Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (4).pdf/8

 8     Some indeed force themselves to a single life, merely to avoid the charges of a mar- ried state; they had rather fry in the grease of their own sensuality than extinguish those flames with an allowed remedy; " It is better   to marry than to burn," to be lawfully cou- pled, than to be lustfully scorched. It is   best feeding these flames with ordinate fuel. 2. 'Tis not good in respect of mankind, which then would not be propagated. The Roman historian relating the ravishing of   the Sabine women, excused it thus, Res erat ætatis populus virorum: without them man- kind would fall from the earth and perish. Marriages do turn mutability into the i-   mage of eternity: it springs up new buds when the old are withered. It is a greater honour for a man, to be the father of one son, than to be the master of many servants. Without a wife, children cannot be had lawfully; without a good wife, children can- not be had comfortably. Man and woman, as the stock and the scion, being grafted by   marriage, are trees bearing fruit to the world: St Augustine says, This pair is, Primum Par & Fundamentum Omnitum, &c. They are the first link of human society, to which all the rest are joined. Mankind had long ago decayed and been like a taper fallen into the socket, if those breaches which are made by morality, were not repaired by   matrimony. 3. 'Tis not good in regard of the church, which could not then have been expatiated. Where there is no generation, there can be   no regeneration.