A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed/Conclusion
THE
CONCLUSION.
am now come to the Conclusion of this Work: I had Thoughts to have given a longer Preface to it, intimating the true End and Design of it: But I think 'tis better in the Form of a Conclusion: For when can a Work be better explain'd than after it is done?
I can find but two Objections that can lie against this Undertaking, or the Performance of it; after the strictest Inquiry into every Part of it, and, as Author, I think my self pretty clear in them Both. Of which the impartial Reader is to be the Judge.
1. Whether the Satyr be Just.
2. Whether the Manner be Justifiable.
If indeed the Satyr is not just, the Author has done nothing, and can have nothing to say why he should not lie under the worst of Censure; but he is under no Care upon that Subject: Even the most Innocent will hardly enter upon the Point with me, or venture to say, that tho' they may be clear of it themselves, that therefore no Body is guilty; and as for the rest, tho' they are harden'd against Blushing at it, I don't find any of them harden'd enough to deny it.
We are come to an Age, wherein 'tis not the Mode to acknowledge and reform a Mistake, but to add a Front to the Fact, and Triumph in the Crimes, which they should be ashamed of: It seems below them to vindicate their Character, they'll rather illustrate it with the Fault they should wipe off, and count the Shame of it their Glory.
This happy Custom is the Author's Vindication in this Work; for now scorning to deny the Charge, or enter into an Enquiry in form, whether guilty or not guilty; they are for giving the Matter of Fast in Evidence, and insisting that there is no Crime in it. And thus we join Issue upon the Merit of the Cause.
If it be so; if there is no such thing as Immodesty after Matrimony, and that nothing can be indecent or unlawful between a Man and his Wife; if Matrimonial Liberties are without Bounds, and there are no Limitations to that conjugal Freedom, neither by the Laws of God or of Nature.
If the Man cannot sin against his Wife, or the Wife against her Husband; if no Excesses can be complained of, and nothing can be either out of Measure, or out of Season; if no unnatural Violences can be offered, and the Woman can have no reason to turn her Slipper the wrong Side upward against her Husband.
If the Laws of Matrimony cannot be broken, the Ends of Matrimony not defeated, the Reason of Matrimony not be mistaken, and a Marriage cannot be made a Masque to a Crime.
In a word, if all the Complaints of this kind are causeless and needless, and there are neither the Crimes or the Criminals to be found, or to be heard of among us, then indeed the Satyr cannot be just, and the Author deserves the Censure of a false Accuser. Let him be try'd by God, and his Country; and let the abused Persons who are without the Sin, throw the first Stone at him.
But if the Fact is to be prov'd, if the Guilt is notorious, if he not only has pointed out the Crime, but is ready, if called upon in a lawful way, to point out the Criminals too, and to convict them upon their own Evidence, and out of their own Mouths; if they not only daily commit those Things, but daily boast of them; if the Coffee-houses are witnesses on one Side, and the Tea-Tables blush on the other, and lewd Dialogues on that wicked Subject circulate from one to t'other; if the differing Sexes are united in the guilt, tho' in a differing way, and the odious Facts are become flagrant, 'tis then high time to combate the Vice, and endeavour by any possible Ways to bring the World to blush for them, since they are past blushing for themselves.
As the Guilt thus legitimates the Satyr, so the Circumstances of it, and the unhappy state of Things justifies the Author in the Method of attacking it. The Law cannot reach it; the Fact is not cognisable in a way of Justice; no criminal Process can lie in the Case, 'tis one of the Offences that are too vile to be hid, and yet too secret, and too much hid, to be laid hold of. They seem to be fenced and protected by those very Laws that should censure and expose them; and tho' they frequently sally out, and make criminal Excursions, yet when they are attack'd, they retreat behind the Fences and Fortifications of the conjugal Laws, and the Letter of Matrimony is turn'd against the Meaning of it, as the Cannon of a Bastion, when the Work is taken, are turn'd against the Town which they were mounted to defend.
Satyr can scourge where the Lash of the Law cannot; the Teeth and Talons of the Pen will bite and tear, and the Satyr has a Sting which is made for the Correction of such Of fences and such Offenders as bully Justice, and think themselves out of the reach of Prisons and Punishments; as small Arms are of use in Battle where the Cannon and Mortars cannot play, and the Point of the Lance can wound where the Balls cannot fly.
