Page:A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed.djvu/335

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Text by Fulness of Bread, so the Consequences broke out in divers other Excesses, besides that one detestable Crime, which bears the Name and Reproach of the Place to this Day. Their gorged Stomachs discovered themselves, no doubt, in all the Excesses of a provoked Appetite, and an inflamed Blood; and it is so, in like Cases, to this Day.

We have a Testimony of this in all Places, and, I may say, in all Ages of the World: The high Feeders are the high Livers; excess of Wine is described in Scripture to produce excess of Vice, and the Fire of Nature burns in proportion to the Fewel. Hence the Italians, a Nation who revel in all the Varieties of Luxury, such as rich Wines, luscious Fruits, high Sauces, Pickles, Preserves, Sweet-meats, and Perfumes, to an Excess. How do the hellish Fires rage in them? How do they run out to all the Extremes of criminal Riot, even to that Fury of Love, called Jealousy, and this often ending in Blood? How do they dwell in Wantonness and Lasciviousness, and carry it on to all the most unnatural Extremes of the dead Lake it self, and this not only now, but in the Romans Time also it was the like.

At the same time the more moderate feeding Nations round them, are in proportion, less outrageous in their Vice, and whether it be from any Principle of Virtue or no, they are so by the meer Consequence of Things; they live more sparingly, and their Blood is kept lower, not always inflamed (as is the Case in Italy, and other Parts of the World); they are forbid Wine, which to these Northern Climates is the Fewel of outrageous Actions, and leads to innumerable Crimes.

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