# A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed/Chapter 12

CHAP. XII.
Of a Husband knowing his Wife after Conception, or after she is known to be with Child. Of the Reasonableness and of the Lawfulness of it. And whether this may not come under the just Denomination of Matrimonial Whoredom.
S the Procreation of Children is the only, or at least the chief Reason of Matrimony; so when the Woman has once conceived, it is the Opinion of the learned and modest World, her Husband ought to know her no more till she has brought forth, and is delivered of her Burthen.
Some will have this be called a rigid Law; that there is nothing in the Laws of God to direct such a Restraint, and that therefore 'tis what the Text calls binding heavy Burthens; like the Pharisees imposing Severities on others, which they would not be bound by themselves; and, as the same Text hints, would not touch them with one of their Fingers, that is to say, would not observe, or be under the Obligation of ​those Laws which they preached up the Necessity and Duty of to the People.
The Question before me, at present, is not who does, or does not obey and observe the Rules of Modesty, which we lay open to be their Duty, but whether those Rules are just, and such as ought to be observed, yea or no? If they who dictate Laws do not obey the same Laws, be that double Guilt to themselves, and be theirs the Repentance; the Debt is no less a Debt for its not being paid, but 'tis doubly a Debt upon those that instruct others to pay it. However, that's a Subject to be entered upon by it self, our present Business is to speak of the Thing as it lies before us.
The Article I have now mentioned, is not so much a Rule of Decency, as it is a Law of Nature, and the Obligation to it is therefore back'd with a superior Authority: It is not founded in Custom and Habit; it is not the Effect of the Curse, or brought in as Modesty is, as the Fruit of the Fall. Shame and Blushing may be the Consequence of Sin; but the Seasons, and the Laws of Generation, are the Offspring of Nature; the great Parent of Life is the director and guide of Life, and has appointed the Laws of it as a general Head of Constitutions, by which all the Creatures are directed, and generally speaking, all the Creatures are willingly, because naturally satisfied with those Constitutions, and freely obey them.
The Brutes obey the Laws of Nature; 'tis not a submission, not a subjection, but a meer Consequence of their Life; and 'tis the manner in which their natural Powers are directed; 'tis the Channel in which they flow; ​they know their Seasons, and they follow as Nature leads; chaste and reserved when the Streams of Nature abate, hot and furious when the Animal Spirits return; in a word, they come when Nature calls, and not before.
But Man! ungoverned Man! neither influenced by the Laws of God, or of Nature, gives himself a loose to his corrupted Desires, and subjects Nature, Reason, and even Religion it self, to his Appetite; in short, to a corrupted and depraved Appetite, a furious outrageous Gust; his Will governs his Understanding, and his Vice governs his Will; the brutal Part tyrannizes over the Man, and his Reason is over-ruled by his Sense.
It is observed of the Deer, that whereas it is a mild, quiet, gentle Creature; tame, even by its own Disposition, pleasant and inoffensive, and this through almost all the Seasons of the Year, yet, in its Season, that is what they call its Rutting-time, they are the most furious of all Creatures; and though they do not, like the ravenous and voracous Kinds, such as the Lyon or Bear, fall upon other Creatures for their Food, and to satisfy their Hunger, which, as is observed, is a Reason for their being so dangerous: Yet, on the other hand, the Stag, or the Buck, at that particular time, flies upon Man or Beast, and will kill and trample under its Feet whatever comes near him, or, at least, offers to come near its Female.
No Park-Keepers, Rangers of Forests, or others, how bold and daring, or however familiar among them, will dare to come near them in their Rutting-time, unless very well armed and attended; that is, with Dogs and Guns; ​even the Dogs themselves, though they are their Terror at another time, except it be the whole Pack together, will not meddle with them if they can help it.
Naturalists tell us, that the Blood of the Creature at that time, is boiling hot; and though it be not in a Fever, which, they say, in a Dog is Madness; or in Cats, and some other Creatures, because it does not lie in the Head, as it does in Dogs, and such other Creatures as are subject to Madness, yet that the Spirits are in as high a ferment in these, as those are.
Be that as it will, 'tis certain this is the Work of Nature, not a Disease upon Nature; and when the End, which is Generation and Propagation of the Kind, is answered; when the Season is over, the Creature returns to its natural calm and quiet; to a Disposition familiar and domestick; will come up to the Keeper, feed out of his hand, and be as tame again as before.
This fury of the Blood, however raging in the Buck, I say abates with the Season, and he returns to be the same gentle pleasant Creature he was before. But it is not so with the Man; when the fury of his Appetite, prompted by the youth of his Spirit, rises to a highth a little more than common, it continues there; 'tis not slacked by the Evacuations natural to the Case, but he continues a Madman still, and knows no Bounds.
In vain is Reason given him, and intended by the Giver to be the guide and the governer of his Life; to be his Director, and to command his Passions and Affections; his Appetite getting once the government, like a hard-​mouth'd Horse, he feels no Curb, knows no Restraint, and is guided by no Reins but those of his enraged Will.
I can describe the Article I am upon by no Mediums but those of Simily and Allegory. Decency forbids me speaking plainer than this. The Man is a Fury, and knows no limits to the Rage of his Inclination, but, pushed on by the Heat of ungoverned Nature, and supposing an unlimited Liberty is given him by the Marriage-Licence, which, by the way, is a mistake, he acts all the immodest Things imaginable with a suggested Impunity.
Hence Sodomy it self has been not only acted, but even justify'd in the Marriage-Bed; and indeed, one may be expected as well as the other; for why may we not look for one unnatural Excess, as well as another.
The Turks, 'tis a little hard I must be forced to leave the Practice of Christians, and go look among the Turks and Infidels for Examples of Modesty and Decency, but so it is; the Turks, I say, have brought this very Offence which I complain of, under the Government of their Laws; and, as I said before, it is remarkable, and a Pattern for Christians, that they try those Causes in a manner much more awful and grave than we do.
Nor is the Woman under that Restraint, which they are here, where, tho' she is perhaps grosly injured, she cannot do her self Justice, because Modesty forbids her Tongue expressing the Particulars, and describing the Fact. But there, if any unlawful Violence is offered to a Woman by her Husband, under the Liberties of the Marriage-Bed, and she finds her self so ​aggrieved, as that she is obliged to seek redress, the proceeds thus:
1. She goes to the proper Officer, and demands a Summons for her Husband to appear before the Grand Vizier, to answer to her Complaint.
2. When he appears, and she is call'd in to justify her Charge, she says not a Word; nor is her Face, unveiled till she comes to what we call taking her Oath: But then, unveiling her Face, the stoops down, takes off her Slipper in the Face of the Court, and holds it up to the Judge (the Grand Vizier) turning it the wrong Side upward.
This is enough to the Court, who understand her distinctly, namely, that the swears upon the Alchoran that her Husband offers unnatural Violences to her, and that the cannot live with him upon that Account. She needs say no more; but upon this Process she obtains a Divorce against him, unless he can do one or both of the following Things:
1. Clear himself of the Charge; or,
2. Give sufficient Security for not offering the like to her again.
There is no need to demand a farther Explanation of these Things, or to ask me, what is meant by offering unnatural Violences to a Wife? Those Questions aim evidently at what I have from the Beginning protested against; and any just and modest Reader will understand what I mean by that.
