Page:Wedding-ring fit for the finger.pdf/7

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7

It is strange that should be a pollution which was instituted before corruption; or that impurity which was ordained in the state of innocency: or that they should make that to be a sin, which they make to bo a sacrament; strange stupidity!—But a bastard may be laid at the door of chastity, and a leaden crown set upon a golden head. Bellarmine (that mighty atlas of tho Papal power) blows his stinking breath upon it: "Better wero it for a priest to defile himself with many harlots, than to be married to one wife."—These children of tho purple whore prefer monasteries beforo marriages, a concubino before a companion.—They use too many women for their lusts, to choose any for their love.—Their tables are so largely spread that they cannot feed upon one dish. As for their exalting of a virgin-state, it is like him that commanded fasting, when he had filled his belly. Who knows not, that virginity is a pearl of a sparkling lustro? but the one cannot be set up, without the other be thrown down: No oblation will pacify the former, but the demolishing of the latter. Though wo find many enemies to tho choice of marriage, yet it is rare to find any enemies to the use of marriage. They would pick the lock that wants the key, and pluck the fruit that do not plant the trec. The Hebrews have a saying, "that he is not a man that hath not a wife." Though they climb too high a bough, yet it is to be feared that such flesh is full of imperfoction, that is, not tending to propogation: though man alone may be good, yet, It is not good that man should be alone. Which leads mo from the subject to the predicate, It is not good.

Now, it is not good that man should be in a single condition on a threefold consideration.