A Treatise concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed/Introduction
Conjugal Lewdness, &c.
the
Introduction.
T is certainly true, that Modesty is no natural Virtue; what the Latins call'd Pudor or Shamefacedness, is the Effect of Crime, and is always occasioned by a Consciousness of Guilt, whether it be actual Guilt, or intentional, Guilt of a Fact already committed, or Guilt of a Crime resolv'd on, 'tis much the same.
Before Adam and Eve knew Evil as well as Good, before they were conscious of Offence, they went naked, and blush'd not, and 'tis most significantly express'd, they knew not that they were naked; they knew not that Nakedness was a Turpitude, an Indecency, and therefore when Adam gives that poor, foolish Excuse for hiding himself from the Eyes of the infinite Author of Sight, and says, because he was naked, Gen. iii. 10, 11. GOD asks him, Who told thee that thou wast naked.
Doubtless before the Fall, Innocence was given to Man for a Covering, and he not only knew not that he was naked, but he really was not naked, though he was not clothed; he knew not how to blush at being naked much less why.
The same Innocence is the Protection of Virtue to this Day in the untaught Savages in many Parts of the now known World, where Nakedness is no Offence on one side, no Snare, no Incentive on the other; but Custom being the Judge of Decency to them, takes away all Sense of Indecency in going uncovered, whether in whole, or in Part. See Mr. Milton upon that Head:
In Naked Majesty
So pass'd they Naked on, nor shunn'd the Sight
Of God or Angel, for they thought no Ill.
Milton, Par, fol. 95.
Now the same Custom in these Northern Parts having concurr'd with the Necessity of the Climate on one Hand, and the Laws of Religion on the other, to cloath and cover the Body; the Breach of that Custom would be a Breach of Decency, and a Breach of the Laws both of God and Man.
Hence Modesty succeeds, whether as a Virtue in it self, or as an Appendix to Virtue, we will not dispute; but where the Rules of Decency are broken, a Sense of Shame comes in, with as much Force as if all the Laws of God and Man were broken at once.
It may be true, that if Man had continued in a State of unspotted Innocence, unshaken Virtue had been Part of it; that as his Soul had been untainted with so much as a Thought of Crime, so no Covering had been wanted to any Part of his Body, other than the Severities of Climate might make necessary; but to justify what has been done since, that I may take Notice of the Manner, and put you in Mind of the Authority of it too, we may observe that as his Guilt made him naked, GOD himself covered him with his own Hand, Gen. iii. 21, it is said positively, that GOD clothed them with the Skins (we suppose) of Beasts: Unto Adam also and to his Wife did the Lord God make Coats of Skins, and clothed them. So soon were the Creatures dedicated to the Convenience, as well as Life of Man.
Hence, tho' Nakedness in a state of Innocence had been no Offence at that time, it is otherwise now; and we have the Sanction of Heaven to enforce the Decency, as we have the Force of the Seasons to urge the Necessity of Clothing: It were to be wish'd we had nothing to say of the Indecency even of the Clothing, and how we study to go naked in our very Clothes, and that after God himself put them on to cover us too. But of that by it self.
God having then appointed, and Nature compelled Mankind to seek Covering, all the Pretences for going naked on that account are at an End; a meer Chimera, an Enthusiastick Dream, seldom attempted but by a Sect of Madmen, worse than Lunatick, who, heated with a religious Phrenzy, (the worst of all Possessions) pretend to Nakedness as the Effect of their Innocence, at the same Time making it a Skreen to all Manner of Lewdness and Debauchery.
Nature and Religion having thus introduc'd Decency, the strict and religious regard paid to that Decency is become a Virtue; essential Virtue, and is so in all the requisite Parts of Virtue; I mean, those which are understood as commanded by the Laws of GOD or by the Laws of NATURE, and this is MODESTY, as it is the Subject of our present Discourse.
We say that Modesty is the guard of Virtue; and in some respects it is so; and were Modesty universal, Virtue would need no other Defence. But as the World now stands, she is fain to fly to other Succours, such as Laws of Men, the Command of Religion, the Power of Reason, and, at last, the Protection of Governours; so hard is she pursued by Vice and the degenerate Passions of Men.
