In this message, Scott Brown says that reforming marriage begins with reforming doctrine. He says that it is critical to look to scripture to fulfill your God ordained roles as a spouse and when we do look to scripture, our marriages will be much sweeter. 

During the Puritan era, there was a Reformation of family life according to scripture. This message, Reforming Marriage, was delivered by Scott Brown at the Puritan Family Reformation Conference in Wake Forest, North Carolina in 2008. Before I show you my outline I would like for us to read the passage of Scripture that's probably the heartbeat of the things that we'll cover here tonight, and that of course you might have guessed it is Ephesians chapter 5. And we're going to begin in verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore just as the church is subject to Christ, so also ought the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of the water by the word, that he might present her to himself. A glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

For he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband." Now these words are so amazing because of the imagery that they bring and it doesn't seem to make sense that a man could have this pattern, but this is the pattern.

What a beautiful pattern. Well here's what I'd like to do tonight. I'd like to talk about what the Puritans said about marriage and the doctrinal commitment that the Puritans, that affected their view of marriage and family life. I'd like to also give you a list of some of the pre-marriage practices. Courtship.

I'm just going to click on it. It's not original material. I just copied it right out of their material. I'm going to just go through it line by line. I know many of you are thinking about getting married someday.

Yes, even if you're eight or nine, you're probably thinking, oh, yes, I do want to be married. And so we're going to give you some puritanical technique for entering into marriage. And then we're going to talk about the teaching on marriage from Richard Baxter and William Gouge as is reflected in these books. So that's where we're headed here. And so first of all, we'll deal with the doctrinal commitment of the Puritans and how it affected their views of marriage and family life.

As we've been saying, Bible doctrine was extremely important to the Puritans. They wrote beautifully on every aspect of the gospel. Every point of doctrine seemed to be very carefully unpacked. If you've read John Owen or any of these men, you see how deeply they thought about issues. You and I typically think about issues and a couple, three ideas surrounding an issue.

Not the Puritans, one category and 50 different implications. They just spent time thinking about why, because They were trying to find what was acceptable to the Lord. And they took time on it. And it's beautiful the way they impact this. They unfolded issues that, quite honestly, is far beyond our own stamina in many cases.

Because the detail and the mind work that they did was so careful and comprehensive. Why doctrine regarding marriage? Here's why. Many of the marriage problems that we have go back to their doctrinal problems. My observation is many of the issues and problems that go on in courtships and things like that have to do with doctrinal issues that were never dealt with in the home.

I don't know if you've known problems with courtships and things like that, but many of them have to do with immaturity, lack of training in doctrine in the home. Here's an example. Children must grow up knowing the doctrine of the Trinity. If they do not understand the doctrine of the Trinity, they have a harder time understanding what relationships are all about. They have a hard time understanding the interplay of authority and submission and love and and cherishing and all those kinds of things that we see in the hierarchical relationship of the Trinity.

If you don't understand the Trinity, I don't know how you can understand your relationship to your boss, your relationship to your wife, your relationship to your parents. If you do not understand authority and submission, and the way that the Father loves the Son, and yet the Son submits to the Father and says, I do nothing except I see what my Father doing. If you don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity, you've got problems. Doctrinal issues are important. Every child in this room should grow up knowing in detail the distinctive relationships in the Trinity.

Here's another example. Children who do not understand the gospel do not understand sin. The Puritans understood this. The Puritans understood that sin was the problem and that all children are sinners and even the nicest ones can be cast into outer darkness because of their sins. If a child doesn't understand the gospel, he will have a very difficult time understanding how to deal with sin in his marriage, his own sin, his wife's sin, and then if their children, the way that sin operates in their children.

He will not know how God sees sin. He does not know how God relates to sinners. They will not know about mercy. He will not know about justice. They will not know about blood or righteousness or cleansing.

They will not know about freedom if they do not understand the doctrine of sin. Doctrines in the family are important. We must teach our children doctrine. The Puritans understood that. Children who do not understand the importance of love as expressed in maintaining honor and obedience in the home.

Do not understand authority. Here's one of the big issues of not getting it on authority and honor. If you grow up as a child and you don't know how to honor your father and mother, guess what you haven't learned how to do? You haven't learned how to create an emotional atmosphere in a home that's all about love. Because honor and obedience form the structure of an emotional sensibility in a home.

