THE HOLY STATE. I. THE GOOD WIFE. ST. PAUL to the Colossians, chap. iii. ver. 18. first ad viseth women to submit themselves to their husbands, and then counselleth men to love their wives. And sure it was fitting that women should first have their lesson given them, because it is hardest to be learned, and therefore they need have the more time to con it. For the same reason we first begin with the character of a good wife. 1. She commandeth her husband in any equal matter by constant obeying him. It was always observed, that what the English gained of the French in battle by valour, the French regained of the English by cunning in treaties : * SO if the husband should chance by his power in his passion to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely knoweth, by compounding and complying, to recover and rectify it again. 2. She never crosseth her husband in the springtide of his anger, but stays till it be ebbing water. And then mildly she argues the matter, not so much to condemn him, as to acquit herself. Surely men, contrary to iron, are worst to be wrought upon when they are hot; and are far more tractable in cold blood. It is an observation of seamen, that if a single meteor or fireball falls on their mast,† it portends ill luck; but if two come together (which they account Castor and Pollux) they presage good success: but sure in a family it bodeth most bad when two fireballs (husband's and wife's anger) come both together. • Comineus, lib. 4. cap. 8. et Bodin. De Repub. lib. 5. p. 782. + Erasmus, Dial. in Naufragio. B : 3. She keeps home if she hath not her husband's company, or leave for her patent to go abroad: for the house is the woman's centre. It is written, Psalm civ. 22. The sun ariseth -man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening but it is said of the good woman, Prov. xxxi. 15. She riseth whiles it is yet night: for man in the race of his work starts from the rising of the sun, because his business is without doors, and not to be done without the light of heaven; but the woman hath her work within the house, and therefore can make the sun rise by lighting of a candle. 4. Her clothes are rather comely than costly, and she makes plain cloth to be velvet by her handsome wearing it. She is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in variety of suits every day new, as if a good gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once: but our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match. 5. Arcana imperii (her husband's secrets) she will not divulge. Especially she is careful to conceal his infirmities. If he be none of the wisest, she so orders it that he appears on the public stage but seldom; and then he hath conned his part so well, that he comes off with great applause. If his forma informans be but bad, she provides him better formas assistentes, gets him wise servants and secretaries. 6. In her husband's absence she is wife and deputy husband, which makes her double the files of her diligence. At his return he finds all things so well, that he wonders to see himself at home when he was abroad. 7. Her carriage is so modest, that she disheartens wantons not only to take but even to besiege her chastity. I confess some desperate men will hope any thing; yea, their shameless boldness will fasten on impossibilities, measuring other folks' badness by their own: yet seldom such salamanders, who live in the fire of lust, dare approach, without seeing the smoke of wantonness in looks, words, apparel, or behaviour. And though charity commands me to believe that some women who hang out signs, notwithstanding will not lodge strangers; yet these mock guests are guilty in tempting others to tempt them. 8. In her husband's sickness she feels more grief than she shews. Partly that she may not dishearten him; and partly because she is not at leisure to seem so sorrowful, that she may be the more serviceable. 9. Her children, though many in number, are none in noise, steering them with a look whither she listeth. When they grow up, she teacheth them not pride but painfulness, making their hands to clothe their backs, and them to wear the livery of their own industry. She makes not her daughters gentlewomen before they be women, rather teaching them what they should pay to others, than receive from them. 10. The heaviest work of her servants she maketh light by orderly and seasonable enjoining it: wherefore her service is counted a preferment, and her teaching better than her wages. Her maids follow the precedent of their mistress, live modestly at home. One asked a grave gentlewoman, how her maids came by so good husbands, and yet seldom went abroad? Oh, said she, good husbands come home to them. So much for this subject: and what is defective in this description shall be supplied by the pattern ensuing. MONICA II. THE LIFE OF MONICA. ONICA is better known by the branch of her issue, than root of her parentage, and was born in or nigh Tagasta in Africa.