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As it is an Ordinance of God, its original is Divine, the reason of it good, the nature of it sacred; and it ought to be preserved in its Purity, not debauched by the corrupt Inclinations of Men, and made a Tool to a vitious ungoverned Appetite.
This is the Case when any Excursions are made out of the ordinary Road of those two obligatory Articles, which I mentioned at first, (viz.) Decency and Modesty.
To rush into Matrimony as a Horse rushes into the Battle, intimates a Fury, not a rational sober Christian Proceeding; in a word, it detects the Person of the Crime I have mentioned so often, (viz.) a raging inflamed Appetite, let it lie ever so deep, covered with whatsoever Pretences, guilded over however smooth and shining, let the outside be as specious as you will, the Poison is lodg'd within, the Venom of it works in a secret manner, till it breaks out in Scandal and Crime.
Take it in which Sex you will, the Offence is the same; nor do I always yield that it is worse in the Woman than in the Man; the Crime is the same, and the Obligation to Decency is equal; we may load the Woman the harder, because we pretend Modesty is ever peculiar, at least ought to be so, but I do not grant it at all. Men indeed make the boldest Sallies, and the Men have brought themselves to a kind of allowing themselves in Crime by the Authority of Custom; but I deny that in the Original it ought to be so.
A Man ought no more to swear and be drunk, quarrel and commit murther in his Rage than a Woman; and the Offence is as great when he does it. Custom only has given Crimea
