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readily answer with a surprize, I profess I never thought it had been an Offence.
Men go into it eager, without Consideration. Nature gives faint checks to the Mind; for even Nature, left entirely to it self, would yet have some Reluctance, and would a little recoil at the unnatural Action. But the Men are us'd to it; there is no express Law against it; they see no notice taken of it in the Scripture, or in any subsequent Institutions; they are under no Restraints of that kind; and where should they then be restrained, and by what?
Ignorance then of the nature of the Offence, renders the Man in danger of committing it. The Custom of the Country he lives in is a terrible Plea, and he is too apt to cleave to it, and venture upon the Custom; he knows no Law against it, and therefore sees no Crime, no Breach of any Law in the committing it.
How weak is corrupted Nature not to see the Scandal of so really odious and filthy a Practice? And how far is this Ignorance from being an Excuse? It is indeed a Sin of Ignorance, but then it is a criminal Ignorance too, and so it makes no excuse for, but aggravates the Charge, as Murther committed in Drunkenness is an aggravated Murther.
To be ignorant of a thing that Nature dictates, is shutting the Eyes against natural Light; resisting the most powerful Motive that can be found opposing it. Why do not such People open their Eyes? Nature assists them to do it; but the debauched Inclination will fully close them; so that the Ignorance is really as criminal as the Action.
Saint
