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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? Iwill