If Men are fenc'd against one Thing, they may not be fenc'd against another, and the sense of Shame may restrain where even a sense of Punishment will not. There are Crimes which a lash of the Pen reach'd when a lash at the Cart's-tail would not; and a time when Men that have laugh'd at the Law, and ridiculed all its Powers, have yet been laugh'd out of their Crimes by a just Satyr, and brought to the necessity of hanging themselves for Shame, or reforming to prevent it.
If then the Crime be evident, and yet the Law impotent, who will contend that the Satyr is not just? 'Tis the only unexceptionable Case in which not the Justice only, but the Necessity of a Satyr, is to be insisted on.
Some will say, and in this particular Case I think they are right, that there is no such thing as an unjust Satyr; that a Satyr is never wrong, or can be so; for that,
1. If the Fact be not true, 'tis no more a Satyr but a Slander; 'tis a LIE, and merits the Correction of the Law.
2. If the Fact be true, but is in it self no Crime, the Satyr has no Teeth, no Claws, it can neither Bite or Sting; and then again 'tis no more a Satyr; it has only a kind of close par'd Nails with which it can scratch, its own Face, and can hurt no Body else; so that 'tis no more a Satyr, nor will it bear to be call'd by that Name. But this is out of the Way here.
We insist upon the Justice of the Satyr, as well from the Nature of the Charge it brings, as from the certainty of the Fact proved by the Confession of the guilty Offenders, and the general Testimony of the Times, as above.
It remains then to speak of the Manner of the Performance, and enter upon the Vindication of it, a thing much more properly undertaken, now 'tis finish'd, than it cou'd be before it was begun.
The only Objections which can lie against the manner, I think, come into these two. (1.) The necessity of speaking a Language that is unpleasant to hear, and which, at least, seems to tread on the brink of the same Indecency which it reproves; And which also the Author has sufficiently express'd his dread of. Or, (2.) The deficiency of the Reproof from an over-restraint, and declining to express Things fully on that very Account, for fear of offending one Way, offending too much the other.
I have, with the utmost Care, avoided the first of these; I have studied to shun all Indecency of Expression, or saying any thing that might offend the chastest Mind, and the most modest Ear, allowing but just room to mention the Crime that is reproved, and hardly that in some Places sufficient to have it understood.
If I have given the least Cause of Complaint, I profess it to be unseen and undesigned; nor upon revising the whole Work, do I yet see any Reason for altering or wiping out any thing on that Account.
The Scripture it self, the sacred Pattern of Modesty in Expression, and which I have all along kept in my Eye as a Director in that particular Point, has, in many Places, been obliged to speak plainer than I have done in the like Cases.
But when the Censure is to be pass'd, there must be so much said at least, as may let the Reader understand what it is we reprove, or else we speak of nothing, and to no purpose; yet I have studied with the utmost Care to do it, so as to leave no room for Reproach. None can find Occasion to blush here but those that are guilty; let them blush and reform, then the End of the Satyr is answered.
As to the second Case; I cannot but lament the necessity I have been under to omit several flagrant Stories, with Names and Sirnames too attending them, good Evidence of Fact ready, which yet I have not been able to find Words to express with Decency enough to bear reading, or to preserve the Purity of the Design, and the Dignity of a just Satyr.
What vile and perhaps unheard-of Practices could I have exposed, could I have found Words to dress up the Relation in? And what inimitable Examples have I ready to produce to support the Truth of the Facts, would the Stories but bear telling.
I confess, 'tis something hard that Men shou'd sin on, only because they cannot be modestly reproved; that they shou'd go on in superlative Wickedness, with an Impunity only owing to the horrid exorbitance of their Crime, too dirty to be spoken of, too nauseous to be mentioned. Why has not our fruitful Inventions added some Signals, some Figures, to serve instead of Speech, (as I have observed the Turks do, by turning up the Slipper) by which Signals or Figures the filthy Part might be expressed, without fouling the Mouth, or affronting the Ears of others.
But it is not to be done, and therefore, as above, I have chosen to leave out many long Histories of inexpressible Lewdness, particularly under the Matrimonial Cover, and which would have given a keener Edge to the Satyr, and have confirmed the Necessity of the Reproof in this Case, more than all that has been express'd. But, I say, it is not to be done.
Where I have been necessitated to come to the very Brink of the Fact, and to go as far as Language would suffer me; certainly I hope for so much Charity in the Reader, as to acknowledge the Justice and Necessity of going so far, at the same time giving the true Reason of my going no farther.