If you ever walk into a home and you just feel, this just feels tense, it's a home full of tension or maybe you went into a home and you said, this is the most peaceful place I've ever been in my life. Well, if it's a peaceful place, most likely the people there have understood the doctrine of honor. And they honor one another from the heart even though everybody knows they're not perfect. If you don't get the doctrine of honor and obedience, how will you fill your home with happiness? How will your home have an emotional atmosphere that's pleasing unto the Lord, that's acceptable to the Lord?

Find out what is pleasing and acceptable to the Lord in this area of honor and you will fill your home with an emotional atmosphere. We, you know, eggheads, you know, don't like to talk about emotional things. But the commands of love have all to do with an emotional environment in a home. So, why doctrine? Doctrine.

Doctrine gives birth to deeds. The Puritans understood that. Doctrine defines duty when it comes to marriage and that's how Baxter and Gouge understood it. That if they understood, if the people in their congregations could understand the doctrines of marriage, then they would have the deeds that were consistent with the heart of God for that marriage. And those marriages would become this reflection of the love of Christ for the church.

So that's that's what they understood. So the doctrinal commitment of the Puritans affected their views of marriage and family life, and here's what we're getting to. Doctrine defines duty. Doctrine gives birth to deeds. So that's why it's really important.

I've spoken to a number of people who say, Scott, I really don't care if my children memorize scripture. I really don't care if they know all the details of Moses's story or anything like that. Because it's not the details, it's the heart I want them to understand. I say, brother, they can't have the heart unless they know the details. They have to have the details or they'll never know what the heart really is.

They'll just have a bunch of floppy feelings going around that are subject to every wind that might blow them. So it's critical, it's so important that they know the details. Our children should know the stories, the personalities, and the doctrines, the didactic sections, the commands. They need to know that stuff. Okay, because doctrine defines duty.

Well, the second thing here is I want to talk about some of these very interesting pre-marriage practices of the Puritans. Here's the first element. A contract to marry was made. It was like a verbal agreement to marry, but it was a little bit like our current practice of engagement, but far more serious in its weight. Far, far more serious.

You were in big trouble if you made a verbal commitment that you were going to marry someone and then backed out. And what was to pay? Well, some range depending on who it was that you offended. But this was a very serious commitment to Mary. The second step was a publication of the bans or an announcement in the church for three successive weeks and then there would be a marriage.

It was critical that three weeks time would pass so that people in the community would have an opportunity to say, here's why I don't think this should happen. It gave some time. Announcement is posted or it's announced in the church, announced three weeks or posted and letting the community know. And it's interesting, you know, that the time frame was fairly short, right? Three weeks, not very long.

And that's the way they had it. Then there was the execution of a contract to marry. And then it was solemnized by a church service. You know, it's interesting. Some of us have been going to Romania for a few years.

In Romania they have their weddings on Sunday. The whole church family just celebrates. It's really neat and they have a wonderful time together. But it happens in a church service and then celebration of the event with feasting at the home of the groom, and then finally at the end of it all is the physical union. Here's Richard Baxter on the subject.

First of all, choose a good spouse in the first place. This is Baxter. Choose a good spouse in the first place. That's important. A spouse who is truly good and kind, full of virtue and holiness to the Lord.

Notice the language is biblical language. He expresses the idea here that we should think in terms of biblical categories and qualities when we think of marriage. It's so confusing for us who've been raised in this, you know, highly-charged media world of Hollywood and all kinds of things that would cause relationships to go bad. We have a lot of bad ideas, but the ideas that Baxter was encouraging young couples to focus in on were kindness, goodness, virtue, and holiness to the Lord. The most important things in marriage.

And then, be not too hasty, Baxter says, but know beforehand all the imperfections which may tempt you to despise your future mate. So, he encouraged couples to get to know each other. You know, it wasn't so that you would say, hey I think she's pretty, I'm gonna ask her father if I can marry her, and then bingo pretty quick, Nobody even knows who they are. I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think Baxter would buy into this.

I've seen this happen a number of times. Of course, God works in a lot of different ways, and He does seem to bless many different ways. But Baxter would say, make sure you've had enough time with this person to know who they are. And don't short-circuit it. There has to be a way for young people to get to know each other.

