Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/282

 to reform it. These unsuitable Matches are generally derived from these corrupt and depraved Principles; and these vile Appetites are the Things that carry us on to break into all Rules, Religious and Moral, in the pursuit of Women.

the Appetite governs the Man, he breaks all the Fences, and leaps over all the Bars that Reason and Religion have fixed in his Way; and if he can but justify himself, by pretence of keeping within the Bounds of the Law, tho' it be only the Letter of it, he troubles not himself with the intent and meaning of it.

all the Matrimonial Inequalities, the marrying at unsuitable Years, with unsuitable Fortunes, and all the indecent and ridiculous, not incestuous, Matches, which we see daily among us; so that to speak of unsuitable Matches, is far from being out of the Way of my Business, or remote from my Subject; they are, generally speaking, from the same impure and corrupt Originals, impure Streams, from the same poisoned and corrupted Fountain.

Man is eager, urged by the Importunities of his vitiated Appetite; his Head is full of it; he runs from Place to Place to find an Object. To say his Eyes are blinded with the Fumes and Vapours of his fermented Blood, is to speak according to Nature, it cannot be otherwise; as we say Love is blind, and sees no Faults; so 'tis undoubted, the Passion is blind, the Rage of the Appetite blinds the Eyes, and he is not capable of seeing even the Defects of Nature, much less to distinguish the unsuitableness of Objects, and the inequalities of Circumstances; he is still farther off from seeing