[ 341 ]
Custom is a meer Thing of Nothing, an Original of no Authority. Matrimony as an Ordinance of God, and as a sacred Institution, Custom can have nothing to do with that; it is not binding at all in Law, neither the Laws of God or Man, and what have we to do with that? The Man is single, and the Woman is dead; she is as really dead as if she had been in her Grave seven Years; nor is there the least Injury or Injustice done to her; all the rest is a meer Homage paid to Custom, and which is not at all its due.
I give this the greater Length because 'tis a popular Argument, and often brought to defend these sudden, hasty and indecent Marriages I speak of, and likewise to let you see, that though I should grant every Word of it, yet my Objection against the Practice of such hasty Marriages stands good, and the Reproach is the same.
For, 1. My Objection is not so much against the Breach of a Custom, as it is against a Breach of Modesty; and if Custom only has made it so, for Custom or Crime made Modesty a Virtue at first, yet since it is so we are bound by it so far, as we are to do every thing which is of good Report, to avoid every thing that gives offence, and is an occasion of Reproach, though it may in it self be literally lawful.
2. But my Objection lies chiefly another Way, and points at another thing; the hasty and untimely, or unseasonable Marriages which I complain of, and which, I say, are scandalous and criminal, are so, as they discover themselves to be the Effect of a raging, ungoverned Appetite, a furious immodest Gust ofSen-