MODESTY then, as I am to understand it here, and to discourse about it, is nothing but a strict regard to Decency, as Decency is a strict regard to Virtue, and Virtue is a strict regard to Religion; indeed they seem all, in some Sense, to be synonimous, and to mean the same thing. It is true. Honour and Virtue may (speaking strictly) be said in some Cases to be preserved, though Decency is not so much, or equally regarded: But let all that plead the possibility of that Distinction know that however possible it may be, it is so far from being probable (that where Decency is given up Honour should or can be preserved) that they will find it very hard to have it be believed; as they that give up their Modesty cannot be said to preserve Decency, so they that give up Decency will be hardly believed to preserve their Virtue.
Hence Modesty is become a Virtue in it self, and, if it be not literally and expressly all that is understood by the Word Virtue, 'tis Virtue's compleat Representative, its true Image, and they are as inseparable as the Gold and the Glistering.
The Object of Modesty respects three Things.
1. Modesty in Discourse.
2. Modesty in Behaviour.
3. Modesty in regard to Sexes.
1. By Modesty in Discourse I think I must of Necessity be understood, a Decency of Expression; particularly, as our Discourse relates to Actions or Things (whether necessary or accidental) that are and ought to be Matters of Secresy, Things which are to be spoken of with reserve, and in Terms that may give no offence to the chaste Ears and Minds of others, and yet perhaps are of Necessity to be spoken to. Indeed such Things, with respect to Decency, ought never to be spoken of at all, but when Necessity urges; and it were to be wished, that in a Christian and Modest Nation, where the Laws of Decency are expressly admitted as Rules of Life, all immodest Discourses were decry'd by universal Custom; and especially that Printing and Publishing such Things as are not to be read with the like Decency, were effectually suppress'd. But as I have made that Subject a Part of this Work, I say no more of it here.
2. By Modesty in Behaviour, I understand that which we call Decorum, Distance and Deference in Conversation, chiefly as it respects the Distinction of Qualities in the Persons conversing; but that Part is not at all concerned in this Discourse, our present Design looking quite another way.
The last of these, (viz.) Modesty with respect to Sexes, is the Subject intended in this Tract, especially as it is confined to this one Branch of it, namely, the Conjugal Part of Life; the Intercourse between the Sexes, or the freedom of conversing between a Man and his Wife; in which many think all the Rules and Laws of Modesty are finished and at an end; a Mistake so gross, so full of fatal Mischiefs to the Publick Virtue, and to the intent and meaning of Decency in general, that it is much in a Nation so every way Virtuous as this, and where the Rules of Virtue are enforced by wholesome Laws, such a corrupt Notion should spread so far, and so many Absurdities break out into Practice upon that Subject.
The Notion is, that there is no more such a Thing as Modesty to be named between a Man and his Wife; that as they are but one Flesh, and indeed but one Body, there's no Nakedness between them: That were they alone Covering would be not only needless but Nonsence, if the Climate did not require it; that nothing can be indecent, nothing improper; that there's no Restraint, and that no Law can be broken by them, but every thing is Handsome, every thing Honest, and every thing Modest; that 'tis a full Answer to all Reproach in any Case that may be charg'd, to say it was my own Wife; or it was none but my own Husband; this is made the Covering to all manner of surfeiting Indecencies and Excesses; of which I am to speak at large in their Order.
It is high time to combat this Error of Life, and the more, because it is grown up to a heighth not only scandalous, but criminal and offensive, and, in some things, unnatural; and still the more, because 'tis a Mistake that is encreasing, and 'tis fear'd may go higher, till at last it may break out into yet greater Abominations.
The Difficulty before me is, to know how to reprove with Decency offences against Decency; how to expose Modestly Things which 'tis hardly Modest so much as to mention, and which must require abundance of clean Linnen to wrap them up in; how to speak of nauseous and offensive Things, in Terms which shall not give offence, and scourge immodest Actions with an unblameable Modesty; that is, without running out into Expressions which shall offend the modest Ears of those that read them; this, I say, is the only Difficulty.