There's a practice that I've seen where fathers will say, you know, nobody's gonna talk to my daughter, nobody's gonna ever get to know my daughter. I think that's a little bit overboard personally because it doesn't allow you to have a human relationship, doesn't allow you to know someone. Baxter would say, get to know them so that you don't despise them later for something that you didn't learn about them. Now, we all marry and we don't know everything about the one we marry. That's true.

We marry saying no matter what I find out, I'm in forever. But at the same time, this council is here. The next piece of council that Baxter has, remember that justice commands you to love one that has forsaken all the world for you. One who is contented to be the companion of your labors and sufferings, and must be a sharer in all things with you, and that must be your companion until death." He really brings out the exposure that a woman has in marrying someone. She leaves everything, really, and she's there cast upon your shoulders, really, and how tender and how highly responsible we need to be in situations like that.

So that's Baxter on the pre-marriage issues. Okay, now we're going to hit a number of categories that these men address. This comes out of the mutual duties of husbands and wives toward each other by Richard Baxter. Baxter lays out the directives here in a family organization. He focuses on duty.

You'll see a lot of heart here, okay? But most of what we're going to see from these Puritans has to do with duty. What you do about your doctrine, really. Whether you actually do something about what you think. And so that's what he deals with.

He says that we should be very concerned to know what duties there are in our relationship and know how to please God in our relationships. You know, how do we how do we seek to please the Lord? How do we seek to find what is acceptable to Him in our relationships with our spouses? And he says, study to do your part. So here's here's the first one.

Love as the ground of marriage. We spoke of this earlier today. Jeff's message on this subject was so clear and fantastic that that love was the foundational touchstone for everything that the Puritans had to say about marriage. And they had reversed ungodly Roman Catholic teaching on relationships and reversed some very destructive ideas about relationships, which God is intent to do through His Word. He says the first duty of husbands is to love their wives and wives their husbands.

And then he quotes Ephesians 5, what we just read here. He speaks about the fact that that husbands are under God's command and to deny the duty would be a form of apostasy because of the greatness of the picture, because it so contradicts the gospel, it so contradicts the love of Christ for his church that it would be so inappropriate for a husband not to love his wife. Because it isn't just that he's relating to her poorly, it's that he is misrepresenting the gospel. You cannot disconnect the gospel and the marriage relationship. They are all bound up together the way that God has intended for it.

And he also speaks of dealing with the faults of wives. You who are married have wives that have faults. I'm confident of that. How do you deal with the faults of your wife? He says, take more notice of the good that is in your wives than her faults.

Let not the observation of their faults make you forget to overlook their virtues. How easy it is just become blinded by a few faults. I was talking with somebody today and he was giving an illustration and he said, you know, it's like this. It's like, you know, putting a circle. What do you see here?

What do you see on this page? You see a spot, right? Well, there's a lot more than a spot on this page. There's a lot more than a spot. But when you look at it, what do you think?

You just look at the spot. That's what we do in our marriages. We look at this one thing and we have no sensibility for all the rest that's there and we get focused on the wrong thing. That's what he's saying here. Don't magnify her imperfections until they drive you crazy.

Excuse them as far as is right in the Lord. Consider the frailty of their sex. Consider also your own infirmities and how much your wives must bear with you. Overcome them with love and then they will be loving to you and consequently lovely. Love will cause love as fire kindleth fire.

A good husband is the best means to make a good and loving wife. If you're worried about your wife's love for you, maybe the problem isn't so much with her. That's the idea. So these are the duties, the duties of marriage as you can see is the focus. And then spending time together.

Here's a very interesting category. Husband and wife must delight in the company, in their love and company, and lives of each other. When husband and wife take pleasure in each other, it unites them in duty. It helps them with ease to do their work and bear their burdens and is a major part of the comfort of marriage, spending time together in this very busy life. There will be a day when one will pass away and there will be no more time.

And so it would behoove us to take time. I'll have to be honest, Jeff, after your speech today, I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to go home and sit with Deborah and just sit there and look at her and see what she had to say or something like that. Spending time together is such a precious commodity in marriage. And then they speak of handling disagreements.

How do you handle disagreements? And Baxter, in his classic way, has 50 things to say about it. I only have three little paragraphs of all the things he said about how to handle all the particular different kinds of disagreements. It's very amazing. These men had not devolved to the level that we have in our age.

