age, consists in its tendency to diminish mar- | pleasures; which is a great loss to any man's riages, and thereby to defeat the several bene- happiness. ficial purposes enumerated in the preceding chapter.

4. Fornication perpetuates a disease, which may be accounted one of the sorest maladies of human nature; and the effects of which are said to visit the constitution of even distant

99

Promiscuous concubinage discourages marriage, by abating the chief temptation to it. The male part of the species will not under-generations. take the encumbrance, expense, and restraint The passion being natural, proves that it was of married life, if they can gratify their pas. intended to be gratified: but under what resions at a cheaper price; and they will under-strictions, or whether without any, must be take any thing, rather than not gratify them. collected from different considerations. The reader will learn to comprehend the The Christian Scriptures condemn fornicamagnitude of this mischief, by attending to the tion absolutely and peremptorily. "Out of importance and variety of the uses to which the heart," says our Saviour, "proceed evil marriage is subservient; and by recollecting thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, withal, that the malignity and moral quality thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are of each crime is not to be estimated by the par- the things which defile a man.' These are ticular effect of one offence, or of one person's Christ's own words: and one word from him offending, but by the general tendency and upon the subject, is final. It may be observed consequence of crimes of the same nature. The with what society fornication is classed; with Libertine may not be conscious that these irre- murders, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. I gularities hinder his own marriage, from which do not mean that these crimes are all equal, he is deterred, he may allege, by different con- because they are all mentioned together; but siderations; much less does he perceive how it proves that they are all crimes. The apostles his indulgences can hinder other men from are more full upon this topic. One well-known marrying; but what will he say would be the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, may consequence, if the same licentiousness were stand in the place of all others; because, ad. universal ? or what should hinder its becoming mitting the authority by which the apostles of universal, if it be innocent or allowable in Christ spake and wrote, it is decisive: “Mar. him? riage and the bed undefiled is honourable am ongst all men: but whoremongers and adul terers God will judge;" which was a great de: to say, at a time when it was not agreed, eve amongst philosophers themselves, that forni cation was a crime.

in the marriage of one man with one woman, an adequate gratification for the propensities of their nature, and have restricted them to that gratification.

2. Fornication supposes prostitution; and prostitution brings and leaves the victims of it to almost certain misery. It is no small quantity of misery in the aggregate, which, between want, disease, and insult, is suffered by those outcasts of human society, who infest populous The Scriptures give no sanction to those cities; the whole of which is a general conse-austerities, which have been since imposed quence of fornication, and to the increase and upon the world under the name of Christ's continuance of which, every act and instance religion; as the celibacy of the clergy, the of fornication contributes. praise of perpetual virginity, the prohibitio 3. Fornication* produces habits of ungo- concubitús cum gravidâ uxore; but with a just vernable lewdness, which introduce the more knowledge of, and regard to, the condition and aggravated crimes of seduction, adultery, vio-interest of the human species, have provided, lation, &c. Likewise, however it be accounted for, the criminal commerce of the sexes corrupts and depraves the mind and moral character more than any single species of vice whatsoever. That ready perception of guilt, The avowed toleration, and in some counthat prompt and decisive resolution against it, tries the licensing, taxing, and regulating of which constitutes a virtuous character, is sel- public brothels, has appeared to the people an dom found in persons addicted to these indul-authorising of fornication; and has contributgences. They prepare an easy admission for ed, with other causes, so far to vitiate the pub. every sin that seeks it; are, in low life, usual. lic opinion, that there is no practice of which ly the first stage in men's progress to the most the immorality is so little thought of or acdesperate villanies; and, in high life, to that knowledged, although there are few in which lamented dissoluteness of principle, which ma- it can more plainly be made out. The legislanifests itself in a profligacy of public conduct, tors who have patronised receptacles of prostiand a contempt of the obligations of religion tution, ought to have foreseen this effect, as and of moral probity. Add to this, that habits well as considered, that whatever facilitates of libertinism incapacitate and indispose the fornication, diminishes marriages. And, as to mind for all intellectual, moral, and religious the usual apology for this relaxed discipline, Of this passion it has been truly said, that "irregu. the danger of greater enormities, if access to larity has no limits; that one excess draws on another; prostitutes were too strictly watched and prothat the most easy, therefore, as well as the most excel-hibited, it will be time enough to look to that, lent way of being virtu us, is to be so eptirely." Ogden, when the laws and the magistrates have done