'Tis a hardship an Author is seldom put to, to be obliged to break off in the middle of his Evidence; to omit and drop all the Illustrations of his Story, and scarce give you enough of the Generals to guess at the Particulars by; but this is my Case, and all in obedience to that Modesty, the trespassing upon which is the ground of the whole Complaint. If these Men could be talked to in their own Language; if the odious Expressions they use in their ordinary Discourse could be thrown in their Faces, and they could be daub'd with their own Dirt, it would describe them in a more effectual manner, they would be painted in the most suitable Colours, and dress'd up in the Robes that would best become them; and, in one respect, it ought to be so, that every Crime might be shown as it really is.
It was a Practice in some of the Nations in the Eastern Countries, that if a Woman was convicted of Adultery, he was stript stark naked, and led about the City, that she might be exposed in the same Nakedness in which the had voluntarily exposed her self, and so be punished in the very kind of her Offence.
But this would not do in a Christian Country; it would be it self an Offence against Decency, and a Breach of the very Modesty which it was intended to punish, and therefore it cannot be done; in like manner the Crime I am reproving, cannot be expos'd in the lively manner that other Offences are expos'd in; because, as I may say, we cannot speak the Language: The Dialect these People talk is a great part of the Crime; and as it is not to be made use of for their Reproof, so we are straiten'd exceedingly in Reproving; and they triumph over me in this very Part, that I talk in the dark, and reprove by Allegory and Metaphor, that People may, know, or not know what I mean, just as it may happen.
This may, in some Sense, indeed be true, as I have said above, but the Hardship rises from the black Circumstances attending the Crimes they commit; and, of all People, they should be the last to boast of that Advantage, seeing they must own at the same time, 'tis because their Behaviour is so much too vile to be reproved, that it cannot be mentioned; the Language of it is so foul, that it will not read; modest Tongues cannot speak it; modest Ears cannot hear it, like some particular Trials in our Courts of Justice, when they are obliged to desire of the Women to withdraw, because they may be obliged to use such Expressions as it is not decent to mention before them, or modest in them to be in the hearing of; and yet, without which Words spoken in the grossest and plainest manner, the Cause cannot be tried, the Evidence be taken, or the Offender convicted.
This is exactly the Case; and under this Difficulty the whole Work labours in almost every Part. But I have taken the Part that; I think, Religion and Decency directs; that is, to go as far as I can, and leave Conscience to work the rest its own way. I have painted out the Crime as fairly as justifiable Language will allow; and where it will not, I content my self with leaving the Guilty to judge themselves by the general Hints given them. The silent Needle in the Compass points to the Pole, but says no more; yet the Pilot, which knows its meaning, steers by that Direction, and brings the Ship safe into Port.
The Facts are indeed notorious, and the less plain English will serve; the Things I reprove are not so very abstruse; there are few married People but will understand me; and all the guilty, I am sure, will read their Crimes plain enough, they will need no Explanations; is they pretend to it, they will be too easily confuted, by referring them to their own Practice.
It is true, there are still some ill Usages among these People, some Matrimonial Whoredoms which are wholly omitted, which it is impossible to mention, no not at the greatest distance, no not by Simily, Allegory, or any other Representation. They are too wicked to admit the least Suggestion about them, or so much as to guide the Reader to guess at them. Nor are they a few Things which I am thus obliged to overlook. But there is no doing it; they must be buried in Silence if they cannot be reprov'd, because they cannot be mentioned. Let the Offenders, the guilty Persons, consider, Heaven can find out Ways to punish them, tho' we cannot find out Words to reprove them.
That Justice, that brings to light the hidden Works of Darkness, can make the Crime publick in the Punishment; and there it may be read with Terror by every one that looks on it, when their Ears will not be offended with the Description. Nor is it an unusual Method; Providence often thinks fit to do so. Drunkenness, tho' in secret, is made publick by Solomon's Signals, Who has redness of eyes, who hath wounds without cause? they that tarry long at the Wine, &c. Prov. xxiii. 29.
Thus it may be said again, who hath leanness of Countenance, who hath rottenness of Bones, who hath loathsome Diseases? Are they not the People I speak of? Let them take heed; 'tis not the Whoremaster and the Strumpet alone that contract Filthiness and Distempers; and 'twill be a dreadful Rebuke for a pretender to lawful Things, and no more, to see himself brought to the same Distress by his Excesses, that others are reduc'd by their Vices and open Wickednesses, and loaded with those Diseases, which so strongly intimate another kind of Guilt, that no Body will believe him Innocent, tho' he really be so.
