Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/166

 ductions and Operations of Nature, have not yet been able to determine, namely, When, and after what particular Time, and in what Manner the Embrio or Body of a Child conceived in a Woman, receives the addition of a Soul? How the Union is made? And when the Infusion of Soul is appointed.

she determines to be at a certain Time, and descants critically upon it, in order to establish the cursed Hypothesis of her own Invention, viz. that all the while the Fœtus is forming, and the Embrio or Conception is proceeding, even to the Moment that the Soul is infused, so long it is absolutely not in her Power only, but in her Right, to kill or keep alive, save, or destroy the Thing she goes with, she won't call it Child; and that therefore till then she resolves to use all manner of Art; nay, she does not confine her self to human Art, to the help of Drugs and Physicians, whether Astringents, Diureticks, Emeticks, or of whatever kind, nay, even to Purgations, Potions, Poisons, or any thing that Apothecaries or Druggists can supply: But she goes farther, and joins with the Poet, nay, she has the Words at her Tongue's End from that famed Author, tho' in another Case,

English she tells them plainly, if Drugs and Medicine fail her, she will call to the Devil for help, and if Spells, Filtres, Charms, Witchcraft, or all the Powers of Hell would bring it about for her, she would not scruple to make use of them for her resolved Purpose; highly approving of that known Spanish Proverb, suited to the ordinary Occasions only