​It is enough to tell you, that the very Thing I complain of in the Head of this Chapter is one of them: It is enough, that the Woman has conceived, and is with Child. What can be desired of her more, is, in the Language of Mahometan Modesty, a Violence, nay, an unnatural Violence; and the Woman complains of it as highly injurious.
The Woman has indeed a strong and unanswerable Argument against the Man in case of this Complaint, which, 'tis true, we cannot plead here; namely, that she holds up two, or three Sticks, which are given her by the Officers, intimating, that her Husband can plead no Necessity for his using her in that manner, for that he has one, two or three Wives besides her, according to the Number of Sticks which she exposes, or holds up, and that therefore he ought to let her alone to go on in her Pregnancy, that he may bring forth a Man Child without danger of Miscarriage, which, 'tis suggested, might otherwise happen to her by that Violence.
I very much doubt this will be called a new Doctrine here, and I have been told already (by a Man of Modesty too) upon reading it in the Manuscript, that I shall never persuade Christians to believe it Criminal, whatever the Turks may do. But why should I suspect this, where, as I said before, it is not the Law of Matrimony, or the Law of Turks and Pagans that I am mentioning, but the Law of Nature; though Custom may be argued to be a Law, or as a Law, and that in many Things. Custom is a Tyrant; Nature is a just and limited Government. Custom is Anarchy and Confusion; ​Nature is a regulated Monarchy, and a well-established Constitution.
But, to go farther; the Law I am speaking of, is Nature, supported by Reason; or, if you please, Reason supported by Nature. Reason thinks it just to follow where Nature leads, and where there is no just and rational Objection against her Dictates, because Nature is certainly judge of her own Constitutions, and best knows her own Actings; her Influences run in secret Channels, which no Force ought to obstruct, and, when they do not swell beyond Bounds, ought not to be check'd and stop'd up.
There are many Arguments in Philosophy, as well as in Medicine or Physick, why the Course of Nature should not be obstructed and interrupted; and except where her Exorbitances seem to break out into Offence, she ought not to be restrained, and even there but gently and with good Reason, and in its proper Time.
But Custom pretends to govern Nature with a kind of absolute Dominion, and to tyrannize over all the Laws of Reason and of Nature too.
Now if Custom has set up a vitious Practice, in contradiction to Nature and Reason too, shall this be a received Law among us, who pretend to know and practise so well? Besides, as the Devil said to the Sons of Sceva, Nature we know, Reason we know, but who are you? You, Custom, you are an Invader and an Usur​per; an Invader of Nature, and an Usurper of the Throne of Reason, that sets up for a Judge of Convenience, and a Judge of Right and Wrong, to which you have no more Claim than you have to judge of Truth and Religion.
In all such Cases, it is but a just Enquiry to make here, What is this Custom derived from? And I am sure, in this Case, it must be answered, this Custom is begun in Crime; it is derived from an Offence; and, as is the Tree, such is the Fruit, offensive; for this Evil Tree cannot bring forth good Fruit; it derives from vitiated and corrupt Affections, heated Blood, and debauch'd suppress'd Reason.
Do Men gather Grapes of these Thorns? Can good come out of this Evil? Corrupt Appetite, unrestrained Will, break out in corrupt Actions, and continued in, grow up to corrupt Habits, and this we call Custom; when it is grown up to that Name, Custom, it immediately begins to Tyrannize, and make it self an Excuse for its own Errors. In a word, Men go on in a Custom, because it is a Custom; so it gets Years on its Side, and then 'tis called an old Custom, an antient Custom, which adds Veneration to it, and, at last, an immemorial Custom, or, as we vulgarly express it, a Custom, Time out of mind; which is sufficient to make a Law of it.
This Corruption usurped upon Nature, and, turned into Custom, is the Thing we have to combat with in the Article before us, in which we have this lawful Plea to bring against it; (viz.) That Custom in Crime is just as much a Defence for it, as Antiquity, in Error, and is indeed the same thing; and so, in the Case ​before me; for a Man to say, I have always done so, you startle me a little, 'tis true, I did not examine into the thing, but I never made any hesitation about it; 'tis a Custom, and, I believe, every Body does it as well as we; and therefore I cannot think 'tis a Crime; you must preach it down in general; when it comes to be chang'd by other People, I'll think of it, but, I believe, every Body does so, as well as I.
These are really dangerous, as well as unjust Arguings, and the more so, because they are too true, and too real. But what is then to be done? Must Custom, founded upon the most scandalous Mistake, take Place? It was, in its very original, an Encroachment upon Nature, upon Modesty, and upon Temperance, and shall we plead its Antiquity, which is so far from an Excuse, that it is an addition to its Crime; this is as if a convicted Highwaymen should plead for Mercy, because he had been forty Years in the Trade, an old Offender, and long practis'd in the Crime.
If the Custom is wicked; if it is, in its original, a Treason against Virtue, and an Encroachment upon Nature, will any Man plead for the Practice, because their Ancestors were guilty of it before them.
There is indeed a happy Article in this Argument, (viz.) that there is not one Word of Excuse for it; but this foolish Plea of its being a Custom; all other Arguments are against it; 'tis evidently a Pollution in Nature, a Scandal to its Purity, to its Virtue, to its Moderation, and to all that can be called Prudent and Wise.
​Procreation of the Species, and the Generation of Mankind, is the just End of Matrimony; 'tis express'd so in the Office of Matrimony, and in the sacred Text, in many Places; Now when the Woman is with Child, the End of Matrimony is answered; the Demand is at an End till she is light again (as the Women call it). Some would fain plead a progressive Conception, and that there is a Supply wanting to compleat the Formation of the Fœtus, and a great deal more of that Kind.
But this is evidently a Mistake, and the contrary is manifest; the Work of Conception is hit off at once; the Materials being furnished, Nature being set on Work, all the forming Parts are engaged together; they may, indeed, be hindered and interrupted in their Operation by future Aggressions, and by the very Offence which I complain of; but that any addition can be made to the Work of Nature, especially in the manner, and at the distance of Time that we speak of, is grosly absurd, and contrary to Nature.
The limitation of Time when, as I say, the Man should know his Wife no more, is plac'd at so convenient a distance, as that of her being known to be with Child. If there were any such Thing as a second Conception, or additions to the Work of Conception, auxiliar to Nature; I say, if there were any such thing, as I can by no means grant, tho' I do not dispute here; yet 'tis evident it must be at or about the Beginning of the Conception, not at four or five Months distance of Time, for then a Woman might go with two or more Children at once, and bring them forth four or five Months after one another; nay, a Woman might be ​always Conceiving, always Breeding, and always Bearing or Bringing forth.
Whether must these gross Ideas lead us? And into what Absurdities must we run in our Thoughts of them? Let those that can conceive thus of such Matters, enter into a Decicision of the Controversy; I think, our present Subject is no farther concerned to answer them, than only to appeal to Reason and Experience, and to all the learned Anatomists and Accouchers, to judge of it.
I observe, when I hint the Modesty of Mahometan Nations, and other People, who, as I have said, abstain from their Wives as soon as they have Conceived, or, to put it right, as soon as they know they are with Child; I am answered with a kind of eagerness, that it is easy to them, because having Plurality of Women, or being allowed as many Wives as they will, they can lay by one, and take another as they please; so that they are never without a Wife; but as soon as one is with Child, she withdraws to her Apartment, and he knows her no more. But then he calls another to his Bed; and as she may continue four or five Months before he can be sure she is with Child, by that time the first is sure to be delivered, and be ready for his Bed again; and so of all the Wives in their Turn. And thus the Man is never without a Woman for his Convenience.
