Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/332

 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.

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.

I come from the Cause to the Crime; and must say a Word or two more to that.

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.