A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

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)