If this be so, all that can be said for it is, that this is a kind of Argument in favour of Poligamy, that is to say, that we make life of it as such. But the Turks are very far from giving this as a Reason for their Poligamy: The Reason of that Practice is taken from the ​Custom of the Patriarchs, and is made a Part of Mahomet's Law; and if they were not so allowed the use of many Women promiscuously, it is certain they would still abstain from their Wives, during the time of their being with Child.
It is looked upon as a preposterous Thing, a Pollution and Impurity; nay, they take it to be nauseous and unnatural; the sober Men among them speak of it with detestation, and upbraid the Christians with it as acting more than Beastial, for that very few of the brute Creatures practise it; and, if you consider it with exactness, you will not find any of the Brutes that will admit, much less seek the Conjunction of their Sexes after Conception: However eager when Nature prompted, and however loud the Female calls the Male, yet, after the Fire of Nature is quenched, she fights him, and flies at him if he attacks her.
It would be an unpleasant Task, and unsuitable to the just Restraint which I have put upon my self in the first Undertaking of this difficult Work, if I should pretend to enter here into a Philosophical or Anatomical Description of the Reason and Nature of the brutal Appetites; their Seasons, their Conduct in them, and their punctual observing the Laws of Nature in the various Circumstances of those Seasons; their Conception; their bringing forth their young, their suckling and nourishing them afterwards; how regular, how exact, and how punctual the Creatures are to those Seasons; and how modest and unconcerned with one another when those Seasons are past, or in the due Intervals of them.
​I say, it would be an improper Search under the Limitations which I am otherwise bound by; the Enquiry would be very improving, critical and curious; and such a Thing may not be unprofitable in Surgery and Anatomy: But, at present, our Subject points another Way; and I am rather discoursing the Morality, as well as the Modesty of it, the rational, not physical Foundation of it, and searching into the Reason why we give our selves such Liberties which the Savages, and undirected Part of Mankind, do not take.
As to the weak Excuse, that the Mahometan and Pagan Nations have a Plurality of Women, so that they supply Nature's demands another Way, 'tis a most scandalous Confession, that the vitious Part of the Man is the only occasion of the Practice; and that this is done, not that it is supposed to be right, but because the Power of the Vice prevails, and the Appetite rules the Man, the Reason, and Nature is subjected to Desire, and the pure Flame is overborn by the impure eruption of Salt and Sulphur.
And where's the Christian all this while? Where are the necessary Mortifications of a holy Life? Where do such mortify the Deeds of the Body? Rom. viii. 13. How have they crucified the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts? Gal. v. 24.
Shall Christians, that pretend to walk by the pure Pattern of their Saviour and his Apostles, and by the perfect Rule of the Scripture, at the same time plead a necessity of Polluting themselves, and that in a filthy and loathsome manner; a manner which they cannot speak of without Blushes; shall these plead a supply of the ​Demands of Nature, and a necessity for want of a Plurality of Women?
How ought such rather to remember, that they are Christians, and that the double Obligation lies upon them to abstain from such Things, by how much they pretend to a greater Assistance in their Mortifications from superior and invisible Helps of Religion? How do we see the Clergy of the Roman Church devote themselves to a perpetual Celibacy, and enter into solemn Vows of Chastity, and perform them too; for tho' some may offend, we cannot, with common Justice, charge it upon the whole Body of the Clergy, and of the Religious People?
And shall Protestants only pretend to a necessity of Crime, and that they cannot restrain themselves from secret Lewdness, or keep themselves from shameful Pollutions, but that they must allow themselves to act against Nature, and against Virtue, and even against the Stomach? This is the grossest Piece of confess'd Frailty that one can meet with any where, and nothing that I know in Story can come up to it.
As to the Abstinence of those who, in some Countries, are allowed a Plurality of Wives, we are assured that some, yea, many of them, after having had the Knowledge of one of their Women, they knew her no more, till they have an Assurance that she has not conceived, and that she is not with Child. The Grand Seignior, 'tis certain, acts thus among the Ladies of the Seraglio; and, if we may believe some who pretend to know, lives a much more temperate Life, and acts with a great deal more Moderation among three or four hundred Ladies, all at ​his Command, than the Gentlemen I am speaking of do, with one Wife, and no more.
In a word; among those People, for a Man to know a Woman after she was already with Child, would be detestable, it would be an abomination to them; the Woman would refuse it with as much Resolution as she would a Ravisher, and the Man must be abandoned to all that was counted brutish and unclean, that should offer it.
Whether it be so among us, or how it is received and practised among us Christians, I leave to the general Opinion, and to private Experience, not meddling with that Part, as too gross for me; though I might give Examples too notorious, from the Mouths of our flagrant Friends of the unblushing Club at Tony's ———, and from the Testimony and Confession of abundance of the modest Society at ———'s, besides some of the Ladies who have intermeddled so lately, I do not say so decently, in the Affair, as to be partly the occasion of this very Chapter, and of all the Parts of it; of whom my wonderful Concern for their Fame, gives me leave to say no more. It were to be wished, that they would, for the future, be as careful of their own Characters, as I am.
I am sorry, after all I have said upon this filthy Subject, to observe, that here are yet no want of Advocates to defend the Practice; though I must add, that there is a perfect sterility of Argument, or, at least, reasonable Arguments, to support their Defence of it.
What they say amounts to so little, and that little is so scandalous in its Nature, and ​sits so ill upon the Tongues of Men of Virtue and Moderation, much less Men of Christianity and Religion, that I blush for them, and conceal it. Nothing requires a more just and severe Censure, except it be the Action they would defend by it.
To say they cannot refrain, is to confess a frailty which Papists and Popish Votaries despise, and pretend to make slight of, nay, which Pagans and Mahometans overcome by the Power of their Religion. The Nuns dedicated to Christ, and to such and such Saints, undertake to preserve an entire Chastity; and the Religious Orders of Monks and Friars do the same; the Clergy universally make no Difficulty of it, and this for the length of their whole Lives. And shall Protestants not be ashamed to say they cannot ——— for so little a Time, and so just an Occasion? 'Tis a most shameful Necessity they are under; if the Fact be true, they ought, as I said in another Case, take Physick, use Medicine, and strive by justifiable Methods, to abate the Acrimony of their Blood, bringing themselves into a Rule or Regimen of Diet, that they may remove the Cause, and enable them to command their raging Desires, by weakening the Desire it self.
Nothing is more certain, than that luxurious living, eating and drinking, what we call rich Diet, high Sauces, strong Wines, and other Incentives, are great Occasions of Vice; are Provocatives, and Raisers of other and more scandalous Appetites; the Blood is heated and fired, and the Spirits are inflamed; Nature is elevated and prompted, and then we Plead and Argue what we ought to be ashamed so much ​to name, and would Blush to do it it another time.
This Luxury is not only a Sin in its own Nature, but it is a strong Motive to other Sins; 'tis the Devil at the Elbow, prompting and exciting, and we ought to avoid the Cause as we would obey the Scripture, which says, Flee youthful Lusts; the Reason is given in the very same Verse, for they War against the Soul; they raise a Tumult in the Man, they arm his Vices against his Reason, and procure him Enemies, even from within, that are too hard for him; in short, they raise the Devil, which he cannot lay.
