fect 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 conscious that these 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 licentiousness were univerfal? or what fhould hinder its becoming universal, if it be innocent or allowable in him?

2. Fornication supposes proftitution; and proftitution brings and leaves the victims of it to almost certain mifery. It is no small quantity of mifery in the aggregate, which, between want, disease, and infult, is suffered by those outcasts of human fociety, who infest populous cities; the whole of which is a general confequence of fornication, and to the increase and continuance of which, every act and instance of fornication contributes.

3. Fornication produces habits of ungovernable lewdness, which introduce the more aggravated crimes of feduction, adultery, violation, &c.

Like

* Of this paffion it has been truly faid, "that irregularity

"has

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 decisive resolution against it, which conftitutes a virtuous character, is feldom found in perfons addicted to these indulgences. They prepare an eafy admiffion for every fin that feeks it; are, in low life, ufually the first stage in men's progress to the most desperate villanies; and, in high life, to that lamented diffoluteness of principle, which manifests itself in a profligacy of public conduct, and a contempt of the obligations of religion and moral probity. Add to this, that habits of libertinism incapacitate and indispose the mind for all intellectual, moral, and religious pleafures; which is a great loss 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.

"has no limits; that one excess draws on another; that the "most easy, therefore, as well as the moft excellent way of "being virtuous, is to be so entirely." Ogden. Ser. xvi.

The

The paffion being natural proves that it was intended to be gratified; but under what reftrictions, or whether without any, must be collected from different confiderations.

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 Christ's own words; and one word from him upon the sub ject is final. It may be observed with what society fornication is claffed; with murders, thefts, falfe witness, blafphemies. I do not mean that these crimes are all equal, because they are all mentioned together; but it proves that they are all crimes. The Apostles are more full upon this topic. One well known paffage in the Epistle to the Hebrews may ftand in the place of all others; ; because, admitting the authority by which the Apoftles of Chrift spake and wrote, it is decifive: "Marriage and the bed undefiled "is honourable amongst all men, but whore

mongers and adulterers God will judge;" which was a great deal to say, at a time when it was not agreed even amongst philofophers that fornication was a crime.

The fcriptures give no fanction to thofe aufterities, which have been fince imposed upon the world under the name of Chrift's religion, as the celibacy of the clergy, the praise of perpetual virginity, the prohibitio concubitus cum gravidá uxore; but with a just 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 reftrained 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 legiflators 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 accefs to proftitutes were too strictly watched and prohibited, it will be time enough

to

to look to that, when the laws and the magiftrates have done their utmost. The greatest vigilance of both will do no more, than oppose fome bounds and fome difficulties to this intercourse. 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 species of cohabitation, distinguishable, no doubt, from vagrant concubinage, and which by reason of its resemblance to marriage may be thought to participate of the fanctity and innocence of that eftate; I mean the cafe of kept miftreffes, under the favourable circumstance of mutual fidelity. This cafe I have heard defended by fome fuch apology as the following:

"That the marriage rite being different in "different countries, and in the fame country amongst different fects, and with some, scarce any thing; and moreover, not being pre"fcribed or even mentioned in fcripture, can be "accounted of only as of a form and ceremony “ of human invention: that confequently, if a 66 man and woman betroth and confine them"felves to each other, their intercourse must be "the fame, as to all moral purposes, as if they

were legally married: for the addition or "omiffion