Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/308

 those Laws which they preached up the Necessity and Duty of to the People.

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.

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.

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;