A25478:1828
A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…
A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically resolved by sundry ministers
London: printed for Thomas Cockerill, 1676
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.
2. Let us trace the Husbands Love to his Wife in its Pattern laid down in the Scripture, and particularly in the Context and Words which I am handling. And
1. The Husband ought to love his Wife, as our Saviour Christ loveth his Church. Ver. 25. Husbands, love your Wives, even as Christ also loved his Church. He must nourish and cherish her, even as the Lord the Church, ver. 29. Now these Texts direct us to the quality of our Love, though we cannot reach to an equality with Christ herein.
How then doth Jesus Christ love his Church? I shall search no farther into this Depth, than so far as it is proposed in this Context for a Pattern (surely) to all Husbands in their love. And this his Love is represented here to be.
1. Hearty, without dissimulation. Ver. 25. He loved the Church and gave himself for it. His Love was Real, for he Dyed of it. The Husband must write after this Copy. Not to love his wife in word and tongue only, but in deed and in truth; that if his heart were opened, her Name might be found written there. Some vain complemental persons there are, that do outstrip in their overt addresses many sincere and true-hearted husbands; but neither doth God nor should a discreet wife look only at the appearance, but at the heart.