Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/236

 that kind should take its Rise from the Knowledge of our own Disposition first, it becomes every one to study well their own Temper, and to learn to judge impartially of themselves, which, by the Way, is not the easiest Thing in the World to do.

may know whether you are of a complying, yielding, abating Temper or no; whether you can bear Provocations, and make no return till the Heat is over, and then admonish Calmly; or whether you are full of Resentment, Furious, apt to take Fire, and long a quenching; whether you are Rough or Smooth, Tender or Harsh; in a word, whether your Temper is fit for another to bear, or able to bear with another as unfit to be born with as your own: From our own Tempers thus impartially judged of, we might very often, I do not say always, determine and choose for our selves with Success.

now, to bring this down to the Case before me. What must we say of that Matrimony, which is concluded in spite of all the Knowledge and Discovery, either of the other Persons Temper, or of our own? That is carried on by Appetite, by the Gust of Inclination, by a View of the Outside only, without consulting any thing but the Face; without inquiring into the Qualifications, the Temper, the Humour, the Capacities, or any of the Decorations of the Mind. What is all this but a meer vitiated Desire, a Corruption, and, I may say, a depravity of the Judgment, without Sense of Virtue, or value for the Accomplishments of the Soul; in a word, what is it but a Matrimonial Whoredom?