Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/404

 how should the People I speak of, whose Con duct I cannot reprove, because too foul to be mentioned, reflect, that Heaven can find out Ways to make them a Punishment to themselves, and join their Sin and their Shame together?

I could have also given some living Examples of the Intemperances which I have mentioned, which have liv'd to be extreamly exposed, even tho' they have not been spoken of in print; in whom the distemper'd Bodies, aching Heads, tottering Joints, besides the many nameless, filthy and unclean Diseases that have hung upon them, have been their lasting Reproof, and they have carried the reproach of their follies about with them where-ever they went, till no Body has car'd to come into their Company, and they have been a Shame even to themselves.

Things have been the Fruit of those Doings, which they call lawful; their conjugal Excesses, those Liberties which they have all along pretended Heaven allow'd them; Liberties Nature dictated, Love prompted, and Matrimony made lawful; as if Heaven, Nature and the Matrimonial Law, which is founded on the Laws both of and Nature, had directed them to an immoderate Use of the Liberties they allow'd; which is no more true, than that because  gave the Wine (a noble Plant) and the Juice of its Fruit, for our Comfort, and for the support and supply of the Spirits, had allowed us to drink, and to drink it with Pleasure; and that Nature, conforming to the Bounty of Heaven, had given us a gust or love to the Liquor it self, that therefore  and Nature allowed us to be drunk, to drink to Excess,