It is an undeniable Maxim, that a luxurious Appetite in eating and drinking raises an ungoverned Appetite in other Pleasures; Nature obeys its own Laws: Great takings in must have great goings out; gross feeding, and strong rich taking in of Diet, must have Evacuations in proportion; if there is an Acrimony in the Blood, there is a physical Application necessary in its Course; great Digestures must have strong Emeticks; there must be Evacuations of one Sort or other.
Now a vitiated Appetite of one kind is the Effect of a vitiated gorging the Appetite on the other; and the gross feeding occasions gross Desires; on the other hand, to restrain and limit the Appetite in eating and drinking, is the only Way to get a compleat Victory over our own Corruption.
A mortified Mind therefore, a Soul resolv'd not to be overcome, or be drawn aside of its own Lusts, and enticed, but resolved to mortify the Flesh, with its Affections and Lusts, would restrain it self voluntarily, and subdue all the Oc​casions of the Crime. Certainly high feeding is the Original of high Vices, and brings the worst Inconveniences of this kind upon the Man. Hence Fastings were introduced in the primitive Churches, and Mortifications, in order to bring under the Body, and bring the Flesh into Subjection, and they are practis'd among the most devout of the Popish Recluses to this time, in order to enable them to restrain natural Inclination, and they do find them effectual; the abating the quantity of Animal Food, the pungent Particles of which sharpen the Blood, press upon the Nerves, and give an ungoverned Vigour to the Spirits, is certainly the Way, and an effectual Way to reduce the Corruptions to the Government both of Reason and Religion.
If this Devil cannot be cast out but by Prayer and Fasting, then Prayer and Fasting must be practis'd; for the Evil Spirit must be cast out, and the strong Man must be dispossess'd.
Nor is it necessary upon a religious Account only, and to reduce us to the Rank of Christians; but indeed, 'tis necessary in the Case before us, to bring us to a due Exercise of our Reason, and to act like Men, that we may not live like human Beasts, without all Government, and without any Subjection to the Dominion of our Reason.
This then is the true Way to take off that pitious Plea, (viz.) That they cannot restrain themselves. To act reasonably would be to restrain our selves; and those that really cannot so restrain themselves, grant, that they have not the exercise of their Reason. If due Mortifications were practised, the difficulty of restraining themselves would be taken away; in ​the particular Case I am speaking of, and the Inclination would not be able to conquer the Aversion; for there must certainly be something shocking to Nature in the Thing it self; and there wants nothing but a decay of the Ferment in the Blood to make the Victory easy, and to bring the Enemy to be subdued.
And to add to this Physical Resolution the Methods of Diet, why should not both Men and Women tie themselves by solemn Vows, Promises and religious Resolutions, to keep themselves within Bounds? Perhaps then they would assist one another in the Performance. Why do not Protestants, as well as Papists, enter into Vows of Continence? No doubt if they would be assistant to one another to break those Charms of Hell, those Filtres and Bewitchings, which are certainly the Attacks of the Devil, they might break them.
Did they do this, they would fortify one another in the Ways of Virtue, and it would not be so easy to be drawn into Crime; a three-fold Cord is not easily broken, and here is a threefold Help: As, (1.) A Conviction that you ought to perform it. (2.) A solemn Vow to engage the Performance. And, (3.) Mutual Assistance both in the Vow and in the Resolution, to pay it.
I would hope, that this vile Practice is carried on among us, rather for want of knowing how offensive it is, than for want of Power to resolve a Performance, and to engage the Mind in it. Custom has made the Vice, however odious in it self, so natural to us, that there are thousands of People among us at this time, who, if you should ask about it, would ​readily answer with a surprize, I profess I never thought it had been an Offence.
Men go into it eager, without Consideration. Nature gives faint checks to the Mind; for even Nature, left entirely to it self, would yet have some Reluctance, and would a little recoil at the unnatural Action. But the Men are us'd to it; there is no express Law against it; they see no notice taken of it in the Scripture, or in any subsequent Institutions; they are under no Restraints of that kind; and where should they then be restrained, and by what?
Ignorance then of the nature of the Offence, renders the Man in danger of committing it. The Custom of the Country he lives in is a terrible Plea, and he is too apt to cleave to it, and venture upon the Custom; he knows no Law against it, and therefore sees no Crime, no Breach of any Law in the committing it.
How weak is corrupted Nature not to see the Scandal of so really odious and filthy a Practice? And how far is this Ignorance from being an Excuse? It is indeed a Sin of Ignorance, but then it is a criminal Ignorance too, and so it makes no excuse for, but aggravates the Charge, as Murther committed in Drunkenness is an aggravated Murther.
To be ignorant of a thing that Nature dictates, is shutting the Eyes against natural Light; resisting the most powerful Motive that can be found opposing it. Why do not such People open their Eyes? Nature assists them to do it; but the debauched Inclination will fully close them; so that the Ignorance is really as criminal as the Action.
​Saint Francis, if you will believe the Writers of his History, was particularly persecuted with wicked and raging Inclinations to Women; and the Devil, who, by the way, knows how to prompt us in that particular Article, where Nature is weakest and most inclined to yield, often laid Snares for him, and would appear to him in the shape of a beautiful Lady, or in the appearance of lewd and indecent Gestures. But to resist him, and keep down the rebelling Vice in his Blood, he would fall upon his Body, with the Scourge and the Discipline. Ha! Brother Ass, says he, that was the best Title he could give his Carkass, do you want Correction? Is your Blood so hot still? Then he would fast forty Hours, and all the while whip and tear himself with a Wire Scourge, till he made the Blood come.
Be the History true or not, the Moral is good. The unmortified pampered Carkass is the real Fund of all these raging, tyrannizing Inclinations, which we make our simple Excuses for doing sordid Things, and though I do not prescribe Disciplines and Fastings, by way of meritorious Mortification in this Case, as the Papists do; yet I must tell my guilty Reader, they are absolutely necessary in the Case, to reduce the (Carkass) Body into a due Subjection to (the Soul) Reason; and he that cannot otherwise conquer an outrageous Appetite, ought, and must use the proper Methods to reduce it, the Cause must be taken away that the Effect may cease.
A Man who not only has a rational Soul, but has the Powers and Faculties of it, (viz.) His Understanding and Will in their due Exercise, should be ashamed to say, he cannot re​strain this or that corrupt Affection; the Affections are certainly regimented in a subordinate Station in the Soul, and are placed in subjection to the Understanding. He that gives them leave to advance beyond their Appointment, suffers his Soul to be hurry'd down the Stream of the Affections, is so far divested of himself, and out of his own Government, and ought to use rational Means to recover the Exercise of his Reason, and to give those upstart tumultuous Things, called the Affections, a due and severe Check.
This Doctrine of Discipline and Mortification, how much soever it may look like Popery, is notwithstanding a most absolutely necessary thing in the Life of a Man of Sense; and tho' I am not talking of it here as a religious Exercise, at least not in the Manner and on the Principle of Merit, as the Papists practise it; yet I must own, 'tis the most effectual Means to answer the End in such Cases as these.
If it be true, that the Affections, which are the grossest Part of the Man, are up in Arms; if this Mob is rais'd in his Soul, for such it is, the Militia must be rais'd to suppress them; Violence must be suppress'd by Violence; the Torrent must be check'd, and the Man be reduced to the Government of himself, and brought into good Order by proper Powers; for as it is (in short) a Tumult in his Soul, and a Rebellion against the just Dominion of his Reason, so he must use the means Nature has put into his hand to quash and suppress the Rebellion, and chain them down like Galley-Slaves to the Oar, to humble and mortify them.
