see a hundreth part of those disgraces that we do They are owing to the want of this common wisdom of Men and Women at least generally speaking From this principle arise those evil humours and cruel jealousies which cause to them both such smart vexations But it is not only in this that Incontinence is fatal to the World It is likewise in this respect viz. That it aims at nothing but its ruine in averting Men from Marriage which is the true principle of its preservation Would you know the difference between Marriage and Fornication Marriage proposes nothing to itself but the propagation of Mankind whereas the other aims at its destruction Adulter non prolem sed voluptatem quaerit Marriage glories in the production of Children Fornication is ashamed of it and tends only to obstruct their generation What horrors what infamies are practis'd for that end 'T is easie to conceive them But it would be indecent to express them So that the world receives from this vice a prejudice proportioned to all those great advantages which it draws from Marriage whereof I have discoursed in my first Part. Will you not confess after all this that it is the greatest of all crimes and that Cicero could not have hit better when he said that all evils put together were not equal to this Si unum in locoum collata sint ommia mala cum turpitudinis malo non erunt comparanda As to what remains I distinguish not between Fornication Adultery and keeping of Concubines Yet I know one might observe difference for all Concubine-keeping is a Fornication but all Fornication and Adultery is not keeping of Concubines However all this is but one and the same species of Sin It is one in it self and is only diversisived by the State of those who commit it But why do you so severely prohibit you 'll say perhaps a thing that Moses himself permitted to the Jews and which was practised by the Patriarchs and the ancient Kings of Israel Abraham and Jacob had many Wives and various Concubines Solomon had even to the number of a thousand and Polygamy keeping of Concubines and Letters of Divorce have been of use and are at this time amongst divers People of the earth This objection is natural to the matter I treat of and it immediately seems so favourable to the inclinations of the flesh that it is no wonder it falls into the minds of all men and that Fornicators make use of it to flatter themselves in their irregularity It is long since that these sort of Persons and several ancient Heriticks have prevailed thereby to authorise their evil conduct and pernicious sentiments upon the subject of intemperance To which I answer first that God from the beginning of the World established Marriage between two Persons only Man says he shall leave his Father and Mother Gen. 2.24 and joyn himself not to several Wives but to one Wife Not to Harlots and Concubines but to his wife not to the wife of his Neighbour but to his own they shall be adds the Creator not three four five and six but they shall be two in one flesh Could he Condemn more expressly Fornication and Adultery Polygamy and keeping of Concubines Secondly The example of the Patriarchs and Kings of Israel makes no consequence against a Law so express as that is because according to several Fathers of the Church if they did not confine themselves to it it was through a very particular and mysterious permission of God Not to say that as good Men as they were they were still men capable of sinning like the rest David himself assures us that there is not one just person and Solomon says that the most perfect falls seven times a day Nomo mortalium omnibus horis sapit No Man is wise at all times It must be confessed that herein they were seduced by their temper and that the force of custom and example of Idolatrous Nations in the midst of which they lived contributed much thereto But at the same time we ought to be persuaded that God bestowed on them the Grace of Repentance and to admire the ways of his eternal Wisdom which has often times made use of the proper sins of its own Servants to make us apprehend exceeding miseries Which made St. Ambrose say that the very faults of the Patriarchs were advantagious to us Instruunt Patriarchae non solum docentes sed etiam errantes In effect St. Paul discovers to the Gallatians a great mystery in the Concubinary Union of Abraham and Hagar and in the birth of Ismael his Son Are not we acquainted likewise that the very incestious Fornication of Judah with Thamer his Daughter in Law has served Providence to make thereof one of the Characters of the humiliation of Jesus Christ who according to the flesh was derived from Pharez one of those Children that sprung from this unlawful copulation And it is in this consideration that a holy Man has ventured to call even the Sin of Adam happy because without it we had been deprived of this Great Redeemer who makes all the glory of our Nature and all the comfort of our Souls O! felix culpa Greg. quae talem meruisti habere Redemptorem Moreover the faults of the ancient Patriachs ought to advantage us by way of precaution Besides we live under a dispensation infinitely more than that of the Patriarchs and Jews Moses for the hardness of their hearts allowed them divers things that Jesus Christ has prohibited us But do not we know that the Church was in its Infancy under the Law and that it is in its Manhood under the Gospel It would be shameful for us to be no wiser than they and to practice in this perfect age of grace where we are arrived the same actions they practised under the imperfect age of the Law If your Justice doth not exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 5. ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven said the Master to his Disciples That which is in some sort supportable by the Law of the Jews and also by the Law of the Mahometans can never be so by the Law of Christians They have engagements to a purity of manners which other men have not Aliis silicet tibi non licet Ter. in Heaut The blindness of Pagans and Infidels excuses a part of their crime They may say with one of their Poets Sed partem nostri criminis error habet Ovid. Trist L. 3. El. 5. Part of my crime was caused by mistake But nothing can excuse us Christians and we should be so much the more faulty to live with the same remission as we have a perfect knowledge of the will of God of vertues and vices of what is necessary to be done and what to be avoided in order to attain to salvation The Jews of the first Christian Penticost after having been convicted of infidelity and felony against Jesus Christ by