Their minds were sharper, I think, and it had to be. He says, in handling disagreements, the duty of your marriage union requires unity. Can you not agree with your own flesh? It should be a wake-up call when we're disagreeable. This is our one flesh relation.

It so contradicts everything that it's about. He says, division with your spouse will pain and upset your whole life. Just as you do not wish to hurt your own self and are quick to care for your own wounds, so you should take notice of any break in the peace of your marriage and quickly seek to heal it. Does anybody need to leave the room now and go? No, I don't know.

Fighting chills love. Fighting makes your spouse undesirable to you and your mind. Wounding is separating. To be tied together through marital bonds while your hearts are estranged is to be tormented to be inwardly adversaries while outwardly husband and wife turns your home and delight into a prison." Wow, isn't that so true? When you're not right with your spouse, nothing is right.

You really shouldn't go on. I'm grateful for men who can't go on until they're reconciled with their wives. But we shouldn't go on, even if we can." And then he speaks of dissension and how it makes it impossible to manage your family properly. Both husband and wife must mortify their pride and strong self-centered feelings. These are the feelings which cause intolerance and insensitivity.

You must pray and labor for a humble, meek, and quiet spirit. The proud heart is troubled and provoked by every word that seems to assault your self-esteem." Isn't it interesting that that word self-esteem has worked its way into the Puritans? It's absolutely amazing. He says, do not forget that you are both diseased, full of infirmities, and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other. And do not act surprised about it as if you had never known it before.

Decide to be patient with one another, remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect persons and not as angels or as blameless and perfect. I honestly believe that most marriage problems can end up funneling down to one issue And that is a misunderstanding or a misapplication or a hardness to the gospel. A hardness to mercy. You and I who have been forgiven so much forget so quickly. The dissension in a marriage is nothing but a loss of the heart of the gospel.

And so we must know the gospel. We must know the Lord Jesus Christ. And to understand that we did not marry perfect people. We just didn't. We should not be surprised or upset by it.

He speaks about the spiritual progress with husband and wife. He says one of the most important duties of a husband to his wife and a wife to her husband is to carefully, skillfully, and diligently help each other in the knowledge and worship and obedience of God that they might be saved and grow in their Christian life. This has to do with the way that husbands and wives are not neglectful to one another's souls. That they deal with one another on the issues of sanctification. I'll just have to confess, in my own marriage I was just not very well aware of my role to help my wife be sanctified And my esteem for her was probably too high, honestly.

And so I didn't help her in ways I could have helped her. Isn't that something? She's been the sweetest wife to me, And so I don't have any complaints against her. But at the same time, the spiritual progress of husband and wife is critical. And you know, I'm seeing my wife progress.

Even in the last two weeks, I've seen my wife progress in an area. And it's such a blessing to be just observing of that. And God has put husband and wife together for mutual sanctification. And that picture of sanctification, of course, is a picture of greater things, as we've already said. And so we should consider whether we're living up to God's design in our marriage.

Are we neglecting our souls? So I would just ask you, wives, have you neglected the souls of your husbands? Have you neglected the souls of your wives? Have you kindly and patiently pointed out things that really do need to be dealt with and have helped her with it? With the patience of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think of the patience that He's given to us in this often very slow sanctification process. How amazingly long suffering He is with us. How remarkable it is that you can live one decade and then another decade and maybe another decade in the Lord and find out that there's something in your life that you never saw. He never revealed it to you before. He didn't crush you with it before.

And so God has given us to one another for the same purpose. Respect each other's speech on spiritual things. Now this is an interesting one. My experience is that it's often challenging to respect the speech of a partner on spiritual matters because of pride, sin, overvaluing our own sensibilities on spiritual things. Baxter says, when either husband or wife is speaking seriously about holy things, let the other be careful to cherish and not to extinguish the conversation.

Why are there so many men smiling at me right now? I think that's because this is a particular problem with men and their pride. They don't want to hear it. And He says, watch over the hearts and lives of one another, judging the condition of each other's souls, and the strength or weakness of each other's sins and graces, and the failings of each other's lives, so that you may able to apply to one another the most suitable help. Respecting each other's speech in spiritual things.

Think of how patient God is to us in our spiritual speech, how much it would behoove us to do the same. And then he speaks of helping one another with sins. Now this is a really interesting concept here. He says, do not flatter one another from a foolish love. You know, you don't want to make waves, and so you turn to flattery.

