Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (2).pdf/19

 commonality to couple with the gentry.— It was well ſaid by one "If the wife be too much above her huſband ſhe either ruins him by her vast expences or reviles him with her baſe reproaches: if ſhe be too much below her huſband, either her former condition makes her too generous, or her preſent mutation makes her too imperious." Marriages are ſtyled matches; yet amongſt thoſe many that are married how few are there that are matched! Huſbands and wives are like locks and keys that rather break than open, except the wards be anſwerable

3. In the holineſs of her religion. If adultery may ſeparate a marriage contracted, idolatry may hinder a marriage not perfected, Cattle of divers kinds were not to ingender: 2 Cor. vi. 14. "Be not unequally yoked" &c. It is dangerous taking her for a wife, who will not take God for a huſband. It is not meet that one fleſh ſhould be of two ſpirits. Is there never a tree thou likest in the garden but that which bears forbidden fruit? There are but two channels in which the remaining ſtreams ſhall run: 1. To those men that want wives how to chuſe them. 2 To thoſe women who have huſbands, how to uſe them.

1. To thoſe men that want wives, how to chuſe them. Marriage is the tying of ſuch a knot, that nothing but death can unlooſe. Common reaſon ſuggeſts ſo much, that we ſhould be long a-doing that which can but once be done. Where one deſign hath been graveled in