Before turning to Milton, I want to look at one more Puritan writer’s discussion of marriage. In this case, however, I will be focusing on a figurative use of the language of marriage and love. The manuals we have looked at up to this point have adopted the language of Ephesians 5 to describe the proper relationship between husband and wife
38 Turner, One Flesh, 75. 39 Loc cit.
as that between Christ and the Church. Through this Scriptural imagery, they describe each family as a miniature Church as well as a miniature commonwealth. Conversely, this scriptural passage could be used to illustrate individual spiritual development in terms of conjugal imagery. John Preston applies the framework of marriage and love to explain the proper orienting of the soul to Christ. Faith and charity are understood by means of the relationship between husband and wife. The breast-plate of faith and love is a collection of eighteen sermons on the two topics named in the title: faith, which is given ten sermons, and love, which is given eight sermons. In the first set of sermons of The breast-plate, John Preston uses the language of marital love and of marriage contracts to explain what faith in Christ is. The first sermon in the collection uses Rom. 1.17 for its text.40 The Scriptural affirmation that “the just shall live by faith” causes an anxious
voice to exclaim: “but I haue not so strong a faith, I cannot beleeue as I would, and as I should.”41 The rest of the sermon, and indeed the entire collection, develops around this
fear. The goal of The breast-plate is to explain what it means to have effectual faith in Christ and how those who “are ingrafted into, and borne of” Christ are saved. Faith is all
40 Rom. 1.17: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written,
The just shall live by faith.” While Preston does not explicitly mention Luther, the choice of text links the questions in the sermons on faith to a key Scriptural place in the history of the
Reformation. See, Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil, trans. Eileen Walliser- Schwarzbart (New Haven, CT: Ylae UP, 1989), 164-6.
41 John Preston, The breast-plate of faith and love, (London, 1630), 2. Early English Books Online. Dr. Williams’s
Library and the Bodleian Library (Oxford). February 24, 2010.
http://proxy.lib.duke.edu:2212/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000449203960000&SOURCE=var_spe ll.cfg&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1282334366_29696. The sermons were first preached in 1625 and printed as a collection in 1630.
that is required for salvation: “it is onely required of thee to come with the hand of faith, and receiue it in the middest of all thy vnworthinesse, whatsoeuer it be, lay hold on the pardon, and embrace it, and it shall be thine.”42 This image of the unworthy recipient
accepting and embracing the pardon for all his sins evolves into the governing trope of The breast-plate, the image of the marriage between Christ and the soul: “As the Husband wooes his Spouse, and says thus, I require nothing at thy hands, no condition at all, I doe not examine whether thou art wealthy, or no; whether thou be faire, or no; whether thou be out of debt, or well conditioned, it is no matter what thou art, I require thee simply to take me for thy Husband.”43 Over and over again, in answering questions
about the nature of saving faith, Preston returns to this trope of marriage.44
Indeed, the language Preston uses to describe the love between a soul and Christ is the same as that used by the marriage manuals. For instance, if one were to ask, how should I serve Christ? Preston would answer that he do so by keeping His
42 Preston, The breast-plate, 14. 43 Preston, The breast-plate, 15.
44 The imagery of marriage is even used in answering such seemingly dry points as whether “Fides est actus
intellectus, [Faith] is an act of vnderstanding.” On this particular issue, Preston explains that it involves both
intellect and the will: “As in a matter of marriage, If one come and tell a Woman, there is such a man in the world that is willing to bestow himself on you, if you will take him, and accept him for your husband: Now (marke what it is that makes vp the marriage on her part:) first she must beleeue that there is such a man, and that that man is willing to haue her, that this message is true, that it is brought from the man himself, and that it is nothing else but a true declaration of the mans minde. This is an act of her minde or
vnderstanding: But will you take him, and accept him for your Husband? now comes the will, and concurrence of these two makes vp the match. […] If you beleeue that we deliuer the message from Christ, and doe consequently embrace and take him, you are iustified.” The fluid transition between the example of the woman contemplating marriage and the state of the soul moved to belief is typical of The breast-plate. The difference between effectual faith and faith as an act of the will is further clarified in the sixth sermon in the collection. There, Preston explains that even devils have a sort of faith, but it is not effectual because it consists only in fear and not love of God.
