A care-cloth

Think of these things, you that are, or would be married: What if you prove dry Kyes, and bear no fruit? How could you brook a life wanting issue, the most desirable fruit of marriage? Or, What if God give thee children to look upon for a week, or two? or to play with for a year or two? or to be charged withal for a dozen, or a score of years, and then send death to fetch them to himself again? With what quietness of mind couldst thou resign these gifts into the hand of him that gave them? How couldest thou endure, to see the sickness of thy sons or daughters, to see them burn, toss, tumble, waste, consume, languish, and pine away? to hear them groan, sigh, complain, cry out, and roar, and scritch, and fill thine ears with rueful lamentations? How canst thou frame thy self, to see thy branches, as it were withering, half cut off, and ready to fall ⟨p. 53⟩from the body of thy family? What shift couldst thou make to bury two, three, four, half a dozen, half a score sons or daughters, some at a day, some at a week, some at a year, some at a dozen, some at twenty, or more years old? Or if thou scape these petit crosses, in thy children, how couldst thou brook a stubborn, rebellious son, or daughter, that will interchange words with thee, and snap thee up short, and chide faster then thy self? that will cast upon thee a leering, horse-like, contemptuous eye? and will stab thy soul, with a louring, pouting, scornful look? with a dogged, barking answer? yea, that will steal thy goods from thee, and consume it in ill company, whores, and drunkenness? that wastes all that thou hast gotten, and given to him? and takes such untamed courses, as do deeply threaten thine heart and eyes with that worse then deadly spectacle, to see him one day preaching upon a ladder, with a rope about his neck, because such a life can hardly conclude in a better death? How wilt thou suffer this corzie of a wicked, riotous, ungracious, ungrateful Viper in thine house? who doth nothing else, but strive with abominable words and deeds, as it were with poysonfull teeth, to gnaw out thy very heart, and devour thy bowels and entrails; for whom, thou canst neither eat, or sleep in quiet; nor be at home nor abroad in peace; a very Absalom, that would kill his father, to get his Kingdom?

Thinke of these things, you that are, or would be married: What if you prooue drie Kyes, and beare no fruite? How could you brooke a life wanting issue, the most desireable fruit of marriage? Or, What if God giue thee children to looke vpon for a weeke, or two? or to play with for a yeere or two? or to be charged withall for a doozen, or a score of yeeres, and then send death to fetch them to himselfe againe? With what quietnese of mind couldst thoui resigne these gifts into the hand of him that gaue them? How couldest thou endure, to see the sicknesse of thy sonnes or daughters, to see them burne, toffe, tumble, waste, consume, languish, and pine away? to heare them grone, sigh, complaine, crie out, and roare, and scritch, and fill thine eares with rufull lamentations? How canst thou frame thy selfe, to see thy branches, as it were withering, halfe cut off, and ready to fall