MARRIAGE ASSERTED: In Answer to a Book entitled Conjugium Conjurgium: OR, Some Serious Considerations on MARRIAGE, Wherein( by way of caution and advice to a Friend) its Nature, Ends, Events, Concomitant Accidents, &c. are examined.  
By WILLIAM SEYMAR, Esq;  
Written by a Country Gentleman.  Ebr. Chap. 13. Ver 4. 
{αβγδ}.  
LONDON, Printed for Henry Herringman, at the Blue Anchor in the Lower walk of the New Exchange. 1674.   

TO THE READER.  
READER,  
I Am something jealous that this Treatise against Marriage which I have here examined, has been in public some time before I had the sight of it: and I am the apt to think so, because it came to my hands b●● by an accident; for I have some time since made myself as much a stranger to the Town as my occasions will permit; If my Ignorance has made me guilty of an error by not publishing the Answer within the usual time, if I may receive your pardon you will endear me to be upon any other occasion  
Your real Servant.   

THE PREFACE.  
SO soon as I was informed that there was one in print that did dissuade this Age from Marriage, I was extremely impatient till I had sent to London for the Book; because amongst all Discourses which the most licentious of men, whose tongues, as the most divine Poet rallies, are their own, for who is Lord over them; I say, among the discourses of these loose tongued persons I could never observe any one solid Argument that could possibly dissuade any rational Man,( I mean a Christian) from the approbation of a married life, as not most befiting and necessary for the generality of Mankind. I was therefore desirous to see the utmost could be said to invalidate a constitution of unity which God Almighty himself in Paradise ordained for a compliment of man's felicity even in that state, and our Saviour his blessed Son honoured with his first convincing miracle that he was the messiah: And since, upon these considerations, the Romish Church has given it the glorious title of a Sacrament, and all Ages that have kept the faith, nay all civilized Nations have constantly recommended Marriage; and our own best reformed Church of England, though she denies it a Sacrament, does effectually honour it more, by allowing the Sacred Priests who serve at the Alt●● to accept of this life. And now I have perused this Book thoroughly I must confess I am still of the same mind I was before, for there is not one Argument throughout the whole Trea●●●e which is able to give the least sho●● to this Truth, That it is better for a man to mary the worst wife in the world, than by avoiding the inconvenience, to be guilty but once either of Incontinency, or any sort of pollution whatsoever.  
That a Coelibate or single life is the more perfect of the two must be granted on all sides, provided the ends answer the good of those men who devote themselves to it beyond that which Marriage pretends to: and what they are let us examine.  
The ends of Marriage are two; The continuation of the species of Mankind,( which received God Almighty's blessing at the first institution,) and to avoid Fornication. 'tis an immediate gift and favour from God to live continently, afforded but to few: and I doubt not but this Age believes it as great a miracle as any of those recorded in Scripture. A single life ought not to be undertaken by any but those who are so gifted, and then it is a noble resolution, worthy of all praise, for a man to sequester himself from the affairs and delights of this busy world to a solitary devotion, that leaves the splendid trouble which accompanies the riches and honours of it, for the lasting and satisfactory pleasure of contemplation. This indeed is a blessed change to forsake a human, to led an angelic life. But our Conjugium Conjurgium throughout his Book, though he here and there be sprinkle some commendations of Virginity as a seraphic life and leading more immediately to the great and onely end of our being, Eternal happiness; yet is the whole tenor of his discourse so managed, that any the least discerning judgement may perceive, as well by observing the person the Letter was designed to, a man of free conversation, as by his Arguments, which from the inconveniences which are in a married state, the falsest of topics, he would infer it ought wholly to be abolished, at least not accepted of by any that are not contented to be esteemed Fools and idiots: And how few there be that will accept of Marriage upon this condition, especially when the generality are so easily inclined without the assistance of printed Arguments that may startle their faith and debauch their manners, to obey the brutal dictates of sense before the more Christian ones of Reason, I am content that he himself shall Judge.  
It is a common observation, That weak and passionate minds cannot approve or dislike any thing but in hyperbolical expressions: and as some Inamorettos are highly guilty of this vanity in their addresses to the female Sex, so I think Mr. Seymar is not altogether blameless in his censures of them; not so much in the sharpness of his reproof, as in the universality of the application: For it must not be denied, that as there are too too many that are Monsters of Nature, guilty of all crimes which by the Laws of God and man are so accounted; So there are numbers that dignify their sex, leading lives worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called, outdoing men in actions of piety, humility and charity, whose famed both Solomon, and Jesus the son of sirach sufficiently celebrate. And since Christianity has taken root, the Church-history will afford numerous Examples of their true magnanimity and courage for the Faith. And to descend to this our Age; any man not pre-engaged, will find it not altogether voided of gallant and virtuous Women, though they have discouragements enough from the debauchery of men, which practise cannot have any Basis upon Reason, and scarce upon the senseless opinion of Atheism.  
So that if our author had advised his Friend only to some rules of caution, that he might have made a right choice, and then have honoured the rest of mankind with his knowledge by printing it, it would have been a real and charitable obligation: but to decry Marriage without any limitations as a real ill, and yet not to recommend any other sort of life which may continue the race of Mankind regularly, and answer those advantages( be they never so slender) which a married state affords, is the most irrational and disingenuous proposal imaginable.  
The Inconveniences that he reckons up in a married state are good store of them conditional to the acceptance of life: and let him either mary, or live single, they will bear him company. Some others are purely in imagination, and by a Deceptio visûs there they look like faults on the Wives side, when 'tis nothing but passion and folly on the Mans: and, seeing our Judgement is the ultimate of our Knowledge, 'tis therefore impossible for any man to find out this mistake in himself, which a superior being, whose knowledge is above him, easily discerns. Therefore I would only ask any man who frets most, whether 'tis not both the easier and speedier way to question his own Judgement, and that way regulate his Passion, than to endeavour to reform across accidents to them, especially when the price is so dear, as to be wicked?  
These things being granted I would not be understood here to recommend a married life( though I know it affords solid felicity) as really happy in itself, but comparatively so in opposition to those whimsies some of the Ancients dreamed of, and we have put in execution, by breaking through the most sacred of obligations to all uncleanness imaginable; as if our Saviour were a greater Impostor than Mahomet, and his Laws no more to be regarded than the Alcoran? But waving this, I cannot but smile at the policy of our new Reformados, who rather than be troubled with the sullen humours of a legal Church bedfellow, called a Wife, have upon the result of their most serious thoughts, made choice of a newer fashioned Creature called a Miss, which they jointure with as much assurance as a Wife, and whose present maintenance is full as chargeable: never thinking, that whilst they enjoy only the pleasure of a peevish contradiction to the Laws and customs of their Ancestors, she is still as free as she was before to leave their bed for another jointure, or to abuse it as she pleases without the least control( but exact submission to her ladyships divine will) at the price of intolerable diseases, and utter ruin of her ridiculous Fop.  
The reason I take notice of this book is, because by the frequent quotations of Scripture, it looks as if the Author did think both Reason and Religion backed him. As for those thick-scull'd men whose souls are so steeped in matter that they think they have none, what they speak, or what they writ signifies nothing to me; Impudence I know is the top of their virtues, and railing at things sacred the height of their wit; so that what is here writ is not designed to do them any kindness or discourtesy. Qui vult decipi, decipiatur. He that will be deceived, must be deceived. Truth is so glorious a thing that it is commendable in any man to look for it; and as I think 'twas Mr. Seymar's design, so where I vary, he has no reason to be angry, my design being the same. So I proceed to the examination of his Treatise, whether his Arguments have either wholly or in part rendered this old-fashioned custom of Marriage, wicked, or ridiculous.   

