Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/69

 which our best Rule is, that although in this, as in eating and drinking, there is an Appetite to be satisfied, which cannot be done without pleasing that desire; yet since that desire and satisfaction was intended by Nature for other Ends, they should never be separate from those Ends, but always be joined with all or one of those Ends, with a desire of Children, or to avoid Fornication, or to lighten and ease the cares and sadnesses of Houshold-affair, or to endear each other; but never with a purpose, either in act or desire to separate the sensuality from these Ends which hallow it. Onan did separate his Act from its proper End, and so ordered his Embraces that his Wife should not conceive, and punished him.

3. Persons must keep such modesty and decency of treating each other, that they never force themselves into high and violent Lusts, with arts and misbecoming devices: always remembring that those Mixtures are most innocent which are most simple and most natural, most orderly and most safe.

4. is a duty of matrimonial Chastity to be restrained and temperate in the use of their lawful Pleasures: Concerning which, although no universal Rule can antecedently be given to all Persons, any more than to all Bodies one proportion of Meat and Drink; yet married Persons are to estimate the degree of their Licence according to the following Proportions, 1. That it be moderate, so as to consist with Health. 2. That it be so ordered as not to be too extensive of Time, that precious opportunity of working out our Salvation. 3. That when Duty is demanded it be always payed (so far as in our Powers and Election)