_Direct._ XII. Be not either blindly indulgent to each other's faults, nor yet too censorious of each other's state, lest Satan thereby get advantage to alienate your affections from one another. To make nothing of the faults of those whom you love, is to love them foolishly, to their hurt, and to show that it is not for their virtues that you love them. And to make too great a matter of one another's faults, is but to help the tempter to quench your love, and turn your hearts from one another. Thus many good women that have husbands that are guilty of too much coldness in religion, or worldly-mindedness, or falling into ill company, and mispending their time, are first apt to overlook all possibility of any seed of grace that may be in them, and then looking on them as ungodly persons, to abate too much their love and duty to them. There is great wisdom and watchfulness requisite in this case, to keep you from being carried into either of the extremes.
_Direct._ XIII. If you are married to one that is indeed an infidel, or an ungodly person, yet keep up all the conjugal love which is due for the relation's sake. Though you cannot love them as true christians, yet love them as husband or wife. Even heathens are bound to love those that are thus related to them. The apostle hath determined the case, 1 Cor. vii. that christians must perform their duties to husbands or wives that are unbelievers. The faults of another discharge you not from your duty. As Satan hath deceived some by separating principles about church communion, to deny almost all God's ordinances to many, to whom they are due; so doth he thus deceive some persons in family relations, and draw them from the duties which they owe for one another's good.
_Direct._ XIV. Join together in frequent and fervent prayer. Prayer doth force the mind into some composedness and sobriety, and affecteth the heart with the presence and majesty of God. Pray also for each other when you are in secret, that God may do that work which you most desire, upon each other's hearts.
_Direct._ XV. Lastly, Help each other by an exemplary life. Be that yourselves which you desire your husband or wife should be; excel in meekness, and humility, and charity, and dutifulness, and diligence, and self-denial, and patience, as far as you do excel in profession of religion. St. Peter saith, that even those that will not be won by the word, may be won without it by the conversation of their wives, 1 Pet. iii. 1; that is, the excellency of religion may so far appear to them, by the fruits of it in their wives' conversations, as may first incline them to think well and honourably of it, and so to inquire into the nature and reason of it, and to hearken to their wives; and all this without the public ministry. A life of undissembled holiness, and heavenliness, and self-denial, and meekness, and love, and mortification, is a powerful sermon; which, if you be constantly preaching before those that are still near you, will hardly miss of a good effect. Works are more palpably significant and persuasive, than words alone.
_Direct._ VII. Another great conjugal duty is, to be helpful to each other for the health and comfort of their bodies.[17] Not to pamper each other's flesh, or cherish the vices of pride, or sloth, or gluttony, or voluptuousness in each other; but to further the health and cheerfulness of the body, to fit it for the service of the soul and God. Such cherishing or pleasing of the flesh, which is unlawful in each person to himself, is also unlawful (ordinarily) to use to another. But such as you may use for yourself, you may use also for your wife or husband. Not to live above your estates, nor as servants to your guts, to serve the appetites of one another by delicious fare; but to be careful of that health, without which your lives will be made unserviceable or uncomfortable; and this must proceed from such a love to one another as you have to yourselves; and that both in time of health and sickness.
1. In health, you must be careful to provide for each other (not so much pleasing as) wholesome food, and to keep each other from that which is hurtful to your health; dissuading each other from gluttony and idleness, the two great murderers of mankind. If the bodies of the poor, in hunger, and cold, and nakedness must be relieved, much more those that are become as your own flesh.