their children, and from their being confined to permanent habitations. 6. The encouragement of industry. Some ancient nations appear to have been more fenfible of the importance of marriage inftitutions than we are. The Spartans obliged their citizens to marry by penalties, and the Romans encouraged theirs by the jus trium liberorum. A man who had no child was entitled by the Roman law only to one half of any legacy that fhould be left him, that is, at the moft, could only receive one half of the teftator's fortune. СНАР. СНАР. II. FORNICATION. HE first great mifchief, and by confequence T the guilt, of promifcuous concubinage, con fits in its tendency to diminish marriages, and thereby to defeat the feveral beneficial purpofes enumerated in the preceding chapter. Promifcuous concubinage difcourages_marriage by abating the chief temptation to it. The male part of the fpecies will not undertake the incumbrance, expence, and reftraint of married life, if they can gratify their paffions at a cheaper price; and they will undertake any thing, rather than not gratify them. The reader will learn to comprehend the magnitude of this mifchief, by attending to the importance and variety of the uses to which marriage is fubfervient, and by recollecting withal, that the malignity and moral quality of each crime is not to be estimated by the particular effect of one offence, or of one perfon's offending, but by the general tendency and confequence of crimes of the fame nature. The libertine may not be confcious that thefe irregularities hinder his own marriage, from which he is deterred, he may allege, by different confiderations; much lefs does he perceive how his indulgences can hinder other men from marrying but what, will he fay, would be the confequence, if the fame licentioufness were univerfal? or what fhould hinder its becoming univerfal, if it be innocent or allowable in him. 2. Fornication fuppofes proftitution; and proftitution brings and leaves the victims of it to almoft certain །། certain mifery. It is no fmall quantity of mifery in the aggregate, which, between want, disease, and infult, is fuffered by thofe outcafts of human fociety, who infeft populous cities; the whole of which is a general confequence of fornication, and to the increase and continuance of which, every act and inftance of fornication contributes. 3. Fornication produces habits of ungovernable lewdness which introduce the more aggravated crimes of feduction, adultery, violation, &c.* Likewise, however it be accounted for, the criminal commerce of the fexes corrupts and depraves the mind and moral character more than any fingle fpecies of vice whatsoever. That ready perception of guilt, that prompt and decifive refolution against it, which conftitutes a virtuous character, is feidom found in perfons addicted to thefe indulgences. They prepare an eafy admiffion for every fin that feeks it; are, in low life, ufually the firft ftage in men's progress to the most desperate villainies; and, in high life, to that lamented diffolutenefs of principle, which manifefts itself in a profligacy of public conduct, and a contempt of the obligations of reli gion and moral probity. Add to this, that habits of libertinifm incapacitate and indifpofe the mind for all intellectual, moral, and religious pleasures; which is a great lofs to any man's happiness. 4. Fornication perpetuates a disease, which may be accounted one of the foreft maladies of human nature; and the effects of which are faid to vifit the conftitution of even diftant generations. The paffion being natural proves that it was intended to be gratified; but under what reftrictions, or whether without any, muft be collected froin different confiderations. *Of this paffion it has been truly faid, "that irregularity has no limits; that one excefs draws on another; that the noft eafy, therefore, as well as the most excellent way of being virtuous, is to be fo entirely." Ogden. Ser. xvi. The The Chriftian fcriptures condemn fornication abfolutely and peremptorily. "Out of the heart," fays our Saviour, "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, falfe witness, blafphemies; these are the things which defile a man." These are Chrift's own words; and one word from him upon the fubject is final. It may be obferved with what fociety fornication is claffed; with murders, thefts, false witness, blafphemies. I do not mean that these crimes are all equal, because they are mentioned together; but it proves that they are all crimes. The Apoftles are more full upon this topic. One well known paffage in the Epiftle to the Hebrews may stand in the place of all others; because, admitting the authority by which the Apoftles of Chrift fpake and wrote, it is decisive: .. 66 Marriage and the bed undefiled is honourable "amongst all men, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;" which was a great deal to fay, at a time when it was not agreed even amongst philofophers that fornication was a crime. The fcriptures give no fanction to those aufterities, which have been fince impofed upon the world under the name of Chrift's religion, as the celibacy of the clergy, the praife of perpetual virginity, the probibitio concubitus cum gravidá uxore; but with a juft knowledge of, and regard to the condition and intereft of the human fpecies, have provided in the marriage of one man with one woman an adequate gratification for the propenfities of their nature, and have restrained them to that gratification. The avowed toleration, and in fome countries the licenfing, taxing, and regulating of public brothels, has appeared to the people an authorizing of fornication, and has contributed with other causes, fo far to vitiate the public opinion, that there is no practice of which the immorality is fo little thought of or acknowledged, although there are few, in which it can more plainly be made out. The le giflators giflators who have patronized receptacles of proftitution ought to have foreseen this effect, as well as confidered, that whatever facilitates fornication, diminishes marriages. And as to the ufual apology for this relaxed difcipline, the danger of greater enormities if access to prostitutes were too ftrictly watched and prohibited, it will be time enough to look to that, when the laws and the magiftrates have done their utmost. The greatest vigilance of both will do no more, than oppofe fome bounds and fome difficulties to this intercourfe. And after all, these pretended fears are without foundation in experience. The men are in all refpects the moft virtuous, in countries where the women are most chafte. There is a fpecies of cohabitation, diftinguishable, no doubt, from vagrant concubinage, and which by reafon of its refemblance to marriage may be thought to participate of the fanctity and innocence of eftate; I mean the cafe of kept mistresses, under the favourable circumftance of mutual fidelity. This cafe I have heard defended by fome fuch apology as the following: "That the marriage rite being different in dif"ferent countries, and in the fame country amongst "different fects, and with fome, fcarce any thing; " and moreover, not being prescribed or even men"tioned in fcripture, can be accounted of only as "a form and ceremony of human invention: that "confequently, if a man and woman betroth and "confine themselves to each other, their inter"course must be the fame, as to all moral purposes, "as if they were legally married: for the addition " or omiffion of that which is a mere form and ce"remony can make no difference in the fight of "God, or in the actual nature of right and wrong." 66 To all which it may be replied, 1. If the fituation of the parties be the fame thing as marriage, why do they not marry ? |