I am insulted already on this Head by the rude and self-guilty World; my very Title and the bare advertising my Book, they say is a Breach upon Modesty, and it offends their Ears even before it is published. They not only tell me it will be an Obscene and immodest Book, but that it is impossible it should be otherwise; They say, I may pretend to as much reservedness and darkness of Expression as I please, and may skulk behind a Croud, or indeed a Cloud of Words; but my meaning will be reach'd, and the lewd Age will make plain English of it; nay, that I shall make plain English of it my self, before I have gone half thro' the Work.
Others, armed with the same ill Nature, have their Tongues poisoned with another kind of Venom, and they tell me it is an immodest Subject; that as it cannot be handled decently, and cannot be discours'd of modestly, so it is not intended to be so, but that 'tis a meer Bait to the Curiosity of that Part of the reading World, whose Vices are prompted as much by a pretended reproving them as by the plainest Expressions: That it forms the same Ideas in their Minds, and they receive the Notions of Vice in as lively a form by the very Methods taken to expose and condemn the Facts, as if those Fads were represented to the Opticks in all their shameless Nudities, with the most vitious and corrupt Dress that could be put upon them on a Stage, or in a Masquerade.
I shall answer these People best by a Silence in my Introduction, and a speaking Performance. It is my Business to let them see they are mistaken, and that a truly modest Design may be pursued with the utmost Decency, even in treating of a Subject, in which all the vilest Breaches made upon Decency by a wicked and hitherto unreproved Behaviour are to be censured and exposed: As to a vicious Mind forming corrupt Ideas from the most modest Expressions, I have only this to say; The Crime of that Part is wholly their own, I am no way concerned in it: The healing fructifying Dews, and the gentle sweet refreshing Showers, which are God's Blessing upon the Earth, when they fall into the Sea are all turned Salt as the Ocean, ting'd with the gross Particles of Salt which the Sea-Water is so full of. The same warm cherishing Beams of the Sun which raise those sweet Dews from the Earth, shining upon the stagnate Waters of an unwholsome Lake or Marsh, or upon a corrupted Jakes or Dunghill, exhale noxious Vapours and Poisons, which infect the Air, breeding Contagion and Diseases in those that breathe in it. But the Fault is not in the Showers of refreshing Rain, or in the wholesome Beams of the Sun, but in the Salt, and in the Filth and Corruption of the Places where they fall. And thus it shall be here; Words modestly expressed can give no immodest Ideas, where the Minds of those that read are chaste and uncorrupted. But if a vicious Mind hears the Vice reproved, and forms pleasing Ideas of the Crime, without taking notice of the just Reproof, the fault is in the Depravity of the Mind, not in the needful and just Reprover. I shall therefore take no notice of that Suggestion, as what I think does not deserve the least Regard, but go on to a just Censure of the Crime, in such a manner, as, I hope, shall neither lessen the Reproof, or expose the Reprover.
In order to this, I may indeed lie under some Restraints, be confined to a narrow Compass of Words, and the Story may want in some Places the Illustration of apposite Similies, useful Arguments, and, above all, of flagrant Examples, to set off and set home the Arguments that are made use of; and this, to the great Loss of the Author, in taking away those Ornaments of his Discourse; but where it cannot be otherwise the Reader must be content to abate it.
However, I pretend to say, you will not find it a dry, a dull, or a barren Subject, for all that; and though something may be lost, and much left out, to preserve the Rules of Modesty, which I could not reprove the Breaches of with Justice, if the Work was Criminal it self, yet I doubt not to find you Subject of Diversion enough, mixed with the Gravity of the Story, so as, I hope, not to tire you with the Reading; at the same time preserving the Chastity of the Subject, the Authority of a Reprover, and binding my self down with all possible Severity to the Laws of Decency, Modesty and Virtue, which I write in the Defence of.
But now, while I am making these Proviso's, pray let me be understood too with that just and necessary Liberty of Speech which shall render my Discourse intelligible. I am neither going to write in an unknown Tongue, nor in an unintelligible Stile; I am to speak so as to be understood, and I will not doubt but I shall be understood; and those whose vitious Appetites are under Government, so as to give them leave to relish decent Reproof for indecent Things, may understand me without large Explications, especially on Occasions where they know the Cases will not bear it.