TO THE READER.  
THE author of this Book takes special care by addressing himself to the ingenuity and good manners of his Readers, that they should not be inquisitive after his name, quality or reasons that moved him to writ this Discourse; yet he himself publishes all three, the two first in the Title page., and the third in his very first address to his Reader after his apology, by telling him it is to save his friend from the ruin of marriage: not much unlike a secret every body is acquainted withal under the strictest laws of secrecy by the politic Relator: which reason if he had not declared, and I could have been satisfied that the publishing of his Book would have had no farther an influence upon this unthinking Age than to have purchased him the reputation of a Wit, I should have been so far from giving him the least opposition, that if it would have done him any service, he should have had my hand to his Certificat.  
For his apology where he reckons up several authors that wrote Books counter( as he thinks) to truth as well as himself, I shall only say thus much; That the end or design is the only thing that denotes any action good or bad. So the holy Fathers of the Church who enumerated the troubles that attend Wedlock in an innocent Age, in order to persuade some of them to a more refined and angelic life, were highly to be commended as Persons that designed the solid welfare of Mankind: but whoever shall use their very arguments, that they may the more easily persuade men to led lives in all uncleanness contrary to the express commands of God Almighty, do no less than imitate the Devils trade, who like a roaring Lion goes about seeking whom he may devour, and by all who are not fools or madmen, ought to be esteemed no more their friend.  
The latter part of his apology says that he may talk of Love-matters as well as those persons who were inspired to pen the holy Scriptures: and why not? with the caution before mentioned, that his end in so doing be as innocent as theirs.  
That Hypocrites are jesters I believe; and could hearty wish none else were so; then would not this 'vice daily increase in reputation amongst us as it does.  
For the holy Scripture which consists of so much variety, that I know no book of so small a volume in the whole world does the like, cannot be supposed to be understood by every Person that can red, in the tenth part of it: and truly I believe no one man living understands it in every particular. But to our authors purpose; Is it decent or commendable in any man so to mistime his advice to youth, as to be laughed at for his labour? And if the Wise man says, a word spoken in due season is like apple of gold in pictures of silver, there is no doubt but those places which he quotes in Deuter. ought to have their times when, as well as persons to whom, they ought to be published.  
And now the concealed reason of writing this Tract is declared, namely, Ictus Piscator sapit, The burnt Child dreads the fire: what then? why therefore the burnt Child's friend must not warm his fingers. But we shall have better reasons anon I hope, otherwise Marriage will be found very necessary for Mankind still, for all the thinkling concord of Conjugium Conjurgium.  
But before our author falls to his business in good earnest, he treats his Readers with a compliment, by telling them that notwithstanding this following discourse he may be in an error, because the greatest Philosophers, Mathematicians and Divines have been mistaken; which is a fair encouragement to the most modest of his Readers to believe he thinks he is mistaken, and if he thinks himself in an Error, in Justice they ought not to question it.  
However this in his own method will make nothing to his purpose, unless he will infer, that because each of these Artists do not know every thing which belongs to their particular Science, that therefore they know nothing. To reduce which to a Syllogism, a new Mode and Figure must be invented: for what inference can be deducted from the logomachal speculation of Scoolmen, from the imperfect genealogies of the Jews, as we so think them, being not acquainted with their customs in pedigrees, from the bold inquisitions of some persons into the Arcana Dei, things which God( as not belonging to us) has not revealed? does it therefore follow that we must needs be ignorant of the will of God Almity relating to our own duty which he has revealed by his blessed Son whilst he stayed here, and afterwards repeated by his Apostles in their several Epistles here and there, as the subject matter of which they treat requires? And particularly this duty of Marriage, the subject of our discourse, is plainly allowed of and commended by our Saviour for the ends before mentioned, and with some stricter limitations than Moses confined the Jews to: though this present Age in defiance of him turn off their wives at their pleasure. And all along St. Paul in his Epistles by charging the duties of Husbands and Wives so home, sufficiently commends this state: and as he does( I know) speak more honourably of Virginity in his epistle to the Corinths, so in that to the Ephesians( that he may be rightly understood) he bitterly condemns all uncleanness whatsoever in these words, Ephes. Chap. 5. ver. 5. For this you know, that no whoremongers, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an Idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God: a dreadful sentence! So that whoever dissuades against Marriage, St. Paul positively tells Timothy, preaches the Devils doctrine; which opinion I hope Mr. Seymar will think in due time no disparagement to subscribe to.  
And in the Discourse where he reckons contradictions in the Scripture itself, one of which( as he thinks) must therefore needs be false, though granted, they make nothing to his purpose: yet knowing how slightly that sacred book is by some censured, I was willing to take notice with how much soundness of judgement, as well as modesty the learned and pious Dr. Hammond delivers his opinion concerning some of those places quoted by our author; as where St. Stephen says in the Acts, seventy five souls went down with Jacob into Egypt, and Moses reckons but seventy, the Dr. tells us it as an ordinary manner of speaking among the Hebrews to reckon those that were in the Loins of their Parents not born, as if they were really so, and five being born afterwards makes the number: with which agrees the Septuagint, which says, seventy five souls came down. And in the next verse the difficulty that seems to arise from his saying that Jacob was carried into Sichem and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor of Sichem, is easily reconciled with those two passages quoted by our author out of Genesis, by observing there were two burying places, one bought by Abraham of Ephron the Hittite in Machpelah before Mamre that is in Hebron in the land of Canaan, for four hundred Shekels; the other bought by Jacob of Emmor in Salem a City of Shechem in Canaan also, for one hundred Lambs, or pieces of money with that signature. And it is a frequent Hebraism as well to call the Father by the Son's name, as the Son by the Fathers. For further satisfaction who will be pleased to red the Drs. Annotations on that Chapter, may receive it. And when he says that St. Matthew in his 27. Chap. quotes Zachary for Jeremy; and St. Mark in his first Chapter cites a passage out of Isaiah which is in Malachi, he is mistaken in both places; for St. Matthew in that Chap. and the 9. verse quotes Jeremy for Zachary indeed, which Dr. Hammond says was because though we find it in his prophecy, he had it from a book of Jeremias which is since lost: which made the Jews say, the spirit of Jeremy restend on Zachary. And for St. Mark in his first Chapter he mentions neither Isaiah nor Malachi: his words are( verse the second) {αβγδ}, as it is written in the prophets; and then he repeats the prophecy which indeed is spoken by Isaiah Chap. 40. v. 3. and also by Malachi Chap. 3. v. 1. but neither of them are quoted by St. Mark. So Mr. Seymar need not give himself the trouble by running counter to the custom of all Christian Ages and commands of our Saviour and his Apostles, to be guilty of a mistake, for he sees the Proverb of Humanum est errare will easily be verified without that pains.  
Well, but he is for Marriage still if it can be suitable, otherwise not: but no marriage can be suitable, therefore he is not for it. This is excellent Hocus Pocus: however( quoth he) it is a good way to palliate lust in both Sexes. Now St. James, Chap. 1. v. 15 says, That when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth Death: so that marriage by this his rule is the highway to Hell, which whoever walks in cannot possibly miss on, having palliating hypocrisy to bear him company. But how this doctrine must be proved, whether by miracles, or the unerring spirit within, or by some new fashioned way not yet found out, I cannot imagine; however poor Momus has his defiance, the author says he owes him nothing, and in my judgement it's pitty he should owe the author any thing.  
I have not had the fortune so much as to know the taste of Hebrew roots; and the soil where I live being indifferent fruitful, I dare not plant any for fear of being laughed at for my labour, for I am  told 
That Hebrew roots are never found  
To flourish, but in barren ground.  However I wonder Mr. Seymar won't allow of his own etymology of Cherub from the Chaldee, rather than quote those other from the Hebrew which are harsher and more improbable: and seeing that part of Mesopotamia where Abram lived before he went to Charran was reputed part of Chaldaea, why might not there many words be in use among the Hebrews that had their derivation from the Chaldee, as among us hundreds that are pure High Dutch?  
And where he speaks of the Calf which Aaron made at the importunity of the people, it is plain by the very words of the Text, that seeing their Lawgiver Moses had( as they thought) deserted them, they were desirous to change their Religion( in the ceremonial part of which they were but lately instructed) for the Idolatry of their late Masters the Egyptians, whose chief God Isis, was always worshipped in the likeness of an ox or Calf; and Jeroboam's Idolatry no doubt was in imitation of this first transgression, where they had the authority of their high Priest Aaron, and the example of their Forefathers to justify them. This supposition cannot be thought strange or unreasonable if we do but remember that such was the inclination of the Israelites in those dayes to Idolatry, that they worshipped ever and anon the Gods of those very Nations they had conquered. And as it is but agreeable to the rules of civility to put the fairest construction upon any man's writings they will bear; so is it the highest duty to the holy Scriptures; the omission of which is not only a crime committed against good manners, but Religion itself.  
I hearty embrace his advice where( after he says nothing can be written but what will bear some objection) he would have none esteem themselves infallible, but to be modest, and willing to learn: but I hope it is no fault to know what a man has learnt; for example, I have learnt that Purity of life, and Probity of manners are the duties of Christian Religion, and that a married state invites us to both; and though the Modus the manner of Worship has been by Interest and Passion too violently contended for, yet Religion itself was never disputed of by any that could fairly pretend to the name of a Christian: And against this I am sure there ought not to be any objection.  
For his A-Dieu which he gives his Readers, I being one of them cordially accept it; and take this opportunity to express my thanks.   

