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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89544	The reformed gentleman, or, The old English morals rescued from the immoralities of the present age shewing how inconsistent those pretended genteel accomplishments of [brace] swearing, drinking, [brace] whoring and Sabbath-breaking are with the true generosity of an English man : being vices not only contrary to the law of God and the constitutions of our government both ecclesiastical and civil, but such as cry loud for vengeance without a speedy reformation : to which is added a modest advice to ministers and civil magistrates, with an abridgement of the laws relating thereto, the King's proclamation and Queens letter to the justices of Middlesex, with their several orders thereupon / by A.M. of the Church of England.	A. M., of the Church of England.; Bouche, Peter Paul, b. ca. 1646.	1693 (1693)	Wing M6; ESTC R20084	100,071	189

Corruptions of the Age That those who are in the Gall of Bitterness and involved in the Labyrinths of Sin may extricate themselves and come out of the Midst of Sodom and fly for Refuge to a Spiritual Zoar before the Destroying Angel overtake them with his Plagues it is the Design of the following Discourse to shew To which end I have not spared to draw those Vices I have handled in their proper lively and real Natural Colours To lay the Plague the Curse and the Judgment at the Right Door To call the Blasphemer the Intemperate the Unclean Person and the Prophane by their Proper Names And to tell them of the Miseries Calamities Wants Diseases and Death which are their Portion in this Life and of the never-dying Worm the never-ceasing Pains the never-ending Torments and the Eternal Unquenchable Flames which without God's Mercy upon their Repentance will be their Lot in another World And truly I am so far from wishing any severe word in the Ensuing Treatise unwritten that I am afraid of nothing so much as that being infected with the Epidemical Prudentials of the Times I have treated Vice too gently and used the Vile Enormities too favourably I could wish with all my Soul that every word therein were as sharp as Arrows and as keen as a two Edged Sword that they might stab the Sins I have treated on to the very Heart and bring the Offenders to such a Pass that they might be necessitated to flee to Jesus for the Soveraign Balsom of his Blood to heal their wounded Consciences and that being there they might see the necessity of living a Holy Life lest they set their own as well as their Saviours Wounds a bleeding afresh I have but one Word more to add which is to advertise the Reader that I had an Intention of treating upon some other Malignant and Capital Vices but perceiving that thereby I should swell this Work to a larger Volumn than I designed this Manual should be and considering that by advancing the Price above the Vulgar Reach I should rob the Inferiour Rank of People of the benefit thereof and so lose the very end of publishing it for a Generall Good I confin'd my self to speak only of those sins which seemed to bear the most uncontroulable sway in this our Island And truly I could not but think it most proper to handle those Crimes and lay them Open and Naked to the World which are accounted by the Greater Party for Little Venial and the Pecadilloes of the Age at which the Deity seemed little or not at all concerned and in the Commission of which they notwithstanding hoped for Heaven and Eternal Happiness How egregiously are mistaken they will if they have but the Hearts to consider find in the sequel And oh that every one who Reads this were wise that they understood those things and that they would consider their Latter End That they would cease to do Evil and learn to do Well That they would chuse Life and not Death Light and not Darkness That every Soul may Depart from the Error of his Ways and be reformed that the Reformed may as much as in them Lies endeavour to reclaim the whole is the Earnest Desire as well as the Endeavour of him who is a Well-wisher to the whole Israel of God and especially to the Welfare of our particular Son Farewell Advertisement A Book newly Published entituled Ecclesia Reviviscens A Poem or a Short Account of the Rise Progress and Present State of the New Reformation against Vices and Debaucheries Printed for Tho. Salusbury THE INTRODUCTION Man considered in his three states of Innocence Nature and Regeneration A short view of the Church from the Primitive to out Times A survey of the Degeneracy of the present Age and the little Reason the open Debauchees have