Dedication to the Parishioners of Blackfriars, London

IF noble Birth, high Honour, great Estate, true Piety, bountifull Charity, good Esteeme of Gods word and Ministers, and in particular, intire love of the Author, be inducements to choose a Patron for his worke, I, for my part, need not goe farre for a Patron. In mine own parish are all these. To you therefore (right Honourable, right Worshipfull, and other my beloued Parishioners, most worthy of all due respect) do I dedicate these my poore pains about domestic Duties. To testifie the equall duty which I owe, and the impartiall respect which I beare to you all, I make you all as one Patron. You were the first ouer whom I ever had any ministeriall charge. To this charge by your free choice was I called. Among you have I spent almost two full prentiships. You have alwaies so accepted my pains, and respected my person, as I neuer had any cause to repent my acceptance of this place, and calling: but rather to thanke God for the same. My desire is (if so it may seeme good to the divine providence) to spend all my daies among you: and, while I am among you, to helpe forward your spiritual edification. This is the maine end of my calling, and the marke, which, as in the ordinary course of my Ministry, so in the publishing of these Eight Treatises of domestic Duties, and dedicating them to you, I have aimed at. As in testimony of love and duty I have preached in your hearing, and published in your name these Duties, so do you manifest your kinde acceptance of my former, and latter pains, by a conscientious observing of them, so farre forth as they are agreeable to Gods word: that all who know you, may know by that euident demonstration, how well you have relished and approued them. Thus shall you gaine much profit, and my self much comfort by my pains. Oh if the head and several members of a family would be persuaded every of them to be conscientious in performing their own particular duties, what a sweet society, and happy harmony would there be in houses? What excellent seminaries would families be to Church and Commonwealth? Necessary it is that good order be first set in families: for as they were before other polities, so they are somewhat the more necessary: and good members of a family are like to make good members of Church and common-wealth. The subiect matter therefore of these Treatises is worth the handling, if I were able according to the worth thereof to handle it. I have endeavored to do what I could therein, though I have not attained to what I would. Be you like to God, who, if there be first a willing mind, accepteth according to that a man has, and not according to that he has not. Though for such a matter as is handled in these Treatises, the worke may seeme at first sight to be too copious, yet I hope the obseruant Reader will not find it too tedious. It is the variety of many, not the prolixity of few points which has made this booke to swell to that bignesse which it has. The first Treatise (which is a fourth part of the booke) containeth a Commentary on that part of Scripture out of which domestic Duties are raised: wherein the Apostle setting forth Christ and the Church as patternes to husbands and wives, liuely declareth the great love of Christ to his Church, and the neere vnion between them, together with other deepe mysteries, the vnfolding of which has a little the longer detained me. But as I have a while insisted on maine matters of much moment, so have I very briefly passed ouer other points. The other Treatises, wherein the Duties themselves are handled, are every of them much shorter than the first. In them I have barely propounded and briefly proued the truth and equity of the several duties, except some choice points which are of especiall vse, or at least through disuse much questioned: and them I have more largely handled. And because contraries laid together do much set forth each other in their liuely colours, I have to every duty annexed the contrary fault, and aberration from it. For many that heare the duties think all well enough, till they heare also the contrary vices, whereby in their consciences they are most conuinced. Concerning the many faults and vices of bad Husbands, wives, Parents, Children, Masters and servants, taxed in these Treatises, let me intreat you, not to apply them too generally to all Husbands, wives, Parents, Children, Masters and servants. has not wise Solomon much taxed the lightnesse, shrewishnesse, pride, flattery, and other vices of women? And shall sober, meeke, humble, honest women think themselves taxed thereby? By like reason might vnchaste strumpets, vntrusty gossips, vnquiet shrewes, and proud dames think themselves commended by those excellent commendations which be gives of good women. Let every one, as their conscience (an impartiall Iudge) shall beare them witnesse, make a right application of every thing to themselves. Thus shall we Ministers be freed from many euill surmizes. I remember that when these domestic Duties were first vttered out of the pulpit, much exception was taken against the application of a wives subjection to the restraining of her from disposing the common goods of the family without, or against her husbands consent. But surely they that made those exceptions did not well think of the Cautions and Lamitations which were than deliuered, and are now againe expresly noted: which are, that the foresaid restraint be not extended to the proper goods of a wife, no nor ouerstrictly to such goods as are set apart for the vse of the family, nor to extraordinary cases, nor alwaies to an expresse consent, nor to the consent of such husbands as are impotent, or farre and long absent. If any other warrantable caution shall be shewed