A12367:91
A preparative to marriage The sum whereof was spoken at a contract, and enlarged…A preparatiue to mariage The summe whereof was spoken at a contract, and inlarged…
A preparative to marriage The sum whereof was spoken at a contract, and enlarged after. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of the Lords Supper, and another of usury. By Henry Smith.A preparatiue to mariage The summe whereof was spoken at a contract, and inlarged after. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of the Lords Supper, and another of vsurie. By Henrie Smith.
London: printed by Thomas Orwin for Thomas Man, 1591
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Because I have spoken more 1than you can remember, if you ask me, what is most needful to bear away? In my opinion there is one saying of Paul, which is the profitablest sentence in all the 2Scripture, for Man and Wife to meditate often, and examine whether they find it in themselves as they do in other, least their Marriage turn to sin, which should further them in godliness. In the 1. Cor. 7. 32. it is said, The unmarried 3man careth for the things of the Lord how he may please the Lord, but he that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife. Likewise, The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord how she may be holy, but she that is ⟨p. 112⟩married, careth for the things of the world how she may please her Husband. As though their pleasing of God were now turned all to pleasing one another, and their carnal love had eaten their spiritual love, as the lean kine devoured the fat. Therefore it followeth in the next 4words, This I speak for your commodity: As though there were 5great commodity in remembering this watch word. All men have not the feeling of Gods word, or else such a sentence might be an anchor to all which are married, to stay them when any temptation goeth about this change, which Paul feared even in them which seared God before. If thou have read all this book, and art never the better, yet catch this flower before thou go out of the ⟨p. 113⟩garden, and peradventure the sent thereof will bring thee back to smell the rest. As the corps of Hazael made the passengers to stand, 6so I have placed this sentence in the door of thy passage, to make thee stand and consider what thou doest before thou marriest. For this is the scope and operation of it, to call the mind to a solemn meditation, and warn him to live in Marriage as in a temptation, which is like to make him worse than he was, as the Marriage of Jehoram did, if he use not Jobs preservative