I leave it to Physicians to explain what I say, and to tell whether there are not many scandalous Diseases which People bring upon themselves by their Intemperances and Excesses, which are so near the main Contagion, that no People will believe they are Innocent that have them, and that yet may befal those who have never been guilty out of the Marriage Bed.
Let such People reflect upon the Grief it will be to them, to be universally condemn'd where they are not guilty; and to bear the reproach of a Crime they have not committed for the Crime which none imagine, and which they have dwelt unreprov'd in so many Years, till they come to be a Reproof to themselves, and a Reproach to all about them.
I could give Examples of several who have fatally suffered in this Manner, under the Weight of their own immoderate Practices, to say no worse of them; and I could, I believe, find some Instances of those who have perished under the Misery, rather than discover the Grief they lay under, least they should be supposed guilty of what they abhorred so much as to think of.
But how just is divine Vengeance thus to reprove those Intemperances in his own Way, which were otherwise out of the reach of human Laws, and indeed of human Eyes? And 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.
These 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 God and Nature, had directed them to an immoderate Use of the Liberties they allow'd; which is no more true, than that because God 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 God and Nature allowed us to be drunk, to drink to Excess, to drink away our Sense, our Understanding and our Life, as many daily do.
I would conclude this with an earnest and serious Monition to all the considering, rational Part of Mankind, who call themselves Christians, and would be called so, who are willing to act as such, and to answer to themselves, not supposing they had any other Account to give for all their Behaviour; I say, I would move them to enter so far into the Government of themselves, as becomes Men of Sense and of Virtue, to put a due Restraint upon themselves in the use of lawful Liberties, and to act, not like Madmen and Furies, but like Men of Understanding, to act in such a Manner, as they may not reproach themselves hereafter with wasting their Youth and Strength, and bringing Age and Weakness upon themselves before their Time.
Certainly, God Almighty, who form'd the Man, and who committed him, in a great Measure, to the Government of himself, did not do so with a general leave to live how he pleased; did not leave him to the gust of his Appetite, without giving the least Limits to himself by his Reason, but as he gave him superior Faculties, so he gave those Faculties, and placed them in a superiority one to another, that they might be a Check to the separate Motions and Operations, and keep the whole Machine in order.
If the Man breaks this Order; if he inverts Nature; if he gives himself Liberties that God and Nature intended him not, and such as are inconsistent with the good Order of the Machine, he will put the whole Fabrick out of Tune; nor can he expect the rest of the Motions can perform as they would otherwise do.
If the Spring of a Watch be over-strained, it will cease to Draw; if the Ballance be overloaded, the Motion stops. It is the like in all other natural Motions, and 'tis so in this of the Man. He that will put Nature out of her proper Course, and upon Extreams which he has not equal Powers to perform, will ruin those Powers which she has, and, in a word, ruin the whole Fabrick.
If the Man is himself; if he is Master of his Reason, and sound Argument can make any due Impression upon him, he will consider this Part for his own sake, abstracted from its being an Offence against his Superior, the Governor of his Life, to whom he must Account; if, I say, he would only consider himself, act like a rational Creature, and study his own Interest, it must move him to behave himself prudently.
I know nothing, no not one Instance in Life, wherein Virtue may be more truly said to be its own Reward, than in this Particular: Take the Case inverted, who has length of Days, who sound Constitution? who has strength of Body, agility of Limbs, who enjoys an uninterrupted Health, but the Temperate, the Moderate, and the Virtuous? Their Vitals are not exhausted, Nature is not oppress'd; the Vigour of the Spirits expended, and the Marrow of their Bones wasted: Their Youth has not robbed their old Age; or their untimely Vice diverted the Channels of Nature, and turn'd the Water from the Mill.
The Modest, the Chast, the temperate Youth, is the hail, the chearful, and the healthy old Man: He that lives too fast, goes to his Grave too soon; 'tis a course, but significant Expression, He that lives a Gallop, goes to the Devil a Trot. The meaning is plain; excess in Youth anticipates old Age; they that will tear themselves in Pieces, who can patch them up? 'Tis in vain to fly to Art; Physick may cleanse the Blood, correct the noxious Humour, clear the Stomach, and help the Digesture; but Physick cannot make the Body anew; Physick cannot give a new Fund of Life, and form Nature upon a new Foundation. Physick cannot restore when the Liver is wasted, when the Lungs are spit out of the Mouth by early Catarrhs, when the Wheel is broken at the Cistern: when, as Job says, the Reins are consumed within us, what can Physick do for us? Art may assist Nature, but Art cannot give Youth, nor restore that Vigour which Vice has exhausted. When the Dart is struck through the Liver, when the Heart ceases to beat Time to the Pendulum, 'tis in vain to talk to Physicians: As you have put your selves in the Devil's stead to destroy, Physicians cannot put themselves in God's stead to Create: Who shall supply in Age what the Spendthrift, the Extravagant has wasted in Youth? A frugal Use of an Estate preserves it for the Heirs; whereas he that cuts the Timber down young, shall have no large high Trees to leave behind him; and he that, without manuring and good Husbandry, leaves the Land to be beggar'd, and plough'd out of Heart, shall be sure not to keep up the Rent; but the Estate will decay, and the Heir be reduc'd.