of styling themselves Church of England Men. The Guilt of this Nation in general aggravated in that neither God's Mercies can Win it nor his Judgments Terrify it into a serious Reformation 1. MAN that Curious The consideration of Man First in his state of Innocence Vpright stately Fabrick of an Almighty Make in his short Period of Innocence attracted to himself the Admiration Love and Obedience of all other Creatures which were subservient to him as their Lord and Denominator To him did all the moving and creeping Animals of the Earth the Winged Fowls of the Air and the Sealy Fish of the Deep become most willing Tributaries To Him did the Firmaments above those Orbs of Light the Sun Moon and Stars afford their milder Influence To him did all the Sweets of Paradise and the Natural Product of the Fertile Earth yield Delight and Satisfaction To him in a Word was all the Creation so Obedient as if Man were the only Master-piece of God and Nature and those other Created Beings but so many Ornaments to set him off with the greater Lustre Add to this his Harmonious and Symmetrical Body His being endued with a never dying God-like and reasonable Soul Enlightened by a clear Vnderstanding Guided by an Vncorrupted Will Moved by pure and Seraphick Affections and placed in a Rank a little below the Angels 2. Man considered in his state of Nature 2. No sooner did he fall and transgress that one Commandment by eating the Forbidden Fruit but the Scene of Glory quickly changed to that of Ignominy and Reproach His Body became Distemper'd Frail and Miserable His Soul lost the Divine Impress and became filthy and abominable His Vnderstanding was darkned His Will Corrupted and Depraved His Affections Vitiated and Debauched and his whole Man out of Frame He had neither Peace without nor Peace within but all in a storm led an Vnquiet Disatisfied and discontented Life All the Creatures now rose up in Actual Rebellion against their transformed Lord vindicating their Creators Honour upon one that had so shamefully abused it And the lashes of a Wounded Conscience upon a sense of his Guilt were more afflictive to him by far then his being whipped out of Paradise ever was What dismal Effects his Posterity met withall is apparent from God's Justice in giving them up to a reprobate sense to commit Iniquity with greediness and then plaguing them with sundry Diseases and divers kinds of Deaths For from the very moment of the Fall the Intellectual became subject to the Sensitive Faculties the Rational nobler part of the Man was enslaved to that ignoble part which he held in common with Brutes and the Soul bowed down and was conformable to all the Lusts and impetuous Passions of the Body 3. In this languid condition lay the greatest part of the Posterity of fallen Adam for nigh four Thousand Years In the height of that Impiety which proceeded from those Corrupted Principles was it that the old World was destroyed by a Vniversal Deluge of Waters and the new One in its Nonage was dispersed by a Jargon of Languages at the Confusion of Babel Of all the

comes it to pass that the Magnanimity and Courage of the English has of late degenerated into Softness and Effeminacy And the Nation which before was a Terror to her Neighbours is now by those bewitching Dalilahs rob'd of its former Vigour and become almost as weak and Pusillanimous as the rest So fond have we been of imitating the French in all their Vices Fashions and Accomplishments of late that we have followed them to a hair in all things even their Cowardize their tricks and poor sneaking Stratagems not excepted 13. It would be a tolerable Bargain did the Wretch come off with no worse then the Miserie 's incident to Sensuality in this life 4ly The last effect of Fornication is withiut Repentance Death Eternal but alas he has an after-reckoning to pay beyond the Valley of the shadow of Death 'T is not his Mind Body or Estate His Reason Life or Fortune but the Loss of his Soul which must quit the score of that Guilt contracted by the pursuits of these Vncleannesses which he has not repented of Eph. 5.5 For no whoremonger has any Inheritance in the kingdom of Heaven but will be judged by God the Righteous Judge and by his irrevocable Sentence consigned over to have his Portion in that Abyss of Fire and Brimstone which burns for ever and ever Rev. 21.18 In this Burning Tophet he will then struggle tho' in vain and in the anguish of those Torments he will in all probability wish tho' it be too late that he had never given way to his corrupt Nature that he had never harkned to the flattering Motions of Flesh and Blood that