there are but few now a days like Job who made a contract with his eyes not to look upon a Virgin One sees every where lascivious eyes The Publick walks serve only to exercise their immodesty They respect not even the Altars of the Lord and the Assemblies of his People If a man discovers a Lady there of a well made agreeable aspect he willingly prefers the pleasure of observing her to that of discharging the duties of Piety There needs no more to freeze the hottest devotion Homo ex humo sine humanitate non est homo Man is made out of the earth nor is a man without humanity By the lust of the mouth I apprehend those filthy Words and Songs so unbecoming and lascivious that hurt chst ears that excite the reddest modesty and whereof the use notwithstanding is so frequent amongst men This is certainly a species of fornication as well by the pleasure that is taken in uttering these obscenities as because they are the inkindlers of concupisence and contribute much to the corrupting of the affections One may even be assured without fear of a mistake that those who are pleafed with such kind of discourses are already very much corrupted in their hearts In effect the mouth speaks only from the abundance of the heart as Christ himself One is the interpreter of the other The mouth speaks ill because the heart thinks ill The effect pursues the nature of its cause and such as the principle is such also is the act Ream linguam non facit nisi mens rea We may even affirm that these lascivious tongues are almost an infallible proof of a licentious life for as St. Chrisostom says Verbae sint signa eorum Words are the images or representation of things The words of men very often give us to understand what they are There is very little appearance that a man will not act as he loves to talk and that being immodest in his conversation he should not be so in his conduct If in the morality of our Saviour one must give an account of useless words which are neither good nor evil Judge Sir what a reckoning those will have who make these impure and hurtful words a subject of diversion and who have contracted so large a habit of them that they cannot express themselves whether in speaking or in writing without naming every thing by its name As the Plautus's the Horaces's the Ovia's of the time past the Rebalai's and the Montaign's of our time It must be confessed that nothing is more unworthy of a Gentleman than this manner of action Modesty is the thing of the world most agreeable to Man but especially essential to a Christian It is a character that denotes him from all the rest What was more carefully and earnestly recommended to us by the Apostles than a purity and sanctity in all our conversation In fine what shall I say of the excesses of the hand with relation to this miserable sin of wantonness O God what abominations what obscenities what unlawful uses what infamous things which one durst not either think or relate doth it not commit This crime which modesty will not suffer to be named as common as it is is ne'er the less enormous It was long since struck with the curse of Heaven in the person of Onan Gen. 38.9 Son of Judah whereof the Scripture tells us Is it a wonder after all this that God should have so much horror for this crime Is it any surprise that he should thunder against it such dreadful menaces It is matter of consternation that he should join to it an heriditary curse upon families In a word that he should so often bring upon the people and upon private persons such terrible marks of his displeasure It must be granted that nothing is more frequent in Holy Scripture than prohibitions to commit this Sin and the examples of its punishment It is not in the Decalogue alone that God says Thou shalt not commit Adultery He speaks it in a thousand other places of his word The New Testament especially recommends to us nothing else The Sermons of our Saviour and the Epistles of the Apostles are filled therewith Their principal end is to dispose us to a purity of body and mind and they protest that nothing is more displeasing to God than the polluted Garment of the flesh It is not Sodom and Gomarrha alone that has drawn down the fire of Heaven Alas a thousand other Cities and an infinite number of other sinners have been consumed in all Ages and all Nations upon account of this unhappy Lust But admit there was nothing else except the punishments of another life and that hideous Lake of Fire and Brimstone to which in the Theology of Jesus Christ and his Apostles it necessarily leads men needs there any more to convince us that nothing is more pernicious and ought to be more soveraignly hated by us Is it not strange perhaps you 'll say that God who knows Man so well should with so much exactness prohibit a thing which is so natural to him and that he should condemn him to the punishments of Hell for a Sin which it is almost impossible for him not to commit in one of those kinds you have treated of doth not St. Paul say That the flesh is not subject to the Law of God Rom. 8.7 neither can it be I reply Sir that this great propensity it self which Man naturally has for this debauchery is one of the principal reasons that have oblig'd the Creator to joyn so much punishment to it and to thunder so many Curses upon it If inspite of his prohibition and all his threatnings Man is insolent enough to abandon himself to it as much as he doth judge to what excess he hath pushed on the crime and what he had been able to attempt without it Et nihil est Ovid. Met. L. 6. Fab 8. quod non effraeno captus amore Ausit It is then to abate a little the impetuosity of this furious passion that God has used him so He has been pleased to punish with most bitterness and severity the vice where Man finds most pleasure and for which he has most inclination to the end that the fear of so formidable a chastisement might be as a Bridle to retain him in his duty There are few of those persons left of whom one might affirm Oderunt peccare bonae virtutis amore Hor. Epist L. 1. They hate to sin for the pure love of virtue Most frequently we love this virtue not for its own sake but by reason of the punishments that attend vice Difficile est persuadere hominibus honestum propter seipsum diligendum Cic. 'T is a difficult thing to persuade men that virtue is to be lov'd for its own sake If there was no good to hope for in practising the one and no evil to fear in committing the other we should become as wicked as the