Serm. xvi

their utmost

The greatest vigilance of both | obligations to certain forms, so that they canwill do no more, than oppose some bounds and not be secured or undertaken by any other some difficulties to this intercourse. And, af-means, which is the case here (for, whatever ter all, these pretended fears are without foun- the parties may promise to each other, nothing dation in experience. The men are in all re- but the marriage-ceremony can make their spects the most virtuous, in countries where promise irrevocable), it becomes in the same the women are most chaste. degree immoral, that men and women should cohabit without the interposition of these forms.

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 sanctity and innocence of that estate; I If fornication be criminal, all those incenmean the case of kept mistresses, under the fa- tives which lead to it are accessaries to the vourable circumstance of mutual fidelity. This crime, as lascivious conversation, whether excase I have heard defended by some such apo-pressed in obscene, or disguised under modest logy as the following:

phrases; also wanton songs, pictures, books; the writing, publishing, and circulating of which, whether out of frolic, or for some pitiful profit, is productive of so extensive a mis

crimes, within the reach of private wickedness, have more to answer for, or less to plead in their excuse.

"That the marriage-rite being different in different countries, and in the same country amongst different sects, and with some scarce any thing; and, moreover, not being prescrib-chief from so mean a temptation, that few ed or even mentioned in Scripture, can be accounted for only as of a form and ceremony of human invention: that, consequently, if a man and woman betroth and confine themselves to each other, their intercourse must be the same, as to all moral purposes, as if they were legally married; for the addition or omission of that which is a mere form and ceremony, can make no difference in the sight of God, or in the actual nature of right and wrong."

To all which it may be replied.

1. If the situation of the parties be the same thing as marriage, why do they not marry?

Indecent conversation, and by parity of reason all the rest, are forbidden by Saint Paul, Eph. iv. 29. "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth ;" and again, Col. iii. 8. " Put off filthy communication out of your mouth."

The invitation, or voluntary admission, of impure thoughts, or the suffering them to get possession of the imagination, falls within the same description, and is condemned by Christ, 2. If the man choose to have it in his pow- Matt. v. 28. "Whosoever looketh on a woer to dismiss the woman at his pleasure, or to man to lust after her, hath committed adulteretain her in a state of humiliation and depend-ry with her already in his heart." Christ, by ence inconsistent with the rights which mar- thus enjoining a regulation of the thoughts, riage would confer upon her, it is not the same strikes at the root of the evil. thing.

It is not at any rate the same thing to the children.

Again, as to the marriage-rite being a mere form, and that also variable, the same may be said of signing and sealing of bonds, wills, deeds of conveyance, and the like, which yet make a great difference in the rights and obligations of the parties concerned in them.

And with respect to the rite not being appointed in Scripture;-the Scriptures forbid fornication, that is, cohabitation without marriage, leaving it to the law of each country to pronounce what is, or what makes, a marriage; in like manner as they forbid thefts, that is, the taking away of another's property, leaving it to the municipal law to fix what makes the thing property, or whose it is; which also, as well as marriage, depend upon arbitrary and mutable forms.

Laying aside the injunctions of Scripture, the plain account of the question seems to be this: It is immoral, because it is pernicious, that men and women should cohabit, without undertaking certain irrevocable obligations, and mutually conferring certain civil rights; if, therefore, the law has annexed these rights and

CHAPTER III.

SEDUCTION

The seducer practises the same stratagems to draw a woman's person into his power, that a swindler does to get possession of your goods. or money; yet the law of honour, which abhors deceit, applauds the address of a successful intrigue; so much is this capricious rule guided by names, and with such facility does it accommodate itself to the pleasures and conveniency of higher life!

Seduction is seldom accomplished without fraud; and the fraud is by so much more criminal than other frauds, as the injury effected by it is greater, continues longer, and less admits reparation.

This injury is threefold: to the woman, to her family, and to the public.

I. The injury to the woman is made up of the pain she suffers from shame, or the loss she sustains in her reputation and prospects of

marriage, and of the depravation of her moral principle.