Neither meanly criticize one another. We're often given to these extremes, aren't we? We don't do very well in the middle. We want to fall off the horse on one side or the other. That's what he's talking about.

Some are so blind to the faults of husband, wife, or child that they do not see the sin and the wickedness in them. That's one extreme. Not good. Not good. They are deluded concerning their eternal souls.

This is the same as it was with self-loving sinners and their own souls, willfully deceiving themselves to their damnation. It's just so easy to be blind to these things, but how important it is to be helping one another with sins. Baxter says, don't discourage your spouse from instructing you by refusing to receive and learn from their corrections. Baxter brings up at this point in his discussion the statement in 1 Timothy where we learned that that women should not speak in the meeting of the church. They should not teach and they should not speak.

And he says many people have misinterpreted this that their wives can't speak to them in their houses. And he says no, it's, it's, there are two different rules. There's one for the church and one for the home and in the home your wife can instruct you. She should be instructing you and she should become your helper in instruction. He makes this very interesting distinction as we should.

He's thinking clearly. He's thinking about the jurisdiction and the function of the church and he's thinking about the jurisdiction and the function of the home. And wives can speak to their, and teach their husbands in the home. It's appropriate, and it's part of helping one another with sins. And then I really love this point that he makes.

Reading together. I don't know if you read together as husband and wife, but he says this, help each other by reading together the most convicting, cutting, life-giving books. The ones most spiritual. Don't waste your time on weak milk toast ministries and books. Make friendships together with the holiest persons.

This is not neglecting your duty to one another, but that all the helps working together may be the more effectual. But this whole thing of reading together, many happy hours can be spent in this engagement. He talks about honesty together. Do not conceal the state of your souls, he says, nor hide your faults from one another. You are as one flesh and should have one heart and as it is dangerous for a man to be ignorant of his own soul So it is very hurtful to husband or wife to be ignorant of one another in those areas where they have need of help.

You know how critical it is that husband and wife live together in a mutual life, where they are living life together. It's not right that a husband has his own life and his own thoughts in his own private world, except in maybe some circumstances I can't really even think of now, but there must be some kind of exception. But husbands and wives should be together as one. And how can they love one another as one if they don't know what they're thinking, if they're not honest with one another? Husbands should speak to their wives and wives should speak to their husbands.

And then he speaks of criticizing one another. Do not either blindly indulge each other's faults, nor be too critical of each other's state, allowing Satan to alienate your affections from one another. If you're married to one that is an ungodly person, yet keep up all the love which is due for relations' sake." This has to do with the government of a critical spirit. The fruit of the spirit is patience and love. The fruit of the Spirit would contradict a critical spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Kindness, that's nothing like criticism. Goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. Gentleness, kindness, all these things argue for the abandonment of a critical spirit. And he speaks of prayer together.

Isn't it amazing all the different categories of life in marriage that He's dealing with? We're not even close to being done. But prayer together, joined frequently in fervent prayer. Prayer forces the mind into sobriety and moves 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." And then seeking one another's help. Another important duty of marriage is to help in the health and comfort of each other's bodies, not to pamper each other's flesh or to cherish the vices of pride or sloth or gluttony or the sensual pleasures in each other, but to increase the health and vigor of the body, making it fit for the service of the soul and God.

I'm very thankful for my own wife who's looking out for my body and works to regulate as much as she possibly can my diet. I am so grateful for it, but yet I'm not so diligent as she would have me to be. But I will say this, her motive is for my health. She desires my life. That's why she wants me to eat right and do those kinds of things.

She's seeking my help through the ministry to my body. And then Baxter speaks of the education of children. It is your duty to assist one another in the education of your children. He's talking about the problem of usually indolent husbands who will not help their wives in the education of their children. Oh, they love the idea of homeschooling.

They stand at the gates, but they don't lift a finger to educate their children. Well, Baxter would say, no, You shouldn't leave it just to your wife. You should help her with it. Let's talk about William Gouge. Now Gouge again has, you know, all these amazing, you know, distinct categories to work through.

And there really is beautiful wisdom. I would recommend that you read Domestical Duties. My wife and I had our 25th wedding anniversary a couple years ago and I took this along with me and I read certain sections of it to her in the hotel room. And it was so, it really was encouraging because he speaks of marriage in such tender ways. Why?

