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A
TREATISE
CONCERNING
The Use and Abuse
OF THE
Marriage Bed :
SHEWING
I. The Nature of Matrimony, its Sacred Original, and the true Meaning of its Institution.
II. The gross Abuse of Matrimonial Chastity, from the wrong Notions which have possessed the World, degenerating even to Whoredom.
III. The Diabolical Practice of attempting to prevent Child-bearing by Physical Preparations.
IV. The fatal Consequences of clandestine or forced Marriages, thro' the Persuasion, Interest, or Influence of Parents and Relations, to wed the Person they have no Love for, but oftentimes an Aversion to.
V. Of unequal Matches, as to the Disproportion of Age; and how such, many ways, occasion a Matrimonial Whoredom.
VI. How married Persons may be guilty of Conjugal Lewdness, and that a Man may, in effect make a Whore of his own Wife.
Also, many other Particulars of Family Concern.
Loose Thoughts, at first, like subterranean Fires,
Burn inward, smothering, with unchaste Desires;
But getting Vent, to Rage and Fury turn,
Burst in Volcanoes, and like Ætna burn;
The Heat increases as the Flames aspire,
And turns the solid Hills to liquid Fire.
So, sensual Flames, when raging in the Soul,
First vitiate all the Parts, then fire the Whole ;
Burn up the Bright, the Beauteous, the Sublime,
And turn our lawful Pleasures into Crime.
Burn inward, smothering, with unchaste Desires;
But getting Vent, to Rage and Fury turn,
Burst in Volcanoes, and like Ætna burn;
The Heat increases as the Flames aspire,
And turns the solid Hills to liquid Fire.
So, sensual Flames, when raging in the Soul,
First vitiate all the Parts, then fire the Whole ;
Burn up the Bright, the Beauteous, the Sublime,
And turn our lawful Pleasures into Crime.
LONDON;
Printed for T. Warner, at the Black Boy in
Pater-Noster-Row. M.dcc.xxvii. Price 5 s.
