Monday, May 28, 2007

Tend the vestal fire...

I listen to Dr. Laura for about two hours a week and have for years. Yes she's opinionated, blunt, to understate it, a bit harsh at times, but for the most part I agree with her. She has a book out called "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands", and I thought how much her advice is like that of Thomas Watson, a 17th century Puritan.

Here he discourses on avoiding adultery--
" To avoid fornication and adultery, let every man have a chaste, entire love to his own wife. Ezekiel's wife was the desire of his eyes. Chap. 24:16.
When Solomon had dissuaded from strange women, he prescribed a remedy against it. " Rejoice with the wife of thy youth."
It is not in having a wife, but loving a wife, that makes a man live chastely. He who loves his wife, whom Solomon calls his fountain, will not go abroad to drink of muddy, poisoned waters.
Pure conjugal love is a gift of God, and comes from heaven; but, like the vestal fire, it must be cherished, that it go not out. He who loves not his wife, is the likeliest person to embrace the bosom of a stranger."

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