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Infirmity, with a concern of Pity and Affection as became a tender Husband, which he always had been to her, and assured her he would not oppress her, or offer any thing to injure or disorder her. He smiled at her Proposal, but told her, No; since Providence had thought fit to deny him the satisfaction he used to have in the Embraces cf his own Wife, he hoped he was so much of a Christian as not to break God's Laws to gratify natural Desires; and that he had so much the Government of himself also as not to let his Appetite get the Mastery of his Reason; and with this noble Resolution declined the Offer his Wife made him of another Lady, and kept himself single, as it may be called, to the last.
I give this, among many Examples, wherein conjugal Modesty has been preserved, and the Example is moving. The Prince I mention was in the highth of his Strength, the prime of his Age, between the Age of thirty and forty; strong, vigorous, full of Fire in the Field, and, in proportion, elsewhere; the Thing was an Accident, and to Nature was doubtless a Disappointment; but the Christian prevailed above the Youth; Reason conquered Nature, and that Reason had the Government of all his Inclinations.
Certainly we are to act according to our Reason and our Understanding in all Cases, where the Laws either of God or Man leave us at liberty; nay, those Laws seeming to leave us at full liberty, give the stronger Force to the Government of our Reason; They seem not to say you are in this left to what your own Will directs, but the Language of theLaw