In a Word, Temperance and Moderation keeps Nature in a due state of Health, and lays in an early Provision for Time, a Stock for old Age to live upon, hands on Vigour with the Years, and makes Age triumph in the goodness of the Constitution: Whereas Vice leaves Youth groaning and mourning under Aches, Rheumaticks and Hydrophicks before its Time, the Joints trembling cannot support the Body, the Nerves are innervated, the Sinews shrunk; in a Word, the Blood is poison'd, the Spirit exhausted, and the whole Mass corrupted; thus the Fabrick sinks like a Noble opulent City swallow'd up in an Earthquake, there it stands a sad Monument of the devouring Teeth of Crime, and a Sacrifice to Debauchery.
Whence is it, that the Number of Physicians, Apothecaries and Surgeons, are so encreas'd among us, and especially the latter, besides the innumerable Throng of Quacks, Pretenders and Dealers in Plaisters and Doses? If Diseases were not multiply'd, the Remedies would not crowd in upon us as they do; 'tis the Stench of Carcases that brings the Vultures about us and our Families: As the Groans and Cries of dying and decaying Bodies are loud among us; so Physick is grown noisy and clamorous.
How many Doctors and Surgeons, nay Apothecaries, ride about in their Coaches? Perhaps, as one cunningly alledg'd, not for the Vanity of the Equipage, but for Expedition, and that he might be able to make more Visits in a Day; otherwise he could not dispatch his Business, or see all his Patients so often as they desir'd him.
As our Yearly Bills are encreased, the Physicians grown Rich, their Number more than doubled, and their Equipages advanc'd in such a Manner, Whence is it all? It cannot be all meerly by the Encrease of People about us; tho' that I know is alledged; there must be something else; and the Reason is evident, our Luxury is encreased; and with our Luxury, our Vices, and other Extravagances, our Lascivious ness, Sensuality, and, in a Word, our Impudence, and with all these our Distempers: These enrich the Doctors, these call the Surgeons and Apothecaries about us, like the Crows about the Carcase; and they Bombard us with the Gallipots and Glasses, as the Algerines assault a Ship with Carcases and Stinking Pots.
If the Numbers of People are encreas'd about London, that may be something, though tis begging the Question most egregiously to say so, as we do by Lump, that this is the only encrease of the Mortality. Some suggest such an Encrease as amounts to a third Part of the whole; and others will go so far as to tell us they are doubled; and this they gather (as they say) not from the excessive Numbers of Buildings only, but from the Throngs of People which are to be seen in the Streets upon all publick Occasions. I will readily grant both these, particularly, that there are great Numbers of new Buildings, Streets and Squares added to the Town, and in all the extreme Parts of it, indeed an innumerable Number, such as no City in the World can show the like, as at St. Giles's, Tyburn-Road, Ormond-Street, Hockley, Finsbury, Spittle-Fields, Wapping, Rotherhith, &c. Nor is this all, but I allow that there is also a prodigious Encrease in the Villages adjacent to London, which, as they say, and in that indeed they say true, are not only doubled, but some of them encreased to several Times as many People as formerly, such as at the new Docks near Deptford, and at the Town of Deptford; also at Greenwich, Clapham, Camberwell, Chelsea, Kensington, Hampstead, Newington, Tottenham, Edmonton, Endfield, Bromley, Stratford, West Ham, Wanstead, Walthamslow, Low-Layton, and abundance more, all whose Parishes are out of the Bills of Mortality; and were their Numbers added to the last yearly Bill, would make up the Mortalities at least to Five and thirty thousand.