MARRIAGE ASSERTED: In Answer to a Book entitled Conjugium Conjurgium.  
Of Marriage.  
CHAP. I. Its Definition, Nature, Events.  
WEll, now we are come to this dreadful Precipice of Marriage that Philog ynus was tumbling down, which made our author give this fearful skream of Conjugium Conjurgium, as if he had been stark out of his wits: it shows good nature indeed to be concerned for the mischances which happen to our Friends; but is not our author apt to be scared? for surely the Precipice is not so dangerous, I have known many go down without breaking their necks: but however Philog ynus by his consent shall not venture. But seeing words are but wind, which speedily convert( as our Hobbists Souls when they die) into the soft air; he is resolved to reiterate his advice with his pen, by refusing which Philog ynus will be the sole cause of his own destruction. And this discourse shall remain as a Monument of his kindness to him Aere perennius, 
Which shall be such whit-leather meat,  
Times Iron fangs shall never eat.  But though Philogynus may not venture down, I poor Devil must, and the first Monster I meet withal is Nubo himself, whose Pedigree being from {αβγδ} a Cloud in English( from the custom used among the Ancients to veil their Brides when they were lead to their Husbands, in token of the command their Husbands were to have over them) Therefore a man is overwhelmed in darkness and lost in a fog that marries. And because Jugo is ex Jugum, Therefore wedlock is a yoke stuffed with many cares, miseries, vexations, discontents, and all that rabblement. And because there is an Hebrew word of his acquaintance that signifies trouble, therefore a married life has no other company but troubles, adversities, afflictions, and so forth; but how he will teach Etymologies to make Syllogisms I cannot imagine, no more than I can how Marriage which is in itself honourable, can be an impediment to honourable actions, unless he accounts those Actions honourable which Faux in England would and Ravillac in France did commit: for Osbern another of the same tribe, a hater of marriage like himself, says that married folk give greater security to the commonwealth where they live than suits with prudence: but neither this way can it possibly be( as our author would have it) a hindrance to preferment: No Prince surely would refuse to employ as his Ministers of State those persons only whose chiefest interest consists in the constitution of his government, and accept those who are least capable of giving him sufficient security for their Loyalty. But whether the Country where married men are denied preferments merely because they are so, be on this side the line or not, we must be content to be ignorant of till he writes next.  
Our author does rightly observe, That when the Devil had power given him to bereave Job of all but his life, yet he would not take his wife from him, but left her to torment him. And Solomon in those texts he quotes out of the Proverbs, and Jesus the Son of mirach, do both bear witness in apt and significant expressions that a contentious and wicked wife is a very sore affliction. And after his quotations he enumerates several sad examples of men, some ruined, and others made perpetually miserable in this life by their Wives: as Solomon, samson, our Edward the second, and others. I answer, that though the misery which befell Solomon and samson was caused by the breach of God Almighty's law by Moses which forbade them to mary out of their own nation; yet however the consequence of these Examples and the texts before mentioned is no more but this, that there are such things as wicked women which ought to be avoided: but when Solomon and the same Jesus do both celebrate in other texts the happiness that the man enjoys which marries a virtuous woman, they are so far from decrying a married life as evil, that by this their exceeding care in discovering the Rocks and Quick-sands which a man that is not wary may split on, they do not only suppose that there are numbers of women that are veirtuous, but also that Marriage is absolutely necessary for human life.  
In another place where he says almost every house can show the Wife it's Master, what he means by making a woman a man( which no Act of Parliament ever yet tried to do) I do not know. I have known many houses where by the folly, sloth or other more tolerable divertisements of the husband, the whole weight of family business has devolved upon the Wives shoulders; whom I shall rather style a Slave than a Mistress. As for those W●men who out of the Pride of their heart will usurp Authority over the Man, let them go to St. Paul's Epistles for their penance.  
But St. Paul himself in 1 Cor. 7.2. says, That those which mary shall have trouble in the flesh; therefore our author would infer, none ought to mary. But who will red the whole Chapter will find that St. Paul compares only the Virgin-with the married state, and prefers the former before the latter as freer from troubles and worldly business; but how this Text can any ways dissuade Philogynus who leads( as his friend our author says) a voluptuous lice, from Marriage, the only way to make that life not a wicked one, he would do well to explain.  
But his quotation out of St. Luke, Chap. 14. v. 20. is too disingenuous; where that he may justify his ridiculous passion against Marriage, he wilfully perverts the words of our blessed Saviour himself, who because in a similitude of a great Supper which a certain man made, and inviting his friends they refused to come( but sent him their several excuses, among which one's was that he was newly married, and therefore desired to be excused) reflecting upon the stubborn Jews who would not be persuaded though by convincing miracles to believe him the true messiah, but some trivial excuse or other they constantly made not to be happy guests of this his heavenly supper; which made him in the next verse sand his servant into the high ways to gather the Gentiles, that the kingdom of his Father might be replenished with Believers: our Author therefore concludes that Christs meaning was that the married state( ordained by God his Father in Paradise, and seconded and explained by himself at Jerusalem) is a hindrance to the attaimment of everlasting life. Good God what pitiful shifts Men are forced to make use of to disguise the Truth!  
Now he comes to the true state of the Question, which is, Whether Marriage is not in itself far more happy than a single life,( I mean such a one as he commends:) which comparison because he waves at present, I must do so too, till I come to the Chapter where he discourses of it. But before I leave this I must take notice of an inconvenience which he hints, and is a very great one, and many times brings ill consequences to the married couple; And that is, when each party take wrong measures of their succeeding happiness, and dream of an exact felicity from a state of life( though the happiest) upon earth, God never trusted out of heaven, and for which alone he has bestowed upon mankind such seraphic hopes. These false measures frustrating the expectation of foolish mindes, who are not prepared against the unavoidable troubles of human life, without sense or reason load their own state of life( as I have known some old Bachelours also do) with these and such like calumnies, as if the contrary condition of life to theirs were free; never recollecting how slender a penance they are condemned to in parison of the fault of Adam( which every Sinner by being so, approves on) who after he was made exquisitely wise and happy, gave his Maker the lye in the compass of four and twenty hours by a sedate action; Wherefore it is not the condition of this or that sort of life, but life itself that is the cause of numerous troubles, and shameful death at the last.  
In answer to what is objected that Eve by being married to Adam was the cause of his and his Posterities destruction, I'll only return a few rhymes; for the honour God has since done the B. Virgin, reinstates the sex and makes them not at all in our debt: and let him talk what he will, 
— The Married State  
In honour far outvies the Coelibate:  
In the Creation's order 'twas made last,  
And so the former in perfection past:  
The lowest rank of Creatures first began,  
Then what had life, and then their Master, Man;  
Just so his first state was in honour less,  
Till the first-moving Good gave him this happiness;  
This perfect friend by Gods own hand designed,  
Fitted, and suited to his manly mind,  
With soft and pliant Passions made to yield  
To th' more robust, with which the man was filled;  
Which easy temper too well the Serpent knew.  
So her best Virtues her, and her Adam out of Eden threw;  
Adam was cursed, not that he loved his wife, but that he thought His God not true.   
But our author will have it still that they who design a married life long till they have lost their freedom, and are undone; and the reason why they are undone are the reason why they are undone are three clinches he has picked up somewhere, which being only to show his sagacity are nothing to my purpose; I expect reason not clinches. The next thing I meet with is an acrostic as he calls it, which standing full in my way with the wrong side outwards, I have made bold to set to rights, but he may know it again.  
w Wealth is which the Wife doth bring:  
I joys without repentance loud can sing:  
F Friendships sacred league does signify:  
E Entertains you with eternity.  
If in the name such happiness there be,  
Misses to Fops, an honest Wife for me.  
He concludes this Chapter with his subsequent divisions which are two, for Society, and the continuation of our kind, which he reckons the chief ends of Marriage, and proceeds to( whither I must wait on him) Member the first.  

MEMBER I. Of the first end of Marriage, Society no Society.  
WHere he confesses Marriage were an Heaven upon earth, if it did but answer that end, Society; and truly I am of the mind where it does not, it is no Hyperbole to call it a Hell: but here is the difference, Solomon in the old Testament and S. Paul in the new sufficiently knowing that there can no other expedient be found to answer that felicity which Marriage affords mankind, have very wisely, as well as charitably, laid down such unerring rules which, if observed, will render it a heaven upon earth. But on the other side, our author gives his Pupil no such rules to proceed by: but in a heat will not allow him to mary at all, under the penalty of forfeiting his wits, freedom, and happiness, all three together, and yet is not able to recommend to him any other sort of life to secure them. And where he says Marriage is a yoke, he honours it more than he thinks for, if he doth but remember who it was that styled the duties of Christianity itself a yoke; and upon due enquiry it will be found a part of it, so no heavier. But if the Man draws counter in the yoke, to the rules of justice and honesty( which is often enough seen) must the Wife be condemned? or is Marriage any whit disparaged? Is their any thing more ridiculous than to affirm a whole Society ought to be abolished because some of them are vicious? These arguments improved and applied to those societies of Men, which are absolutely necessary for the cementing of the Government where they live, have been the cause of too too dreadful consequences in this kingdom, by me not now to be remembered.  

SECT. I. What Society in Marriage is.  
HEre he repeats the duties of married folk each to other, first the Husbands, and then the Wives: and concludes, That seeing there is none that performs this their duty exactly, he would advice his friend by no means to enter into that state: which very argument without the least violence offered to it( upon my former supposition of continency) may as well dissuade an Infidel from turning Christian because that Religion does enjoin such purity of life, such exalted charity to mankind, and such unfeigned devotion to Godward, that no man ever yet( the messiah alone excepted) exactly obeied. Neither can any friendship be contracted amongst Equals, or dependencies between inferiors and their Masters, or indeed any society last, unless each party, or at least one side, resolve not only to be content to wave some punctillioes of their due, but many times solid and real duties. This was the reason that our B. Saviour who styles himself the Prince of peace, did so earnestly recommend to all his followers that necessary duty of forgiving each other, and requiting good for evil: the omission of this one duty( without which no man can be a Christian) how slender a reputation so ever it has in the world, has been the cause of disuniting small and great Societies, and perpetually the ruin of those who despise it most. The pleasure and satisfaction as well as the Policy in so doing, I dare not recommend to any but who have tried it.  
And these most mighty rocks which Mr. Seymar sees in a married life, are most of them but bubbles raised by the storms of passion, and have no duration but in weak minds: and though I commend folly in none, yet is the female Sex to be pardonned if their Passions of love, anger, fear, and the rest are more predominant than Men's: for S. Paul by declaring they are the weaker vessel, does confirm common experience that their judgements are not so fixed, nor their Reason so elated as that Sex which is the glory of God; though their other accomplishments sufficiently answer the end of their Creation to be the glory of man. What he therefore condemns as a fault in that Sex, is so far from being one, and gives them so good a lustre, that I question( though a 'vice in a man) whether it is not a perfection in them.  
Nay in actions of prudence itself( where Men ought to excel) there are Women that outdoe the generality; not that They are improved in wisdom, but Men by debauchery most cursedly degenerated.  
He concludes, that seeing a hundred thousand are shipwrecked, for one that arrives to his sweet haven of contentment in Marriage, he would advice Philogynus not to venture at all. I have said before that those who take wrong measures of their succeeding happiness either in this or any other sort of life, are beholding to themselves alone for having their expectation frustrated. There is no happiness here without its alloy, but those minds who are most Masters of the affections, approach it nearest. Marriage does both promise and afford a natural, and well grounded friendship( the best we can have on this side heaven) and comprehends in it all those petit satisfactions we receive in inferior societies; and is the best bar to keep out sin, vanity and shane: it's decency and order sufficiently speak it's author; And if the wickedness of men in this state have so far disparaged it as to give it a false gloss to others, it is but time the cheat were discovered, that it is alone the weak passion of fools that complain of their cure when the pain is caused by the disease. And it is notorious that most men who ruin their estates do so either before they mary, or else by continuing some silly vanities they contracted before they entred into this regular condition of life.  
That many married men come to ruin is certain, but is Marriage the natural genuine cause of their unhappiness? What mischief does necessary follow that Vow which is to live continently with a wife in all the mutual acts of friendship? Is it not the breach of this vow, that is alone the cause of calamity? And whether the more understanding is not most guilty, I appeal, who by their Atheistical notions of the state after Death, and by their lewd examples of life whilst they stay here, invert the order of the fall in Adam, and persuade the Women to be wicked.  
For this is notorious, that what 'vice soever the Men bring in fashion, the Women second: it is not an Age High-treason was as much in vogue, and dressed in as good clothes as whoring can be now; and texts of scripture were produced to discourage Loyalty, as now they be to dishearten us from Marriage.  
But as the Women did not then run into the same extravagancies of 'vice with the men, though they followed them, so now they alone do keep and retain that glorious ornament of Modesty, which the Men have cashiered themselves, and endeavour ro rally out of them. To conclude, it is a most disingenuous slander to load the weaker sex with those faults which we ourselves commend to them for none, and they must be content to bear the accusation, because Custom and their own innate bashfulness forbid them a Repartee; for 
No Arms of Steel they use for their defence,  
Their Guards are only Love, and Innocence:  
If Men, the wiser Sex, led them astray,  
'tis these that err, Duty bids them obey.    