1. This pain must be extreme, if we may judge of it from those barbarous endeavours to conceal their disgrace, to which women, under such circumstances, sometimes have recourse; comparing also this barbarity with their passionate fondness for their offspring in other cases. Nothing but an agony of mind the most insupportable can induce a woman to forget her nature, and the pity which even a stranger would show to a helpless and imploring infant. It is true, that all are not urged to this extremity; but if any are, it affords an indication of how much all suffer from the same cause. What shall we say to the authors of such mischief?

ten more than all the good which the seducer does to the community can recompense. Moreover, prostitution is supplied by seduction; and in proportion to the danger there is of the woman's betaking herself, after her first sacrifice, to a life of public lewdness, the seducer is answerable for the multiplied evils to which his crime gives birth.

Upon the whole, if we pursue the effects of seduction through the complicated misery which it occasions, and if it be right to estimate crimes by the mischief they knowingly produce, it will appear something more than mere invective to assert, that not one half of the crimes, for which men suffer death by the laws of England, are so flagitious as this".

CHAPTER IV.

ADULTERY.

respects, adultery on the part of the man who solicits the chastity of a married woman, includes the crime of seduction, and is attended with the same mischief.

2. The loss which a woman sustains by the ruin of her reputation, almost exceeds compu. tation. Every person's happiness depends in part upon the respect and reception which they meet with in the world; and it is no inconsiderable mortification, even to the firmest tempers, to be rejected from the society of their A NEW sufferer is introduced,-the injured equals, or received there with neglect and dis-husband, who receives a wound in his sensidain But this is not all, nor the worst. By bility and affections, the most painful and ina rule of life, which it is not easy to blame, curable that human nature knows. In all other and which it is impossible to alter, a woman loses with her chastity the chance of marrying at all, or in any manner equal to the hopes she had been accustomed to entertain. Now marriage, whatever it be to a man, is that from The infidelity of the woman is aggravated which every woman expects her chief happi- by cruelty to her children, who are generally ness. And this is still more true in low life, of involved in their parent's shame, and always which condition the women are who are most made unhappy by their quarrel. exposed to solicitations of this sort. Add to If it be said that these consequences are this, that where a woman's maintenance de-chargeable not so much upon the crime, as the pends upon her character (as it does, in a great measure, with those who are to support themselves by service), little sometimes is left to the forsaken sufferer, but to starve for want of employment, or to have recourse to prostitution for food and raiment.

3. As a woman collects her virtue into this point, the loss of her chastity is generally the destruction of her moral principle; and this consequence is to be apprehended, whether the criminal intercourse be discovered or not.

II. The injury to the family may be understood, by the application of that infallible rule, "of doing to others, what we would that others should do unto us."-Let a father or a brother say, for what consideration they would suffer this injury to a daughter or a sister; and whether any, or even a total, loss of fortune, could create equal affliction and distress. And when they reflect upon this, let them distinguish, if they can, between a robbery, committed upon their property by fraud or forgery, and the ruin of their happiness by the treachery of a seducer.

discovery, we answer, first, that the crime could not be discovered unless it were committed, and that the commission is never secure from discovery; and secondly, that if we excuse adulterous connections, whenever they can hope to escape detection, which is the conclusion to which this argument conducts us, we leave the husband no other security for his wife's chastity, than in her want of opportuni ty or temptation; which would probably either deter men from marrying, or render marriage a state of such jealousy and alarm to the husband, as must end in the slavery and confinement of the wife.

The vow, by which married persons mutually engage their fidelity, "is witnessed before God," and accompanied with circumstances of solemnity and religion, which approach to the nature of an oath. The married offender therefore incurs a crime little short of perjury, and the seduction of a married woman is little less than subornation of perjury;—and this guilt is independent of the discovery.

III. The public at large lose the benefit of fence beyond a pecuniary satisfaction to the injured fa. *Yet the law has provided no punishment for this of the woman's service in her proper place and mily; and this can only be come at, by one of the quaindestination, as a wife and parent. This, to the test fictions in the world: by the father's bringing his action against the seducer, for the loss of his daughter' whole community, may be little; but it is of-service, during her pregnacy and nurturing.