Because he's speaking of marriage from the tenderness of the father and the son and the spirit and their relationship. This pattern is ringing in his brain and he sees the love there and so he lets it rain down and he sees the sweetness of it. And so Gouge has much to say. Now, He also has disturbing things to say, like how about this one, husbands and wives in hospitality. How about this?

I hope this is not too disturbing. It is disturbing to me. Now therefore husbands and wives being, as we have heard, joint governors. As in other things, so in this they ought to lend and helping hand each to other and that for these reasons." And then he gives, I can't remember how many reasons, I think he gives ten reasons or something like that why they should help one another. I'm not going to run you through all of them.

But he says, because in giving entertainment there are sundry things to be done. Whereof some are proper to the husband's place, and some to the wife's. To take order of the provision of things without doors is more fit for the husband." In other words, like Abraham did when the angels came, Abraham is screwing around, he's killing the fatted calf, he's arranging things, and Sarah is doing her part. They're commanding, you know, Abraham is, you know, casting forth, but he's not just sitting around waiting for his wife to do everything like so many of us do. He's out there pounding away as well.

Guge is saying, husbands, don't forget that though hospitality is a beautiful thing, it ain't so beautiful if you sit on your rear end as a husband. That's really what he's trying to say. And so He says that guests should know that they're welcome both to the husband and the wife. You know, the people show up, you've been sitting there on your lazy chair while your wife has been working her fingers to the bone. Who's the happiest?

You don't want to have a situation where one is happy and the other is not happy at all. And that's what he's talking about, how there's this indolence, there's this laziness in the soul of a man to let his wife pull off all the hospitality. Again, he might be at the gate speaking brilliantly of how hospitable and please everyone come over, all 50 of you come over while you sit there and do nothing and don't help your dear wife. Gouge will have you for supper for doing that. And that's what he's saying here.

And then attitudes and actions that harm hospitality in the home. Contrary to this duty is for the most part covetousness in the husband and laziness in the wife. So We're talking hospitality here now. He's talking about the sins. He's listing all kinds of hindrances to hospitality, and this is just part of it.

The man, because of the charge of the family, lieth on him. Distrustfully feareth, lest he should want for his own. In other words, you know, he's... He doesn't want to engage in this because he's selfish. He just wants his own wife, his own schedule, his own life, his nice little home life undisturbed by anyone else.

The woman on the other side grudgeth at the pains she must take, and trouble she must undergo about entertaining guests. And thereupon is loath that at any time should come to their house. This is the beat up bedraggled woman who has a super gregarious husband who's bringing everyone home and not helping at all and she is loath that someone would come into her house. Why is this the case? She has a lazy husband.

Wow, that's the deal. So all of us who desire hospitality need to understand that it just doesn't stop with the invitation of the guests. He speaks about husbands and wives working mutually and helping the poor and all kinds of things like that. And then he speaks of submission in the home as a trial ground for submission in church and society. This is a fascinating point and I think it's one of the most important points that I think we'll cover tonight.

Because he speaks of the fact that the things that happen in a home are a trial ground for bigger things. The children learn on honor and obedience on small things so that when they get older they have bigger fish to fry, bigger challenges, bigger problems, and they've learned how to honor those who are in authority. And he says here this, besides a family is a little church and a little Commonwealth, at least a lively representation thereof, whereby trial may be made of such as are fit for any place of authority or of subjection in church or Commonwealth." Gouge believed, like most of these Puritan writers believed, that this microcosm of the home was so critical, it was so sacred. What happens here, what happens here, sends forth people into the commonwealth. What will they be like when they get into that commonwealth if they've not had a good foundation here.

It sends forth children into churches to be leaders and servants and all kinds of functions played there. But if it's not well here, how well will it be in the church? You know why we have church splits often? Because the people have not learned how to honor, they have not learned how to work through problems, they have not learned how to love. It's not it's not so much that we have disagreements but what we do, how we do with them, how do we govern our tongues in the midst of a disagreement, How do we handle ourselves when someone has offended us?

