Thomas Fuller · 105 of 228

I. Play an After-Game.

MIXT CONTEMPLATIONS ON THESE TIMES.

WE read how at the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, Neh. iii. 12: Next unto him repaired Shallum, the son of Halohesh, he and his daughters. Was it woman’s work to handle a trowel? Did it consist with the modesty of that sex to clamber scaffolds?

Surely those females did only repair by the proxy of their purses, in which sense Solomon is said to have built the temple.

Our weaker sex hath been overstrong in making and widening the breaches in our English Zion, both by their purses and persuasions. To redeem their credit, let them hereafter be as active in building as heretofore they were in breaking down.

Such wives, who not only lie in the bosoms, but lodge in the affections, of loving husbands, who are empowered with places of command, joining IMPORTUNITY to their OPPORTUNITY, may be marvellously instrumental to the happiness of our nation.

We read of Ahab, 1 Kings xxi. 25, that none was like him, who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. By the same proportion that person will prove peerless in piety, who hath a godly consort in his bosom, seasonably to incite him, who is so forward in himself to all honorable actions.