ing his exclufive right by fanctions of morality and law. 4. The better government of fociety, by dif tributing the community into feparate families, and appointing over each the authority of a master of a family, which has more actual influence than all civil authority put together. 5. The fame end, in the additional security which the state receives for the good behaviour of its citizens, from the folicitude they feel for the welfare of their children, and from their being confined to permanent habitations, 6. The encouragement of industry. Some ancient nations appear to have been more sensible 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 should be left him, that is, at the moft, could only receive one half of the teftator's fortune. ་ СНАР. IL FORNICATION. "HE firft and great mischief, and by consequence the guilt, of promifcuous concubinage, confifts in its tendency to diminish marriages, and thereby to defeat the feveral beneficial purposes enumerated in the preceding chapter. Promifcuous concubinage difcourages marriage by abating the chief temptation to it. The male part of the species 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 mischief, 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 ef 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 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 licentioufnels were univerfal? or what fhould hinder its becoming universal, if it be innocent or allowable in him? 2. Fornication fuppofes proftitution; and proftitution brings and leaves the victims of it to alm almost certain mifery. It is no small quantity of mifery in the aggregate, which, between want, difeafe, and infult, is fuffered 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 inftance of fornication contributes. 3. Fornication produces habits of ungovern, able lewdnefs, which introduce the more aggra vated crimes of feduction, adultery, violation, &c.* Like * Of this paffion it has been truly faid, "that irregularity "has Likewife, 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 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 seeks it; are, in low life, ufually the first stage in men's progrefs 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 of moral probity. Add to this, that habits of libertiniẩm incapacitate and indispose the mind for all intellectual, moral, and religious pleafures; 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 visit the constitution of even diftant génerations. t "has no limits; that one excefs draws on another; that the "moft eafy, therefore, as well as the most excellent way of "being virtuous, is to be fo 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, muft be collected from different confiderations. The Chriftian fcriptures condemn fornication abfolutely and peremptorily. "Out of the 1 heart," fays our Saviour, "proceed evil thoughts, "murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, falfe "witnefs, blafphemics; 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, falfe witnefs, blafphemies. I do not mean that thefe crimes are all equal, because they are all mentioned together; but it proves that they are all crimes. The Apostles are more are more full upon this topic. One well-known paffage in the Epiftle to the Hebrews may ftand in the place of all others; because, admitting the authority by which the Apoftles of Chrift fpake 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 fay, at a time when it. was not agreed even amongst philofophers themfelves that fornication was a crime, ure badawy The |