​The Allegory is good; it is the highth of the Animal Spirits which Occasions all the Exorbitances in the Affections, and those Heats are to be abated by Austerities and Discipline. Nature calls for it, whether Religion calls for it or no; it is a Political, as well as a Physical Method; Prudence will direct; and any Physician, if you were honestly to tell him your Case, would take it as a Disease in the Blood, an Inflammation and Fever in the Head, or elsewhere, and would prescribe you just such Physick, such Abstinence, and such Mortifications as I mention, as the best Medicine for it as a Distemper.
I am the longer upon this Subject of Abstinence and Mortification in this Place, because the Pretence in this Article is, the Strength of Inclination is too great; and that we cannot compleat it, tho' it ought rather to be said, will not. Now were it really true, that they could not reduce and conquer the Inclination by the force of ordinary Resolution, then the reducing the Principle of it is the next sure and effectual Method. Water may, if the Quantity be sufficient, conquer and put out a Fire; but removing the Combustibles, taking away the Fewel, is a never-failing Method; the first may do it, but the last must do it. No Fire burns upon it self; that which we call Burning, is nothing but penetrating and dividing the Particles of Matter, if the Matter be removed, there is nothing to separate, nothing to operate upon, and the Fire goes out of course.
The like Plea for Mortifications holds good in most of the other Cases I have mentioned in this Work; for should we trace all the raging ​Excesses which I have touch'd at in the former Part of this Work to their true Original, we should find much of it owing to the Extravagances of our Living in England; I mean, as to eating and drinking. What is the Reason we have so many People die of Fevers here more than in any other Part of the World? and that, every Year or two, we have what we call a new Distemper, which carries off so many, that at those Seasons the Weekly Bills in London rise up to six hundred or seven hundred a Week? Why is the Small-Pox so fatal, and particularly among the Gentry and Persons of Distinction, but because of the Excesses of eating and drinking, in which, as well as in the Nature of what we eat and drink, we go beyond the rest of Mankind?
The same Reason is to be given for other Things, the same Excesses ferment the Blood, raise the Spirits, and produce all the immoderate scandalous Things which I have been complaining of, and which there is so much Reason to complain of among us; in which the Turks and Savages appear to act more like Men of Reason than we do.
Their Way of Living is not so high; their Blood does not boil with the same intemperate Heats, consequently their Abstinence is not so much a Virtue, but I must add too, that our Incontinence is the more a Vice; 'tis a Crime occasioned by a Crime; and we ought to use Temperance first in our Diet, and then we shall, with the more ease, practice Temperance in other Things.
The Crime of Sodom, however unnatural the Vices are which they practised, is laid all upon a Cause, which was of the same Kind with ​ours, Pride and Idleness, and Fulness of Bread. By which I understand, that their lascivious Wickedness proceeded from their luxurious Diet; Sloth and Gluttony enraged their Blood; and they sat upon the high Places to do Evil.
Our fulness of Bread must be acknowledg'd to be a great Assistant to our immoderate Appetite another Way; for this high Feeding gives high Spirits, and these prompt to all exorbitant Crimes. Excess of the Animal Spirits fill and sire the Blood, and when those heats rage, then the Head contrives Wickedness. I need not speak it plainer, the Case is easily understood. "Nothing can bring us to a Life of Moderation in our Pleasures, like a Life of Temperance and Moderation in eating and drinking.
But I come from the Cause to the Crime; and must say a Word or two more to that.
Among all the brutish Circumstances of it, this is one, that 'tis an Action stript of all modest Pretences, all tolerable Excuses, as it is a meer Act of Pollution, so there is not one Word to he said to extenuate it, the Man can only say, that he does it as an Excursion of meer sensuality, or a gratification to the Flesh. There can be no End in it, or Reason for it, that can be so much as named without Blushing. The Woman is with Child, that's supposed. It is known, and the acknowledges it. What then can be said on that Side? The End of the conjugal Act is already answered; Wherefore does he come near her? 'Tis only to satisfy the cravings of his Vice, only to gratify his frailest Part, to please himself, or, as the Scripture says, to fulfil the Lusts of the Flesh.
​This is an End so base, so mean, so absurd, that no Christian Man can plead it in Excuse; and yet, at the same time, 'tis impossible to find any other Excuse for it: In short, it is a meer shameless use of a Woman, to abate the heat of his Spirits, and cool his Blood; 'tis making a Necessary-House of his Wife, and nothing more or less; and that indeed is a sordid Thing, so much as in the suggestion of it; 'tis adding Scandal to the Crime, covering it without a Cover; there's no Excuse can be made for it, no tolerable Name be given to it (that I can find at least) but this of Matrimonial Whoredom, according to my Title.
Let us then think of reforming this scandalous Practice; let us look at it in a due Perspective, in a clear open Light. If any one thing can with Modesty be said in Defence of it, let us hear it; if not, if it is to be only confess'd as a Crime, let it be forsaken as a Crime. What cannot be defended, ought to be reformed: What every one is ashamed to speak for, none should be ashamed to forsake.
I could offer some Examples upon this Subject, but they are of such a course kind, that it is too foul to mention; there's no entring into the Particulars; it would offend the Ears of all those that have the least Pretence to Modesty. Some of our worthy Neighbours will indeed, on this very Score, pass unreproved, and the filthy Circumstances not be animadverted upon, because they cannot be mentioned; but it is so, it cannot be helped, so they must escape.
I have the Honour to converse with some Gentlemen so abstenious, that they are able to clear themselves of this Charge; and 'tis to ​their Honour that I mention it, though, but in general, Sir W——— G———, and his Lady, have treated one another always with such Justice, and with such Reserve in this Case, that as soon as ever the Lady has found her self with Child, she always lodged in Apartments by her self, till she was delivered, and the like at other Seasons; that no Occasion might offer, where there was so much Love, to have any excess.
Nor has this modest Custom been so much a Stranger to our Ancestors, as it seems to have been to us; a Truth not at all to our Advantage; this was, without doubt, the Original of that good Custom among Persons of Quality, and of any tolerable Fortunes, to have separate Apartments, the Gentleman's Lodgings and the Lady's being separate, so that, when Decency required, they went from one another for a while, till proper Times returned, and made Lodging together reasonable again.
It is true, middling Families have not this Convenience, and cannot keep separate Lodgings furnished for one another; it may be said of such indeed, that they have the greater exercise for their Virtue, because they are obliged always to lodge together. But how great soever the Exercise is, and how difficult soever to be put in Practice, still, as it is a Virtue, it ought to be strictly observed; nor, in my Opinion, can any Man be said to live a Life of Virtue that neglects it.
The rest is all Prostitution; nay, 'tis worse, 'tis unnatural, 'tis a kind of lesser Sodomy; for, I doubt not, but Sodom's Sins, the Foundation of which was laid, as I have observed, in high feeding, emphatically express'd in the sacred ​Text by Fulness of Bread, so the Consequences broke out in divers other Excesses, besides that one detestable Crime, which bears the Name and Reproach of the Place to this Day. Their gorged Stomachs discovered themselves, no doubt, in all the Excesses of a provoked Appetite, and an inflamed Blood; and it is so, in like Cases, to this Day.