a Sermon of St. Peter cried out in the motions of their sadness Men and Brethren what shall we do If the things which I have represented to you concerning the sin of Incontinence have an influance upon you and you ask me just in the same manner what you must do to avoid it I answer to you in the first place what St. Peter replied to the Jews Repent There is no method more secure than that in order to put of entirely the bondage of the passions or to say better it is the only one whose success is infallible to that end When a man is truly converted he has a holy dislike of himself He detests his precedent conversation He has a horrour for his crime He finds no further pleasure but in the enjoyment of his God He has a disgust for all the vain delights of the flesh David Magdelain and St. Austin are great and admirable examples hereof I reply to you in the second place Marry In effect although there is no condition happy enough to be perfectly exempt from all the blots of Incontinence and that a thousand married persons fail not to render themselves faulty yet it must be granted that Marriage is that of all conditions of Man wherein he may best be cured 'T is what St. Paul instructs us in that exhortation which he makes to all men To avoid Fornication says he let every man have his own Wife and every Woman her own Husband This Sir shall be the subject of my Third Part. OF THE MOTIVES Which might reasonably Induce Men to MARRY PART III. MEthinks Sir to represent to an honest Man the Excellency of Marriage and the Infamy of Incontinence the great advantages of the one and the dreadful horrors of the other were enough to produce in him an inclination to marry without any further enlargement Neverthelss there are divers oâ—her Motives which may dispose them to it and they appear to me considerable enough to make a particular part of this Treatise To begin where I finish'd the other you ought to observe that Marriage is an essential remedy to Incontinence Whatsoever you do to subdue your flesh and to allay the fire of its lust you will not easily accomplish it without Marriage Retirements Fastings Disciplines Macerations may lessen part of the forces of this formidable enemy but not absolutely overcome him Without a particular favour of Heaven he will always triumph over your power and in spite of all the caâ—es of your piety you 'll find it hard enough to avoid falling into one of the Fornications I have discoursed of Nothing but Marriage can naturally cure you That 's the true Antidote against this mortal Poyson I repeat it once more To avoid Fornication let every Man have his Wife and every Woman her Husband Ought any one to qustion after this the efficacy of Marriage to deliver us from this pernicious malady should we not believe an Apostle who brought all he has said to us from the third Heaven and who has given us nothing but what he received from the Lord himself who could judge better than he of our necessities I am surprised that after so express an Order to Marry and so authentick a testimony of the necessity of Marriage in reference to Salvation there should be a single man in the world that can have it in contempt This is so much the more amazing as this Order is as ancient as the World It is not from St. Paul It is from God himself As soon as he had formed Man he gave him a Wife He married him And he commanded all his descendents to marry Jesus Christ has renewed the precept under the Gospel I don't pretend Sir that this command is absolute and obligatory for all men as some have been of opinion A man doth not absolutely disobey God in remaining a Batchelour provided that he lives piously in that state How many persons are there who are improper for Marriage But I affirm that herein God was pleased to let us know that it is a condition very agreeable to him and is extreamly necessary to fulfill all the duties of humanity and to accomplish all the ends of our Creation The Apostle discovers in it another advantage for Man that is yet more important To wit as I have said that it may much contribute to make him live piously in causing him to avoid Incontinence Insomuch that he answers at the same time both the end of Nature which is to multiply men and the end of Grace which is to sanctifie them Let us assert then of Marriage with relation to the men of the world that it is the true path of wisdom that there is no condition more secure for man and that Caelera caeca via est The other is an obscure path Ovid. amor Nevertheless I am not unacquainted with those words of our Saviour Sunt qui se castraverunt propter regnum caelorum Mat. 19. As there is an infinite number of Libertines within the sacred Bonds of Marriage it is not to be question'd but that in the engagement of vows there is also a great many persons who live in an exemplary purity I respect their Character and have a veneration for their virtue But besides that all men cannot become Hermits nor espouse a Convent and that the number of those who do is very small in comparison of those who do not who knows not the difficulty which the greatest Saints have had to vanquish the stings of the flesh and to preserve an incorruptible Celibacy 'T is certain that what is most difficult to observe is the Law of Continence Perhaps the best man of the world doth not acquit himself of his duties with all the exactness of the Sanctuary This saying of the Son of God is but too true That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh As I have often remarked in the precedent parts nothing is more infirm than Man The sight of a Woman that is to say a handful of dust of a thing which at the bottom is nothing but a heap of rottenness and corruption with relation to that body which is adored easily puts an end to all his constancy and makes him oftentimes forget all his wisdom Omiser as hominum mentes O pectora caeca O miserable minds of man Lucret. Oh! blind understanding What ought to persuade us more that Marriage is a remedy good for all men in general and that the Creator who ordained it knew very well that nothing was more necessary for us It was said long ago Qui abhoret a societate conjugali vel Angelus est vel stirpes One must be either insensible or above sensibility to be able to pass by this Matrimonial Union I cannot forbear Sir at present to improve the usefulness to say no worse of the Celebacy of Lay-men If it be a virtue certainly 't is none of the most considerable It is even of the nature of those which very often