he had never yielded to the prevalence of his Inclinations How then will he execrate himself and curse his merry Companions that allured him to and Taught him this Diabolical Art How will he then wish that his Eyes had been plucked out and his Eye-strings had cracked before they had gazed upon Vanity and betraid him into a snare How will he wish then that his Arms had fallen from his Shoulder-blade before they had been defiled with unclean Embraces That his Tongue had cleaved to the roof of his Mouth before he had uttered such immodest Discourse That his Ears had been stopped with a perpetual Deafness before he had listned to the filthy Communication of others That he had been thrown into the Fiery Furnace before he had leaped into the Bed and Arms of an Harlot But why should I inlarge upon those things since Hell is little regarded by the generality of Mankind and the Torments of the Damned are looked upon as fictitious Bugbears to frighten deluded Man from his Paradise of Voluptuousness and the Accounts of Holy Writers concerning a future State are generally dis-believed And if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets nor believe Jesus and his followers How can we expect they should give credit tho' one of their old Companions arose from the dead 15. I come now in the next place to consider the mischiefs of that Branch of Vncleanness Adultery and the Effects thereof Adultery where one or both the Parties concerned are in the State of Matrimony and which is not only condemned as being Sensual and opposite to a direct Command in the Decalogue but also as it is unjust injurious and inconvenient to the Publick Society of which we are Members This Sin has not only the Brutality of the two former but is acted with all the Malice imaginable against both God and Man I know not by what kind of Fascination this Vice has prevailed within these few years but so common is it grown that 't is matter of sport and pastime to have the Ingenuity to defile ones neighbors Bed And 't is reckoned a small business to pay Quid pro Quo and a Jest to Horn the Horter But as common as it is yet the Crime loses not one grain of its real Estimate Let the Adul●erer and Adulteress please themselves with never so merry Thoughts of the contrary For they thereby incur the Guilt of breaking the whole Law Affront God The effects of Adultery further illustrated in its being a Breach of our Duty to God our neighbor and our selves Injure Others and Act as Enemies against ●hemselves As by considering the following ill Effects thereof will easily and manifestly appear 16. God certainly is displeased at it being diametrically contrary to a Command which he delivered with Thundring and Lightning at Mount Sinai in these express words 1st Adultery is a sin against God Thou shalt not commit Adultery His Edicts are not to be despised neither are his Commandments to be cast behind our back Who are we that shall make bold with our Maker and trample his Institutes under foot and reckon his Ordinances not worthy our Observance Can we dispute the lawfulness or unlawfulness of his Orders Or shall we act in opposition to an Almighty's Decrees 17. But farther you break not only the Commands of a Just Jehovah 2ly Adultery a sin against others and first against the Publick but maliciously strike at the Root and aim at the destruction of that Society to which you belong Our English Community allows no such promiscuous Copulations and therefore has carefully provided that every Man shall be the Husband of one Wife He therefore that climbs up into his neighbors Bed to defile it doth what in him lies to put an end to all the Decorums and Observances which the strictness of a well constituted Christian Government requires at our hands Adultery is a Sin which no Nation or People tho' never so barbarous has maintained By the Levitical Law it was punished with the immediate death of both Parties Lev. 20.10 Deut. 22.22 The Alchoran of Mahomet not only forbids a Lascivious Eye but punishes the Adulteress convicted by four of the same Sex with perpetual Imprisonment The Pagan Indians at Dominica Cuina Bantam and Japan punish the Adulterers with loss of Life Scotch History The barbarous Chineses have the same sense of the guilt and inflict no less a punishment upon the Delinquent At the City of Pequin the Jointures and Dowries of Adulteresses are bestowed upon the Hospitals of Female Orphans In Patame a Province joyning to China they have a Custom If any Persons of quality become guilty of this Offence that by Choice they shall be strangled by their next of Kin. At Brasil the Crime seemed of so black a Dye that the inraged Husband had Power and Authority at Will to be the Judge Jury and Executioner of his own Adulterous Wife But at Angola a City in Aethiopia the Penalty was more moderate and the Offender only lost his Nose by the Bargain These and the like Punishments were inflicted by the very Heathens which sufficiently let us see what Constructions they made upon the odious and detestable Sin of Adultery and enough to shame us into a better Consideration of the nature of such a Beastiality Our own Laws both Civil