commandments sincerely and with the proper affection. One must, however, strive to be truthful in his service to God because even “an hypocrite may goe faree in
performances, and yet though he doth much, hee may not love much.” Indeed, a truly godly individual will love Christ in the same way a wife loves her husband: “It is true, a man may doe much for Christ, and yet not love him […]. You know, the wife and the servant, they both serve the husband, and doe much for him, both are alike diligent, yet notwithstandi[n]g there is this difference, the wife doth it out of love.”45 If one of
Preston’s parishioners were to turn to marriage manuals to better understand this model of love, he would find the same language and examples. Cleaver, following Paul,
reminds us that marriage is a sign pointing to the union of Christ with the Church. This should be kept vividly before the eyes of both husband and wife: “therefore thou
oughtest so much as shall lie in thee, to lift vp thy mind, and to remember how great and worthy an image thou doest represent; and that thy wife shall be vnto thee as the
Church, and thou vnto her as Christ; herefore thou shouldest shew thy selfe vnto her, as Christ shewed himselfe vnto his Church.”46 Moreover, a husband should always
remember that his wife’s obedience is unlike that of a servant: “By the helper, is signified the vtilitie and profit of the seruice, and by the similitude and likenesse are signified loue and helpefulnesse. For a seruant and he that is hired are insufficient to supply that
45 Preston, The breast-plate, 79.
place; there can neither be so much loue, and ability to minister helpe and comfort to a man, as will be found in a faithfull wife.”47 Gataker, rather than focusing of the
difference between the love of wife and the outward obedience of a servant, explains the wife’s proper relationship to her husband by contrasting true love and subjection with the mere show of a hypocrite. While “hypocrites place religion onely in ceremoniall obseruances,” a godly wife will be “faithfull and carefull, in a constant and conscionable performance of such duties as issue and flow from the inward acknowledgement of that superioritie of power and place, that God hath giuen to the husband in regard of the wife.”48 Indeed, her fear of her husband is “like that feare that the godly beare vnto God.”
It is “not a seruile or slauish dread, but a liberall, free and ingenuous feare.”49 The
parallel between religious and conjugal love is meant to help illustrate both marriage and a soul’s relationship with God.
There is however a difference in emphasis between Preston’s use of the imagery of marriage and that in the marriage manuals. While in the Puritan tracts the focus is mainly on the larger context for each marriage with a few passages that concentrate primarily on the married couple itself, in Preston, the emphasis is on the relationship between the individual soul and Christ.50 The same relentless requirement that each
47 Cleaver and Dod, A godly forme of houshold government, image 76. 48 Gataker, Marriage duties, 11.
49 Gataker, Marriage duties, 12.
50 Furthermore, while Preston and the writers of marriage manuals use the same, standard Scriptural places
individual be willing to suffer for God that we have seen in Foure Godly and Learned Treatises is also to be found in The breast-plate. In the latter collection of sermons, however, it is recast in the image of a loving marriage:
A husband that loves his spouse, is exceeding readie to suffer any thing to enjoy her love, he is willing to suffer any displeasure of parents, of friends, to suffer the losse of his estate, he cares not for discredit in the world, hee is ready to breake through thicke and thinne, and to doe any thing, so he may obtaine her love at the last: So if you love the Lord Iesus, you will suffer any thing for his sake.51
The passage recalls Ephesians 5.25, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church.” In the Scriptural passage, the love of the husband for his wife is likened to that of Christ for the Church. Preston, however, emphasizes the love of the individual for Christ. Just as the loving husband is willing to undergo privation in order to obtain the love of his wife, each individual must be willing to “suffer any displeasure of parents, of friends, to suffer the losse of his estate” to win the love of Christ. To do otherwise, to put any other love above God would be to display an adulterous love: “You may know whether your love to any creature, to any sport or recreation be adulterous or no. A chast wife may love many men besides her husband; but if it once begin to lessen her love to her husband, that is an adulterous love: Therefore if you would love the Lord aright, be sure to cut off this, for it breedes a distance betweene
readings of these passages also shows a different focus. For Preston, the main focus is a moral reading of the relationship between the individual soul and Christ. For Cleaver and Dod, Perkins, Gouge, and Gataker, the emphasis is on the relationship between the Church as a whole and Christ.
God and you.”52 For Preston, any love and concern that one may feel for any creature
must be tested to determine whether it diminishes the affection that the soul owes to the Creator. As we will see, the remedies presented in The breast-plate to heal any possible estrangement between the soul and God mirror the solutions proposed in the marriage manuals to foster a stronger bond between husband and wife.
There are, however, passages in The breast-plate that do show concern for the larger social and political connections between faith and the commonwealth.53 A striking
example of Preston’s engagement with a larger ecclesiastical context is found in the fourth sermon of love. The Scriptural text is Gal. 5.6.54 This sermon continues the
discussion on the properties of true love begun in the third sermon, and describes the two affections that depend on love: anger, which in the context of religion is also called zeal, and fear.55 The first affection dependent on love, anger, is manifested whenever the
object of love is taken away from us or dishonored. Indeed, anger can be used to gauge the strength of our love. Thus, Preston urges his listeners to judge their pious zeal by
52 Preston, The breast-plate, 107.
53 For the political aspects of Preston’s sermons, see Christopher Hill’s “The Political Sermons of John
Preston,” in Puritanism and Revolution, 239-74.
