(2.) Art thou a godly master? When thou takest a servant into thy house, choose for God as well as thyself. Remember there is a work for God to be done by thy servant, as well as thyself; and shall he be fit for thy turn, that is not for his? Thou desirest that the work should prosper thy servant takes in hand. Dost thou not? and what ground hath thou from the promise to hope, that the work should prosper in his hand that sins all the while he is doing of it? ‘The plowing of the wicked, is sin,’ Prov. 21:4. A godly servant is a greater blessing than we think on. He can work and set God on work also for his master’s good; ‘O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham,’ Gen. 24:12. And sure Abraham’s servant did his master as much service by his prayer, as by his prudence in that journey. If you were but to plant an orchard, you would get the best fruit trees, and not cumber your ground with crabs. There is more loss in a graceless servant in the house, than a fruitless tree in the orchard. Holy David observed, while he was at Saul's court, the mischief of having wicked and ungodly servants; for with such was that unhappy king so compassed, that David compares his court to the profane and barbarous heathens, among whom there was scare more wickedness to be found. ‘Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!’ Ps. 120:5, that is, among those who were as prodigiously wicked as any there. And, no doubt, but that fact made this gracious man, in his banishment before he came to the crown—having seen the evil of a disordered house—to resolve what he will do, when God should make him the head of such a royal family. ‘He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight,’ Ps. 101:7. He instanceth those sins not as if he would spend all his zeal against them, but because he had observed them principally to abound in Saul’s court, by which he had suffered so much; as you may perceive by Ps. 120:2, 3.
(3.) Art thou godly? show thyself so in the choice of husband or wife. I am sure, if some, and those godly also, could bring no other testimonial for their godliness, than the care they have taken in this particular, it might justly be called into question both by themselves and others. There is no one thing that gracious persons, even those recorded in Scripture as well as others, have shown their weakness, yea, given offence and scandal, more in, than in this particular. ‘The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair,’ Gen. 6:2. One would have thought the sons of God should have looked for grace in the heart rather than for beauty in the face; but we see that even they sometimes turn in at the fairest sign, without much inquiring what grace is to be found dwelling within. But, Christian, let not the miscarriage of any in this particular—how holy soever otherwise—make thee less careful in thy choice. God did not leave their practice on record for thee to follow, but to shun. He is but a slovenly Christian that will swallow all the saints do without paring their actions. Is it not enough that the wicked break their necks over the sins of the saints; but wilt thou run upon them also to break thy shins? Point not at this godly man, and that godly woman, saying, they can marry into such a profane family, and lie by the side of a drunkard, swearer, &c.; but look to the rule, O Christian! if thou wilt keep the power of holiness. That is clear as a sunbeam written in the Scripture, ‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?’ II Cor. 6:14. And where he give the widow leave to marry again, he still remembers to bound this liberty —‘to whom she will, only, in the Lord,’ I Cor. 7:39. Mark that, ‘in the Lord,’ that is, in the church. All without the faith are ‘without God in the world.’ The Lord's kindred and family is in the church. You marry out of the Lord, when you marry out of the Lord’s kindred. Or again, ‘in the Lord’ may be taken as in the fear of the Lord, with his leave and liking. That the parents’ consent is fit to be had, we all yield; and is not thy heavenly Father’s? And will he ever give his consent that thou shouldst bestow thyself on a beast, a sot, an earthworm? Holy men have paid dear for such matches. What a woful plague was Delilah to Samson? and Michal was none of the greatest comforts to David. Had he not better have married the poorest damsel in Israel, if godly—though no more with her than the clothes on her back—than such a fleering companion, that mocked him for his zeal to God?
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