The Scripture is the Pattern of Decency, and, (as the learned Annotator Mr. Pool, in his Synopsis Criticorum and in his Annotations also observes) speaks of all the Indecencies of Men with the utmost Modesty; yet neither does the Scripture forbear to command Virtue, gives Laws and Rules of Chastity and modest Behaviour, and that in very many Places, and on all needful Occasions: Nor does the Scripture fail to reprove the Breach of those Laws in the most vehement manner, condemning the Facts, and censuring and judging the guilty Persons with the utmost Rigour and Severity, as I shall on many Occasions be led to observe as I go on. Let none therefore flatter themselves that their Crimes shall avoid the Lash of a just Satyr in this Work, for want of Expressions suited to the Nature of the Reproof, and the Vileness of the Offence. We shall find Words to expose them, without giving a Blow to Decency in the Reproof; we shall find Ways and Means to dress up surfeiting Crimes in softening Language; so that none but the Guilty need to blush, none but the Criminals be offended.
But the Crime must be reproved; there's a Necessity for the Reproof as there is a Necessity of a Cure in a violent Distemper. Do we reckon it a Breach of Modesty for the Body to be exposed in Anatomies, and published with learned Lectures on every Part by the Anatomists? Are not the vilest and most unnatural of all Crimes necessarily brought before Courts of Justice, that the Criminals may be punished as they deserve? And though it may be true, that sometimes judicial Proceedings are not managed with such Decency in those Cases as others think they might, and which, however, I allow to be sometimes unavoidable; yet notwithstanding all that can be pretended of Immodesty in those Proceedings, the Punishment of the Criminal, or his being sentenced must not be omitted, for the preserving the Modesty of the Trial; an Offender would come well off in many Offences, besides this I am treating of, if he must not be brought to Justice, because the very mention of his Crime would put criminal Ideas into the minds of those that hear of it.
Let it suffice then in the Case before us; I am entring upon a just and needful Censure of preposterous and immodest Actions; I shall perform it in as decent and reserved Terms as I am able to do, and as a Man meaning to correct, not encourage, Vice is able to do. If a lewd Fancy will entertain it self with the meer Ideas of Crime, where it is only with the utmost Severity condemned, Be the Crime to the Criminal, I see no reason to be afraid of doing Justice on that Account. A Man is to be executed for Sodomy; Nature and the Laws of God require it; Must not the Criminal die because all that see or hear of it must immediately form Ideas of the Crime in their Thoughts, nay, and perhaps may think criminally of it? This would give a loose to Wickedness indeed, and Men might Sin with most Freedom where their Crimes were too vile to be punished, because they were too gross to be named.
So when a Cloud its hasty Show'rs sends down,
The're meant to fructify and not to drown;
And in a Torrent if a Drunkard sink,
'Tis not the Flood that drowns him but the Drink.
But 'twould be hard because a Sinner's slain,
For fear of Drowning we should have no Rain.
Besides, it wou'd be a light escape; and some of our first Readers would triumph another way over the Author, if they could be satisfied that they had sinned in a manner so gross that he could not find Words to reprove them in; I mean, such Words as were fit for modest Ears to bear the hearing of. Our well known Friend G——— A———, with his three Brether, (as they call them in the North) who think themselves beyond the reach of Reproof, as they are out of the reach of Conscience, may find themselves mistaken here; and that if they will venture for once to think and look in, they may see themselves touch'd to the quick, and yet the Readers hardly able to guess at their Crime, and not at all at their Persons; which last they ought to acknowledge is a special Favour to them, whether they deserve it or no.
So kind have I been to their Fame, and so careful to leave Room for their Amendment, which I would hope for in spite of their solemn Vows to the contrary.
Nor shall that eminent Brute of Quality pass untouched here, whose Name or Titles need no other mention than what are to be summ'd up in this short Character:
A Life of Crime, with this peculiar Fame,
Without Sense of Guilt, and past Sense of Shame.