* Her parents, whose names we find not, were Christians, and careful of her education, committing her to the breeding of an old maid in the house, who, though herself crooked with age, was excellent to straighten the manners of youth. She instructed her with holy severity, never allowing her to drink wine, or between meals. Having outgrown her tuition, she began by degrees to sip and drink wine, lesser draughts like wedges widening her throat for greater, till at last (ill customs being not knocked, but insensibly screwed into our souls) she could fetch off her whole ones. Now it happened that a young maid (formerly her partner in potting) fell at variance with her, and (as malice when she shoots draws her arrow to the * August. Confess. lib. 9. c. 8. head) called her toss-pot, and drunkard; whereupon Monica reformed herself, and turned temperate. Thus bitter taunts sometimes make wholesome physic, when God sanctifies unto us the malice of our enemies to perform the office of good will. After this was she married to Patricius, one of more honour than wealth, and as yet a pagan; wherein she brake St. Paul's precept, to marry only in the Lord. Perchance then there was a dearth of husbands, or she did it by her parents' importunity, or out of promise of his conversion : and the history herein being but lamely delivered us, it is charity to support it with the most favourable construction. He was of a stern nature, none more lamb when pleased, or lion when angry; and which is worse, *his wild affections did prey abroad, till she lured them home by her loving behaviour. Not like those wives who by their hideous outcries drive their wandering husbands farther out of the way. Her own house was to her a house of correction, wherein her husband's mother was bitter unto her, having a quarrel not so much to her person as relation, because a daughterin-law. Her servants, to climb into the favour of their old mistress, trampled on their young, they bringing tales, and the old woman belief; though the teeth of their malice did but file her innocency the brighter. Yea at last her motherin-law, turning her compurgator, caused her son to punish those maids who causelessly had wronged their mistress. When her neighbours, who had husbands of far milder dispositions, would shew her their husbands' cruelty legible in their faces, all her pitying was reproving them: and whereas they expected to be praised for their patience, she condemned them for deserving such punishment. She never had blow from, or jar with her husband, she so suppled his hard nature with her obedience, and to her great comfort saw him converted to Christianity before his death. Also she saw Augustine her son, formerly vicious in life, and erroneous in doctrine (whose soul she bathed in her tears) become a worthy Christian, who coming to have his ears tickled, had his heart touched, and got religion in to boot with the eloquence of St. Ambrose. She survived not long * August. Confess. lib. 9. c. 9. after her son's conversion (God sends his servants to bed when they have done their work), and her candle was put out as soon as the day did dawn in St. Augustine. Take an instance or two of her signal piety. There was a custom in Africa* to bring pulse bread and wine to the monuments of dead saints, wherein Monica was as forward as any. But being better instructed that this custom was of heathenish parentage, and that religion was not so poor as to borrow rites from pagans, she instantly left off that ceremony and as for piety's sake she had done it thus long, so for piety's sake she would do it no longer. How many old folks now-a-days, whose best argument is use, would have flown in their faces who should stop them in the full career of an ancient custom! There was one Licentius, a novice-convert, who had got these words by the end, Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts: shew us the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole. And (as it is the fashion of many men's tongues to echo forth the last sentence they learn) he said it in all places he went to. But Monica, overhearing him to sing it in the house of office, † was highly offended at him because holy things are to be suited to holy places; and the harmony could not be sweet where the song did jar with the place. And although some may say, that a gracious heart consecrateth every place into a chapel, yet sure though pious things are no where unfitting to be thought on, they may somewhere be improper to be uttered. Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven, and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body. She was so inflamed with zeal, that she turned all objects into fuel to feed it. One day standing with St. Augustine at an east window, she raised herself to consider the light of God's presence, in respect whereof all corporal light is so far from being matched, it deserves not to be mentioned. Thus mounted on heavenly meditations, and from that high pitch surveying earthly things, the great distance made them appear |