SECT. 2. Of the events and concomitants of a married life.  
WHere he continues his anger against Marriage, and quotes Solomon's Ecclesiastes, Chap. 7. to prove there is no such thing as a good wife, the words are, One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found: but who will observe the discourse from the 23 verse to the end of the Chapter, will find that Solomon after he had reckoned up his own observations concerning true wisdom, and the reason of things, and what is real folly, ingenuously declares( a true sign he had a prospect of them all) the disquisition was too hard for him, and adds in the close of his complaint, that among the sons of men one in a thousand he had found that had acquired wisdom and knowledge, but of the female sex not one, no disparagement to them if rightly understood, far less a bar to this blessed society of Marriage, all equality being the natural enemy to Societies. But Solomon in this very Chapter, and else-where as he does bitterly exclaim against wicked women, so he does in apt expressions set down the happiness of those who have virtuous, and industrious Wives: which sufficiently demonstrates Solomon did think a good Wife might be found; which me thinks Mr. Seymar is half of the mind himself, when he compares Marriage to an East India voyage, by which a man is either made or marred; the difference in the comparison is only that the poor Merchant cannot sometimes shun his ill fortune by any forecast; he that enters into a married life may by timely prudence in his choice before-hand, and discreet managing of his affairs afterwards, very much contribure to his own happiness.  
But no handsome can be honest; and his reason is, because a Ballad says Can she be fair and honest too? and if you superabundant believe that, he produces some Latin clinches, English ones we have had before. Surely Arguments are very hard to come by when he is forced to supply their stead, with repeating of Ballads, and pitiful pedantic clinches in a subject of this weight and consequence, wherein he endeavours no less than to unravel the original of all Societies and Governments upon the Earth.  
The next course he takes to dissuade Philogynus from marriage is to reckon up the several inconveniences of humour, one of which he must of necessity light on, therefore he had better never mary. I have been  told by good Logicians, that a Dilemma is no such dangerous argument as it seems to be, it cuts both ways indeed, but a skilful Opponent may make it serve his turn as well as his Adversarys; So may any Man find as great advantages in most of Mr. Seymar's qualifications of Women, as he does inconveniences; for example, if she be not over-wise, why may not that coolness of temper make her owner of humility? which will render her full as commendable. And if she is a wise-woman in good earnest, her husband will be happy enough in her, for all Mr Seymar does not like her. And surely a young Lady that has not had threescore years experience of folly and vanity, may be as good company as if she had. But he himself( he says) was vexed with a across, unloving, undutiful wife, therefore no man ever had or shall have any that is otherwise.  
Next is some more hedge-rhymes against Women, and then Philogynns is asked whether he is so mad to mary, and after he will allow no man that marries to be in his wits, he raves and talks of frenzy, Bedlam and madness, to which all married men are by him( as he thinks) justly condemned; and so concludes this Section with a seeming allowance to his friend that he may mary if he can find a good wife, but no qualification( that he knows of) can make her so.  
Just so the Madmen do in Bedlam rave,  
Something they'd have but know not what to crave:  
One lacks his love, t'other wants this fine thing;  
A third a ribbon, and the fourth that ring:  
Well take 'em all, they no contentment find,  
Their want alas lies only in the mind:  
And yet they think themselves the only wise,  
And us their juster censurers despise:  
So our Conjugium recommends a wife,  
So that Conjurgium will not gender strife.  
But neither young nor handsome she must be,  
Such always give Actaeons livery;  
A fool he says he should himself despise,  
And should be laughed at by a wife that's wise:  
Nor will he have a slut he can't abide her,  
A Neat Dame will spend as if she were beside her.  
Widow nor young nor old will do, nor Whore,  
Nor one that's rich, well born, nor one that's poor.  
What shall-we do to give this Patient ease,  
And these excentrique raving fits appease?  
My Advice is, that his skull be streight trepanned,  
And th' empty shell with better brains be man'd.   

SECT. III. The grounds and reasons of Love reasonless and groundless.  
IN this Section the first thing is the definition of Love, which he says is a desire bread of liking, yet for all that it is the product, he says, of folly, and the passion of the Devil; and his reason is because Plato calls it magnus daemon, which he is resolved to English great devil; and because Plotinus another Heathen no better skilled in Christianity than Plato, does not know whether it be a good daemon, or a bad daemon, or a passion, or all three, our Conjugium having the casting voice, resolves it into a bad daemon, and calls it a 'vice.  
That I may not be thought guilty of any fallacy, not so much as begging the Question, I do declare that throughout these few sheets, where I find any quotations of heathen Philosophers, whose opinions can be but conjectures any ways repugnant to the Laws of Christianity, which is true reason cleared and refined, without further dispute I reject them, and in most places take no notice of them. The most improved wits could soar no higher than the fallacious guesses of depraved Reason, when Christianity has openly delivered us all knowledge that conduces to the least Jota of our happiness. So if the Scripture allows Marriage, the Precedent of which is, or ought always to be Love, I matter not the brainsick fictions of the Poets, or the more grave mistakes of the ancient Philosophers concerning it. But to return.  
After he has acknowledged that Love was the original cause both of the worlds creation, and redemption, and that every thing that is beautiful ought to be loved; I wonder that the female sex, whose chiefest ornament and perfection is beauty, should be the only excepted. Through the senses indeed is conveyed all knowledge to the Soul, but her informations of beauty she receives wholly from the eye, a sense that conveys more knowledge and delight to the understanding than all the rest put together: which makes me ignorant of the true cause why some modern Reformists, by cashiering all painting, as well as sculpture out of their Churches, compel their Proselytes to acquire their knowledge in divine matters, through the dull and tedious Maeanders of the Ear. God indeed, as he is the source, and fountain of all beauty, is properly alone the object of love; and when ever we pay any of those rays, which we see faint and scattered in this his world, any such devotion and love, of which he ought to be the sole object, it is no less than Idolatry: but not to like or approve the beauty of the Universe, so as to admire its exact symmetry and proportions, is not Religion put stupidity.  
Where our author makes a tripartite division of Love for the ends of Pleasure, honesty or profit, he mistakes this passion( if the name is not too slender for this noble motion of the soul) which has no prospect of other ends, but only the desire of union, and being the same as the object loved: for the immoderate desire of wealth, covetousness, arises from the Passion Fear, which never governs but in weak and impotent minds: and to this passion the lowest rank of beasts have their refuge both for their food and safety.  
That seraphic love wherewith the Saints and Angels incessantly do adore the great Jehovah, by a peculiar privilege in broken and weak shadows is permitted to descend upon the souls of the highest of mankind, while the rest have no sense of it at all; this indeed when misapplied in the adoring a Woman, is a fault of a dark die: but either positively to affirm, or to imply by inferences that beauty in a woman is neither to be liked, not loved, though the design be to contract the exalted friendship of Marriage, is an opinion as irrational as unjust.  

