Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/358

 when a Set of Gentlemen make an Appointment for what they call a Drinking-bout, they make their Agreement to meet at such a Tavern on purpose: 'Tis certainly and literally lawful for them to meet. Society, and even Society for diversion, is lawful and good; but this is a Meeting meerly to be drunk, meerly to satisfy the Appetite or Thirst of Wine, and with an Intention, nay, with a resolved Purpose of being Drunk; and what is to be said then of the Meeting it self? It was a Wickedness in it self; 'twas a purpose to gratify a vitious Appetite; and so far the very Meeting it self was a Crime; 'twas an Act of Debauchery; 'twas founded on a thirst of Wine, and a Thirst not to be quenched but by Excess and Intemperance.

Parallel is exactly just, the Matrimony contracted in the manner I speak of is just the same; 'tis founded in Crime, the sensual Part is the Foundation and Original of it; and the Matrimony is only the help, the convenience to bring it to pass lawfully, as two resolving to go over a River to commit a Theft; the passing the River, and the Robbery, is the Intent; the Ferry-Boat is only the lawful Assistant to an unlawful Purpose.

neither is this all, for it is criminal to abuse the Ordinance, to turn the sacred Appointment of Heaven to a corrupt and vile Use, making it the assistant to Sensuality, and to gratifying the Flesh, to quenching a dishonourable Flame, which was very far from the meaning or design of the Institution. That was all pure and upright, singly and simply, honest and clean in every Part and Branch of it, and cannot without a Crime be