Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/338

 with our Teeth. In a word, the Drunkard may be well said to drink himself to the Devil; the nice eating Glutton feeds and fattens himself up for the Devil's Slaughter-house; because one Vice feeds another till they are made ripe for Hell, by the distracted Use of lawful and laudable Things; making lawful and even necessary Things criminal, and sowing the Seeds of Vice in the ordinary Ploughings of meer Nature.

usefully might we apply this to our particular Friends, of whom so many will strive to Blush, when they read it. A L Esq; had never been a Whore-master if he had not din'd so often at Puntacks; nor had good and grave Sir L W, visited Tabby R, by Moon-light, if he had not dwelt so many dark Evenings at Browns; so he goes from the Bottle to the Bawdy-house; in which the Man may be said only to act Nature, and pursue, as all the World does, the direct Course of Cause and Consequence.

G W will cease to make his House a Stews, his Marriage-Bed a Pollution, and bring his modest Wife to a necessity of turning her Slipper the wrong Side upward at him, if he will be able to give a better Excuse for his Matrimonial Whoredom, than that he can't help it; let him cease to eat three Hours together at Breakfast, let him not gorge at Noon till he falls asleep at the Table, or drink at Night till he lies under it; let him read Cornaro of Venice, and live upon two Ounces and five Drams a Day, and half a Pint of Wine in three Days; I'll answer for it, his Wife shall not lock her self up for fear of coming to Bed to a Fury, nor swear the Peace against him to