An exposition with practical observations continued upon the eleventh, twelfth, & thirteenth chapters of…

And you who are Superiors, labour you to gain your ¹Inferiors by love, Oh let those tie together; do not say of your inferiors, they are of untoward dispositions, and how can my heart be towards them, to love them? Oh! none of your inferiors are more untoward unto you than you are unto Christ; and Christ, if he should not love you because of your untowardness, what would become of you? Now consider of this, when your servants and children are untoward, Why should that hinder love, when as my untowardness doth not hinder the love of Christ to me. I remember I have read of Monica, Austins Mother, her husband being an Heathen, and that ²some of her neighbours that had Christian husbands wondered how they came to live so lovingly together, saith other Christian women that were neighbours, Our husbands are Christians, and yours an Heathen, and yet you live more lovingly with him than we do with our husbands. She answered them, It may be when your husbands do any thing that provokes you, you are presently froward with them, but I labour to overcome my ⟨p. 75⟩husband by love, & so to gain his heart to me, and upon that we live so lovingly together, Christianity teaches me to perform the duties of a wife to my husband, though my husband be an Heathen. I verily believe there are ³many godly men and women, that sometimes when the one is godly and the other is wicked. You will say, How can that be? Yes, though there be godliness, yet there may be such frowardness and passion as may cause wonderful disturbance: but on the other side, where there is godliness and love, there is such an overcoming with Love, that though the man be wicked and never so harsh, yet he hath the nature of a man in him, and so long as he hath the nature of a man in him he will be overcome by Love, and therefore that's the way to bind men and women together; Would you be united more than ever yet you have been? labour to cast the Bonds of Love one upon another; let the husband study how to overcome his wife with love, and so the wife the husband, and then there will be a sweet union indeed: and so for Masters and servants, there should be Love there to unite one to another, though the master be above the servant, ⁴