How do we deal with our own emotions when someone has a disturbing theology but is still a believer? What do we do? How do we handle that? So many of the problems in the church go right back to doctrine in the home. Misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Misunderstanding of the tender-hearted submission of the Son toward His Father in the midst of very hard commands. The love of a father toward the children, toward the son, the tremendous tenderness that comes from heaven to this son in whom the Father says this is my beloved son whom I'm well pleased. And then the command for us to imitate our Father with one another. So many of the problems in the church are doctrinal problems that never got worked on in the home. That's what Gooch is saying.

You have a home, it will affect the Commonwealth and it will affect the church. How critical it is. You know people say, you know, you say to us sometimes, you're over emphasizing the home. I trust that we don't do that. I trust that we emphasize God and the gospel and all the things that are in God's Word, but I do trust that our homes are a reflection of the heavenly home, That the love of the Father, the submission of the Son, is all working there.

That they are places as unto a little church that would build great churches. We don't desire that the home is the end of it. The end of it is the Church. But the Church would be built up in every generation. You know, the family will go away.

We will not be married in heaven. But the Church will remain in heaven. And so the church in that sense is central. It doesn't make the family unfitting. It doesn't make the family not pivotal.

The family is pivotal and the church is eternal because it sends souls into eternity. So we just have to understand the different roles and relationships that are here. But submission in the home is a trial ground for submission in church and society. And then headship. He says, oh how happy a thing it is for the church that it hath such a head.

In other words, such a head as the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, people, when they hear the word headship, when they hear the word patriarchy or something like that, their brains go crazy. Their brains go off spinning into outer space that has nothing to do with headship from heaven. The headship from heaven is as tender a thing as you can imagine. You can't imagine it.

You can't imagine the mercy. You can't imagine the wisdom and the kindness. Is the Lord Jesus Christ an abusive governor? Have you ever been abused by the Lord Jesus Christ? Have his words ever been harmful to you?

Has he asked harsh things of you? Has he been harsh with you ever? This is the kind of headship that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ and this is the exact kind of headship that God would have us demonstrate in the home. We're all messed up in headship. I think the devil wants us to be totally messed up in the way that we think of headship.

I think he absolutely loves it when the synapses of the brain go from headship to abusive, patriarchal domination. If we're thinking right, it would go from headship to the Father having mercy on all of mankind and sending his Son and blessing them with eternal mercy. That's the math. That's the calculus of the kingdom of heaven. So he says, "'A head that doth not tyrannize over it, nor trample it underfoot, "'a head that doth not pull or peel the church, "'but procureth peace and safety to it.' "'When Naomi sought to make a match betwixt Boaz and Ruth, that he might be her head, what sayeth she?

Shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? It is therefore the office of a head, to be a savior and procure rest and prosperity to the body whose head it is." You know, Gouge says, happy were it be for kingdoms and commonwealths and cities and churches and families and wives that have heads as these. If they were such heads, that because they are heads, they would endeavor to be saviors. This is the kind of headship that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ and that we should have for the church as well. The nature of submission is spoken of in in Gugge's scheme.

The necessary subjection is that degree of inferiority. Again, don't misunderstand his use of the word inferior. Wherein God hath placed all inferiors and whereby he hath subjected them to their superiors, that is, set them in a lower rank. By virtue thereof, though inferiors seek to exalt themselves above their superiors, yet are they subject unto them. Their ambition does not take away that order which God has established.

A wife is in an inferior degree, though she domineer, never so much over husband." He's talking about the impulse of one under submission to have ambition to take away the authority of the husband, and how wrong that is. And then he goes on and talks about how it's a voluntary, it's a voluntary submission. Let the wives submit to their husbands. Let them, Let them do it. It's not a forced submission at all.

And then how to speak to one another. He's talking about husbands and wives preventing each other's discredit. Have you ever heard a wife or a husband speak in a negative way about their spouse? He's just warning against that. Don't do that.

He's been around enough to know that this happens. And he says, for the first husbands and wives may in no case delight to discover unto others and spread abroad the infirmities and imperfections of one another or anything that might tend to discredit either of them but rather cover and conceal them as much as they may with a good conscience. You know, it's interesting. It seemed like for about three years, every conference I went to, there would be several wives come up and complain about their husbands. You know, I've not had that happen one single time in three years.

I am so grateful for that because they don't typically get, you know, a warm welcome but some counsel regarding that practice. But it's better that we would conceal the infirmities of our spouses to the world and not expose them in any way. The mutual government of the husband and wife. And he speaks of the mutual relationship of this government that God has given them. Many a husband, because of the wife's office, is especially to abide at home, will put off all government to the wife.

