fellow-angels around the throne of God, when He shall, in the sight of all, clothe you with the garment of salvation, and cover you with the robe of righteousness, as a bride groom is decked with ornaments, and as a bride is adorned with her jewels. ”

“ One would have thought that they should rather have looked for grace in the heart, than for beauty in the face: take care of inning at the fairest signs; the swan hath black flesh under her white feathers. ”

“ Nature makes us creatures, before grace makes us Christians. If the loins of man had been less fruitful, the death of Christ would have been less successful. It was a witty question that one put to him that said, "Marriage fills the earth but virginity fills the heavens." How can the heavens be full, if the earth be empty?
Had Adam lived in innocency, without matrimony, there would have been no servants of God in the church militant, nor no saints with God, in the church triumphant. ”

“ They use too many women for their lusts, to choose any for their love.——Their tables are so largely spread, that they cannot feed upon one dish. As for their exalting of a virgin-state it is like him who commended fasting when he had filled his belly. Who knows not, that virginity is a pearl of a sparkling lustre? But the one cannot be set up, without the other be thrown down: No oblation will pacify the former, but the demolishing of the latter. Tho' we find many enemies to the choice of marriage, yet it is rare to find any enemies to the use of marriage. ”

“ Where there is nothing but a picture of virtue, or a few shadowy qualities that may subsist without any real excellency, death will hide them for ever in the night of despair. The blackness of darkness will close upon the naked and wandring ghost ”

“ When all other creatures had their mates, Adam wanted his, though he was the emperor of the earth, and the admiral of the seas yet in Paradise without a companion; though he was truly happy, yet he was not fully happy; though he had enough for his board, yet he had not enough for his bed; though he had many creatures to serve him, yet he wanted a creature to solace him: when he was compounded in creation he must be compleated by conjunction; when he had no sin to hurt him, then he must have a wife to help him: "It is not good that man should be alone." ”

“ It is dangerous taking her for a wife, who will not take God for a husband. It is not meet that one flesh should be of two spirits. Is there never a tree thou likest in the garden but that which bears forbidden fruit? There are but two channels in which the remaining streams shall run: 1. To those men that want wives how to chuse them. 2 To those women who have husbands, how to use them.
1. To those men that want wives, how to chuse them. Marriage is the tying of such a knot, that nothing but death can unloose. ”

“ Wilt thou condemn the frame of all, for the fault of one? As if it were true logic, because some are evil, therefore none are good. He hath ill eyes, that disdains all objects. To blast thy helper is to blame thy Maker. ”

“ She must not be a field-wife, like Dinah; nor a street-wife, like Thamar; nor a window-wife, like Jezebel.
Phildeas, when he drew a woman, painted her under a snail-shell; that she might imitate that little creature, that goes no further than it can carry its house upon its head. How many women are there, that are not labouring bees, but idle drones; that take up a room in the hive, but bring no honey to it; that are moths to their husband's estates, spending when they should be sparing? As the man's part is, to provide industriously, so the woman's is, to preserve discreetly ”

“ In creation, God made not one woman for many men, or many women for one man. Every wife should be to her husband, as Eve was to Adam, a whole world of women; and every husband should be to his wife, as Adam was to Eve, a whole world of men. When a river is divided into many channels, the main current starves.
To conclude, Good servants are a great blessing: good children a greater blessing: but a good wife is the greatest: and such a help let him seek for her that wants one, let him sigh for her that hath lost one, let him take pleasure in her that enjoys one. ”

“ The husband must communicate maintenance to the wife as the head conveys influence to the members; thou must not be a drone, and she a drudge. A man in a married estate, is like a chamberlain in an inn, there is knocking for him in every room. Many persons in this condition, waste that estate in luxury, which should supply their wife's necessity:—— they have neither the faith of a Christian, nor the love of a husband! It is a sad spectacle to see a virgin sold with her own money unto slavery when services are better than marriages ”

“ Other creatures were made like themselves, but man was made like God as the wax hath the impression of the seal upon it. It is admirable to behold so fair a picture in such coarse canvas, and so bright a character in so brown paper. ”

“ It is not good in respect of mankind, which then would not be propagated. The Roman Historian, relating the ravishing of the Sabine woman, excused them thus, “Without them, mankind would fall from the earth, and perish." Marriages do turn mutability into the image of eternity; it springs up new buds, when the old are withered. ”

“ They be ill birds that defile their own nests. It is a great deal better you should fast, than feast yourselves upon their failings. Some husbands are never well, but when they are holding their fingers in their wife's sores. Such are like crows that fasten only upon carrion. Do not put out the candle because of the snuff. Husbands and wives should provoke one another to love; and they should love one-another notwithstanding of provocation.—Take heed of poisoning those springs from whence the streams of your pleasure flow. ”

“ Is the woman to be a help to the man? Then let the man be a help to the woman — What makes some debtors to be such ill pay-masters, but because they look at what is owing to them, but not at what is owing by them. If thou wouldst have thy wife's reverence let her have thy respect. To force a tear from this relation, is that which neither befits the husband's authority to enjoin, nor the wife's duty to perform. ”

