2

A Letter from a Gentleman

had received your Letter by the James and Mary, which was not then arrived: Yet I cannot, upon mature Reflection, think I have in the leaft wronged that Religion by the Comparison; or, that we were too much surprised that you should marry one of that Religion.

I had fo frequently recommended to you the changing your Condition, that you may be fure. I was not in the leaft difpleased at your being married; nor yet that the young Gentlewoman you had married had no very large Fortune: For indeed, a Woman of any Merit (as I hear she is) is very rarely to be got, with any Fortune at all, in the East Indies. The Character fhe bears of a very modeft and virtuous Person, suitable to the fober Education fhe has had, I should have thought Fortune enough there, had she had no other. And, as I am told fhe is of an agreeable Converfation, and poffeffes a great Share of good Senfe, I fhould rather have applauded than difcommended your Choice, even though she had not had a Penny, had it not been upon Account of her Religion; which, I must own, is no little Disturbance to me.

I take it, that the Happiness of the married State does not confift so much in the Love of one another's Perfons (though that is a very good Ingredient towards it) as in Affections much more lafting, thofe of reciprocal Friendship and Esteem: Thefe ftrengthen and perfect the Happiness of the former, which will otherwife foon have an End. Uneafineffes and Difcontents are the natural Parents of difefteem; and, where Efteem is wanting, there can be no real or lafting Friendfhip.

fhip. They must be Perfons of a very angelical Temper of Mind, in whom fo great Differences in Religion do not caufe Difcontents and Uneafineffes For the Tenderness that is, or ought to be, between Hufband and Wife, as it must occafion the most ardent Defires that the dearest Part of themselves, the Delight of their Lives, fhould be happy, not only with them in this World, but more especially in the next; fo will it be the Foundation of an Uneafiness that must be as lafting at least as their joint Lives, unless the one or the other of them change their Religion. For, the pungent Sorrow that must arise in each of their Souls, from the Belief that the other of them is in a wrong Way to eternal Blifs, will four all the other Felicities of Life; because, that next to the Concern and Sorrow that we ought to have for our own Sins, those of our nearest and deareft Relations ought to affect us the most fenfibly, and then, not the most flourishing outward Circumstances in Nature can make us happy: And, where this Uneafinefs, on fuch a Reflection, is wanting, I believe true Love, whether it be conjugal, parental, or filial, must be wanting too. If, then, you and your Wife intend to be happy, you muft, if you truly love. one another, each of you endeavour to convert one another to that Faith which you respectively believe to be moft agreeable to the Will of God, by all the Arguments that can be fairly drawni from Scripture and Reafon; but without the leaft Force, either directly or indirectly, made Ufe of: And, as fuch an Endeavour muft, till one has prevailed, be the Occafion of many ConB 2 tefts,

tefts, it will require the greatest Prudence fo to adapt the Strength of your feveral Arguments, as not to lose one another's Affection by the Manner wherewith they are managed; whereby you will be fenfible I had good Reafon to fay, in my former Letter, that, by thus marrying a Perfon of a different Religion, you had laid the Foundation of perpetual Contentions between you and the Perfon, whom, of all the World, you fhould be the furtheft from having any even the leaft Difference with.

Thus far I have enforced what I faid in my Letter by the~ of the Uneafineffes that muft arife between Hufband and Wife, from their Differences in Religion; but fhall wave faying any Thing more on the Subject of the Children you may have, feeing that, by the Letter I received from you by

, you have given me your Word, that you will fend them over to be educated by me: So that, unless it happen that I die while they are young, the Religion of their Mother will not affect them, without it be by their own unfortunate Choice hereafter.

Another Thing I took Notice of to you, in the Letter already mentioned, was the Danger of fuch an Alliance to your own Faith. That fuch Marriages have been always thought ill of, we may learn from many Places in the Holy Scriptures. It is recorded of Abraham (a), that he made the Overfeer of his House swear by the God of Heaven and Earth, that he would not

(a) Gen. xxiv. 3.

take

take a Wife for his Son Ifaac of the Daughters of the Canaanites; and it is said (b) to be grief of Mind, not only to Rebekah, but alfo to Ifaac, that their Son Efau had married with thofe Daughters of the Canaanites; that is, fuch as worshipped not the God of Abraham and Ifaac. And further, God by Mofes (c) for bad the Children of Ifrael's intermarrying with those of an idolatrous Religion; and, though it is poffible there might be many other Reasons, both political and prudential, yet the only one there given by him, why they fhould not do it, is, the Danger of its leading them to Idolatry, as it is expreffed in the next Verfe, in these Words, For they will turn away thy Sons from following me, that they may ferve other Gods. Now, though the Letter of the Mofaical Law be abolished, and that (for any Authority which that has over us) we are at Liberty to marry with whom we will, whether of one Religion or another, yet the Reafon of that Prohibition will always fubfift, which is, that we ought, out of a religious Fear, to abstain from thofe Sort of mixed Marriages, left, by running ourselves into Temptations, we are over-perfuaded either to forfake the Worship of the true God, or to worfhip him after a falfe Manner, or to give that Worship which is due to God, to that which is not God: Which is a Danger not to be thought light of, fince the Scripture has given us a very eminent Inftance of a Perfon, that had the greatest Reason imaginable to be the most fully perfuaded of the Truth

(b) Gen. xxvi. 35.

(c) Deut. vii. 3.

of his Religion, who yet fell away, by the Prevalence of Temptation, in the very Cafe I am now mentioning, That of marrying Wives of a different Religion: For, though Almighty God had twice appeared to (e) Solomon (which, ene would have thought, muft have worked in fo irresistible a Manner upon his great Understanding, that no Temptation could have shook him) yet did his Wives draw him to Idolatry, and to the forfaking of the true Religion, as appears by his burning Incense, and facrificing to their Gods (f). From whence we may learn, how much it behoves us, though we are never fo much perfuaded of the Truth of that Way of Worship which we profefs, to take the greatest Care poffible that we forfake it not; and to remember the Caution which St. Paul gives the Romans (g), That, as we stand by Faith, we should not be high-minded, but fear; we fhould not be too prefumptuous of our own Strength, or too much poffeffed with an Affurance, that we cannot be overcome by fuch Temptations as have overcome others: Which is a Caution I likewife think reasonable to give you; not because I fuppofe you ready to fall from your Stedfaftnefs in the Proteftant Religion (God knows my Heart I both hope and believe otherwise) but with Defign to arm you with fuch a religious Fear, as St. Peter fays (h) is neceffary to enable us always to be ready to give an Answer to every one that shall afk us a Reafon of the Hope that is in us; or that

(e) 2 Kings iii. 5.-ix. 2. (f) 2 Kings xi. 8. (g) Rom. xi. zo. (h) 1 Pet. iii. 15.

fhall