unequally yoked together in our religious Principles.

This is a Misfortune of fuch a Nature, that it muft ever the more increafe, by how much the more the Parties really love : For the greater their Affections are, the greater in Confequence must their Afflictions be on each other's Account; and the more Goodness, Piety, and Religion, is in either of them, the more Zeal they purfue their different Persuasions with, the more Mifery, the more real Grief muft either he or she feel at the one's being (as the other thinks) out of a State of Salvation.

This Difference muft appear extremely plain upon a professed Infidel's marrying a religious Chriftian; or, whenever a profelfed Heathen enters into that State with a bigotted Mahometan; or, laftly, when a zealous Turk is joined, by the connubial Rite, to a stubborn Jew: Their Lives then muft, furely, be like tying a dead Body to a live one; or (like the Torments of Mezentius) on whom Death comes by flow Degrees:

Mortua quinetiam jungebat corpora vivis Componens manibufque manus, atque oribus ora.

But

But as thefe Differences are too glaring not to be seen, and too ftriking not to be allowed, by every thinking Perfon: I will wave thefe Distinctions, and only fuppofe Two Believers in the Chriftian Religion marrying together, who only differ in the Mode and Form of their Worship: Two Chrif tians, I fay, who have originally received their Religion from the fame Head, and Statutes from the fame Lawgiver, and who, tho' they tell you they both follow the fame Rock, and that that Rock is Chrift; yet are fo different in their Modes and Formulas (by the Interpofition of human Alterations, or Oral Traditions) that, I am perfuaded, any utter Stranger could hardly conceive any Thing in Reality fo diametrically oppofite, where their appears to be a nominal Sameness.

And as, amongst those who call themfelves Chriftians, and who profefs to believe in the fame Redeemer, there are many Sects who differ little, very little, from each other, and that too only in Non-effentials (in which Cafe a Union can be no Hazard at all) I will fuppofe and confine the Words of St. Paul, Be not unequally yoked together, to that Difference only which fubfifts between a Proteftant of the Church of England, who fhould happen

happen to marry a Wife of the Romish Perfuafion.

Let us fuppofe for a Moment, and reflect on the Confufion which fuch an Alliance muft neceffarily occafion in their Family: How muft it feparate them in their most ferious Acts of Devotion, whilft one is worshipping Pafte or Wood, and the other adoring the invifible God? What Hazards muft their Children run of being erroneoufly educated, when the weaker Veffel only, perhaps, has the Care of them, and fhe too bigotted through Ignorance, and the Prejudice of that Education which her deluding Priests have abetted her in, and whofe Zeal, though great, is not according to Knowledge, but, perhaps, a furious one (though well meant) which, in religious Matters, is always made the Support of a bad Caufe, and too often of a good one (which would be much better fupported by the calmeft Reafonings) as Truth is powerful, and will prevail.

I am the more induced to fix on the Inter-marriage of a Papift and Proteftant, as my Thoughts have been pretty much heretofore engaged by the Subject of the following Letter, from my Father to my Brother (whofe Executors fent it me after his Death) who was exactly in this Situation.

He

He married a Lady, who was a Papist, and who went hence to the very Place where he was; which Marriage he having acquainted his Friends of here, occafioned the following Letter to be wrote him by his Father; which I, having thus prefaced, fhall fend into the World (as all the Parties are dead) in Hopes hereby to fupport the Caufe of Religion and Virtue, to make Popery, diabolical Popery, appear in its proper Deformity; and the Proteftant Religion, with all its native Purity, with all its rational Ornaments, and its every real Beauty.

I do not claim it as my own any otherwife, than that of my being its Midwife, to bring it into Light, and that of its Nurfe to drefs (that is, modernife) it, fince it came into my Hands, in a Manner fitter, as I humbly conceive, for publick View, than whilft it was intermixed with many other Family Affairs, which the World has nothing to do with.

One Piece of fecret History however (relative hereto) which I myfelf knew, is, I think, neceffary to be mentioned here by Way of Introduction, as a Hint, if not an Example, to others; which is, “That "the Two Perfons herein mentioned, at

"Mar

PREFACE.

Marriage made an Agreement, that they would never (after Marriage) talk of Religion, nor ever let it be the Subject of Converfation, for fear the Heat of Bigotry fhould prove a ftronger Fire than the warmeft Affection.-This was ftrictly kept up to by both (as it was mutually agreed between them, that their Children fhould be fent over to E gland, and educated Proteftants).

"The Hufband, as was natural, was long uneafy and miferable at the frequent Vifits of Popish Emiffaries, Priests, &c. and yet kept to the Letter of his Word strictly, and only used now and then to drop Papers about the House (in order that he might pick them up) containing Remonftrances of, and (to a rational thinking Mind) Confutations to, of many of the wicked Doctrines of the Church of Rome, and the most material Matters of Difference between us and them.

"She (equally uneafy and diffatisfied, after having picked feveral of them up) broke the Ice first, and begun first to ftart religious Topics in Conversation: He readily met her half-yielding, halfinquiring Mind, and, for her Ufe, wrote a little Tract on Tranfubftantiation;

"the