Beauty  
The onely ray of uncreated light  
God e're did trust to human sight:  
To Man his best beloved, by Man's best friend he sends  
The Royal Present, and withal commends  
The Bearer to his kindness: it would be  
Strange beyond wonder, if but by this worlds Epitome  
So great a Gift, so great a Giver should at once neglected be.   
I am come now to his mechanic motion of the Animal Spirits in this Passion, which being a translation word for word from the great Des carts and not at all to the purpose, I take no farther notice of; only thus, That though Love is itself a pure action of the Soul, yet is there such a harmony betwixt her and the body by reason of those imperceptible ligaments, the vital spirits, which are merely corporeal, and are the sole life of Brutes, that many times, nay most frequently, it so happens that some other Passion accompanies this most noble one of Love, and too too often excludes her by the consent of a depraved will. Thus indeed Lust frequently possesses the whole Man, and by borrowing the splendid name of Love, scandalises her, but only in the opinion of short-sighted Men. Wherefore I must deny what Mr. Seymar so confidently affirms, That the Love of women's beauty, is lust, especially when Marriage is the design, the laws of which run counter to Lust, and when observed( which is easy enough) a certain remedy against it.  
As there is a Lust of the flesh, so St. Paul witnesses there is a Lust of the eye also, because the desires of it are boundless, it is never satisfied with seeing: but Marriage regulates and confines these boundless desires of the flesh; therefore the love of the woman we intend to mary, ought not, nor cannot have any other name than Love, without violating the laws of speech and reason. It neither is, or ought to be in the same degree of purity with that before mentioned, but however it carries enough of it, if the design be virtuous, to deserve the title of Love; for it naturally affords such mutual, and reciprocal kindnesses, as will easily invite each party to the performance of that command, to love each other as themselves: for the interests of married people are so exactly the same in all things whatsoever, that whoever will but obey the easy directions of nature, to be kind to themselves, cannot possibly be otherwise to their companion. So though contrary interests may disjoin Father from Son, and Brothers of the same womb from each other; yet here alone in this state nothing but Folly, or Passion the daughter of her, can be the cause of a disunion in affections, which made Ecclesiasticus in his 36. Chap. and 24. verse proclaim, He that gets a wise gets a possession, a help like to himself and a pillar of rest.  
I do grant Mr. Seymar that there is a beauty which is conveyed to us by the internal senses, but withall we have larger and more refined conceptions of it than any that is conveyed to us by the eye; for the Imagination, a pure act of the soul, soars far above these earthly things which the external senses convey to the Understanding: but he would infer that those which affirm Women have beauty are mistaken, because what is conveyed to the soul by the senses, presents things generally more false than what is communicated to it by Reason. The Answer is obvious, Reason and the senses can never be opponents where the subject matter ought primarily to be judged by the senses: a man in a Fever that says sugar is bitter, does really taste it so, and his reason seconds it: the music I hear though never so grating to anothers ear, if my sense of hearing likes it, my Reason will approve of it. Where he says, some are santastical in their loves; I repeat again, all passions as well as this misapplied either for time or person may be evil, but regularly and discreetly used, are good; as this particular one of Love to a disengaged person in order to mary her, and live virtuously with her, does not onely deserve the honourable name, and title of Love, but withall is an action( far from a 'vice, as our author would have it, but) commendable and well pleasing in the sight of God and all wise men: which I think is sufficiently proved.  
Now comes his proof that Love is the passion of the Devil, because the Heathen which were really worshippers of the Devil, under the names of Jupiter, Mars, &c. talk extravagantly of what they understand not: Then Lucian and his raillery is produced, to render this noble flamme of Love ridiculous: and after some more heathenish dreams and fictions, he quotes Gen. Chap. 1. v. 27. in order to abuse it, for he will allow Moses writings no more credit than the Heathens fictions, by first mistaking, and then calling it but a fancy: for he would have his Readers believe that Adam was first an Hermaphrodite, a conceit as wild as it is wicked; for whoever reads the history of the Creation, will find that Moses does first set it down in general terms, and then descends to particulars, a sort of speaking very usual at this day, and of which no Man that ever conversed with Men or Books, can possibly be ignorant. From the holy writ to heathenism he goes again, and tells the storys of Mars his Amours, and Vulcan's breaking his leg with a fall from heaven, and Madam Junos jealousy, with the fiction of Jove and Danaë, and with such schoolboys discourse he runs over three leaves, for no other reason as I can guess, but to amuse his Reader; for not the least colour of an Argument can be deduced from them to convince a Christian who believes none of them, that either Marriage or his concomitant Love is a 'vice.  
But though Christians don't think them Gods, Conjugium does, for he says that not onely over the Gods, but the Devils also Love tyrannizes; and his Authors( he says) are worthy of credit, where he has stories, which are about Incubi, Succubi, Fauns and satires: but amid these dreams the Holy Writ must not scape unperverted, for Gen. 6. v. 4. where it is said, The sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and of them begot giants; he will have it that the blessed Angels of God sent for the tuition and safeguard of Men, betrayed their trust and enticed the Women to be wicked, of whom they begot giants. Besides the absurdity in reason that an incorporeal Being can be the Parent of a corporeal, the assertion does not onely oppose the honour and providence of God Almighty in his government of the Earth, but contradict the opinions of the Ancient Fathers, as well as the modern belief of the catholic, and all Reformed Churches: who do unanimously agree, that by the Sons of God were meant the Sons of Seth, who were so called because they professed the true Faith; and those of Cain's issue which followed erroneous and wicked opinions, were therefore called the Children of Men; Terms as distinctive and intelligible in the Age before the Flood, as that of Jews and Gentiles was afterwards.  
His last evidence that this same Love is the passion of the Devil, is the repetition of sundry relations concerning Succubi, and Incubi; the stories I know are numerous, but the truth of them as uncertain. It is a very difficult thing to distinguish between a reality and a delusion in such cases: for if the Grand Impostor can put a cheat upon our senses( which is granted by most that by the divine permission he can) it will be very difficult for the Understanding which receives her information from them, to judge of the delusion: Much harder would it be, if it should be found to be only the effect of the disease of Melancholy, which we have reason enough to suspect, because we receive all those relations from persons which are afflicted with that distemper, which does not only hinder the regular motion of some one particular sense, but offers violence to the Understanding itself, and will not permit her to receive any information( no not by Reason) of the true state of things, but through the false perspective of a mistaken fancy. However giving, but not granting, that these Diabolical violences to human nature are real, the consequence can be but this, that seeing his malice is so transcendent that he will counterfeit his own nature rather than not destroy mankind, it behoves man without delay to furnish himself with the whole armor of God, that he may be able to stand against the wil●ss of the Devil, Ephes. 6.11. But neither thus can Mr. Seymar prove that either Love or Lust are the Devils passions. And because he is a grand liar and our eternal enemy that continually goes about seeking which of us he can devour, that therefore we should neglect either carelessly through mistake, or designedly, our obedience to the Laws of God; of which Marriage is one, to those that cannot live continently; is such an inference that I know not to which I ought rather to condemn it, whether to malicious impiety, or superlative frenzy.  
The next dissuasive is because the Bruits are commanded by love to continue their kinds; in which he is mistaken; as it is not lust in them because it is no fault, so neither can it be Love which is peculiar only to rational creatures. So I leave our author to find a name for it. But if Nature persuades them, Reason me-thinks should us to continue our kind without being afraid to be laughed at, because our kind is more noble, and designed to greater ends.  
Then the sympathy between inanimate creatures are recounted to dissuade Philogynus from a Wife, as the Iron and Loadstone, Vine and Elmne, and so forth; that is, because the whole Universe is cemented together by Love or sympathy, therefore Mankind, of which the Woman is a species, must be the onely creatures exempt.  
Next he will allow that rational creatures do Love, but he says 'tis nothing but lust when all's done, and they that have it lack rationality: and then he tells us that Plotinus is in the right, that this Devil Love, is partly Devil, partly a God, and partly a passion: yet for all Plotinus has partend the stakes, he says it is all three, the God of Gods; such profane contradictory Bombast his Readers must be content with, and if they will mary he has no other Arguments to hinder them. He concludes this Chapter by repeating what he has babbled before that Love is Lust, and an old Wives fable how it was thrown out of heaven with his wings clipped, and so may go to hell, but can never come there again, with such stuff which one would think should be below the Pen of any Gentleman to converse with, in order to scandalise this noble Act of the soul, of which the Treasures in Heaven are an object, and which the wisest and greatest of Men have allowed; for 
Adam's wise heart was with this Passion filled,  
Paradise an object worthy could not yield,  
Till that a mighty miracle was shown  
angelic beauty; but the flesh his own  
Made by the hands of the great God, but how unknown.  
So now those present Monarchs that command  
By just Inheritance his seas, and Land  
Cut into small, and petty signeuries,  
Objects however of our wandring eyes,  
To whom as Gods their Subjects honour pay,  
And all their Laws unquestioned do obey,  
When they'l be happy, from their Thrones must come  
And in their Royal breasts give Love a room:  
Love more contentment to the mind affords,  
Than kingdoms conquered by the justest swords.   

SUB-SECT. I. What the grounds and reasons of Love are.  
HEre he says, That let the stoics talk what they will, they are stocks and not men that do not love a woman, that are not inclined to their embraces; but those charms which 'allure them, he wonders should persuade Philogynus to mary them. And now he thinks he has made Philogynus an amends; it would have been too hard to have denied his friend a Woman upon all accounts; a Wise he may not have, that's like a fool or a madman, but a Wench he will allow him: and yet methinks the obligation is no great one, because he does not tell his friend how he should treat her. The wisest and richest of men have never failed of being ruined by them; and in my Judgement, Poverty and the Pox are more intolerable grievances than any Mr. Seymar, now he's angry, can pick out of a married life: and at a cheaper rate than one of them I am sure no Man could ever procure Misses.  
And now he puts on a disguise, he would have his friend not mary barely for beauty without some other excellent endowments of the soul, and yet from this very section to the end of his book he endeavours to prove, that no Womans soul is endowed with any excellency whatsoever; but rails against the whole sex in ill language, and does not only compare them, but place them in wickedness beneath the Devil himself; as I shall more particularly observe as I go on.  
Then he makes six divisions on which love of men to women are grounded, and laughs at them, by styling them goodly groundsall, although Virtue, Piety and Honesty be his three first.  
He says further it is an infirmity for a man to love a woman, because she is not really amiable, but in his fancy onely, which he can give no reason for, and the sensitive( that is the natural) faculty overrules. But he forgets that the highest of Laws are those which Nature gives, all written precepts are beneath them; and as it is a sin to be guilty of the breach of the latter, it is monstrous to be guilty of the breach of any of the former. The ingenious Sir Thomas Overbury in the choice of a wife comes home to this case in these words.  
So fair at least let me imagine her,  
That thought to me is Truth, opinion  
Cannot in matter of opinion err;  
With no eyes shall I see her but my own.  
And as my fancy her conceives to be,  
Even such my senses do both feel and see.  
And as I said before, what the eye thinks beautiful, the Reason will approve to be so too.  