since his Actions are Diametrically contrary to the Royal Will and Pleasure specified at first by his Majesties Letter to the Bishop of London which was ordered to be Communicated to the rest of the Clergy and afterwards signified to the Civil Magistrate By the Queens most Gracious Message to the Justices of Middlesex and Lastly by a more forcing Proclamation in which they Recommended the suppressing Profane Swearing and Cursing as the first and chiefest of those Offences which were accounted more especially to hasten and bring down God's Judgments upon this Unfortunate Kingdom 21 But Thirdly there are many of those Profligate Wretches who dare own themselves Church-men and if they pretend to any Religion it is the Reformed Orthodox and Protestant Faith they are of The third Motive drawn from the Obedience due to the Church They appear openly in our Congregations and shew a bold Face in the most solemn of our Assemblies and intrude into the most Sacred of our Ordinances the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper But let those Profaners of all that is good and sacred be assured that the Church is not their Mother that within her Bosom there are cherished no such Vipers that her Sanctuary is no Asylum for such Vermine to have recourse to For her Doctrine's drawn out of the Pure fountain of God's Word (a) Article 39. her Articles (b) Homily 7. her Homilies and her whole Constitutions are directly Opposite to the Profane and gives no manner of Encouragement for him to persevere in his Extravagancies However the lewd World may esteem of things now yet when the Last Day comes no Question but the Church will say to those her Hangers on I know you not You would have none of my Counsel but despised all my reproof therefore Eat ye of the Fruit of your own way and be filled with your own devices If therefore any Man has any Zeal to stand up for her and to promote her Cause and to enlarge her Borders He cannot do it better than by a Sober and Conscientious Conversation to let his Communication be Yea Yea and Nay Nay 22. Come we now to consider the last Motive The fourth Motive drawn from the Judgments of God which if all the rest fail may prove strong enough to work upon the most obdurate and hardned Conscience unless it be Judgment Hell and Damnation-proof Men may be so brazen faced as not to blush at their being worse than Heathens they may be so resractory as not to be reduced by the strictest Humane Laws They may be so unchristian and so unnatural as to chuse to be disowned by their Mother the Church rather than part with their customary Vices But I hope they are not so much in the power of Devil as that the terrors of the Lord against such Offenders both in this Life and in another can make no impression upon them 23. Let those Wretches be never so free from the Laws of the Kingdom and the Censures of the Church 1. Judgments upon Swearers in this life yet the Hand of the Lord will find them out and even on this side the Grave pay them home for their rash Oaths and blasphemous Execrations We have some tho' not many fresh Instances of God's signalizing his Vengeance on such horrid Criminals For what was the reason of the small company of the Israelites killing 100000 Aramites in one day 1 Kings 20.20 If you consult Holy Writ you will find it was for Blaspheming God And what was the cause of Sennacherib's meeting with such an Unnatural and barbarous Death Was it not the Blaspheming the Lord Jehovah both by his General Rabshekab and by his own Hand-writing in a Letter he sent to Hezekiah And doth not God in our times take the Sinner at his word and cut him off in an Instant with the damnable Execration in his Mouth True it is such Instances of God's immediate Vengeance in this World are very rare and few examples of this nature are upon Record But let us take a view of the impenitent Blasphemer lying upon his Death-bed in his last Agonies and ready to give up his polluted Breath at his last gasp Let us there examine him what Fruitor Profit he has in those things whereof he is now ashamed Can you