Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/342

 tho' the Sanction of that particular Constitutions is ceas'd, as in other Cases; for example, the Law for the Man who had trespass'd upon his Neighbour, cheated or deceived him, was made to appoint a Sacrifice to attone for the Crime, and restitution for the Trespass; the Crime is still the same, though the manner of making an atonement for it is ceased.

Uncleanness is the same, whether the Law be in force or no. By the Mosaick Institution, the Woman was to perform her Separation, or, what was then called a Purification, a certain time; upon her bringing forth a Male Child, she performed an exact Quarentine, viz. three and thirty Days, and seven Days; and for a Female Child she was obliged to perform a double Quarentine, namely, sixty and six Days, and fourteen Days, during which time the Man was not to be suffered to come near her, or so much as to touch her, upon the severest Penalties, as above.

Now, not to insist upon the legal Purifications of that strict Law, enjoyned from above, and which had such solid Reasons given for it; yet the Law of Nature, upon which all that Part is originally founded, is the same. You may say, the neglect of it is not a mortal Sin, or that deserves Death. But you cannot say it is not a Pudor, a shameful, an immodest Thing, or that it is not loathsome and odious, even in its own Nature, for the Regulation of clean and unclean, like right and wrong, is still the same, settled and unalterable, as Things established in the Law of Nature, which are not altered by Customs and Habits, whether good or evil.

is true, that our Usage has reduced these Separations and Purgations of the Sex to a