Two marriage sermons the former on Prov. 19. 14. By Thomas Gataker B. of…Tvvo mariage sermons the former on Prov. 19. 14. By Thomas Gataker B. of…

TO THE WORSHIPFUL AND RELIGIOUS, Mr GEORGE WILMER Esquire, and Mrs MARGARET WILMER his Wife, increase of spiritual grace, and mutual comfort in CHRIST JESUS.

TO THE WORSHIPFVLL AND RELIGIOVS, Mr GEORGE WILMER Esquire, and Mrs MARGERET WILMER his Wife, increase of spirituall grace, and mutuall comfort in CHRIST IESVS.

WORSHIPFUL AND beloved in Christ; At the solemn knitting of you together, was this Sermon preached by that worthy Servant of God, and our common friend, now with God, then first (as I have heard him say) performing that office that then he did. Which of late lighting upon, among other his loose papers, I thought it would not be amiss rather to send it abroad, then to suffer it (as it might soon perhaps otherwise) to miscarry and so perish▪ The piety ⟨image 22⟩and pithiness of the discourse it self seemed to require no less of me: that which any judicious & religious, I assure my self, will with me easily acknowledge. The rarity likewise of the subject the rather incited me thereunto. He treadeth a track not so usually beaten. Of Marriage Sermons, that entreat of Marriage duties, there are extant not a few. Such as handle the religious managing of Marriage Feasts, I suppose not many; I remember not to have seen any. It is that, that this holy Man of God doth here principally insist upon: and it is a point very necessary, and of no small use. For to let pass that gross abuse, too too frequent among the profaner sort, that esteem such meetings never well seasoned, or aright celebrated, unless filthy discourse and^a obscene songs be as common as any ordinary service; as if they were not dealing with a sacred ordinance of God, but were about the sacrilegious rites of some impure Idol; and so, like the idolatrous Jews, that turned b Bethel into c Beth-aven, making a Brothel-house of a Bride-house: As also to pass by the brutish and swinish ⟨image 22⟩