think his gentile Oaths and accomplished Execrations will now do him any advantage in that Eternity into which he is just ready to Launch No I am perswaded you will hear him tell you another story and if the Devil has not quite gagged his Conscience you will hear him in the bitterness of his Soul utter out this or some such complaint Damned Caitif that I am In what an unavoidably miserable condition am I involved What a lamentable prospect of endless Wo have I now in my sight What a horrible Scene is just ready to open and deliver me up to the devouring Flames Ob cursed Tongue How hast thou been employed for thine own Ruine Heaven thou canst not appeal to for the power thereof thou hast often defied God thou can'st not call upon whose Name thou hast often and shamefully prophaned by thine unclean Lips Oh Heavens Drop down upon me and crush me into nothing Oh Mountains fall upon me and cover me from the face of him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the Wrath of the Lamb Oh Earth Let thy Bowels gape and hide me in thy dark Caverns But alas in vain do I vent my wishes to those who cannot will not help me Come then ye Infernal Furies and hurry my accursed Soul to its deserved Mansions Come ye bewitching and infatuating Spirits and take your cheap Bargain home to your fiery Habitations Thus raving and despairing railing and cursing himself he ends his abominable odious and sinful Life 24. But if this is not melancholy enough to strike Horror into the Adamantine Heart 2. Eternal Judgments upon Swearers yet let him his prospect beyond this and the Grave For admit he may escape the thunderbolts of Divine Wrath tho' the Lightning may not devour him nor the Arrows of the Lord take hold of him in this life yet can he expect to escape the Judgment of God for ever Shall not Hell be his Portion and Eternall Misery his stipend for all his Blasphemies Shall he not with Dives lift up his Eyes in Hell being in Torments and roar out in vain for one drop of water to cool his inflamed Tongue That Fire that world of iniquity which delighted in venting out its Curses and Oaths here on Earth Will not the punishment be adaequate and suitable to the Crime And is it not fit that That Member suffer most which was chiefly instrumental in plucking down the misery upon the whole Consider this then ye that forget God that forget your selves and forgoe your own Interest both Temporal and Eternal for what vanishes like Smoke into empty Air consider ye that Glory in your Shame that Triumph in your wickedness that Out-dare Heaven with

the Breach by reconciling you to your Offended God Doubtless you who are now Guilty of this Sin and fool your selves up with the Hopes of repenting Hereafter are out in your Measures and are in the ways that tend and lead to the Chambers of Death when it will perhaps prove too late when one foot is got into the Grave 25. Now to speak a word or two of the next kind of Vncleanness Fourthly Of Incest and the effects thereof wherein the parties concerned fall within that Degree of Kindred which does forbid all Carnal knowledge tho' in the state of Matrimony and this Uncovering of a Relations Nakedness Married or Single we call Incest The little Noise that is made about it within this Northren World would make one think there was no such Fornication amongst us But among the many Vnlawful it would not be hard to find some Vnnatural Embraces were they not so commonly hushed up by the Inglorious Criminals and concealed by the rest of the Relations to avoid the disgracing their Families thereby From the want of due Conviction thereof is it that they go Unpunished and escape the Censure of a Spiritual Court and the Sentence of an Earthly Tribunal but the just Judge will overtake and his Hand will find them out What the Consequence of this Sin is over and above the Common Miseries which if together with Fornication and Adultery may be said to endure appears from the Examples of those who have met with Divine Vengeance in or presently after the Act. Lot's Daughters got nothing by uncovering their Fathers Nakedness but Shame to themselves and an intailed Curse to their Miserable Posterity Reuben tho' the first born fell short of his Portion in the Old Mans Benedicat because he went up and defiled his Fathers Bed Amnon met with sowre Sauce after the Rape and Incest he committed upon his Sister And Absalom's untimely Death may be assigned to his having layn with his Fathers Concubines as the Chiefest tho' not the only Cause thereof Profane Writers are not wanting in Instances of this kind too long and many to be ennumerated in a Discourse