[ 182 ]
It is (first) a plain downright Crime in the beginning of it; if both the Man and the Woman are in it, they indeed cheat one another; first the Man thinks the Woman has the worst of it, and that he only cheats her; she fancies he has the worst of it, and that she cheats him; but, in short, 'tis a mutual Fraud, wherein both are Cheats and both Cheated, both Deceivers and both Deceived.
When they come to the Book to marry, they mutually engage what was engaged before, like a Knave that borrows Money upon an Estate which he had mortgaged already. Mark what a Complication of Crimes meet together in the Church; when they come up to the Altar, the Man plights her his Troth or Truth, that he will love her; when he knows he cannot do it, for that he loves another already before her.
The Woman plights him her Troth, that she will love him, when, as the Lady just now mentioned, told Sir Thomas ———, she heartily hated him from the first time she ever saw him. Here is mutual pledging the Troth to a Falshood, which is, in short, a premeditated Lye; like a cold Blood murther, 'tis intended to be done long before it is done. Here's also a stated, calm, intended Perjury; a swearing to do what they own they not only did not intend to do, but knew beforehand they could not do.
How many kinds of Dishonesty are here mixt together? Take it in the very first Words of the Minister, being as an Introduction to the Office of Matrimony; the Minister adjures them, as they will answer it at the great and dreadful Day, &c. when the Secrets of all Hearts shall be revealed, that if they knowany
