- ference of condition makes difference of education, and
difference of education produces differences of habits, sentiments, and inclinations. Thence arise contrary views, and opposite schemes, of which the frequent, though not necessary, consequences, are debates, disgust, alienation, and settled hatred.
Strict friendship is to have the same desires and the same aversions.[1] Whoever is to choose a friend, is to consider first the resemblance or the dissimilitude of tempers. How necessary this caution is to be urged as preparatory to marriage, the misery of those who neglect it sufficiently evinces. To enumerate all the varieties of disposition, to which it may, on this occasion, be convenient to attend, would be a tedious task, but it is at least proper to enforce one precept on this head, a precept which was never yet broken without fatal consequences, Let the religion of the man and woman be the same. The rancour and hatred, the rage and persecution, with which religious disputes have filled the world, need not to be related; every history can inform us, that no malice is so fierce, so cruel, and implacable, as that which is excited by religious discord. It is to no purpose that they stipulate for the free enjoyment of their own opinion; for how can he be happy, who sees the person most dear to him in a state of dangerous errour, and ignorant of those sacred truths, which are necessary to the approbation of God, and to future felicity? How can he engage not to endeavour to propagate truth, and promote the salvation of those he loves; or if he has been betrayed into such engagements by an ungoverned passion, how can he vindicate himself in the observation of them? The education of children will soon make it necessary to determine, which of the two opinions shall be transmitted to their posterity; and how can either consent to train up in errour and delusion, those from whom they expect the highest satisfactions, and the only comforts of declining life?
- ↑ An observation of Catiline in Sallust.