Now tho' all this were true, and more, yet it does not at all account for the Grievance in our Morals, which I have complained of; or for the Depredations made upon Nature, and upon Health, by our intemperate and luxurious Living, our immoderate and scandalous Excesses in otherwise lawful and allowed Pleasures. But let those that question it, look back into the Book of Nature; and let them tell me, whether the Numbers of the Sick too are not encreased in proportion, and indeed more than in proportion, to the Number of the Dead? And if they will not take my Opinion, let them know the late famous Dr. Radcliffe, and several other Physicians, gave the same Judgment. And I am very willing to appeal to the Learned, whether these Excesses I have now mentioned, have not contributed at least to making the Age less sound in Life, if not shorter liv'd than their Ancestors.
I will not attempt to abridge the Sovereignty of Providence in its Government of the Earth; or to say, that Heaven has not appointed and limited the Time of Life to all his Creatures: Yet I am not so much a Predestinarian neither, as to pretend that Men cannot shorten their Days by Luxury and Intemperance, Gluttony, Drunkenness, and other worse and more criminal Excesses; why should we not think that such Crimes as these entail Heaven's Curse upon us, and blast our Breath, and shorten our Time, as well as Disobedience to Parents? I will not presume to say, in the Words of the Command, be Temperate, be Virtuous, be Moderate, that thy Days may be long in the Land. I acknowledge, that I have no direct Authority to add a Promise to the Exhortation; but I may take more freedom, I believe, in the alternative, and say, be not Intemperate, be not Vicious, Luxurious, Immoderate and Brutal, and add, with the Wise Man, Why should't thou dye before thy Time? Eccles. vii. 17.
Without question, Life may be shortned by our Wickedness. How many do we see, in almost every weekly Bill, dead of excessive Drinking, others Duelling and Fighting; some by one vile Excess, some by another? Shall any Man dare to say, these did not shorten their own Lives! Shall we say, they lived out half their Days! Psal. lv. 23. I think it would be affronting the Justice of Providence, to say, they were not slain by their own Crime, cut off by untimely Vice, or that, with David's wicked Men, they do not live out half their Days.
But, not to enter into Disputes of Things remote to the Case; if Life is or is not, can or cannot be shorten'd by our Intemperance and Vice, the Comfort of Life may be lessen'd. Life may be made a Burthen, loathsome and uncomfortable, by loading it with Diseases and Sorrows, and by bringing complicated Miseries upon our selves in the Room of Health and Vigour, which would otherwise be the Lot.
A bright Countenance, a sprightly and brisk Eye, a constant Smile, a nimble agile Body, a clear Head, a strong Memory, and clean Limbs, these are Nature's Furniture to a Man of an untainted Race. But how often are all these original Beauties, the native Attendants upon Youth and a good Constitution, made to droop and flag, while Paleness and Leanness come into the Face, Heaviness into the Heart, and Dulness into the Head? How is the shining sparkling of the Eye eclipsed, the Understanding lost, the Memory decay'd, and the Genius partaking of the Contagion, entirely altered?
The Glory of a young Man is his Strength, says Solomon, Prov. xx. 29. and one of his first Advices after that Expression, is, give not thy Strength unto Women, it is true, Solomon there means to a strange Woman, that is to say, a Whore. But with some abatement for the Person only, and for the Circumstances spoken to here, the Thing is (otherwise) the same, and the Excesses are in their Degree, tho' perhaps not every way as fatal.
It was a late learned Physician who said, that the Women wearing Hoops would make the next Age all Cripples; that drinking Tea would make them Rheumatick; that taking Snuff would make them Lunatick: To which it was said, by way of Repartee, the Doctor being a little of a Libertine, that the Levity of the present Times will make the next Age Atheists; the Cavilling at Scripture, (which is now the grand Mode) make them Hereticks; and the talking Nonsense make them all Fools: And now, I think, I may with equal Propriety add, that the Vice of this Age will make the next Age rotten.
Crime has an unhappy propagating Quality; 'tis always in progression. If one Age talks Heresy, the next Age talks Blasphemy: If one Age talks Faction, the next Age talks Treason: If one Age talks Foolish, the next Age talks Mad. So, in the Case before me, if one Generation are Immoderate, the next are Extravagant. If one Age runs to excess in Things lawful, the next pursues the like excesses in Things unlawful, or make those lawful Things Crimes, by those excesses: If one Age are Beasts, the next Age are Devils: To-day Matrimonial Whoredom, To-morrow Unbounded Whoredom. As Vice leads, Fools follow; and where must it end but in Destruction?
It is the like in the Contamination of Blood; the fatal Progression shows it self there, as well as in other Parts. Excesses weaken the Body, sink Nature, darken the Countenance, stupify the Brain; To-day they reach the Body, To-morrow the Soul, and, in the next Age, the Race.