We have a Testimony of this in all Places, and, I may say, in all Ages of the World: The high Feeders are the high Livers; excess of Wine is described in Scripture to produce excess of Vice, and the Fire of Nature burns in proportion to the Fewel. Hence the Italians, a Nation who revel in all the Varieties of Luxury, such as rich Wines, luscious Fruits, high Sauces, Pickles, Preserves, Sweet-meats, and Perfumes, to an Excess. How do the hellish Fires rage in them? How do they run out to all the Extremes of criminal Riot, even to that Fury of Love, called Jealousy, and this often ending in Blood? How do they dwell in Wantonness and Lasciviousness, and carry it on to all the most unnatural Extremes of the dead Lake it self, and this not only now, but in the Romans Time also it was the like.
At the same time the more moderate feeding Nations round them, are in proportion, less outrageous in their Vice, and whether it be from any Principle of Virtue or no, they are so by the meer Consequence of Things; they live more sparingly, and their Blood is kept lower, not always inflamed (as is the Case in Italy, and other Parts of the World); they are forbid Wine, which to these Northern Climates is the Fewel of outrageous Actions, and leads to innumerable Crimes.
​How easily then is this scandalous Excess to be cured? They have very little regard to Modesty, to the demands of their Reason or of Religion, who will not reduce themselves to a moderate Degree of Heat, in order to mortify such criminal Desires as these; if a little abatement of Wine, or of strong nourishing and rich Diets, and feeding more sparingly, would do it, they must have no desire to live within Bounds, like Christians, and like Men, who will not abate a little at the Trencher, that they may be able to abate in another Place.
Gluttony and Drunkenness are too near a-kin to the Debaucheries of Love, as they may well be stiled, not to be called the Parents of the Vice. If you restrain the Original, you cut off the sequent Crime; if the Springs are cut off, the Streams will soon fail; if the Fountains are stopt, the Rivers will soon be dry; and they that will not suffer so small a Mortification as the denying themselves a little in the excesses of the Table and the Bottle, in order to abate some of the more criminal Excesses in the other Place, loudly tells us, they are in love with the Crime, that they are pleas'd with the Vice; and that it is not that they cannot restrain themselves, but that, delighting in the vile Part, they don't desire to restrain themselves, or to be restrained; that they will not remove the Fewel, lest the Fire should abate: Thus one Excess follows another; a Debauchery of one kind follows the Debauchery of another; the Matrimonial Whoredom follows the Drunkenness and the Gluttony, by the same Necessity, and as naturally as the Consequence follows the Cause; the Influx occasions the Efflux, and the Man is but the ​same; he is a Voluntier in both, a willing Servant to the Devil, and desires not to be delivered from the pleasing necessity.
I am the longer upon it here, as I said before, because indeed 'tis the same thing in all the other wicked things I have mentioned in this Work. Whence comes all the indecent lawful Things we have been talking of, but from this Sin of Sodom, (viz.) Fulness of Bread? while the Stomach is gorged with animal Food, of which no Nation in the World feeds like us; while the Blood is filled with these pungent Particles, and the Veins swelled with animal Spirits, no wonder the seminal Vessels are over full, and summon the Man to a Dismission or Evacuation, even at the Price of his Virtue, of his Conscience, and of his Reason.
Let them that are truly desirous to prevent this unhappy eruption of Consequences, begin in the right Place; abate the first Mischief; let them remove the causing Evil, and the consequent Evil will die of course.
A Mortification of the Palate would be an effectual Reformation upon the Life; by a due Regimen of Diet we might bring our selves to be a reformed regular Nation; and I see no other Way ever to bring it to pass.
We are ruined in our Morals by lawful Things; the Excesses in our lawful Enjoyments make them criminal; even our needful Supplies of Life are the ruin of Life. We not only dig our Graves with our Teeth, by mingling our Diseases with our Food, nourishing Distemper and Life together, but we even eat our Way into Eternity, and damn our Souls with our Teeth; gnawing our Way through the Doors of the Devil's Castle ​with our Teeth. In a word, the Drunkard may be well said to drink himself to the Devil; the nice eating Glutton feeds and fattens himself up for the Devil's Slaughter-house; because one Vice feeds another till they are made ripe for Hell, by the distracted Use of lawful and laudable Things; making lawful and even necessary Things criminal, and sowing the Seeds of Vice in the ordinary Ploughings of meer Nature.
How usefully might we apply this to our particular Friends, of whom so many will strive to Blush, when they read it. A——— L——— Esq; had never been a Whore-master if he had not din'd so often at Puntack's; nor had good and grave Sir L——— W———, visited Tabby R———, by Moon-light, if he had not dwelt so many dark Evenings at Brown's; so he goes from the Bottle to the Bawdy-house; in which the Man may be said only to act Nature, and pursue, as all the World does, the direct Course of Cause and Consequence.
If G——— W——— will cease to make his House a Stews, his Marriage-Bed a Pollution, and bring his modest Wife to a necessity of turning her Slipper the wrong Side upward at him, if he will be able to give a better Excuse for his Matrimonial Whoredom, than that he can't help it; let him cease to eat three Hours together at Breakfast, let him not gorge at Noon till he falls asleep at the Table, or drink at Night till he lies under it; let him read Cornaro of Venice, and live upon two Ounces and five Drams a Day, and half a Pint of Wine in three Days; I'll answer for it, his Wife shall not lock her self up for fear of coming to Bed to a Fury, nor swear the Peace against him to ​get him bound to the Behaviour of a Christian, for fear of being murthered in the lawful Method of Man and Wife.
Madmen by Day will be Madmen by Night; they that have no government of themselves one Way, how should they have it another Way? I expect it will be objected here, that the Nations which I have named, such as the Turks and Moors, though they drink no Wine, and do not feed, as we do, upon Flesh, yet are as wicked and vitious as other People.
That those Nations are vitious, may be true; and having no Laws of Conscience or Religion to restrain them, they are, no doubt, much the worse. But yet I deny one Part, (viz.) that they are so privately wicked, so (lawfully Lewd) as I call it, as we are; they have their many Wives, as they will, but not so much conjugal Lewdness as, I believe, we have; and I have many Reasons to think so.
The Subject of this Chapter is indeed one, but have I not given twenty Instances of Matrimonial Whoredom in the compass of this Work? Is not the common ordinary Course of our married loose Ones, a Series of most scandalous Doings, such and of such a Kind, as the Mahometans and Savages, who have no guide but Nature, no check but the aversions of common Sense, would abhor?
Of the same Nature with this, is that of a Man coming to his Wife after Child-bearing, and before her Body be sufficiently cleansed from its natural Impurities; before the Seasons set apart for her proper Purgations are finished. This is an Article to be lightly touch'd too, because (forsooth) we will not bear to be spoken plainly to, of ​the Things, which we yet are openly and shamelessly guilty of.
This is one of the Breaches Mankind make in their ordinary Practice, not upon the Laws of Decency only, but upon the Law of Nature; for the Separation is evidently directed by the Law of Nature; 'tis dictated from the first Principles of that Knowledge which the most Ignorant are furnished with of themselves.
The Women indeed ought to be the Conservators of this Law; and as they seem to have a kind of absolute Power over themselves during their ordinary Separations, they seem to be the most chargeable with the Breach of it; because they are not altogether so Passive at this time as at another.
If there is a Breach of Modesty here, 'tis on her Side chiefly, and therefore the Reproof is to her, and ought to be so taken; for it is as notorious a Charge upon her, as that of admitting a Man, upon Promise of Matrimony, before it was formed into a Marriage; which indeed, tho' the aggressing was chargeable upon the Man, yet the yielding or consenting which was wholly upon the Woman's Side, and in her Power, plainly makes her chargeable with the Offence, makes it all her own Act and Deed; so it is here; and therefore it is true, that the Crime is her's, and the Reproof is upon her, and upon her only.