of so small a Bulk Nor are our own Annals and the present times unfurnished which because it would seem Invidious to rip open the faults of such as lye in the Dust and too reflecting upon many now alive I shall forbear to particularize Else such could be named which tasted deeply of the Cup of God's W●ath even in this Life for this Crime and what their Portion is in the other World my C●arity will not admit me to judge 26. The Last and Highest Degree of Uncleanness is that of Rape Fifthly Of Rape and the Consequence thereof wherein the Ravisher bears no regard to any thing but his Lust for whomsoever that prompts him to enjoy his Violence constrains to yield to his Embrace Virgin or Widow Sister or Mother Married or Single are all alike to him One would think from the Multitude of Common Prostitutes in and about the World there would be no such thing as Violence used But if you Visit the Courts of Judicature you shall find many of those Guilty Wretches holding up their Hands at the Bar. So Offensive have these Constraints been to most Nations that we find by the Laws thereof that they are punished with immediate Death No less Punishment doth the Statute Laws of our Land inflict upon the Offender and not only the Principal but the Abettors of the Crime have tasted of the same Ignominious Punishment And how the Fortune-stealer for so our Gentile Ravisher is now adays called will answer his Rape at the Last Day I am struck with Horror to imagine His Miseries are the same with other Letchers but aggravated by being not only his Better self-Hater but the Common Nusance Pest and Disturber of Civiliz'd Societies 27. Thus have I at length winded my self out of that Labarynth of Lust A word of Advice to the Chast and the Vnchast and passed through all its Chambers and proved them to be the direct Road to Want Misery Diseases and Death to the Wrath of God and Eternal Flames And if there is so great a Train of Mischiefs attending in the outward Apartments of Uncleanness such as are obvious to every View and which I have only treated on What and How many must needs be the Evils which are admitted into her closer Retirements and into her Unseen and Unobserved Secresies It remains now that I should give a Word of Advice to such as have not as yet been infected with this Epidemical Distemper as well as to those that at present do Labour under it And so the Precautions and Antidotes I prescribe to the One may prove Effectual Remedies to heal the other 28. To the first I have the Apostles Words ready to say Keep your selves Pure Let not Sin reign in your Mortal Bodies that you should obey it in the Lusts thereof Neither yield your Members as Instruments of Vnrighteousness to Sin But yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the Dead and your Members as Instruments of Righteousness unto God Your Bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in you Flee Fornication therefore and every Sin that defiles that Sacred Place For you are not your own you are bought with a Price Glorifie therefore God in the Chastity of your Bodies as well as in the Purity of your Spirits which are Gods 1 Cor. 19.20 And over and above the avoiding the Evil Consequents of Uncleanness which are in themselves Motives sufficient to deter Men from the pursuit thereof you have stronger inducements thereto For thereby you ensure to your selves the Peace and Tranquillity of an Undefiled Conscience and all the Comforts flowing from a Chast and Humble Conversation You imitate the Inspirer of your Souls in being Pure as he is Pure and in a Word by this Angelick Virtue you prepare and fit your selves for the Beatific Vision for so Blessed are the Pure in Heart pronounced by our Saviour that they and only they shall see God Mat. 5. 29. To the Poor Infected Wretch I shall add to what I have already said Repent of thy Vncleannesses which thou hast Committed and Mortify thy Members which are upon the Earth Suffice it that thou hast hitherto yielded thy Members servants to Vnrighteousness now return and yield them Servants unto God unto Holiness Be not carried away with thy Lusts any longer moderate the Impetuous Heat of thy Youth Be no longer the Vassal to Impurity Let not an Idle Exchange Girl or Common Actress captivate thy Soul Hearken not any longer to the Allurements of those Minions and suffer not Solomons Wanton to lead thee as an Oxe to the Slaughter or as a Fool to the Correction of the Stocks Be no longer fond of those thy dear bought Pleasures and hunt not after what will cost thee the wasting of thy Estate the Misery of thy Relations the Impairing of thy Health