upon insolence, cruelty, and oppression. Thus marriage appears to differ from friendship chiefly in the degree of its efficacy, and the authority of its institution. It was appointed by God himself, as necessary to happiness, even in a state of innocence; and the relation produced by it was declared more powerful than that of birth, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife." But as, notwithstanding its conformity to human nature, it sometimes fails to produce the effects intended, it is necessary to inquire,
Secondly: By what means the end of marriage is to be attained.
As it appears, by examining the natural system of the universe, that the greatest and smallest bodies are invested with the same properties, and moved by the same laws; so a survey of the moral world will inform us, that greater or less societies are to be made happy by the same means, and that, however relations may be varied, or circumstances changed, virtue, and virtue alone, is the parent of felicity. We can only, in whatsoever state we may be placed, secure ourselves from disquiet and from misery, by a resolute attention to truth and reason. Without this, it is in vain that a man chooses a friend, or cleaves to a wife. If passion be suffered to prevail over right, and the duties of our state be broken through, or neglected, for the sake of gratifying our anger, our pride, or our revenge; the union of hearts will quickly be dissolved, and kindness will give way to resentment and aversion.
The duties, by the practice of which a married life is to be made happy, are the same with those of friendship, but exalted to higher perfection. Love must be more ardent, and confidence without limits. It is, therefore, necessary on each part to deserve that confidence by the most unshaken fidelity, and to preserve their love unextinguished by continual acts of tenderness; not only to detest all real, but seeming offences; and to avoid suspicion and guilt, with almost equal solicitude.
But since the frailty of our nature is such, that we can-