I say, he shall see his most inimitable Way of Sinning stabbed to the Heart, and damn'd with an unanswerable and unexceptionable Reproof; and yet without any Description either of his Person or his Offence, other than as may be Read by himself, and those that know him; though I must allow him to be the weakest and the wickedest Thing alive; vain of being the first in a Crime, and the last that will leave it, that blushes at nothing but the thoughts of Blushing, and thinks a Man of Wit can be ashamed of nothing but Repentance; That Sins for the sake of Crime without the pleasure of it, and is got seven Degrees in Sin beyond the Devil, in that he not only boasts of Sins which he never committed, but tells the World he FIBS, by boasting of Sins, which all the Town knows he cannot commit.
If such a Wretch on Earth ye Gods there be,
I'll die if our Sir ——— be not he.
Nor let another flagrant Example of married Lewdness trouble himself, or express his Concern, least he should be omitted in this Work for fear of our offending the chast Ears of our Readers With his vile Story.
A City Sinner, nameless as his Crime.
Let him not doubt but he may find himself suitably reproved, seeing he is so fond of it; and since he desires the Fame of being superlatively Wicked, he may hear of it in a manner that shall make others blush for him, though he can't blush for himself.
But to pass these and some more, for in this Age of preposterous Crime we should never find our Way out, should we enter into the Labyrinth of Characters, and bring on Regiments of Examples. Our present Business is with the Offence not with the Offenders, with the Crimes not the Criminals; if a just Satyr on the wicked Part will not reclaim us, I doubt the List of the Guilty of both Sexes, though it would indeed be as numerous as our City train'd Bands; would be as useless a Muster as that at the Artillery Ground, and find as little Reformation among them.
As it is in ordinary Crimes, that Men Sin on because they scorn and are ashamed to Repent, so in the Case before me, when they are launched into the most flagrant of all Crimes, things so odious that 'tis offensive to modest Ears so much as to hear of them, and difficult to a modest Pen so much as to write of them; they take hold of the hellish Advantage, and make the greatness, the superlative Blackness of their Offences be their Protection in the committing them; as if they were out of the reach of Reproof, because no modest Pen can dip in the Dirt, or rake in the Dunghil of their Vices, without being sullied and daub'd by them; that it would be scandalous for any modest Man so much as to mention what they do not think it scandalous to do. Thus the hardened and fearless A——— C———, who defies God and Man, laughs at Reproach, and threatens every Reprover, impudently said to his Parish Minister that modestly spoke of his Crimes, "You may talk to me here, Doctor, at home, but you dare not speak a Word of it in the Pulpit; I am out of your reach there; Why, all the Women would run out of the Church, and they'd throw Stones at you as you go along the Street if you did but mention it."
Happy Criminal! that hugs himself in being too Vile to be reproved, or so much as modestly mentioned; that his Crimes cannot be exposed because modest Ears cannot bear to hear them spoken of. Let the Offender, who is fam'd for being Revengeful, and who is not so far off as not to hear of it, resent it if he thinks fit: I am told he will soon hear more of it, where it may be spoken of without fear of his Anger.
This very Case runs parallel with what I am now engaged in; but the Age shall see the Effect shall not answer their End. Shall it be Criminal to reprove the Offence which they think it is not Criminal to commit? Must we Blush to speak of what they will not Blush to do? And must the most detestable Things go on in practice, because we dare not go on to cry them down? God forbid we should by Silence seem to approve that Wickedness, while that Silence is occasioned only because the Wickedness is too gross to be reproved.
Sure our Language is not so barren of Words as that we cannot find out proper Expressions to reprehend an impudent Generation, without Breach of Decency in the Diction; or that immodest Actions may not be modestly exposed.
If corrupt Imaginations will rise up, and Men will please themselves with the Difficulty I am put to for Words; if they will turn my most reserved Terms into lewd and vitious Ideas, and debauch their Thoughts while I expose their Debaucheries, let them go on their own Way; let them think as wickedly as they please, they shall owe it to themselves, not to me; both the Fire and the Tinder are all their own. Here shall be no Materials to work upon, no Combustibles to kindle, but what they bring with them.
But the Work must be done in spite of the Difficulty. Shall they watch for a slip of my Pen, and take Advantage, if possible, from any misplaced Word, to reprove me of Indecency in the necessary Work of reproving their shameless Immodesty? Must I be ashamed to expose the Crime which they are not ashamed to be guilty of, and blush to mention the Things they boast of Doing? The Truth is, I know not why I should not freely name the Men, who in the open Coffee-houses, and in their common wicked Discourses, publickly brag of the most immodest and shameless Behaviour, and vilely name themselves to be guilty of it, make sport of the Crimes, and value themselves in being the Criminals; but it shall not be long before I may speak of it much plainer.