The Law of God, in the publick Institution of the Jewish OÉconomy, states this Case with respect to the Woman's Separation after Child-bearing in such a manner, as that tho' the Jewish Constitutions, being abolished, do not seem to be binding to us, yet they are cer​tainly a just Rule for us to state a Christian Regimen or Government from; they are a good Standard to measure Decency and the Laws of good Order by: They were certainly formed upon the most perfect Model of Justice and Equity, perfectly suited to the Nature of the Thing, and are binding in Decency, if they are not absolutely so in Conscience, and under the usual Penalties, as the rest of God's Law at that time was.
Most of the sacred Constitutions of the Jewish State were enjoyn'd upon the severest Penalty, generally of Death; being cut off from the Congregation of the Lord, &c. and amongst those Things to which those Severities were annexed, those which respected Uncleanness, and natural or accidental Pollutions, were some of the chief, such as having the Disease of the Leprosy, Issues of Blood, nay, even eating leavened Bread in the seven Days of the Passover; counterfeiting the sacred Oil and the sacred Perfume, were punished with Death, that Soul was to be cut off, &c. the Reason was, because it was a despising the Legislator. But when he comes to enjoyn the needful Purifications, and the particular Uncleannesses which were to be purg'd by washings and separations, as also for the eating of Blood, the Reasons are given in plain Words; God speaks them himself, I have separated you from other People that ye should be mine, and ye shall be holy unto me; as in Exodus, chap. xii. and Leviticus, chap. xv. and xvii. and several other Places.
Now if these legal Purifications were appointed only that the People might be a more exactly clean and sanctified People, than the other Nations about them, the Reason holds, ​tho' the Sanction of that particular Constitutions is ceas'd, as in other Cases; for example, the Law for the Man who had trespass'd upon his Neighbour, cheated or deceived him, was made to appoint a Sacrifice to attone for the Crime, and restitution for the Trespass; the Crime is still the same, though the manner of making an atonement for it is ceased.
The Uncleanness is the same, whether the Law be in force or no. By the Mosaick Institution, the Woman was to perform her Separation, or, what was then called a Purification, a certain time; upon her bringing forth a Male Child, she performed an exact Quarentine, viz. three and thirty Days, and seven Days; and for a Female Child she was obliged to perform a double Quarentine, namely, sixty and six Days, and fourteen Days, during which time the Man was not to be suffered to come near her, or so much as to touch her, upon the severest Penalties, as above.
Now, not to insist upon the legal Purifications of that strict Law, enjoyned from above, and which had such solid Reasons given for it; yet the Law of Nature, upon which all that Part is originally founded, is the same. You may say, the neglect of it is not a mortal Sin, or that deserves Death. But you cannot say it is not a Pudor, a shameful, an immodest Thing, or that it is not loathsome and odious, even in its own Nature, for the Regulation of clean and unclean, like right and wrong, is still the same, settled and unalterable, as Things established in the Law of Nature, which are not altered by Customs and Habits, whether good or evil.
It is true, that our Usage has reduced these Separations and Purgations of the Sex to a ​Month or thirty Days, which the Law of God had fixed at six Weeks; and has made no difference in the time of the Separation between the Circumstances of a Male or Female Birth; for all which we give physical Reasons, such as generally satisfy our Scruples in thole Affairs; nor is it my Business to dispute here the Reason and Nature of the Alteration, and whether it is sufficiently grounded. Our Physicians and Anatomists are best able to answer for that Part, and, I suppose, can do it.
But even, with all the abatement of Days, and I doubt not 'tis reduced as low as it can be, yet, I say, with that abatement we find it is not observed; our Libertine Age breaks thro' it all, and, if it were a Fortnight, would perhaps do the same, and this is the Thing I complain of; and for want of which Decency, or Duty rather, People of this Age may be justly said to deserve the Censure which a Wife and good Man put lately upon them, namely, that we have not less Holiness than our Ancestors, nor less Honesty, but much more; only that he thought the Holiness and the Honesty of the Days differed, and that some Things would pass now for Holiness and for Honesty with us, which would not pass for such with our Ancestors.
This indeed may alter the Case very much, and the Ages may differ in the Species when they do not differ in the Name of the Things; the Standard of Virtue may alter as the Standard of our Coins frequently do; but the real thing, the Silver, and its intrinsick Rate or Value alters not, 'tis always the same, and ever will be.
​To bring it down to the Case in hand. Virtue and Modesty were Things our Ancestors had to value themselves upon in a particular manner; and indeed they had a great Share of them, such as they might justly value themselves upon. Now we may boast, I hope, of Virtue and Honesty, in Quantity, as much as they, and, I believe, we do talk as loudly of it as ever they did; but whether our Virtue and our Honesty are of as fine a Standard or not, I dare not enter upon a nice enquiry into that Part, for sundry good Reasons, not so fit perhaps to mention, as we might wish they were.
Sometimes I am afraid there is a baser Alloy among us, and that the Species is a little altered (in these Ages of Mirth and good Feeding); I won't venture to say it is not so. But even in the Particular before me, I have been told, our Forefathers were stricter in their adhering to the Laws of Nature than we think our selves obliged to be; that they abhorred the Pollutions that I complain of, and that they left us their Posterity, much a sounder and healthier Generation for that very thing, perhaps, than we may leave those that are to come after us.
It is a very unhappy Case, that these Practices should affect Posterity so much as they say they do, because whether we consider it so much as we might do or not, I cannot doubt but our Children will be touch'd in their Health and Constitution a little, if it be but a little, by the corrupt Practices of this lewd Age. What we bring upon our selves is nothing but to our selves, and we might be apt to say, we alone should suffer for it, and it were well if it were no otherwise.
​But to forfeit for our Posterity, to entail Diseases upon the Blood of our Successors, to send them into the World with aching Heads, rheumatick Joints, entailed Diseases, inflamed Blood, and affected Nerves, and cause them, as we may say, to come Weeping into the World, and go Groaning out of it; this would give a considering Mind a Pang of Remorse, and make us anticipate our Children's Sorrows a little, by sighing for them sometimes before they are born.
Life at best brings Sorrows enough with it, and we need not seem to be concerned lest our Children should not have their share of them; they will bring Evils of that kind enough (and fast enough too) upon themselves; we have no need to send them into time with an Inheritance of crippled Joints, and aching Bones, and take care to give them cause to curse their Fathers and Mothers, as many do every Day.
I make no doubt but the Intemperance and Excesses I have spoken of in this Chapter, have sometimes descended from Line to Line to the third and fourth Generation; and that many of the Miseries of Life are owing to the infected Blood of those that went before them: And let such People reflect seriously upon the Number of Children born into the World in this luxurious, intemperate vitious Age, and in this City in particular, who die in the very Infancy of their Life, who coming into the World loaded with Distempers, the effect of their Parents Intemperance and unnatural Excesses, struggle a few Days with the unequal Burthen of Life, and expire under the Weight of it.
​It is but within a few Days that I have seen Examples of this kind, in Families within the reach of a little enquiry. One has four Children left out of twenty-four; another two out of eighteen, another three out of twenty-two; and so of many more; whereas T——— C———, a Man of Virtue and Temperance, within the reach of my own Acquaintance, has had thirteen Children, and never buried one, but at ninety Years of Age sees them all grown Men and Women, healthy, strong, fruitful, and full of Children of their own.
