A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

It concerns therefore the man, and especially the woman, to endeavour to marry a member of Christ, a religious person; where they may most rationally expect the conscionable discharge of their respective duties. If such be not the best husbands and wives, it is not by reason of their piety, but their defect of it. Add to this a Discovery of the^(m) natural tempers of those you mean to marry. If they be proud and imperious to others, ten to one they will be so to you; if they be choleric, sour or sullen, you will hardly find an Heaven upon Earth. And you ought to deal plainly with one another, both concerning your natural Defects, concerning your moral Dispositions, and concerning your civil Condition, that you may not give, and that Satan may not take an advantage, whereby to cause disquiet or repinings afterwards. You count it a cheat to have an unsound, ill-conditioned decrepit beast put upon you, for a sound, young, and towardly one; certainly it is the greatest injury in the world to defraud one whom you pretend to love; and to wrong them in that wherein you can never make them reparation.

It concerns therefore the man, and especially the woman, to endeavour to marry a member of Christ, a religious person; where they may most rationally expect the conscionable discharge of their respective duties. If such be not the best husbands and wives, it is not by reason of their piety, but their defect of it. Add to this a Discovery of the^(m) natural tempers of those you mean to marry. If they be proud and imperious to others, ten to one they will be so to you; if they be cholerick, sour or sullen, you will hardly find an Heaven upon Earth. And you ought to deal plainly with one another, both concerning your natural Defects, concerning your moral Dispositions, and concerning your civil Condition, that you may not give, and that Satan may not take an advantage, whereby to cause disquiet or repinings afterwards. You count it a cheat to have an unfound, ill-condition'd decrepid beast put upon you, for a sound, young, and towardly one; certainly it is the greatest injury in the world to defraud one whom you pretend to love; and to wrong them in that wherein you can never make them reparation.

1. (m)