DIVISION I. Virtue, Piety and Honesty.  
THis Division begins with a great deal of Truth, and Ingenuity, that in the choice of a Wife we ought to found our love to her, on the right basis of virtue, piety and honesty, from whence we may certainly promise ourselves a future life full of content, and happiness. To attest which truth Mr. Seymar brings numerous quotations from Jesus the son of sirach, and Solomon himself: and ends by telling us that such women as these do fear the Lord, and they shall be praised.  
His next assertion is as true, that where love to a woman is grounded on any other foundation than virtue and piety, there can be no real, no lasting content; and his reason is a sound one, that the wisdom of the mind is far more beautiful than the lineaments of the face. This discourse is both befiting a Christian and a Gentleman, and if he would have been pleased to proceed to inform his friend of the means to find such a beautiful soul( as no doubt there are millions) under the ill pleasing Vizors of loose customs, childish humours and our modern way of breeding, he would have laid such an obligation on him, as would have deserved the honourable title of a Friend. But he on the contrary, dehorts him from all inquisitions of this nature by telling him such a woman is rara avis, a Latin proverb appliable to a thing that in Nature has no being, as a black swan; and declares that they are creatures stuffed with hypocrisy, subtlety, flattery and all sort of mischief, having no truth nor the fear of God in them: And Solomon is quoted to prove the universal wickedness of the sex, who but just now by his own confession did( by earnestly commending to his son a good Wife, then by explaining and delineating what sort of women he esteemed so) not only suppose that there be many such, but also that his son by observing his rules and directions might easily find one. And this very description Prov. 7.5.( and elsewhere throughout his books) of a wicked woman, are onely signs and observations that he had gained by his experience what sort of woman would prove a bad Wife, that his Son might avoid her; as this particular verse of a wheedling smooth tongue, a sign of a false heart: though this verse be more properly the character of one that will prove an Adulteress. So in other places he commends industry, humility and piety, as good qualifications in a Wife, that will make her Husband undoubtedly happy.  
Then our author repeats several examples, of Solomon, samson and others, that were ruined by their Wives: and runs over two leaves in quotations from Jesus the Son of sirach of his dislike of bad Wives, till he comes to a copy of criminal rhymes against the whole sex, which end— 
She is worse and may in time forestall  
The Devil, and be the damning of us all.   
Though our Conjugium might happily in his youth receive such signal inconveniences from women, that may have heat him into this rage against them all; yet me-thinks the honour due to the B. Virgin, who was born a woman, might give some alloy if not to his anger, yet how-ever to the foulness of the language.  
He proceeds, They are full of selfends, rebellion, pride, envy, &c. never good but when they are pleased, and that is impossible; like the Devil, nay exceed his infernal majesty in mischief. These are his own words. Then all the Planets are Produced for witnesses how wicked women be, which after his own method I have turned a little nearer truth, that he may see the Planets make more against him than for him, as thus: 
Saturn gives fear lest she her Man displease:  
Jove wisdom gives to rule her house with ease:  
Mars well timed Anger does on the Wife bestow:  
Sol affords riches to her painful brow:  
Venus gives beauty which is judged by light,  
And softer pleasures in the silent night:  
Mercury her tongue with balsom-wit does fill:  
Luna t' obey gives her a moving Will.  These Rhymes are scarce worth reading, but the fancy is our Authors, I only changed the Verse.  
But now let us seriously examine these high& mighty accusations which Mr. Seymar has loaded the half of mankind kind withal, and confined them to the female Sex.  
It is well observed by the learned cambden, and by Seneca before him, how improper the expression is when we say, manners are more corrupt, and things are worse than they were in the Ages before us. Each Age has its proper disease of 'vice; things stand at a stay, only moving to and fro as the billows of the sea in a calm: one Age produces strange anomalous garments, happily covering as deformed minds; another, excess of riot and banqueting; Sometimes Rebellion, Treason, murder and Sacrilege is the mode; the next Age find no fault with Adulterers, Whoremongers nor Sodomites. So of Nations may be observed, a 'vice that is capital in one country, is scarce taken notice of in another: And all customs which are the strongest of Laws, because voluntarily assented to by the generality of a country, cannot be introduced by other than those who have most credit and reputation among the Vulgar. That this is true the authors of the last Hurricane in this our native country can attest. Now if it can be proved that the female sex are not in a capacity to bring into vogue any of these epidemic vices, this must at least be the consequence, that in this particular of giving reputation to wickedness, the other sex must be guilty alone. But I must go farther and affirm, that there are vices and those no small ones continually practised and allowed by our own sex, which their inclinations do naturally divert them from; and Custom though to us, has not been so injurious to them yet, as to give them the passport of decency amongst them; which is so good a bar as puts them almost out of a capacity of being guilty. In this rank I account Treasons, murders by Duels and otherwise, Drunkenness, Cheats, Perjury, profaneness and Blasphemy, with others which I omit: and though some have endeavoured to debauch the Women so far as to make them guilty of some of them; yet is their number but very few in comparison of men, whose daily practise is most of them. But there is no 'vice the Women are guilty of, but is as frequently practised by men, and most of their faults have received not onely their advice, and approbation, but their importunity for the committing. Which is enough for the first thing I design to prove, that the Female sex is less wicked than the Male.  
The dignity of the Woman in the Creation was to be the Man's companion and Partner in the delights of Paradise, to which end she was endowed with a rational soul: and though in one Ray of Divinity, wisdom, the Man excelled; yet in that other of Beauty, she was his superior. So wisely ordered by the great creator, that whilst she admired and obeyed him for the greater perfection; he did no less admire, and love her for the less. So by the rules of the Creation the distance was not so great nor she so vile, as to be despised.  
She fell indeed, and was first in the transgression: but Man whose privilege was to be the wiser, followed her; and God Almighty's pardon was equally extensive to the one sex, as the other: and as she had one curse more than Man, so she had an honour beyond him, The seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head, which promise when completed, we find our Saviour equally conversing with women as men: from a Woman alone he received his flesh, and to a Woman he did first reveal the hard truth of his Resurrection. This sex had the honour to bear him company to the across, and the only secular concern he minded in his Agony, was to bid his beloved Disciple take care of the B. Virgin his mother. Which certainly is enough to convince any Christian, that of the female sex there are, and of those not a few, far beneath the Devils in Iniquity.  
The Historical Part in both Testaments have recorded the names of several that were eminent for piety, virtue and honesty. Amongst whom Sarah the wife of Abraham the patriarch will stand so long as the world lasts for an exemplary pattern of humility, and obedience.  
In all other Histories ancient and modern, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and more particularly in our English Chronicles occur several Examples of gallant and virtuous Women: and though I must grant there are those that are otherwise, yet that makes against Mr. Seymar; for Solomon, David in the business of Bathsheba, soliman the Magnificent, Holofernes, our Ed. 4. and the rest which he quotes, received their several damages not by entering into the state of Matrimony, but flying from it, as he persuades his friend here to do: and though there are many Wives that may truly be said to be sore afflictions, yet common observation and experience proves it, that where one man is ruined by entering into the regular estate of Wedlock, there are hundreds, I might say thousands, that are lost by shunning the solid content, and true friendship of a Wife, for the giggling, and hypocritical caresses of a Miss. These were the women Solomon points at, and cautions his Son of under the scandalous name of wicked and fools. The son of Syrach's observations second his, and are all to the very same purpose: but to affirm that either of them designed to dehort Mankind from Marriage, is maliciously to pervert the holy Scriptures to a contrary sense; for by these their cautions they supposed Marriage not only lawful, but necessary; and the doom attending the man that perverts holy writ( how practical soever the Custom has been both by Press and Pulpit) take from St. John in his Revelations, Chap. 22. vers. 18, 19. If any man shall add to these things, God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy City, and from the things which are written in this book. And that it may appear that this terrible threatening is not confined to St. John's Revelations, who will give himself the trouble will find, though in other words, Moses denouncing it in deuteronomy, Chap. 4. ver. 2. and Solomon to the same purpose in the Proverbs, Chap. 30. v. 6.  
To conclude with these malicious and false accusations against women; If Michael an Archangel durst not give a condemned Spirit ill language, though opposed by him in the prosecution of his Masters command: how far has this Gentleman's tongue exceeded the bounds of modesty, to calumniate the whole female sex in such foul expressions, as are not fit to be given the greatest of Criminals, whenas Millions of these will one day be accepted of to be bright Inhabitants of Heaven?   

DIVISION II. Beauty.  
THis division is to persuade his friend that no Women are handsome, and his reason is, because all Mankind never was agreed upon the same complexion, shape, stature and proportion that ought to occur for the perfecting a complete beauty; and yet he grants that every individual man can find a woman which he esteems so: then if men( as no doubt they are) be the sole Judges of beauty in women, for whom alone they were made, and they by this their divided choice of love allow beauty to be found in every complexion, shape and stature, Mr. Seymar who will not allow Beauty to belong to any of them, cannot by this his own rule take it ill to be thought none of the number of Mankind.  
The Barbarians he allows were so far civilized by Nature as to pay respect to a beautiful woman, and defines beauty to be an exact symmetry of parts; which by his own Proverb of Quot homines tot sententiae, So many men so many minds, must come under the judgement of the fancy alone; which being the immediate product of the soul, does by her approbation of a beauty declare the secret sympathy between the Lover and the Woman loved; and the approbation of anothers judgement in the case is ridiculous and needless.  
It is too true, those glorious beauties which adorn the female sex, have besides Time that never fails, hundreds of Accidents that are its mortal enemys, and before the gaiety of youth is ended, many times puff it into nothing; Sin has made Mankind too Wicked to have these favours continue long; but Life itself, and all its other inferior satisfactions are as short-lived as this; and there is none sure that would part with a happy life because he must not enjoy it a whole Century of years. Who remains not satisfied, must adjourn his expectations to eternity, where neither Life or Beauty ever will have end.  
Next his Ballad of Can she be fair and honest too, is the second time produced, to prove that all beautiful women( though just now he would not allow there was any such in the world) are fools or whores; a beautiful body is commonly the Index of as fair a mind: and that all handsome women must be fools is no more necessary than that all Poets with old Homer must be blind.  
He quotes Prov. 31.30. to what purpose I know not; for Solomon there tells his son, that women that fear God will make the best wives; and therefore advices him to make that the chief ground of his love, because beauty is vain and transitory.  
But our author would have us when we like a handsome woman, to think her dust and ashes: that she may in time be dust and ashes I believe, but for my life I cannot think her so when all my five senses tell me to the contrary: She is my Equal, and like will to like. I know my doom is to be one of our Authour's Dizzards, which I am contented with: for truly seeing he will allow the Women no Beauty, Men ought not to take it unkindly that he will allow them no Wit.   

DIVISION III. Riches, Greatness.  
THat our author does not like Beauty he  told us in his last Division, and now he would persuade us he can't abide Money if his Wife brings it: but surely Money is no Chimaera of the fancy though Beauty be: all the world have agreed long since that Gold is better than Brass: and there is never a Hobbist in christendom that is so stupid, but believes it a real substance; the fault of it I cannot imagine, let's hear our authors accusations.  

Imprimis. Money is a Goddess and the world worships it.  
Item. They that mary for money, mary a whore.  
Item. They that mary for money will have children that shall be nonsencical, Gooscapical, coxcomical idiots.  
Item.( which is the most dreadful thing of all, especially for those that have no land) They that mary for money must make their Wife a jointure.   
For the Imprimis, I have heard that there are some Countries that think the Sun a God and worship him; yet for all that I can be content with his company in my garden, without any danger of Idolatry. And I am of the mind there may some other use be found for Money besides praying to it. For the two first Items, they are both new, that Money will beget gooscapical Children; and that all rich women are whores; if our author could but make all Whores rich, he would go nigh to be searched for the Philosophers ston. But for the last accusation I cannot deny but that it is a most wicked, odious and abominable fact, worse than Witch-craft itself, to do what a man can't do, that is to say, to make a wise a jointure when a man has not one foot of land.  
But when Philogynus has found a woman that is owner of Piety and Virtue; and Solomon witnesses that such there are; the additions of Riches and beauty will scarce divert him( if he is in his right senses) from making her his Wife.   