The lawful Things of this Age will make the next Age lawless; their Fathers conveyed Blood, and they convey Poyson; our Parents handed on Health, and we Diseases; our Children are born in Palaces, and are like to die in Hospitals. Debauchery is the Parent of Distemper; Fire in the Blood makes a Frost in the Brain; and be the Pleasures lawful or unlawful, the effect of Folly is to leave a Generation of Fools.
It would be happy, if after having said thus much in general, and after having enter'd so seriously into all the Particulars by which a lewd Generation defile and pollute the Marriage Bed, and ruin both themselves and their Posterity, I could propose some effectual Method for the suppressing the wicked Practices, and bring Mankind to live, at least like reasonable Creatures, if not as Christians.
The Answer to this would be direct, if Laws and Government were concerned in it. But as we complain of an Evil which the sense of God's Laws, nor the force of human Laws, will not reach, nothing of Force, nothing of putting Statutes in execution, nothing of the Hand of the Magistrate can be thought of use, or, if it be, will be equally laugh'd at. Indeed, how should they that can Argue themselves out of all the Restraints of Virtue and Religion, be expected to be under any Restraints, except those of Power?
And this makes me have recourse to Satyr, and the Reproofs and Lashes of the Pen. These are the proper Weapons to combat this Adversary: Where the Laws of God or Man have no Effect, the Satyr has been sometimes known to reach the Affections and Passions of Men; as they run in several Channels, so they are to be come at by several Methods; Ways and Means for one Thing will not be always Ways and Means for another; as Men are wrought upon, some by one Thing, some by another, according to the several Tempers and Dispositions which govern them, and in which they act; so, in general, they are mov'd, some in one Way, some in another.
National Mistakes, vulgar Errors, and even a general Practice, have been reform'd by a just Satyr. None of our Countrymen have been known to boast of being True-Born English-Men, or so much as to use the Word as a Title or Appellation ever since a late Satyr upon that National Folly was publish'd, tho' almost Forty Years ago. Nothing was more frequent in our Mouths before that, nothing so universally Blush'd for and laugh'd at since. The Time, I believe, is yet to come, that any Author printed it, or that any Man of Sense spoke it in earnest; whereas, before you had it in the best Writers, and in the most florid Speeches, before the most august Assemblies, upon the most solemn Occasions.
Could the Practice complain'd of in this Work, ten thousand times more scandalous, grown up to be odious and shameless; to wise Men hateful, and to good Men horrid, I mean that of talking lewdly, be hiss'd out of the World by a just Satyr; could it be lash'd off the Stage of Life by the Pen, happy would the Author be that could boast of such Success.
Could all the Third Chapter, and the Fourth Chapter, and the Fifth, and Seventh, and Ninth, and Eleventh Chapter-Crimes, be met with in the same Manner, and with the same Success, I should think this, however difficult, the best and happiest Undertaking that ever came into, or went out of my Hands.
I cannot desire a greater Scope in any Subject, that calls for Censure among Men; I think I may say, I must have all the Wise, the Religious, the modest Part of Mankind with me, in the Reproof. The Crimes I attack are not only Offences against Heaven, but against all good Men, against Society, against Humanity, against Virtue, against Reason, and, in some Things, against Nature; Crimes that modest Words cannot (without great difficulty) explain, modest Tongues express, nor modest Ears, without blushing, hear mentioned.
As no sober Mind can receive the Ideas of them, without entertaining the utmost Aversion to the Facts; so none that ever I met with, that had any common share of Breeding and Manners, could bear the mention of them, especially in the common Dialect of those I call the Criminals.
None but a Set of People with Faces of Steel, who can triumph in their Victory over Religion, Conscience, and the Thoughts of Eternity, that have got the Better both of Education, and of all Manner of Principles. These may Glory indeed in their Shame; and these are the People our Satyr desires to expose.
As to their Persons, nothing but universal Contempt of them can have any Effect; nothing can assist them to Blush but a general Hiss from Mankind, and being thrust off the Stage by the very worst of Men. I have heard it was the Foundation of a very scandalous vicious Person's Reformation, when another more notorious Fellow than himself, reprov'd him in this Manner: Fie, Jack, why thou art worse than I am.
There are so many Lives of Crime, which yet come short of these lawful Sinners, that a Thief, a Drunkard, a Swearer, a Profligate, may come to a Man talking ——— as I have mentioned, and say, Fie, Mr. G———, Fie, Mr. H———, Fie, Mr. L———, Why, you are worse than I am.
