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the Cover of Liberty, and under the Plea of Law.
In a Word, all such Marriages, or such Motions to Marriage, where the sensual Part is the essential Part, are so far liable to this Charge; when the Vice, I say, is the moving Cause, and the Ceremony is the Tool to introduce and colour it; that's what I call legal Wickedness; when the Law of Matrimony is made a Key to the Union of the Bodies more than of the Souls, opening the Door to the insatiate Appetite, and covering the Fire of Vice under the legal Institution. This I call Matrimonial Whoredom, and, I think, it merits the Name very well.
Matrimony is a chast and modest Scheme of Living, 'tis a State, not a Circumstance of Life; the End and Meaning of it is the raising Families, procreating Children, to be brought up religiously; 'tis an Establishment contracted, or at least ought to be so, as an Appointment of Heaven; and for solid and substantial Enjoyments; it is durable as Life, and bounded only by the Duration of Life. If it be enter'd into upon other Foundations, and so far as it is so engaged in, so far 'tis abused; such are joined together indeed, but not according to God's holy Ordinance; 'tis debauching the Ordinance, corrupting the proposed End, 'tis a good Means made use for a bad End; and as 'tis pursued with wicked Designs, 'tis so far a wicked Engagement: Such do not come together like Man and Wife, but like W——— and R———; in short, they come together to take their Fill of Crime, and that, made a Crime by the Manner of it, tho' not in the Letter of it.
As
