There is another disposal and placing out of children, wherein good Parents ought to be greatly concerned, and that is [2.] Into the honourable estate of marriage (g)when at a competent age, considering the temper and inclinations of the children, upon a due expense of circumstances, in all Christian prudence, sooner, or later, to avoid temptations on one hand and another; by endeavouring to provide such matches, as they may have a good ground to hope for God's blessing upon; which they may then do, when they are in the Lord(h): Because that's the great Canon for the Regulation of Christian marriages, and should be the principal ponderation in this greatest affair of Parents and Children, that the persons marrying be not unequally yoked(i), and that they do it in the Lord: (as the obedience of wives and children is required to be(k) and to please the Lord, in my Text: yea, this of marriage is to be only in the Lord(l). For not to please him, by marrying in him, is by consequence to incur the displeasure of him, in whom alone a blessing is to be had. Wherefore professing Parents, who are charged by the Prophet in the name of the Lord(m), to take wives to their sons, and give daughters to their husbands, should with a good and serious conscience, without carnal glosses, study this prime Canon, as they really design the promotion and spiritual advancement of their offspring. Thus Abraham (so famous in his parental government(n) was very careful with respect to the Lord in covenant, for the matching of his son Isaac, that in a matter of so great importance, lest he should be tempted to a failure in his trust, he took a most solemn oath, by the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, from his faithful Steward Eleazer(o), upon serious seeking of God by Prayer, that he should take a wife for him out of a religious Family, and by no means yield that Isaac should be brought into a relation, communion, and residence, with any of those who might be an occasion to alienate his affections from the service of the true God, in a true manner: which had an excellent effect, sith Isaac and Rebekah were the most chaste pair of all those Patriarchal Worthies, their affections being entirely united. And Isaac at his wife Rebekah's motion, when almost dead for fear of an ungodly wife(p), followed his Father's example in the disposal of his son Jacob(q).
There is another disposal and placing out of children, wherein good Parents ought to be greatly concern'd, and that is [2.] Into the honourable estate of marriage (g)when at a competent age, considering the temper and inclinations of the children, upon a due expence of circumstances, in all Christian prudence, sooner, or later, to avoid temptations on one hand and another; by endeavouring to provide such matches, as they may have a good ground to hope for God's blessing upon; which they may then do, when they are in the Lord(h): Because that's the great Canon for the Regulation of Christian marriages, and should be the principal ponderation in this greatest affair of Parents and Children, that the persons marrying be not unequally yoked(i), and that they do it in the Lord: (as the obedience of wives and children is required to be(k) and to please the Lord, in my Text: yea, this of marriage is to be only in the Lord(l). For not to please him, by marrying in him, is by consequence to incur the displeasure of him, in whom alone a blessing is to be had. Wherefore professing Parents, who are charg'd by the Prophet in the name of the Lord(m), to take wives to their sons, and give daughters to their husbands, should with a good and serious conscience, without carnal glosses, study this prime Canon, as they really design the promotion and spiritual advancement of their offspring. Thus Abraham (so famous in his parental government(n) was very careful with respect to the Lord in covenant, for the matching of his son Isaac, that in a matter of so great importance, lest he should be tempted to a failure in his trust, he took a most solemn oath, by the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, from his faithful Steward Eleazer(o), upon serious seeking of God by Prayer, that he should take a wife for him out of a religious Family, and by no means yield that Isaac should be brought into a relation, communion, and residence, with any of those who might be an occasion to alienate his affections from the service of the true God, in a true manner: which had an excellent effect, sith Isaac and Rebekah were the most chast pair of all those Patriarchal Worthies, their affections being entirely united. And Isaac at his wife Rebekah's motion, when almost dead for fear of an ungodly wife
- (g)Heb. 13.4.
- (h)1 Cor. 7.39. with 22.
- (i)2 Cor. 6.13, 14.
- (k)Eph. 6.1. with 5 8.
- (l)Col. 3.18.
- (m)Jer. 29.6. 1 Cor. 7.36.
- (n)Gen. 18.19.
- (o)— 24.2, 4, 6, 8.
- (p)— 27. ver.
- (q)— 28.2, &c.
