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CHAP. XI.
Of going to Bed under solemn Promises of Marriage, and although those Promises are afterwards performed; and of the Scandal of a Man's making a Whore of his own Wife.
Have dwelt upon the Inequalities of Matrimony the longer, because of their Variety. I come now to single Cases again, and I shall dispatch them in single Sections as I go. I have now before me a very particular Case, in which Marriage is made a healing or protection to a scandalous Crime. Promise of Marriage is Marriage in the Abstract, say our Advocates for Lewdness; and therefore for the Parties to lie together is no Sin, provided they sincerely intend to marry afterwards, and faithfully perform it.
This is, in short, a scandalous Defence of a scandalous Offence; 'tis the weakest Way of arguing that any Point of such Moment was ever supported by. It is so far from covering the Offence against God, that it does not recompence the Personal Injury done to Man. Ihave