In other words, he's talking about how a husband will put all the burdens on the wife and not be a help to her in that. On the other side, because the husband is the most principled, Many wives think that the government of the family, nothing at all pertains to them, and thereupon are careless of the good thereof, and will not stir their least finger in order to do anything aright." So he's talking about these two extremes. The wife that says, it's not my job, and the husband who says, it's not my job. It's a very bad situation. It's a mutual government.

You know, all this discussion brings so many images and pictures to mind in our lives. Again, these brothers who wrote with so much detail had much, much more to say about all the different issues that arise in a marriage. This was just a snapshot of the sin and the frailties that are revealed in their teaching. I'd like to just end tonight with a poem by Ann Bradstreet, who was a Puritan wife. On July 10, 1666, Ann Bradstreet's home burned to the ground and they lost absolutely everything.

And so she wrote a poem entitled, Upon the Burning of Our House on July 10th, 1666. That's the name of the poem. She wrote this poem after the event, and she is expressing her sense of it in these verses. And I trust that what would happen to us is that we, as husbands, would lead in such a way that we would have wives as trustful and mature as Ann Bradstreet in the midst of a great time of loss and suffering. And that at the same time that we ourselves would lead the way in maturity over material things and have an understanding fit for the kingdom of heaven.

That our view of life and the world and houses and whatever would be rightly ordered so that we would think well about the world, think appropriately, that we would understand what is acceptable to the Lord and pleasing to Him in all these matters. Here's the poem. In silent night when rest I took, For sorrow near I did not look. I was wakened with thundering noise, And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice. That fearful sound of fire and fire let no man know is my desire.

I, starting up, the light did spy and to my God my heart did cry. To strengthen me in my distress and not to leave me suckerless. Then, coming out, beheld a space the flame consume my dwelling place. And when I could no longer look, I blessed his name that gave and took, that laid my goods now in dust. Yea, so it was, And so twas just.

It was his own, it was not mine, far be it that I should re-pine. No pleasant tale shall e'er be told, Nor things recounted done of old. No candle ear shall shine in thee. Nor bridegroom's voice ere heard shall be. In silence ever shalt thou lie.

Adieu, adieu, all is vanity. Then, straight, I gin my heart to chide, and ditched my wealth on earth abide, ditched fix thy hope on moldering dust. The arm of flesh ditched make thy trust. Raise up thy thoughts above the sky that dung hill mists away may fly. Thou hast in house on high erect, Framed from that mighty architect, With glory richly furnished, Stands permanent, though this be fled, Its purchased and paid for too By him who hath enough to do.

A prize so vast as is unknown, Yet, by his gift, is made thine own. There's wealth enough, I need no more. Farewell my pelf, farewell my store. The world no longer let me love, my hope and treasure lies above. May God give us wives like this.

May God give us husbands who would inspire this type of trusting and focus on heaven that this earth would not be our home. But we would understand what this Puritan wife understood, that there are things that are pleasing unto the Lord that can be gained whether one has lost everything or not and can look into the thing that's been destroyed and be thankful to God that He alone is able to sustain for all eternity. This was the world view of these dear Puritan brothers that we have been reading about. They believed in heaven. I was at a funeral two weeks ago.

One of my friends here in town is a pastor and his wife died suddenly. She died actually fairly young and I went to the funeral and my daughter Claudia and I had the privilege of going to this funeral and we walked in and I'm telling you the choir was a-swaying, praising God. It was a big black church and I mean they were They were grieving as if there was a heaven. And this is the heart, this is the heart of the doctrinal understanding of life and death and husbands and wives that the Puritans had. I pray that we would have the same kind of heavenly vision that grieves for the right things and and loves the things that would please the Lord.

So would you pray with me? Lord we thank you for thoughts that you've given to us that come down from heaven are rooted in scripture that we have looked at here tonight. I pray that you would make beautiful marriages here among us, that you would send us out with more love. I pray for young young people here today that you would help them to form beautiful marriages for your glory. Marriages just like this one that we've just spoken of here.

That the gospel, that sin, that all of these great doctrines would be understood, and all of the love of the Holy Trinity would be found in us. In Jesus' name, Amen. You