Page:Wedding-ring, fit for the finger, or, The salve of divinity on the sore of humanity (5).pdf/20

20 —Cattle of divers kinds were not to engender.

—2 Cor vi. 14. Be not uniquely 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 husband, 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 bas been gravelled in the sands of delay, thousands have been split on the rock of precipitance. Rash adventures yield little gain. Opportunities are not like tides, that when one is past, another returns; but yet take heed of flying without your wings: you may breed such agues in your bones, that may shake you to your graves

1. Let me preserve you from a bad choice 2. Present you with a good one. To preserve you from a bad choice, take that in three things: 1. Chuse not for beauty. 2. Chuse not for dowry. 3. Chuse not for dignity. He that looks for beauty buys a picture. He that loves for dowry, makes a purchase. He that leaps for dignity, matches with a multitude at once. The first of these is too blind to be directed. The second, too base to be accepted