Read Ebook: A Christian Directory Part 2: Christian Economics by Baxter Richard

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For the antecedent I willingly appeal to the experience of all the holy families in the world. Who ever used these duties seriously, and found not the benefits? What families be they, in which grace and heavenly-mindedness prosper, but those that use these duties? Compare in all your towns, cities, and villages, the families that read Scriptures, pray, and praise God, with those that do not, and see the difference: which of them abound more with impiety, with oaths, and cursings, and railings, and drunkenness, and whoredoms, and worldliness, &c.; and which abound most with faith, and patience, and temperance, and charity, and repentance, and hope, &c. The controversy is not hard to decide. Look to the nobility and gentry of England; see you no difference between those that have been bred in praying families and the rest? I mean, taking them one with another proportionably. Look to the ministers of England; is it praying families or prayerless families that have done most to the well furnishing of the universities.

The consequence is proved good: 1. The apostles prayed when they preached or instructed christians in private assemblies, Acts xx. 36, and other places. 2. We have special need of God's assistance in reading the Scriptures, to know his mind in them, and to make them profitable to us; therefore we must seek it. 3. The reverence due to so holy a business requireth it. 4. We are commanded "in all things to make our requests known to God with prayers, supplications, and thanksgiving, and that with all manner of prayer, in all places, without ceasing;" therefore especially on such occasions as the reading of Scriptures and instructing others: and I think that few men that are convinced of the duty of reading Scripture and solemn instructing their families, will question the duty of praying for God's blessing on it, when they set upon the work. Yea, a christian's own conscience will provoke him reverently to begin all with God in the imploring of his acceptance, and aid, and blessing.

In the foregoing argument I speak of teaching in general: here I speak of teaching to pray in special. The antecedent of the major I prove thus: 1. They are bound to bring "them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," Eph. vi. 44; therefore to teach them to pray and praise God; for "the nurture and admonition of the Lord" containeth that. 2. They are bound to "teach them the fear of the Lord," and "train them up in the way that they should go," and that is doubtless in the way of prayer and praising God.

The consequence appeareth here to be sound, in that men cannot be well and effectually taught to pray, without praying with them, or in their hearing; therefore they that must teach them to pray, must pray with them. It is like music, which you cannot well teach any man, without playing or singing to him; seeing teaching must be by practising: and in most practical doctrines it is so in some degree.

If any question this, I appeal to experience. I never knew any man that was well taught by man to pray, without practising it before them. They that ever knew any such, may have the more colour to object; but I did not: or if they did, yet so rare a thing is not to be made the ordinary way of our endeavours, any more than we should forbear teaching men the most curious artifices by ocular demonstration, because some wits have learned them by few words, or of their own invention: they are cruel to children and servants that teach them not to pray by practice and example.

Here mark, 1. That all our meat is to be received with thanksgiving; not only with a disposition of thankfulness. 2. That this is twice repeated here together expressly, yea, thrice in sense. 3. That God created them so to be received. 4. That it is made a condition of the goodness, that is, the blessing of the creature to our use. 5. That the creature is said to be sanctified by God's word and prayer; and so to be unsanctified to us before. 6. That the same thing which is called thanksgiving in the two former verses, is called prayer in the last; else the consequence of the apostle could not hold, when he thus argues, It is good if it be received with thanksgiving, because it is sanctified by prayer.

Hence I will draw these two arguments: 1. If families must with thanksgiving receive their meat as from God, then is the thanksgiving of families a duty of God's appointment: but the former is true, therefore so is the latter. The antecedent is plain: all must receive their meat with thanksgiving; therefore families must. They eat together; therefore they must give thanks together: and that prayer is included in thanksgiving in this text, I manifested before.