DIVISION IV. Apparel, Deportment.  
HEre he says first that fine clothes take fools; and I am of his mind, that whoever valves either himself or any body else for their clothes, is and ought to be content to be accounted a fool: but there is a contrary opinion that will give him that reputation, which is, to think that there is any habit of clothes so exotique, as to declare a wicked mind.  
The Country a man lives in, his Quality, Time and station must cloath him; and when the women are to blame in this particular, it is no error of Will but of Judgement onely, the lowest of faults and parponable enough in that Sex. As it is a sign of folly in any to esteem themselves the better for rich and modish garments; so is it the disease of old and grave minds to censure those that wear them therefore foolish, or not pious.  
But he says a woman stark naked is an Antidote against liking her, she's beholding onely to her clothes for her Beauty; and the travellers he says tell him so. Among all the travels that I have seen I can find no such place, but the scape of good hope in afric that he means; from whence I fancy our author has taken this new model of an Unmarried Common-wealth: there they never mary, but couple promiscuously( with the Baboons sometimes when the Spirit moves them) without being scared with the damned Bulbeggars of Adultery, Incest and other yet more horrid crimes; and for relation of Wife, Brother, Son, Uncle and so forth, they have no occasion for the names. This Model he recommends to old England, as Harrington did in the last Age his Rota of a Commonwealth: and in my opinion that Country that accepts of the one, will find it necessary to take the other too. But for all his gravity, I am of the mind that if he should be so unfortunate, as once in his life-time to be locked into a room, with one of our English or French Ladies, that we Gooscapical Lovers call young and handsome; if she should be naked, the sight would not be so terrible as to make him break his neck out at window to be rid of her.  
His example of the Gentleman of Florence that married an ugly wife by candle-light, and was fain to be beholding to the Sun next morning to know what shape she was on, by my consent should have kept her in a room that always needed a candle; but what is this to England? have not our Laws sufficiently provided against such mistakes by confining the ceremony of Marriage to be performed within the compass of those hours, that who is not always drunk, must of necessity then be sober? But what if some Men commit mistakes in their most serious actions of life, as purchasing of land, making of Wills and settlements, marrying and the like? must therefore no body buy land? nor make a Will? nor provide for his Children, because there is a possibility that a Law svit may be the consequence of it?  
Well, to gratify our Conjugium, if he will but allow that his friend may find a Wife that has Piety, Virtue, Beauty and Riches; for her clothes rather than they should trouble him, if he will but promise to make them in the fashion, it is more than I know that he himself may not be admitted to be the tailor.   

DIVISION V. Familiarity, Discourse, Singing, music, Dancing, &c.  
OUr author has almost forgot what he designed to prove, which was, That all who mary are Fools and Madmen, under the names of Asses, Dizzards, Gooscaps and the like: for if there are such women who are owners of the two essential qualifications of piety and virtue, and have those substantial and necessary additions of Riches and Beauty, neither singing, music or Dancing will be any impediment from discourse and familiarity with the woman a man designs to mary. And hitherto his dissuasions have been so frivolous, that such solid qualifications will easily overbalance them.  
How slightly his Gravity may think of those cheerful and innocent divertisements which are usual betwixt the young couple that are resolved to enter into this most sacred and obligatory league of true Virtue, it matters not: The custom of particular Countries, some of which allow more, and some less freedom of converse between the two Lovers before the consummation of the marriage by the Priest, is not my task at present to censure: but as those diseases in the body which arise from Melancholy, are far more dangerous and difficult to cure, than those which the more sanguine complexions are inclined to; so do those diseases of mind which Gravity and sedateness of temper accompany, more properly deserve the scandalous imputation of folly, than the most impertinent and laughing humour in the World. And Solomon that has pronounced all our inferior actions and designs of life which do not immediately tend to that felicity that must for ever last, Vanity; has allowed Wisdom to be equally a Concomitant of the gay and brisk humour, as of that which is more grave and reserved.  
His stories of the Ephesian Lady and the like, do perfectly contradict his first Position, which was, that The married state was fit for none but either wicked or fools; for those examples and all the dreadful consequences which he afterwards deduces from singing, music and Dancing, he neither has or can apply to any but Whores: a name to which this estate of life is a natural enemy.  
For Dancing, if there is any other use of it than to gain a comely deportment of body, I am content that my judgement shall accord with Mr. Seymar's to condemn it.  
But music being the highest of Pleasures, scarce submitting to the gross name of sensual, the Soul has so great an interest in the delight, I must allow as a very great ornament to those of the female sex that are skilled in it, especially the vocal: which being a beauty as pleasing to the ear, as motion and harmony of parts are to the eye, aloud proclaim that those which are so endowed are of the favourites of Heaven, where alone music and Beauty are in Perfection. And that such Excellencies may be abused, is no more a scandal, than it is to Wisdom that Achitophel was a Villain.   

DIVISION VI. Lust.  
THis of all his allegations against marriage is least to the purpose, because marriage is its eternal enemy.  
The Virgin vow does Lust the Monster fly,  
And dreads to stay th' assaulting enemy;  
His mighty conquest in the World she hears,  
His Policy, and Rage in fight she fears,  
So to a Cloister Garrison does fly,  
Whose walls are proof 'gainst all's Artillery;  
But Marriage boldly does assault the Foe,  
His fierceness, and his stratagems she all does know:  
Her innocence alone her weapons be,  
His sword assures her of the Victory;  
So David's courage from his Virtue grew,  
When he the Gathite Monster fought, and slay.  
And thus does Marriage over Lust prevail,  
With the same weapons she does her assail.  
And to grant that Love and Lust are both one Passion, is to invert the nature of words, for the notions that the Mind receives upon the naming of these two words are as different, and as opposite, as East from West.  
The Poets which he quotes against Marriage, those few that I am acquainted with, have in no sort of writing neither heroic, dramatic, Burlesque, Pindarique or any other, so much as endeavoured to prove that Love and Lust are the same Passion, or that Marriage is not essential to Societies. Those two which I have perused most are Mr. Cowley, and Mr. Dreydon; two of Nature Miracles, and who in their several capacities have celebrated Love and Marriage. The writings of the former, no not his Mistress( where it is palpable( not onely by the circumstances of his writing, but also by his own acknowledgement that he is not onely not ashamed for his being in Love with a woman, but also, that he has no good opinion of any man that is not capable of being so too) that he was really in love) must not be condemned by any without the merited imputation of weakness of Judgement. The latter, as I have not the honour of his acquaintance, having but once( to my knowledge) ever seen him, so I dare in spite of customary injustice, commend him, albeit he is alive, and though I know my Pen is far beneath his praise, yet I do as well know so vast a wit must be owner of the same quantity of good nature as will excuse it. What is either wicked or silly in modish colours he has so well painted, as would divert any person that is owner of the least ingenuity, from both: more particularly this of shunning Marriage, and being entred perfidiously to break a vow so easy to be kept, in his Play of Marriage a-la-Mode: a more gentle satire against this sort of folly, no Pen can writ, where he brings the very assignations that are commonly used about Town upon the stage; and to see both Boxes and pit so damnably crowded, in order to see themselves abused, and yet neither to be angry or ashamed, argues such excess of stupidity, that this great Pen itself( if 'twere possible) would be put to a nonplus to express it.  
For Chaucer and the rest that he quotes, he knows( if he knows any thing) that observations of Vices, are not directions to commit them; Nay farther, the Poets by rallying them, dissuade men from committing them: and where an ingenuous piece of raillery will not dissuade a Man from being a Fop, I am sure the more grave directions in a Sermon cannot.  
The Sultan's wife in Arabia that had a mind to leave her Husband for the handsome traveller, makes against him( if the story be true, for I don't know it) for she had a mind to be a whore, which is against the laws of Marriage which forbids her: and if some Ladies in christendom will be so, she shall have my excuse for being so too. But what is this to the business?  
Lust is more outrageous( he says) in women than men; he helps me with an answer for he says when it takes, and when is that? when they wave the dull conversation of a Husband, for the brisker one of a Gallant.  
Therefore let them all alone( quoth he) as to marriage; no otherwise( he means) whatever he pays for them: this has been answered before, and I don't love repetitions.  
To conclude, It is notorious that in both capacities single and married, there are Virtuous women: and would be thousands more if Men would accept them for Wives, and not make it their daily business to debauch them: and when they have done, abuse them for their labour. Divines tell us, as it is the Devil's business to invite us to be wicked here, it will be his endeavour at the day of Judgement that we may be condemned for those very faults he persuaded us to commit. The Devil's punishment all men know that believe there is a Devil,( among those that don't let this pass as an impertinence) and they who are guilty of the Devil's faults, cannot take it ill to share with him in his punishment.      

MEMBER II. Of the second end of Marriage, the continuation of our kind.  
WHich is indeed the chiefest design, that the World may continue peopled regularly, without confusion of alliances, protected by the laws, and made capable of the privileges of Freemen, of which being in a capacity to inherit is not the least. That Children are primarily Evils, is contrary to the Psalmists opinion, who says, The man is blessed that hath his Quiver full of them: Whoever has observed the rules of Providence will find, that numerous Families are best provided for: And as poor a way as it is of immortalizing our names, however it is the best: and those actions which he stiles nobler, will not appear so when Opinion is gone, and Reason seated in her place. The world is contented to be cheated by false glosses and deceits, she would not else style the destruction of Mankind noble, and reward the Executioners with all the glorious epithets of good and virtuous. A gallant and wise commander in War no doubt destroys his enemies with the same reluctancy that he would cut off an arm to save his life: and takes no more pleasure of that his necessitous Act of killing men to be repeated in praise of him, than he would of this other.  
That a Peasant may the same way eternize his name as a Monarch, is a very slender argument: for not onely the Essentials but all the pleasures of life God has equally distributed amongst mankind: the advantages of the superfluity of wealth( though rightly used) is so slender an addition to the Proprietour, that none but those whom Fortune has placed at a very great distance, can possibly envy them.  
The hazard that Children may miscarry either by Sin or folly cannot divert Philogynus from desiring legitimate issue, no sort of action in secular affairs of life but has its possibility of miscarriage; but in this particular of Children, care and diligence in their Education does contribute so much to their advantage, that it is most commonly the Parents fault if a Child runs either into mistakes of judgement or debauchery of manners; But when a Parent has done his duty, as it cannot but be a great comfort to see his Child make him a proportionable return in being Wise, so has he no reason to repined if he should not.  
The Italians( he says) make little or no difference, between their Children and kindred: I do not know what he means; for I am  told that Children do inherit in Italy as in England; and for want of Issue, the next of Kin: he would therefore persuade his friend to adopt an Heir, rather than get one, because by so doing he leaves his estate to one that his judgement approves of, and does not transmit so great a concern to the blind chance of fortune. The Italian I grant to be a very wise man, his business, and pleasures are both directed and improved by much thinking; but withall he has the diseases which attend great Wits, that is, to be guilty sometimes of greater follies than the rest of mankind; for this business of Adoption we find our judgements are so short-sighted, that amongst our own Children whom we daily converse with, and observe, we frequently mistake the good for bad; and whom we think the likeliest to miscarry, many times outstrips his Brothers in Wisdom and Virtue: much harder is the disquisition in a stranger, who may by suiting with our humours( happily the worst of them) steal a secret approbation in our judgement of being virtuous, and gain anothers birthright by nothing but a seven-years well-manag'd Wheedle. The verity of this argument we may see in elective kingdoms which are generally worse managed than those whose Laws by leaving it to Providence have directed the succession of the Crown to come by inheritance.   

