Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/102

 Law of Nature it self, and of the subsequent Laws of in the same Case is. Here you are left to act as Reason and Religion shall direct, and as the Circumstances that may happen shall make reasonable.

Excesses and Extremes of our Passions are in almost all Cases the scandal of the rational Life, the principal Cause of which is, because Reason is given to Man as a guard to him against all the Exorbitances of Nature. Reason is the Rule of Life to a Man, as Religion is to Christians; he that is not guided by the last is an Infidel, as he that is not governed by the first is a Brute. 'Tis a shame to a Man that wears about him a Soul, to say, that he is not guided by his Reason; as 'tis a shame to a Christian to say, he is not guided by the Principles and Dictates of Religion.

Reason therefore is our guide in Matters subjected to its Laws, so in this more particularly, namely, in governing and directing our Affections, our Appetites, our Passions, and our Desires: Take it in more indifferent and ordinary Cases, we are allowed to Eat and Drink, gave the Blessings and Encrease of the Field to Man; He is, under his Maker, the Lord of the World, and he is left at full liberty not only to supply his Necessity, his Hunger and Thirst, but he is at liberty to solace himself with his Food, and eat or drink what is most agreeable to his Palate: But as Reason is the guide of his Appetite, so far as to direct him hew much to eat or drink upon all Occasions, so he that gorges himself beyond what is reasonable, exposes himself to the just Censure of a brutal Appetite; thus, in all other Cases, a Man out