Hence I may fetch many arguments for family prayers. 1. It appeareth to be family prayers principally that the apostle here speaketh of; for it is families that he speaks to: for in ver. 16, 17, he speaketh of prayer and thanksgiving; and in the next words he speaketh to each family relation, wives, husbands, children, parents, servants, masters; and in the next words, continuing his speech to the same persons, he bids them "continue in prayer, and watch in the same," &c. If neighbours are bound to speak together in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, with grace in their hearts to the Lord, and to continue in prayer and thanksgiving; then families much more, who are nearlier related, and have more necessities and opportunities, as is said before. 3. If whatever we do in word or deed, we must do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks; then families must needs join in giving thanks. For they have much daily business in word and deed to be done together and asunder.

If households must serve the Lord, then households must pray to him and praise him: but households must serve him; therefore, &c. The consequence is proved, in that prayer and praise are so necessary parts of God's service, that no family or person can be said in general to be devoted to serve God, that are not devoted to them. Calling upon God is oft put in Scripture for all God's worship, as being a most eminent part; and atheists are described to be such as "call not upon the Lord," Psal. xiv. &c.

They that must so rule well over their own houses, as may partly prove them not unfit to rule the church, must rule them by holy instructions, and guiding them as their mouth in the worship of God. But those mentioned 1 Tim. iii. must so rule their houses; therefore, &c.

And yet there are many such cases that are not fit to be confined to our secret prayers each one by himself; because, 1. They often so sin together, as maketh it fit that they confess and lament it together. 2. And some mercies which they receive together, it is fit they seek and give thanks for together. 3. And many works which they do together, it is fit they seek a blessing on together. 4. And the presence of one another in confession, petition, and thanksgiving, doth tend to the increase of their fervour, and warming of their hearts, and engaging them the more to duty, and against sin; and is needful on the grounds laid down before. Nay, it is a kind of family schism, in such cases, to separate from one another, and to pray in secret only; as it is church schism to separate from the church assemblies, and to pray in families only. Nature and grace delight in unity, and abhor division. And the light of nature and grace engageth us to do as much of the work of God in unity, and concord, and communion as we can.

I think no man denieth the first part of the antecedent; that before the flood in the families of the righteous, and after till the establishment of a priesthood, God was worshipped in families or households: it is a greater doubt whether then he had any other public worship. When there were few or no church assemblies that were larger than families, no doubt God was ordinarily worshipped in families. Every ruler of a family then was as a priest to his own family. Cain and Abel offered their own sacrifices; so did Noah, Abraham, and Jacob.

If it be objected, that all this ceased, when the office of the priest was instituted, and so deny the latter part of my antecedent, I reply, 1. Though some make a doubt of it, whether the office of the priesthood was instituted before Aaron's time, I think there is no great doubt to be made of it; seeing we find a priesthood then among other nations, who had it either by the light of nature, or by tradition from the church; and Melchizedec's priesthood is expressly mentioned. So that though family worship was then the most usual, yet some more public worship there was. 2. After the institution of Aaron's priesthood family-worship continued, as I have proved before; yea, the two sacraments of circumcision and the passover, were celebrated in families by the master of the house; therefore prayer was certainly continued in families. 3. If that part of worship that was afterward performed in synagogues and public assemblies was appropriated to them, that no whit proveth, that the part which agreed to families as such, was transferred to those assemblies. Nay, it is a certain proof that part was left to families still, because we find that the public assemblies never undertook it. We find among them no prayer but church prayer; and not that which was fitted to families as such at all. Nor is there a word of Scripture that speaketh of God's reversing of his command or order for family prayer, or other proper family worship. Therefore it is proved to continue obligatory still.

Had I not been too long already, I should have urged to this end the example of Job, in sacrificing daily for his sons; and of Esther's keeping a fast with her maids, Esth. iv. 16. And Jer. x. 25, "Pour out thy fury on the heathen that know thee not, and on the families that call not on thy name." It is true that by "families" here is meant tribes of people, and by "calling on his name," is meant their worshipping the true God. But yet this is spoken of all tribes without exception, great and small: and tribes in the beginning were confined to families. And the argument holdeth from parity of reason to a proper family: and that calling on God's name is put for his worship, doth more confirm us, because it proveth it to be the most eminent part of worship, or else the whole would not be signified by it; at least no reason can imagine it excluded. So much for the proof of the fourth proposition.