All behaviour which is designed, or which knowingly tends, to captivate the affection of a married woman, is a barbarous intrusion upon the peace and virtue of a family, though it fall short of adultery.

act: now Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou? This they said tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as The usual and only apology for adultery is, though he heard them not. So when they the prior transgression of the other party. continued asking him, he lift up himself, and There are degrees, no doubt, in this, as in said unto them, He that is without sin amongst other crimes and so far as the bad effects of you, let him first cast a stone at her; and aadultery are anticipated by the conduct of the gain he stooped down and wrote on the ground: husband or wife who offends first, the guilt of and they which heard it, being convicted by the second offender is less. But this falls very their own conscience, went out one by one, far short of a justification; unless it could be beginning at the eldest even unto the last; shown that the obligation of the marriage-vow and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standdepends upon the condition of reciprocal fide-ing in the midst. When Jesus had lift up lity; for which construction there appears no foundation, either in expediency, or in the terms of the promise, or in the design of the legislature which prescribed the marriage-rite. Moreover, the rule contended for by this plea, has a manifest tendency to multiply the offence, but none to reclaim the offender.

himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said unto him, No man, Lord. And he said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.

"This they said tempting him, that they The way of considering the offence of one might have to accuse him;" to draw him, that party as a provocation to the other, and the is, into an exercise of judicial authority, that other as only retaliating the injury by repeat- they might have to accuse him before the Roing the crime, is a childish trifling with words. man governor, of usurping or intermeddling "Thou shalt not commit adultery," was with the civil government. This was their dean interdict delivered by God himself. By sign; and Christ's behaviour throughout the the Jewish law, adultery was capital to both whole affair proceeded from a knowledge of parties in the crime: "Even he that commit- this design, and a determination to defeat it. teth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the He gives them at first a cold and sullen recepadulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to tion, well suited to the insidious intention with death."-Levit. xx. 10. Which passages prove, which they came: "He stooped down, and that the Divine Legislator placed a great dif- with his finger wrote on the ground, as though ference between adultery and fornication. And he heard them not." "When they continued with this agree the Christian Scriptures: for, asking him," when they teased him to speak, in almost all the catalogues they have left us he dismissed them with a rebuke, which the of crimes and criminals, they enumerate "for-impertinent malice of their errand, as well as nication, adultery, whoremongers, adulterers." the sacred character of many of them, deserv (Matthew xv. 19. 1 Cor. vi. 9. Gal. v. 9. Heb. viii. 4.) by which mention of both, they show that they did not consider them as the same but that the crime of adultery was, in their apprehension, distinct from, and accum-stole away one by one, and left Jesus and the ulated upon, that of fornication.

ed: "He that is without sin (that is, this sin) among you, let him first cast a stone at her." This had its effect. Stung with the reproof, and disappointed of their aim, they

woman alone. And then follows the conversaThe history of the woman taken in adultery, tion, which is the part of the narrative most recorded in the eighth chapter of St. John's material to our present subject. "Jesus said Gospel, has been thought by some to give unto her, Woman, where are those thine accountenance to that crime. As Christ told cusers? hath no man condemned thee? She the woman, "Neither do I condemn thee," said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, we must believe, it is said, that he deemed her Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no conduct either not criminal, or not a crime, more." Now, when Christ asked the woman, however, of the henious nature which we re" Hath no man condemned thee ?" he certain present it to be. A more attentive examina-ly spoke, and was understood by the woman to tion of the case will, I think, convince us, that speak, of a legal and judicial condemnation ; from it nothing can be concluded as to Christ's otherwise, her answer, “ No man, Lord,” was opinion concerning adultery, either one way or the other. The transaction is thus related: "Early in the morning Jesus came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him and he sat down and taught them. And the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery: when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very

not true. In every other sense of condemnation, as blame, censure, reproof, private judgment, and the like, many had condemned her; all those indeed who had brought her to Jesus. If then a judicial sentence was what Christ meant by condemning in the question, the common use of language requires us to suppose that he meant the same in his reply," Neither do I condemn thee," i. e. I pretend to no judicial

character or authority over thee; it is no office his wife stood in this relation to each other: or business of mine to pronounce or execute" And yet, indeed, she is my sister; she is the sentence of the law. the daughter of my father, but not of my mo. ther; and she became my wife." Gen. xx. 12.