However, as the Offence is flagrant, is grown scandalous and notorious, and that we find the Age ripening up by it to the highest and most unnatural of all Crimes, to the shame of Society, and to the scandal even of the Protestant Profession; I have undertaken to begin the War against it as a Vice, and hope to make good the Charge, though I know I do make the Attempt at the risque of all that a modest Writer has to hazard.
He that undertakes a Satyr against an universal Custom, shall be sure to raise upon himself an universal Clamour; my Lord Rochester is plain in that Case:
"Nor shall weak Truth your Reputation save,
The Knaves will all agree to call you Knave."
It must be acknowledged the Age is ripened up in Crime to a dreadful heighth, and it is not a light, a gentle Touch, that will bring them to blush. The Learned and Reverend Ministers, the Good, the Pious, who would reprove them, are forced to content themselves to sit still, and pray for them; and, as the Scripture says, to mourn in Secret for their Abominations; they cannot foul their solemn Discourses with the Crimes which they have to Combat with; the Pulpit is sacred to the venerable Office of a Preacher of GOD's Word; and the Gravity of the Place, a decent Regard to the Work, and especially to the Assembly, forbids them polluting their Mouths with the filthy Behaviour of those they see Cause to reprove: And this makes many a lewd and vitious Wretch go unexposed, at least as he deserves; and many a scandalous Crime, as well as the rich and powerful Criminals, go unreproved.
The auxiliary Press therefore must come in to supply the deficiency; they may read, I hope, what they could not hear: Nor am I afraid of the Faces of Men, that, eminent in Wickedness, flagrant in Lewdness, and abominable in Tongue, as well as Practice, the famous and infamous in the worst of Vices, Sir ——— P——— shall here see himself marked out for his odious Behaviour, in defiance of his Quality or Power. He who by Office and Authority punishes every Day less Crimes than he commits, who sins out of the reach of Reproof from the Pulpit, because too vile (as well as too powerful) to be spoken of by a modest Divine, who perhaps thinks it his Duty rather to Pray for him, which he laughs at, than to Reprove him, which he would storm and swear at; I say, he shall find what was said in another Case:
The Press may reach him, who the Pulpit scorns,
And he whose flagrant Vice the B adorns:
The fearless Satyr shall to Rage give vent,
And teach him how to Blush, tho' not Repent.
In short, 'tis a strange World! and we are grown up to a strange heighth in our Notions of Things! we have brought our selves to a Condition very particular to the Day, and singular as I may say, to our selves; the Policy of our Vices has got the better of Virtue, and the Criminals have managed themselves so artfully that, it seems, they may Sin with less hazard of Reputation, than the Innocent may reprove them: For Example,
The Crime is now less Scandal than Repentance, and, as the Proverb says, 'tis a shame to Steal, but 'tis a double shame to carry Home again; so 'tis a shame to Sin, but 'tis a double shame to Repent; nay, we go beyond all that, 'tis no shame to be Wicked, but to Whine and Repent is intolerable; and, as the late Colonel H——— said, in the flagrance of his Wit, that it might be a Fault to Whore, and Drink, and Swear, and some worse Sins of his, which he reckoned up; but to Repent! to Repent! says he, (repeating the Words) nothing of a Gentleman can come into that; to be Wicked, adds he, is wicked, that's true; but to Repent, that's the Devil.
"Blush to Repent, but never blush to Sin.
But the Rubicon's past, it must be put to the venture; and let Rage and exasperated Lust do its worst, the lewd Age shall hear their shameless Behaviour as well exposed as it will bear, and that without any shameless Doings in the Reproof; they will find no Levity here; no cleansing Blurs with blotted Fingers; they shall have nothing to Blush for but that they give occasion for such a Reproof, which being engaged with them on the occasion of their filthy Conduct, may be forced to speak of it in Terms necessary to express our detestation of it, but not at all adapted to encourage or recommend it.