Both major and minor are proved before. Experience proveth that family sins are daily committed, and family mercies daily received, and family necessities daily do occur. And reason tells us, 1. That it is seasonable every morning to give God thanks for the rest of the night past. 2. And to beg direction, protection, and provisions, and blessing for the following day. 3. And that then our minds are freest from weariness and worldly care. And so reason telleth us that the evening is a fit season to give God thanks for the mercies of the day, and to confess the sins of the day, and ask forgiveness, and to pray for rest and protection in the night. As nature and reason tell us how oft a man should eat and drink, and how long he should sleep, and what clothing he should wear; and Scripture need not tell you the particulars: so if Scripture command your prayer in general, God may by providence tell you when and how oft you must pray.

All these I heap together for despatch, which fully show how frequently God's servants have been wont to worship him, and how often God expecteth it. And you will all confess that it is reason that in gospel times of greater light and holiness, we should not come behind them in the times of the law; especially when Christ himself doth pray all night, that had so little need in comparison of us. And you may observe that these scriptures speak of prayer in general, and limit it not to secrecy; and therefore they extend to all prayer, according to opportunity. No reason can limit all these examples to the most secret and least noble sort of prayer. If but two or three are gathered together in his name, Christ is especially among them.

If you say, that by this rule we must as frequently pray in the church assemblies; I answer, the church cannot ordinarily so oft assemble; but when it can be without a great inconvenience, I doubt not but it would be a good work, for many to meet the minister daily for prayer, as in some rich and populous cities they may do.

I have been more tedious on this subject than a holy, hungry christian possibly may think necessary, who needeth not so many arguments to persuade him to feast his soul with God, and to delight himself in the frequent exercises of faith and love; and if I have said less than the other sort of readers shall think necessary, let them know that if they will open their eyes, and recover their appetites, and feel their sins, and observe their daily wants and dangers, and get but a heart that loveth God, these reasons then will seem sufficient to convince them of so sweet, and profitable, and necessary a work; and if they observe the difference between praying and prayerless families, and care for their souls and communion with God, much fewer words than these may serve their turn. It is a dead, and graceless, carnal heart, that must be cured before these men will be well satisfied; a better appetite would help their reason. If God should say in general to all men, You shall eat as oft as will do you good; the sick stomach would say, Once a day, and that but a little, is enough, and as much as God requireth; when another would say, Thrice a day is little enough. A good and healthful heart is a great help, in the expounding of God's word, especially of his general commandments. That which men love not, but are weary of, they will not easily believe to be their duty. The new nature, and holy love, and desires, and experience of a sound believer, do so far make all these reasonings needless to him, that I must confess I have written them principally to convince the carnal hypocrite, and stop the mouths of wrangling enemies.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE HOLY GOVERNMENT OF FAMILIES.

SPECIAL MOTIVES TO PERSUADE MEN TO THE HOLY GOVERNING OF THEIR FAMILIES.

IF it were but well understood what benefits come by the holy governing of families, and what mischiefs come by its neglect, there would few that walk the streets among us, appear so odious as those careless, ungodly governors that know not nor mind a duty of such exceeding weight. While we lie all as overwhelmed with the calamitous fruits of this neglect, I think meet to try if, with some, the cause may be removed, by awakening sluggish souls to do their undertaken work.

