2. To prevent his sin and other men's future suffering by him, she seemeth to me to be bound to reveal her husband's sinful purposes to the magistrate, if she can no other way prevail with him to forbear. My reasons are, because the keeping of God's law, and the law of the land, and the public order and good, and the preventing of our neighbours' hurt by robbery or fraud, and so the interest of honesty and right, is of greater importance than any duty to her husband, or preservation of her own peace, which seemeth to be against it. But then I must suppose that she liveth under a magistrate, who will take but a just revenge. For if she know the laws and magistrate to be so unjust, as to punish a fault with death, which deserveth it not, she is not to tell such a magistrate, but to preserve her neighbours' safety by some other way of intimation.
If any one think that a wife may in no case accuse a husband, to the hazard of his life or estate, let them, 1. Remember what God obliged parents to do against the lives of incorrigible children, Deut. xxi. 2. And that the honour of God, and the lives of our neighbours, should be preferred before the life of one offender, and their estates before his estate alone. 3. And that the light of reason telleth us, that a wife is to reveal a treason against the king, which is plotted by a husband; and therefore also the robbing of the king's treasury, or deceiving him in any matter of great concernment. And therefore in due proportion, the laws and common good, and our neighbours' welfare, are to be preserved by us, though against the nearest relation; only all due tenderness of the life and reputation of the husband is to be preserved, in the manner of proceedings, as far as will stand with the interest of justice, and the common good.
_Quest._ III. May the wife go hear sermons when the husband forbiddeth her?
_Answ._ There are some sermons which must not be heard; there are some sermons which may be heard, and must, when no greater matter doth divert us; and there are some sermons which must be heard, whoever shall forbid it. Those which must not be heard are such as are heretical, (ordinarily,) and such as are superfluous, and at such times when greater duties call us another way. Those which may be heard, are either occasional sermons, or such lectures as are neither of necessity to ourselves, nor yet to the owning of God and his public worship. One that liveth where there are daily or hourly sermons, may hear them as oft as suiteth with their condition, and their other duties; but in this case, the command of a husband, with the inconveniences that will follow disobeying him, may make it a duty to forbear. But that we do sometimes publicly own God's worship and church ordinances, and receive ministerial teaching for our edification, is of double necessity; that we deny not God, and that we betray not, or desert not, our own souls. And this is especially necessary (ordinarily) on the Lord's days, which are appointed for these necessary uses. And here the husband hath no power to forbid the wife, nor should she (formally) obey his prohibition. But yet as affirmatives bind not _ad semper_, and no duty is a duty at every season; so it is possible that on the Lord's day it may extraordinarily become a duty to forbear sermons or sacraments, or other public worship. And when any greater duty calleth us away; as to quench a fire; and to save men's lives; and to save our country from an enemy in the time of war; and to save our own lives, (if we knew the assembly would be assaulted,) or to preserve our liberty for greater service. Christ set us to learn the meaning of this lesson, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. In such a case also a mischief may be avoided, even from a husband, by the omission of a duty at that time, (when it would be no duty,) for this is but a transposition of it. But this is but an act of prudent self-preservation, and not an act of formal obedience.
_Quest._ IV. If a woman have a husband so incorrigible in vice, as that by long trial she findeth that speaking against it maketh him worse, and causeth him to abuse her, is she bound to continue her dissuasion, or to forbear?