Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (4).pdf/7

 7   As for their exalting of a virgin state, it  is like him that commended fasting when he  had filled his belly. Who knows not that virginity is a pearl of sparkling lustre? But cannot the one he set up without the other be thrown down? Will no oblation pacify the former, but the demo- lishing of the latter ? Though we find many enemies to the choice of marriage, yet it is rare to find any enemies to the use of mar- riage. They would pick the lock that want the key, and pluck the fruit that do not plant the tree. The Hebrews have a saying, he is not a man, that hath not a woman."  Though they climb too high a bough, yet  it is to be feared that such flesh is full of  imperfection, that is not tending to propa-  gation: Though man alone may be good,  yet "it is not good that man should be a-  lone;" which leads me from the subject to  the predicate, "It is not good," &c.    Non bonnm, is not in this place, as malum,  but bonum est honestum, utile, jucundum.  Now it is not good that man should be in  a single condition, upon a threefold consid-  eration.    1. In respect of sin, which would not else  be prevented, marriage is like water to  quench the sparks of lusts fire, 1 Corinth.  vii. 2." Nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every one have his own wife," &c. Man needeth no such physic when he was in per-  fect health. Temptations: may break natures  best fence, and lay its paradise waste; but a  single life is a prison of unruly desires, which  is daily attempted to be broken open.