MEMBER III. Description of a single or unmarried life.  
BY this title I expected either an ingenious Harangue in commendation of a sing life, or elses ome solid Arguments deduced from the topics of Virtue and Honesty, the onely Basis of true content, to have persuaded his friend to live a single Man; but I see I am deceived, for his commendation of a Bathelour's life is a very short one; which is, Every body courts him that he would mary a daughter or some other relation, but being once married, each of them by degrees leave off such addresses to him; Therefore, says our author, never mary. So, so, because a Man may have his choice among a thousand Jewels of rich vaIue to choose one, and but one, therefore by this his rule he must choose none at all.  
Now again he commends the Virgin state, which is nothing to his purpose; his friend is not persuaded any where to go into a cloister, neither has he given him any directions about Chastity; well, but he says Marriage fills the earth, but Virginity Paradise, which is very true.  
Full well, by holy writ I know,  
Virgin's chast Souls to Paradise do go,  
But no souls there would be,  
Did not their Parents lose virginity:  
Who gives a gift is greater far than he  
That does accept, though with humility;  
And what more great can e're be given,  
Than to be thought the second cause to bring a soul to Heaven?  
Creation ceases, and to stock heaven now  
With purest Souls accept the Marriage vow.  
I do not nor would be thought to make any comparison between the Virgin and married state; I know the former by St. Paul's testimony is more refined and angelic; and approaches nearer, by being free from worldly concerns, to the state of the blessed after Death: I do onely commend the legal and regular estate of Matrimony, in opposition to all other sort of addresses to women, as comprehending in itself more security, and content, as well as defending men from all the inconveniences of diseases, poverty and shane: which are certain, though many times late sequels of this vanity. That Marriage brings along with it cares and troubles, is by no means to be allowed of as a literal Truth: those necessary troubles which are congenial to life, by so interested a friend as a Wife, are not onely diverted but alleviated. Fear is a disease of mind which brings Care to her succour when we possess things of the greatest value, which we are least willing to part with, and love best: amongst which Wife and Children are the chiefest. A Crown itself, which is the height of Riches and Honour, cannot be possessed without cares and fears, because a thing of that inestimable value: no otherwise do they belong to a married state, but that such enjoy so great blessings, and yet are not out of a posibility of losing them.  
The Married do indeed set upon greater Undertakings, especially in Oeconomiques, than is prudence for a single Man to adventure on, because he is assured of so good an interested second: which being not understood, makes many condemn Marriage as the author of trouble, when as it naturally encounters it.  
But Lust through all its ranges of Uncleanness, in its several specious dresses of satisfaction can entitle his followers to no solid content; It is beholding to a debauch of Wine vented in modish nonsense, and continued without a Fever, to have the cheat not discovered by its greatest Admirers at the first onset; before custom calls in despair and impudence to second her. And then the pedantique contradicting of an immaterial substance persuade their unwilling souls to believe there is no punishment, but what is the immediate product of the Fact; a conceit so wild and silly as has not secured the author of it in his life, from any whose Wit will so far conspire with his Malice, that when he has pistoll'd him, to take care to escape unpunished by a halter.  
Other commendations of a single life our author has not set down, and my observations inform me of no more; so I proceed to the examination of his next.   

MEMBER IV. Of second Marriages.  
THose that mary once we have heard before are Bedlams, and now our author tells us so again: but those that mary twice are Daemoniacks, and without doubt are possessed: to prove it he tells of some twice married folk who came to Heaven gate, and St Peter therefore would not let them in: and St. Hierom he quotes against it, and then he brings St. Paul to confirm it, where he says to be carnally minded is death. His stories such as these every where about his book, I presume are onely to please himself, and I don't envy him the diversion: but that St. Paul's meaning in those words to be carnally minded is death, was to dehort Men from marrying a second Wife after the decease of the first, nothing but stupidity itself can believe. For this passage has relation to the first chapter of this Epistle, which St. Paul writ to the Christians at Rome wherein he condemns the gnostics, who though acknowledging the Faith, did notwithstanding eagerly assert the necessity of observing certain Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies, as pretending to a more strict life than the other Christians, and yet lived in all uncleanness, and practised unnatural lusts according to the custom of the Heathen, the consequence of which St Paul says is death. For the quotation of the Fathers both here and elsewhere, I have not leisure to examine: but whoever does thus wilfully wrest and pervert the Texts of Holy writ, it is more than probable that the Holy Fathers of the Church shall not be more ingenuously used by him in their Writings.  
That Love is lust, and that Marriage is stuffed with dangers and miseries has been answered in his general accusation of Marriage before: but for another proof that all Marriages both first and second are unlawful, he quotes 1 Cor. 7.1, 7, 8, 26, 27, 38. and repeats the words and so concludes; Which very Chapter without farther arguments confutes his whole book, and the very design of it: for in those Primitive times the gnostics pretending more knowledge than was allotted to their share, were of Mr. Seymar's mind, and thought marriage not at all convenient for mankind: commending in words the virgin state, but practising all sorts of lusts and uncleanness. This cursed heresy had taken root as well at Corinth as at Rome: and in answer to an Epistle which is lost, that the Christians at Corinth had sent to St. Paul concerning some questions, whereof this of Marriage was one, he returns this Epistle in answer; and in this part of it does punctually set down the laws of Christ concerning wedlock: which in short is this, That those who have the gift of continency, he would have devote themselves wholly to prayer and contemplation, by sequestering themselves from the business of the world; and those who have not, to mary and live chastened with a Wife. It is these hypocritical gnostics that St Paul speaks of, when he says, whoever forbids marriage teaches the doctrine of devils; and in my opinion this Treatise of Conjugium Conjurgium comprehends in it exactly that heresy of the gnostics in their despising of Marriage which St. Paul in this chapter does both piouslly and elegantly refute; for they too( as our author here) pretended it was to advance the Virgin state: for 
Truth is so glorious, that its enemies try  
To masquerade in't by hypocrisy:  
For human Reason is not so depressed  
Tembrace the Monster 'vice not gaily dressed:  
This by the Fiend of Hell is understood,  
To gilled his Poisons with some specious good;  
So here Conjugium does his friend persuade  
Not to be slackled to the Amorous trade,  
But where his fancy or his profit guide him  
Thither to go, no ill can so betid him;  
And when the Mart is done put up his ware  
And carry't to the next best selling Fair.  
Yet for all this our Anti wedlock Imp  
Would fain be thought for Chastity to pimp,  
For where St. Paul commends the Virgin state,  
'tis for that Reason onely he does Marriage hate:  
But where the Saint does Chastity command,  
He minds it not nor cannot understand:  
Like rebel crop't who has a trick to fight  
For his King's Person, but against his Right:  
So here Conjugium Marriage does assail,  
That th' harmless life of Virgins may prevail:  
But th' Vizor when pulled off will soon betray  
fanatic hypocrisy, in the whoring way.     

The Conclusion.  
IT was not the weight of the Arguments but the frequent misapplying Texts of scripture, which might happily upon some well meaning Persons, have had a bad influence to fright them from Marriage, that made me take any notice of this book. It was well understood by the Contrivers of our late Wars, that till they could engage the Pulpit to produce Texts of Scripture for their villainy, they laboured but in vain: And the consummation of all the horrid murder of our King, was endeavoured to be proved lawful by perverting of Texts in Holy writ. For this of Marriage, so long as Raillery and down-right profaneness were its onely Adversaries, there was no great danger that the Enemies of it should gain many Proselytes: Religion is so fixed in Man's understanding, that he must use more than ordinary violence to this to expunge that. But when it is laboured to be proved by some by philosophy, that there is no Being but what is corporeal, nor no punishment after our dissolution, in order to persuade Men to be wicked without fear; and because all cannot compel themselves to be so stupid but must believe there is both Rewards and Punishments after death, it is endeavoured by others to produce Texts of scripture that shall authorize Debauchery; It is more than time that seeing so many of the Nobility and Gentry who by their free and licentious living have given encouragement to the Pens of sycophants to flatter them, though to their ruin; those of them whose Judgements run counter to the epidemic 'vice of the Age( for Ages have their particular Vices as well as the several Complexions of Men) would so far own their dislike of these poisonous assertions, as to discourage the authors: whose onely design in these bold Undertakings is nothing, but a little praise from the Many.  
No system of Philosophy that has been delivered to the world, has so grossly and frequently forfeited its own Principles, as that which by pronouncing an Immaterial Substance to be a contradictio in terminis, has endeavoured to prove the nullity of all Beings but what are clothed with flesh. The author decries dogmatizing, and is himself the greatest Dogmatist imaginable, by imposing upon his Readers( without either Reasons or Demonstrations to prove them) such groundless Chimaeras, for Truths, that he is forced to break through the laws of speech itself to deliver them. And the author of this Treatise which I have now examined, how pat soever his design may svit with the present inclination of humour, yet is he not able to back his assertion which is, That to mary is both foolish and wicked, with the least Reason, or so much as the countenance of Authority. Railing against the whole female sex in the basest of language; condemning all that mary for fools and madmen in strange exotique phrases; repeating of clinches and Ballads, and misapplying Texts of sacred Writ to a contrary sense, is his whole Magazine of wit and Reason that he is able to produce against Marriage. So that by these false accusations against her, she may happily appear more magnificent and honourable; especially when Men have not onely considered, but tried all other sort of addresses to women: and if Mr. Seymar by this accident should be so happy as to reduce marriage into vogue, I doubt not( for all his Raillery) but it would be a far greater satisfaction to him, than to be esteemed a Wit by those ignorant Persons that shall admire his Treatise of Conjugium Conjurgium.   

POSTSCRIPT.  
SInce the finishing of my Reply upon Conjugium Conjurgium. I find the author of it to be one Ramsye, that has disguised himself in the Anagramm of Seymar. He calls himself doctor, and because he finds Conjugium to be Conjurgium in his own family, he fancies Marriage to be a kind of Caterwawle all the world over. I must ask his pardon for treating him with more compliment than belongs to him.   
AN END.