Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/347

 in this Chapter, but to the whole practice of immodest and indecent Actions, the product of extravagant Desires, mentioned in the Chapters foregoing; for being now at the close of the Account, (and 'tis time I were, for it is a black Account indeed) the Application refers to the whole, (viz.) the general Immodesty of the Day, as practised among married People, and pleaded for, vindicated and defended, under the cover and protection of the sacred Office, and under the pretence of being lawful, because within the Bounds of Matrimony.

do I pretend that I have yet gone through all the Branches of this dirty Practice; the Wickedness is dispersed among a vast variety of Causes and Circumstances, as it is among abundance of People; not a Back-door, but the corrupt Blood, the Offspring of a corrupt Race sally out at, and which Way soever you look, you may see daily new Indecencies, not only acted but contrived, studied and found out, in order to gratify the Vice, and lay us open to the Scourge of the Satyr.

is time to combat an Evil that is thus growing upon us, and that encroaches under the Protection of so many specious and plausible Outsides: One pleads Nature, another Law, another Necessity, all of them Things that have their additional Pretences as hard to answer as the Offenders pretend they are to resist. It is not easie to persuade them that they offend; and if they seem to be convinced that they do, 'tis yet with such Extenuations, such Excuses, and such apparent Inclinations to continue the Practice, that there is scarce room to hope for any Amendment.