When Christ adds, "Go, and sin no more," he in effect tells her, that she had sinned already but as to the degree or quality of the sin, or Christ's opinion concerning it, nothing is declared, or can be inferred, either way.

Adultery, which was punished with death during the Usurpation, is now regarded by the law of England only as a civil injury; for which the imperfect satisfaction that money can afford, may be recovered by the husband.

CHAPTER V.

INCEST.

CHAPTER VI.

POLYGAMY.

THE equality in the number of males and females born into the world, intimates the intention of God, that one woman should be assigned to one man: for if to one man be allowed an exclusive right to five or more women, four or more men must be deprived of the exclusive possession of any: which could never be the order intended.

It seems also a significant indication of the divine will, that he at first created only one woman to one man. Had God intended poly.

In order to preserve chastity in families, and between persons of different sexes, brought up and living together in a state of unreserved in-gamy for the species, it is probable he would timacy, it is necessary, by every method possi-to Adam more wives than one, the multiplicahave begun with it; especially as, by giving ble, to inculcate an abhorrence of incestuous tion of the human race would have proceeded conjunctions; which abhorrence can only be with a quicker progress. upholden by the absolute reprobation of all commerce of the sexes between near relations. Upon this principle, the marriage as well as other cohabitations of brothers and sisters, of lineal kindred, and of all who usually live in the same family, may be said to be forbidden by the law of nature.

Polygamy not only violates the constitution of nature, and the apparent design of the Deity, but produces to the parties themselves, and to the public, the following bad effects; contests and jealousies amongst the wives of the same husband; distracted affections, or the loss of all affection, in the husband himself: a Restrictions which extend to remoter de- voluptuousness in the rich, which dissolves the grees of kindred than what this reason makes vigour of their intellectual as well as active fait necessary to prohibit from intermarriage, culties, producing that indolence and imbecility are founded in the authority of the positive both of mind and body, which have long charlaw which ordains them, and can only be jus-acterised the nations of the East; the abasement tified by their tendency to diffuse wealth, to of one half of the human species, who, in counconnect families, or to promote some political tries where polygamy obtains, are degraded inadvantage. The Levitical law, which is received in this other half; neglect of children; and the mato mere instruments of physical pleasure to the country, and from which the rule of the Ro-nifold, and sometimes unnatural mischiefs, man law differs very little, prohibits mar-which arise from a scarcity of women. riage between relations, within three degrees of kindred; computing the generations, not from, but through the common ancestor, and accounting affinity the same as consanguinity. The issue, however, of such marriages, are not bastardised, unless the parents be divorced during their life-time.

The Egyptians are said to have allowed of the marriage of brothers and sisters. Amongst the Athenians, a very singular regulation prevailed; brothers and sisters of the half-blood, if related by the father's side, might marry; if by the mother's side, they were prohibited from marrying. The same custom also probably obtained in Chaldea so early as the age in which Abraham left it; for he and Sarah

The Roman law continued the prohibition to the descendants of brothers and sisters without limits. In the Levitical and English law, there is nothing to hinder a man from marrying his great-niece.

To

compensate for these evils, polygamy does not offer a single advantage. In the article of population, which it has been thought to promote, the community gain nothing †: for the

This equality is not exact. The number of male infants exceeds that of females in the proportion of nineteen to eighteen, or thereabouts: which excess profaring, and other dangerous or unhealthy occupations. vides for the greater consumption of males by war, sea

+ Nothing, I mean, compared with a state in which marriage is nearly universal. Where marriages are less general, and many women unfruitful from the want of husbands, polygamy might at first add a little to popula tion, and but a little; for, as a variety of wives would be sought chiefly from temptations of voluptuousness, it would rather increase the demand for female beauty, than for the sex at large. And this little would soon be made less by many deductions. For, first, as none but the opulent can maintain a plurality of wives, where polygamy obtains, the rich indulge in it while the rest take up with a vague and barren incontinency. Ana. secondly, women would grow less jealous of their virtue, when they had nothing for which to reserve it, but a chamber in the haram when their chastity was no lon