So that it is an evident truth, that most of the mischiefs that now infest or seize upon mankind throughout the earth, consist in, or are caused by, the disorders and ill-governedness of families. These are the schools and shops of Satan, from whence proceed the beastly ignorance, lust, and sensuality, the devilish pride, malignity, and cruelty against the holy ways of God, which have so unmanned the progeny of Adam. These are the nests in which the serpent doth hatch the eggs of covetousness, envy, strife, revenge, of tyranny, disobedience, wars, and bloodshed, and all the leprosy of sin that hath so odiously contaminated human nature, and all the miseries by which they make the world calamitous. Do you wonder that there can be persons and nations so blind and barbarous as we read of the Turks, Tartarians, Indians, and most of the inhabitants of the earth? A wicked education is the cause of all, which finding nature depraved, doth sublimate and increase the venom which should by education have been cured; and from the wickedness of families doth national wickedness arise. Do you wonder that so much ignorance, and voluntary deceit, and obstinacy in errors, contrary to all men's common senses, can be found among professed christians, as great and small, high and low, through all the papal kingdoms, do discover? Though the pride, and covetousness, and wickedness of a worldly, carnal clergy, is a very great cause, yet the sinful negligence of parents and masters in their families is as great, if not much greater than that. Do you wonder that even in the reformed churches, there can be so many unreformed sinners, of beastly lives, that hate the serious practice of the religion which themselves profess? It is ill education in ungodly families that is the cause of all this. Oh therefore how great and necessary a work is it, to cast salt into these corrupted fountains! Cleanse and cure these vitiated families, and you may cure almost all the calamities of the earth. To tell what the emperors and princes of the earth might do, if they were wise and good, to the remedy of this common misery, is the idle talk of those negligent persons, who condemn themselves in condemning others. Even those rulers and princes that are the pillars and patrons of heathenism, Mahometanism, popery, and ungodliness in the world, did themselves receive that venom from their parents, in their birth and education, which inclineth them to all this mischief. Family reformation is the easiest and the most likely way to a common reformation; at least to send many souls to heaven, and train up multitudes for God, if it reach not to national reformation.

MORE SPECIAL MOTIVES FOR A HOLY AND CAREFUL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

BECAUSE the chief part of family care and government consisteth in the right education of children, I shall adjoin here some more special motives to quicken considerate parents to this duty; and though most that I have to say for it be already said in my "Saints' Rest," part iii. chap. 14. sect. 11, &c. and therefore shall be here omitted, yet something shall be inserted, lest the want here should appear too great.