me, I will be as willing to admit it, as any of these. Now that my meaning may not still be peruerted, I pray you, in reading the restraint of wives power in disposing the goods of the family, ever beare in minde those Cautions. Other exceptions were made against some other particular duties of wives. For many that can patiently enough heare their duties declared in generall termes, cannot endure to heare those generals exemplified in their particular branches. This comes too neere to the quicke, and pierceth too deepe. But (to interpret all, according to the rule of love, in the better part) I take the maine reason of the many exceptions which were taken, to be this, that wives duties (according to the Apostles method) being in the first place handled, there was taught (as must have been taught, except the truth should have been betrayed) what a wife, in the vttermost extent of that subjection under which God has put her, is bound to, in case her husband will stand upon the vttermost of his authority: which was so taken, as if I had taught that an husband might, and ought to exact the vttermost, and that a wife was bound in that vttermost extent to do all that was deliuered as duty, whether her husband exact it or no. But when I came to deliuer husbands duties, I shewed, that he ought not to exact whatever his wife was bound to (in case it were exacted by him) but that he ought to make her a ioynt Gouernour of the family with himself, and referre the ordering of many things to her discretion, and with all honourable and kinde respect to carrie himself towards her. In a word, I so set downe an husbands duties, as if he be wise and conscientious in observing them, his wife can have no iust cause to complaine of her subjection. That which maketh a wives yoake heauy and hard, is an husbands abuse of his authority: and more pressing his wives duty, than performing his own: which is directly contrary to the Apostles rule. This iust Apologie I have been forced to make, that I might not ever be iudged (as some have censured me) an hater of women. Now that in all those places where a wives yoke may seeme most to pinch, I might give some ease, I have to every head of wives duties made a reference, in the margin ouer against it, to the duties of husbands answerable thereunto, and noted the reference with this marke *, that it might the more readily be turned to. Yea I have further parallel'd, and laid euen one against another in one view, the heads of husbands and wives duties, as they answer each other: and in like manner the contrary aberrations: with a reference made to the particular sections where they are handled: that so on the one side it may appeare, that if both of them be conscientious and carefull to performe their own duty, the matrimonial yoke will so equally lie on both their necks, as the wife will be no more pinched therewith than the husband, but that it will be like Christs spiritual yoke, light and easie: and that on the other side it may be manifest that there is commonly as much failing by husbands in their duties, as by wives in theirs. This parallel and euen-setting out of each of their duties, and of the contrary aberrations, I have annexed next to this epistle. And further I have added thereto a table of the several heads of those points that are handled in the eight following Treatises, that by this helpe you may the more readily find out such particular points as you desire most especially to read. To shew that the duties prescribed to Husbands, wives, Parents, Children, Masters, and servants, are such as in conscience they are bound to, I have endeavored to shew how they are grounded on the word of God, and gathered from there. To auoid prolixity, I have referred most of the quotations to the margin. If your leisure will serue you, you may do well to search them out. Two things have been especiall helpes to me for finding out the many duties noted in these Treatises, & vices contrary thereunto: Obseruation and Disposition. Obseruation both of such duties as the Scripture commendeth and contrary vices as it condemneth: and also of such commendable virtues as I well liked in those Husbands, wives, Parents, Children, Masters, and servants, that I came among, and such vnseemely vices as I disliked in them: and Disposition of one point after another in the best order that I could. My method and manner of proceeding brought many things to my minde, which otherwise might have slipped by. For by method sundry and several points appertaining to one matter are drawne forth, as in a chaine one linke draweth vp another. There is no better way to find out many obseruations in a text, than by a methodicall resolution thereof. As method is an helpe to Inuention, so also to retention. It is as the thread or wier whereon pearles are put, which keepeth them from scattering. And if a man by abundance of matter be cast into a labyrinth, by the helpe of method he may easily and readily find out the way againe. In which respects method is fitly stiled the Mother of the Minde, and Mistresse of Memorie. If you well marke the order and dependance of points one upon another, you will find as great an helpe in conceiuing and remembring them, as I did in inuenting and disposing them.

Because there is not one word to comprise under it both masters and mistresses, as fathers and mothers are comprised under parents, and sons and daughters under children, I have according to the Scripture phrase comprised mistresses under masters: so as the duties enjoined to them belong to these, so far as may stand with their sex. To conclude, in recompense of all my pains I heartily pray you all to pray heartily for him who daily prays for you, even

The Watchman of your souls, William Gouge.