54 Gal. 5.6: “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which
worketh by love.”
55 In the first sermon on love (sermon eleven), Preston specifies that love is an affection, that is one of the
“diverse motions and turnings of the will.” More precisely, “Love is nothing else but a disposition of the will, whereby it cleaves or makes forward to some good that is agreeable to it selfe.” While this first definition of love is ambiguous on the meaning of “some good,” it becomes clear in the subsequent discussion that Preston means that we only love what we perceive as good. Thus we have to be taught to love Christ by learning “to looke on him as upon that which is sutable and agreeable to us” (Preston, “Of Love. First Sermon,” in The breast-plate, 6; pagination for the sermons of love begins with “The First Sermon”).
measuring their anger at the decay of true religion: “This is a thing that will try your love to the Lord. If you finde that you can heare of the desolation of the Churches, and of the increase and growing of Poperie, and yet you doe not take it to heart to be affected with it, you doe not grieve for it, it is a signe that you want love to the Lord.”56 The
second affection, fear, can also be used as a measure of the strength of our love. As well as being angry towards anything that might corrupt true religion, those who love God will also be fearful of his displeasure, “Now when the Lord shall shew some tokens of his wrath, those that love him, and esteeme him, those that prize him, cannot but be affected.”57 If we truly love God, we will fear displeasing and angering him.
How are anger and fear connected? Preston brings the two affections together in two steps. First, he blurs the lines between two types of fear. One the one hand, there is the fear felt by those who love God that the “token of his wrath” represent His
displeasure. On the other, there is fear of His wrath. While fear of God is first defined as the fear we feel at God’s displeasure at our coolness in love, as the sermon develops, the focus shift to the fear of the consequences of God’s wrath towards the sins of the whole community. That is, Preston changes the emphasis from each individual’s relationship with the Creator to the repercussions derived from living in a commonwealth with those who transgress God’s commandments. Thus, his readers are warned that the plague
56 Preston, “Of Love. Sermon Four,” in The breast-plate, 89. 57 Preston, “Of Love. Sermon Four,” in The breast-plate, 90.
raging in London in 1625 is the probable results of sins, in particular, idolatry,
fornication, and “unworthy receiving of the Sacrament.”58 Indeed, even the godly are
punished for the sins of the other members of the community: “It is not likely that all the people fell into that sinne of Idolatry, or into the sinne of Fornication, but yet the Lord was offended with the whole Congregation for those that did it.”59 What can the godly do to
stop the anger of God? Here Preston brings together fear and anger. Indeed, the plague rages because the godly have failed to love God strongly enough. The coolness of their anger against idolatry and fornication is as much a cause of God’s punishment as the sins themselves. Recalling Num. 25, Preston reminds his audience how Phinehas’ zeal, his just religious anger, stopped the plague: “Because his love was hot, and his anger was kindled in a holy manner […]. If the zeale of Phineas was the cause of staying that plague, and of withholding the Lords hands, then surely the coldnes of those from whom the Lord lookes for much heate, for much fervency of spirit, whom God expects should stand in the gappe, I say, that is the cause that the Lord goes on in punishing.”60
Preston thus asks those who have “some fire in them” or “have had some worke of grace
58 Preston, “Of Love. Sermon Four,” in The breast-plate, 92.
59 Preston, “Of Love. Sermon Four,” in The breast-plate, 92; emphasis original. The proof-text for this part of
the sermon is Num. 25, with particular emphasis on verse 11: “Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.” But see also verses 7 and 8: “And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;/ And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.”
in their hearts wrought by the Spirit of God, that have some sparkes if they were blowne up” to “doe something that the Lord may stay his hand.” These godly people can stop the plague by loving God with proper fear and anger: “shew your love to the Lord in trembling at his judgements, in being zealous for his Names sake.”61
But what is this love and how is it achieved? In the first sermon on love, Preston details five kinds of love: first, a love of pity (where we want to protect and preserve that which we love, like a father might pity a sick or vicious son); second, a love of
concupiscence (that is, when we desire something merely for the use we make of it); third, what Preston terms love of complacency (that is, when we are pleased with something that appeals to the will and the understanding, like a teacher may love a good student or a father may love a good son); fourth, there is the kind of love found in friendship, which goes beyond the previous three (this is the reciprocal love that friends feel for each other); and finally, the fifth kind of love is the love of dependence. This last kind of love, in particular, is the love we give to God: “when one loues one upon whom