Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/100

 command of the Soul, for that is the whole Case.

I might give some Examples of this Moderation as it has been happily practised among Christians in our Age, and that even among Men of the highest Rank, and above the Restraint of Laws. Take one particular Relation which I had from an unquestionable Author, that is to say, from a grave Minister who had been conversant in the very Houshold, and the Truth of whose Relation I cannot doubt. "There was a certain reigning Prince not long ago alive in the World; I do not say there are many such left, who after having had five Sons, and most of them Men of Fame as well as high Birth, and still living, had this particular Circumstance attending his Marriage-bed; his Princess was reduced to such Weakness, by frequent Child-bearing, that she was not able to receive the Embraces of her Lord without the utmost Extremity of Pain and Disorder; and it went so far, that she was at last obliged to discover it to him, but did it with so much Modesty and Goodness, that she offered him to consent to his taking any other Lady, which he might approve of to supply her Place.

" insisted upon the reasonableness of it, and that she believed her consenting to it, and from such evident necessity, might make it lawful; nay, she press'd the Prince to it very earnestly, offering her self to find out an agreeable Person for him, and to bring her to him.

" generous Prince received her first Declaration, intimating her own Weakness and