Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/352

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CHAP. XIII.

Of indecent and untimely Marriages, whether as to the Years of the Persons, marrying Infants and Children, or marrying immediately after the Death of the Husband or Wife that went before.

 

HOUGH every Indecency is not equally criminal, yet every Thing scandalous and offensive is really Criminal, as that which exceeds it in Degree; and therefore the Article I am now upon, though it may not be so odious singly, and in it self separately, though it is not so much a Matrimonial Whoredom as the past Heads I have mentioned, yet it is Part of the Crime, and in the Intent and Meaning, the Persons are as really guilty as in any of the other.

Every thing comes within the Compass of what I call Matrimonial Whoredom, wherein the Marriage is made the meer Cover for a wicked, ungoverned sensual Desire. Marriage is the Result of a pure Flame; 'tis entring into a sacred Relation with the Ends and Views which conform to the immediate End and Reason of the Institution it self.

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