And now let me seriously speak to the hearts of those careless and ungodly parents, that neglect the holy education of their children: yea, and to those professors of godliness, that slubber over so great a work with a few customary formal duties and words, that are next to a total omission of it. Oh be not so unmerciful to the souls that you have helped to bring into the world! Think not so basely of them, as if they were not worth your labour. Make not your children so like your beasts, as to make no provision but only for their flesh. Remember still that it is not beasts, but men, that you have begotten and brought forth: educate them then and use them as men, for the love and obedience of their Maker: oh pity and help the souls that you have defiled and undone! Have mercy on the souls that must perish in hell, if they be not saved in this day of salvation! Oh help them that have so many enemies to assault them! Help them that have so many temptations to pass through; and so many difficulties to overcome; and so severe a judgment to undergo! Help them that are so weak, and so easily deceived and overthrown! Help them speedily while your advantages continue; before sin have hardened them, and grace have forsaken them, and Satan place a stronger garrison in their hearts. Help them while they are tractable, before they are grown up to despise your help; before you and they are separated asunder, and your opportunities be at an end. You think not your pains from year to year too much to make provision for their bodies: oh be not cruel to their souls! Sell them not to Satan, and that for nought! Betray them not by your ungodly negligence to hell. Or if any of them will perish, let it not be by you, that are so much bound to do them good: the undoing of your children's souls is a work much fitter for Satan, than for their parents. Remember how comfortable a thing it is, to work with Christ for the saving of souls. You think the calling of ministers honourable and happy; and so it is, because they serve Christ in so high a work: but if you will not neglect it, you may do for your children more than any minister can do. This is your preaching place; here God calleth you to exercise your parts, even in the holy instruction of your families: your charge is small in comparison of the minister's, he hath many hundred souls to watch over, that are scattered all abroad the parish; and will you think it much to instruct and watch over those few of your own that are under your roof? You can speak odiously of unfaithful, soul-betraying ministers; and do you not consider how odious a soul-betraying parent is? If God intrust you but with earthly talents, take heed how you use them, for you must be accountable for your trust; and when he hath intrusted you with souls, even your children's souls, will you betray them? If any rulers should but forbid you the instructing and well-governing of your families, and restrain you by a law, as they would have restrained Daniel from praying in his house, Dan. vi. then you would think them monsters of impiety and inhumanity; and you would cry out of a satanical persecution, that would make men traitors to their children's souls, and drive away all religion from the earth. And yet how easily can you neglect such duties, when none forbid them you, and never accuse yourselves of any such horrid impiety or inhumanity? What hypocrisy and blind partiality is this! Like a lazy minister that would cry out of persecution, if he were silenced by others, and yet will not be provoked to be laborious, but ordinarily by his slothfulness silence himself, and make no such matter of it. Would it be so heinous a sin in another to restrain you? and is it not as heinous for you, that are so much obliged to it, voluntarily to restrain yourselves? O then deny not this necessary diligence to your necessitous children, as you love their souls, as you love the happiness of the church or commonwealth, as you love the honour and interest of Christ, and as you love your present and everlasting peace. Do not see your children the slaves of Satan here, and the firebrands of hell for ever, if any diligence of yours may contribute to prevent it. Do not give conscience such matter of accusation against you, as to say, All this was long of thee! If thou hadst instructed them diligently, and watched over them, and corrected them, and done thy part, it is like they had never come to this. You till your fields; you weed your gardens; what pains take you about your grounds and cattle! and will you not take more for your children's souls? Alas, what creatures will they be if you leave them to themselves! how ignorant, careless, rude, and beastly! Oh what a lamentable case have ungodly parents brought the world into! Ignorance and selfishness, beastly sensuality, and devilish malignity, have covered the face of the earth as a deluge, and driven away wisdom, and self-denial, and piety, and charity, and justice, and temperance almost out of the world, confining them to the breasts of a few obscure, humble souls, that love virtue for virtue's sake, and look for their reward from God alone, and expect that by abstaining from iniquity they make themselves a prey to wolves, Isa. lix. 15. Wicked education hath unmanned the world, and subdued it to Satan, and make it almost like to hell. O do not join with the sons of Belial in this unnatural, horrid wickedness!

THE MUTUAL DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES TOWARDS EACH OTHER.

IT is the pernicious subversion of all societies, and so of the world, that selfish, ungodly persons enter into all relations with a desire to serve themselves there, and fish out all that gratifieth their flesh, but without any sense of the duty of their relation. They bethink them what honour, or profit, or pleasure their relation will afford them, but not what God and man require or expect from them. All their thought is, what they shall have, but not what they shall be and do. They are very sensible what others should be and do to them; but not what they should be and do to others. Thus it is with magistrates, and with people, with too many pastors and their flocks, with husbands and wives, with parents and children, with masters and servants, and all other relations. Whereas our first care should be to know and perform the duties of our relations, and please God in them, and then look for his blessing by way of encouraging reward. Study and do your parts, and God will certainly do his.

What then shall we say of them that do not only deny their help, but are hinderers of the holiness and salvation of each other! And yet how common a thing is this among us! If the wife be ignorant and ungodly, she will do her worst to make or keep her husband such as she is herself; and if God put any holy inclinations into his heart, she will be to it as water to the fire, to quench it or to keep it under; and if he will not be as sinful and miserable as herself, he shall have little quietness or rest. And if God open the eyes of the wife of a bad man, and show her the amiableness and necessity of a holy life, and she do but resolve to obey the Lord, and save her soul, what an enemy and tyrant will her husband prove to her ; so that the devil himself doth scarce do more against the saving of their souls, than ungodly husbands and wives do against each other.

O therefore resolve without delay, to live together as heirs of heaven, and to be helpers to each other's souls. To which end I will give you these following sub-directions, which if you will faithfully practise, may make you to be special blessings to each other.

