Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/232

 the Person they are to be married to, may make a tolerable Judgment of what their Condition will be after Marriage; and accordingly they may and ought to venture, or not to venture: A venture it is at best, because after you have done your utmost, you may be mistaken, may be deceived, and, after the utmost Caution, some unsuitable Things must be expected: You must expect Difficulties, and to have many Things to struggle with, an Exercise for all your Virtue, all your Self-denial, all your Temper; as long as Flesh and Blood is a Composition of Contraries and inconsistent Humours, there will be something always left to try your Patience, to try your Christianity, and which, being considered, makes it the more needful to use the utmost Precaution in the Choice.

I am not going to give Directions here how to search into these unsuitable Things, how to judge of them, and how to distinguish Tempers; that would be a Work too voluminous for this Place: But one general Caution may, for ought I know, if well followed, be as good as a hundred Sheets of Paper filled with Words of less Signification. The Caution is short, and easy to be understood; whether it be easy to be put in Practice or no, that you must judge from your selves. It is, in few Words, this: Study well your own Temper first.

shall any Man or Woman know whether the Temper of the Woman or Man they are about to marry be suitable to them, and may concur to their future Felicity, if they do not first know their own? I remember a Gentleman of Quality and Fortune who courted a Lady a long while, and their Fortunes and