Why may we not hope to see the Time, when the worst of common Offenders shall stop their Ears at the Wickedness of these, and when the very Scandals of the Times shall Blush for, and reprove them. This universal Contempt of them; this general Aversion, if any Thing on Earth can work upon them, will have some Effect; there are few guilty Men harden'd against the Battery of general Clamour; it seems to be an Assault to be resisted only by Innocence, Crime must certainly fall under it; Innocence may hold up the Head in such a Storm; but Guilt will certainly and soon founder, and suffer Shipwreck.
Indeed, there seems to be some affinity in Crime, between the People who We are now Censuring, and another horrid modern Generation too vile to name, and yet who seems to be seeking Protection under these. There may be indeed an essential Difference; but in what small and minute Articles does it exist? But as the Particulars will not admit a nearer Enquiry, I think the better Way is to reject both with Contempt, with an Abhorrence suitable to the vileness of the Facts, and cast them out together.
This will aid the modest Part of the World in their just Opposition to all Indecency; and if we did nothing else, our Work would recommend itself to that Part of Mankind which are really most valuable; and as for the rest, let them act as they please, their Approbation will add no Credit to the Cause.
I have now done. I have said not all I had to say, but all I have Room to say here; and having brought the very Conclusion to a Close, I would only add one Thing by way of Challenge to that Part of Mankind, who I may have touch'd in this Satyr, and who, for ought I know, may be angry; for, indeed, they have nothing else left for it, but to be angry, and rail at the Reproof; according to a known Distich used upon a like Occasion:
Have one sure Refuge left, and that's to Rail.
Now in this Case, I say, I have a fair Offer to make to those Gentlemen in a few Words, viz.
1. Let them prove that the Fact here reprehended is not in being; that 'tis all a Fiction or Shadow, a Man of Straw; that there's nothing in it, and that I am in the wrong. Or,
2. That if it is in being, that tho' the Fact is true, and tho' such Things are done, they merit no Satyr, that they ought not to be reproved or exposed; I say, let them do this, and then they shall Rail their hill, and treat Me, and the Work which I have just now finished, in as scandalous a manner as they please. Or,
3. Which I had much rather they should do, let them Reform; take the hint, fall under the Reproof, and at once sink the Crime.
I confess, it seems rational that one or other of these should be done: The two first, which are in some respect the same, I am out of fear of; the last seems a Debt; 'tis just I should demand it; let them repel the Charge, or reform the Practice.
If they cannot do the first, and yet contemn the last, I declare War against them; and if I live to appear again in the Field, let them expect no Quarter; for the Satyr has not spent all its Artillery, or shot all its Shafts. My next Attack shall be personal, and I may come to Black Lists, Histories of Facts, Registers of Time, with Name and Sirname; for no Man sure, in a Christian Government, as this is, need be afraid of laying Hell open, or drawing the Pictures of Men when they are turn'd Devils.
I might say a Word or two more with respect to Style. I think I can have given no Offence in Decency of Expression: If any Thing has, notwithstanding the utmost Care, slipt my Pen, let it be a Defence, that I profess it is undesign'd; the whole Tenour of the Work is calculated to bear down Vice, vitious Practises and vitious Language; and, I think, I may claim a favourable Construction where there seems a Fault, if it were really a slip of the Pen: I may claim it as a Debt due to a modest Intention; declaring again, there is not one Word willingly pass'd over that can be Censured, as evidently leading to or encouraging Indecency, no not in Thought. An evil Mind may corrupt the chastest Design; as in reading the explanation of the Words I WILL, in the Marriage Covenant, which, I say, is a solemn Oath, and that as plain as if it had been express'd, as swearing by the Name of God. Sure none can be offended as if I put the sacred Name of God into the Mouths of the Readers upon a light Occasion, making them take the Name of God in vain, or making them repeat an Oath in the most vulgar and coursest way. But if any Man should be so weak, not to say malicious, let them know, that I think the Expression carries with it a due reverence of the Name of God; and that the Occasion is awful and solemn; and if I had said, So help me, God, it had been the same thing: The meaning is, to convince Men that how slight however they pass over the Marriage Covenant, it is a solemn Appeal to God for the Truth of the Intention; and a solemn binding themselves in his Name and Presence, to a strict Performance of the Conditions; and that he that breaks them breaks a most sacred Oath, and is as much Perjured as if he had been so in the ordinary Form.
FINIS.