“ Hast thou a sweet wife? She is of God's making. Let me draw up this with double application.
1. When thou layest out for such a good on earth, look up to the God of heaven, let him make thy choice for thee, who made his choice of thee. Look above you before you, about you; nothing makes up the happiness of a married condition, like the holiness of a mortified disposition: count not those the most worthy that are the most wealthy. ”

“ Some of our European nations are so strict in their junctions, that it is again their laws for the commonality to couple with the gentry.— It was well said by one "If the wife be too much above her husband she either ruins him by her vast expences or reviles him with her base reproaches: if she be too much below her husband, either her former condition makes her too generous, or her present mutation makes her too imperious." ”

“ A preacher should not be silent in the cause of those who are always silenced from preaching.—Because they are the weaker vessels, shall they be broken all to pieces? Thou that sayest women are evil, it may be thy expression flows from thy experience ”

“ In respect of one man, it may be good not to touch a woman; but in respect of all, "It is not good that man should be alone."
2. Moses speaks of the state of man created, Paul of the state of man corrupted. Now, that which by institution was a mercy, by corruption may become a misery; as pure water is tainted by running through a miry channel; or as the sun beams receive a tincture by shining through a coloured glass. There is no print of evil in the world, but sin was the stamp that made it. They that seek nothing but weal in its commission, will find nothing but wo in the conclusion. ”

“ A help to his society, by the fragrantness of her conversation. Man is an affectionate creature; now the woman's behaviour should be such towards the man, as to require his affection, by increasing his delectation, that the new-born love may not be ruined before it be rooted. A wife should carry herself so to her husband, as not to disturb his love by her contention, nor to destroy his love by her alienation. Husband and wife should be like two candles burning together, which makes the house more lightsome ”

“ Chuse not by your hands, for the bounty of the portion. When Cato's daughter was asked, Why she did not marry? She thus replied, She could not find the man that loved her person above her portion. Men love curious pictures, but they would have them set in golden frames. Some are so degenerate, as to think any good enough, who have but goods enough. Take heed, for sometimes the bag and baggage go together. The person should be a figure and the portion a cypher, which added to her, advances the sum, but alone, signifies nothing. ”

“ Temptations may break nature's best fence, and lay it's paradise waste; but a single life is a prison of unruly desires, which is daily attempted to be broken open. Some indeed, force themselves to a single life merely to avoid the charges of a married state ”

“ Let their power command you, that their praise may commend you. Though you may have your husband's heart yet you should love his will. Till the husband leaves commanding, the wife must never leave obeying. ”

“ He that praises not the giver, prizes not the gift. And so I pass from the Agent to the Object, A help.
She must be so much, and no less; and so much, and no more. Our ribs were not ordained to be our rulers. They are not made of the head, to claim superiority; but out of the side, to be content with equality. They desert the Author of nature, who invert the order of nature. The woman was made for the man's comfort, but the man was nat made for woman's command. Those shoulders aspire too high that content not themselves with a room below their head. ”

“ The painter is most studious about that which he means to make his masterpiece. The four elements were taken out of their elements to make up the perfection of man's complexion: the fire was purified, the earth was refined. When man was moulded, heaven and earth were married, a body from the one, was espoused to a soul from the other. ”

“ It is between a man and his wife in the house, as it is between the sun and the moon in the heavens, when the greater light goes down, the lesser light gets up; when the one ends in setting, the other begins in shining. ”

“ But where there is a living image of true goodness begun in this state, death will deliver it with safety into the finishing hand of Eternity, to be produced with every mark of honour in the open view of heaven, where its now mortal partner rescued froA the dishonours of the dust, and brightened into the greces of eternal youth, shall rejoin it in triumph, to suffer the pangs of separation no more. ”

“ A heavy burden is easily carried by assistance of other shoulders. Husband and wife should neither be proud flesh nor dead flesh You are fellow members, therefore should have a fellow-feeling. While one stands safe on the shore, the other should pity him that is toast on the sea. Sympathy in suffering, is like a dry house in a wet day.
3. Chuse such a one as may be serviceable to your salvation. A man may think he hath a saint when he hath a devil; but take heed of a harlot that is false to thy bed ”

“ On the right side when the wife would run in God's way, the husband will not let her go. When the fore-horse in a team will not draw, he hinders all the rest; when the general of an army forbids a march all the soldiers stand still. Sometimes on the left: How did Solomon's idolatrous wives draw away his heart from heaven? A sining 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 ”

“ Common reason suggests so much, that we should be long a-doing that which can but once be done. Where one design hath been graveled in the sands of delay, thousands have been split on the rock of precipitance. ”

“ We cannot build a house without tools, but the Trinity is at liberty. To God's omniscience there is nothing impossible. We work by hands, but he works without hands. He that made man meet for help, makes a meet help for man. Marriages are consented above, but consummated below. Prov. xviii. 22. Though man wants supply, yet man cannot supply his wants James i. 17. "Every good and perfect gift comes from above" &c. A wife, though she be not a perfect gift, yet she is a good gift. ”

“ Society is the solace of bumanity; the world would be a desart, without a consort.
Most of man's parts are made in pairs; now he that was double in his perfection, must not be single in his condition ”