G——— D———, another antient, grave, and religious Gentleman, had but four Children, his Wife dying young, and himself living single afterwards to a great Age, saw those four, being all Daughters, bring forth just eighty Children, and had at one time One hundred and thirteen of his Children, Grand-Children and Great Grand-Children, dining with him at his Table.
These are some of the Examples of Temperance and Modesty, which assist to a strong Constitution, whose Vigour extended in the Course of Nature, multiplies much more than the Heats of an outrageous Flame, and leaves a Tincture of Health and vigorous Spirits upon their Posterity; whereas a tainted Soul, corrupting the Mass of Blood with Vice and Lewdness, brings a Generation of diseased and distempered Animals, fit to be sent to an Hospital, Cradle and all, and calling for Physicians, and the help of Art, even before they can be fairly said to live.
It is true, I do not place this all to the Account of the two particular Branches of Intemperance and Excess only, which are mentioned ​in this Chapter, but to the whole practice of immodest and indecent Actions, the product of extravagant Desires, mentioned in the Chapters foregoing; for being now at the close of the Account, (and 'tis time I were, for it is a black Account indeed) the Application refers to the whole, (viz.) the general Immodesty of the Day, as practised among married People, and pleaded for, vindicated and defended, under the cover and protection of the sacred Office, and under the pretence of being lawful, because within the Bounds of Matrimony.
Nor do I pretend that I have yet gone through all the Branches of this dirty Practice; the Wickedness is dispersed among a vast variety of Causes and Circumstances, as it is among abundance of People; not a Back-door, but the corrupt Blood, the Offspring of a corrupt Race sally out at, and which Way soever you look, you may see daily new Indecencies, not only acted but contrived, studied and found out, in order to gratify the Vice, and lay us open to the Scourge of the Satyr.
It is time to combat an Evil that is thus growing upon us, and that encroaches under the Protection of so many specious and plausible Outsides: One pleads Nature, another Law, another Necessity, all of them Things that have their additional Pretences as hard to answer as the Offenders pretend they are to resist. It is not easie to persuade them that they offend; and if they seem to be convinced that they do, 'tis yet with such Extenuations, such Excuses, and such apparent Inclinations to continue the Practice, that there is scarce room to hope for any Amendment.
​Cou'd we but conquer the avow'd open defending these Practices, it would be a great Point gain'd; Men would cease to insist upon the Justification of it, or to boast in the Facts: Could we but persuade them not to publish their own Shame, but to cease valuing themselves upon what they ought to blush at, this would give some room to hope for a Reformation of the Practice; we might promise our selves, that what they were once ashamed of they might perhaps, in time, think of reforming; at least, it wou'd be a Step towards it. But how shall we suppose L——— G———, of ———shire, Esq; or his eminent Neighbour the J———ce, should quit the Crimes which they meet without fail twice a Week to contemplate of, committing them over again in Imagination, least they should not be guilty enough, and forming an accumulated Guilt in their Souls, a Guilt which few People are wicked enough to understand, (viz.) once in the Fact, and again in the Reflection; instead of Repentance, committing the Crime again in the Mind, by thinking it over with Delight.
These are Proficients in the Art of Sinning, that knowing how to offend in the most exquisite manner, are so far from Repentance, that, if they have any regret at all, it is that they know not how to be wickeder than they are, but rejoyce over the Opportunities they have, and wish for more.
Rather than not be wicked, they will run lawful Things up to a criminal Excess, and make themselves Offenders when they need not.
​This is such a kind of pleasure in Crime, such a fondness of doing Evil, that I am persuaded the Devil does not come up to; the Devil does not commit Sin as a pleasure, but with other and farther Views, such as affronting God his supreme Governor, and who he hates on innumerable Accounts; ruining Man, the subject of his Envy; lessening the Authority of Heaven, and counteracting divine Providence; and such other hellish Ends and Reasons, for which he exerts himself in Crime to the utmost; and the Pleasure the Devil takes in Crime is no otherwise, but more or less, as it answers some of these hellish Designs, and aims at more.
But my accurate Friend the 'Squire ——— pleases himself in the meer Crime, laughs in the Satisfaction he finds in the very Enjoyment of Vice; like a Man that would Blow up a House, and the whole Family in it, for the meer Satisfaction of hearing the Bounce; and please himself with it afterward, upon the meer Pleasure of seeing the innocent Wife and Children fly up in the Air, and be dash'd in Pieces with the Fall.
The Fact is not so bloody and cruel indeed, but the Principle is the same; he that can look back upon a hundred Adulteries, and act them all over again in his Imagination, with the same Pleasure as before, wishing for Occasions to commit a hundred more. I appeal to the learned Divines, who know what the meaning of that Text is, has committed Adultery with her already in his Heart, Matth. v. 28. whether such a Man is not really, tho' not actually, guilty of three hundred Adulteries, putting them all together.
It is a particular Snare to these Men, in the Case I am upon, that they say the Crime ​they are thus daily committing is no Crime, much less Adultery, and that it has a Cover for it, which they make their Refuge, and. under the Protection of which, they run out into all these Extravagancies with a kind of quietness and satisfaction upon their Soul, that is not easily to be described; this Covering is the Article of Marriage, the very Thing I am upon, and 'tis upon this very Account that this whole Book is written.
It is under the Cover of Marriage, that these Excesses and Immodesties are committed. But under what Protection are they committed over again with the Tongue, boasting and talking lewdly of the Extravagancies they have committed? Of which I have this double Charge to lay against them, (viz.) In the first they sinn'd with their Wives; in the second without their Wives; nay, to carry it farther, in the first they sinn'd against Heaven, in the second against the sacred Ordinance of Marriage, and against the Wife also.
And not to leave them room to Cavil at the Expression, I explain and insist upon it, that a decent concealing the conjugal Freedoms between a Man and his Wife, is a Debt due to Modesty as a Virtue, and to the Wife as she is a Woman. He that exposes those Things deserves no more the Name of a rational Creature, much less of a Man of Modesty, nay, hardly of a Man. In a word, he Sins against his Wife, and exposes himself, and the last most abominably.
Nor will his Marriage cover either of these Crimes, but rather aggravate them, for, as I said, he Sins against the very Marriage it self: Marriage is a Contract of Liberty to lawful ​Things; but Marriage is no Protection for Crime; Marriage covers the Bed undefiled, and makes it pure and honourable. But the Man may pollute even his Marriage-Bed, and when he does so, he makes that criminal which would otherwise be lawful.
Thus unnatural Crimes may be acted in the Marriage-Bed; and will any Man say, it is no Sin because it is under the Cover of Marriage; the Woman may be ravish'd in the Marriage-Bed, and the Man deserve the Gallows for Crimes offer'd to his own Wife. Let such consider of it, lest the Woman turn the Slipper up against them, and least they be exposed as they deserve.
As Matrimony is no Protection for unnatural Vices, so neither is it for indecent Excesses and Immodesties; and as for the Pleasure they take in the contemplation of what was criminal in the committing, as it is doubling the Offence, so it is with the addition of something unnatural in it also. In a word, talking Lewdly, according to a known Author, is infamous, but talking lewdly of conjugal Actions is unnatural and odious; 'tis a kind of a Sodomy of the Tongue, 'tis a Crime that wants a Name, but 'tis great pity it should want a Punishment.
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