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When these come together, there's Matrimony in its Perfection; if they marry, they can answer the Minister, when he asks them, Will you love him? Will you love her? The Man can say, I will, because I do; I will, and she is assured I will; I will, for she highly merits all my Affection.
It would call for a Volume, not a Page, to describe the Happiness of this Couple. Possession does not lessen, but highten their Enjoyments; the Flame does not exhaust it self by burning, but encreases by its continuance; 'tis young in its remotest Age; Time makes no Abatement; they are never surfeited, never satiated; they enjoy all the Delights of Love without the criminal Excesses; Modesty and Decency guide their Actions, and set Bounds, not only to their Motions, but to their Desires; and, as Mr. Milton emphatically expresses it:
"———Shall to his Wife adhere,
"And they shall be one Flesh, one Heart, one Soul.
Milt. Par. lib. 8. fol. 214.
Nothing criminal can creep in between, or among the Pleasures they enjoy; their Delights are full, yet they are chast, temperate, constant, and, in a word, durable.
Their Children are like their Parents, as Streams are from Fountains, formed in the Mould of Virtue and Modesty; not Furies and little Devils, that partake of the Rage they were form'd in, with their Blood boiling before it comes to the consistency of its due Vigour; but they hand down Virtue to their Posterity by the due Course of Nature, and the Conse-quence