Were it not lest I be over-tedious, I should next speak of the manner how husbands and wives must perform their duties to each other: as, 1. That it should be all done in such entire love, as maketh the case of one another to you as your own. 2. That therefore all must be done in patience and mutual forbearance. 3. And in familiarity, and not with strangeness, distance, sourness, nor affected compliment. 4. And in secrecy; where I should have showed you in what cases secrecy may be broken, and in what not. 5. And in confidence of each other's fidelity, and not in suspicion, jealousy, and distrust. 6. And in prudence, to manage things aright, and to foresee and avoid impediments and inconveniencies. 7. And in holiness, that God may be the first and last, and all in all. 8. And in constancy, that you cease not your duties for one another until death. But necessary abbreviation alloweth me to say no more of these.

Gen. ii. 18; Prov. xviii. 22.

Matt. v. 31, 32; xix. 9; John viii. 4, 5, of adultery; Heb. xiii. 4; Prov. xxii. 14; Hos. iv. 2, 3; Prov. ii. 17; 1 Cor. vi. 15, 19; Mal. ii. 15; Prov. vi. 32, 35; Deut. xxiii. 2; Lev. xxi. 9; xviii. 28; Numb. xxv. 9; Jer. v. 7-9; Gen. vi. 2, 3, &c.; xxxiv. 27; 2 Sam. xiii. 22; xii. 10; Judg. xx. 10; Jer. xxiii. 14.

Rev. xxi. 8; Prov. v. 20; 2 Pet. ii. 10, 12, 14. Read before part i. ch. 8. part 5. tit. 1.

Numb. xvi. 27, 32.

Gen. ii. 18.

Matt. xxvii. 19.

Rom. xiii. 13, 14; Eph. v. 29, 31; Gen. ii. 18.

Gen. xxvii. 14.

Eph. v. 29, 31; Job xix. 17; ii. 9.

See Prov. xxxi; Gen. xxxi. 40; Tit. ii. 5; 1 Tim. v. 14; v. 8.

Heb. xiii. 2; Gen. xviii. 6, &c.; Rom. xii. 13; 2 Cor. ix. 6; Luke xvi. 9; 1 Tim. iii. 2; v. 10; Prov. xi. 20, 28; Neh. viii. 1; Prov. xix. 17; Job xxix. 13; xxxi. 20; Acts xx. 35.

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF HUSBANDS TO THEIR WIVES.

HE that will expect duty or comfort from his wife, must be faithful in doing the duty of a husband. The failing of yourselves in your own duty, may cause the failing of another to you, or at least will some other way as much afflict you, and will be bitterer to you in the end, than if a hundred failed of their duty to you. A good husband will either make a good wife, or easily and profitably endure a bad one. I shall therefore give you directions for your own part of duty, as that which your happiness is most concerned in.

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF WIVES TO HUSBANDS.

THE wife that expecteth comfort in a husband, must make conscience of all her own duty to her husband: for though it be his duty to be kind and faithful to her, though she prove unkind and froward, yet, 1. Men are frail, and apt to fail in such difficult duties as well as women. 2. And it is so ordered by God, that comfort and duty shall go together, and you shall miss of comfort, if you cast off duty.

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.

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. 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. She may modestly give her reasons of dissent. She must not turn it to an unpeaceable quarrel, or matter of disaffection, or pretend any differences against her conjugal duties. In dark and difficult cases she should not be peremptory, and self-conceited, nor importunate; but if she have faith have it to herself, in quietness and silence; and seek further information lest she err. She must speak no untruth, nor commit any known sin, in obedience to her husband's judgment. 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. But if she prove to be in the error, she will sin on either side, till she recover. If a husband be in dangerous error, she must wisely, but unweariedly, seek his reformation, by herself or others.

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.

And therefore it is, that ministers should not rashly venture upon marriage, nor any woman that is wise venture to marry a minister, till she is first well prepared for such accidents as may separate them for a shorter or a longer time.

Yet still she must consider, whether she can live continently in his absence; otherwise the greatest sufferings must be endured, to avoid incontinency.

And if either party renounce the relation itself, it is a fuller desertion, and clearer discharge of the other party, than a mere removal is.

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