PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Fornication. 199
the danger of greater enormities if access to pros~i.
tutes were too strictly watched and prohibited, it
will be time enough to look to that, when the laws
and the magistrates have done their utmost. The
greatest vigilence of both will do no more, than op ..
pose some bounds and some difficulties to this intercourse.
And, after all, these pretended fears are
without foundatioll in experience. Tile men are in
all respects the most virtuo!.ls, in countries where tIle
\VOlnen are most cllaste.
1'here 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 mean the case of kept nlis/resses, under the
favourable circumstance of Illutual fidelity. This case
I havoc heard defended by some such apology as the
follo\\Ting :
" That the marriage rite being different in differ ...
ent countries, and in the same country amongst different
sects, and with sonle scarce any thing ; and,
moreover, not being prescribed or even mentioned
ifl scripture, can be accounted of ouly as of a form
allli ceremony of hunlan invention: that, consequent­
J)~, if a nlan and \VOll1an betroth and confine themselves
to eacl1 other, their intercOllrse Inust be the
~(11ne, as to all lnoral pllrposes, as if they were legally
ttlarried: for the ilddition or Ol11ission of that which
is a nlere fornl and ceremony, can tnake no differt:n\:e
in the sight of God, or in the actual nature of
!·i~~t
c
and \\1rong."
rl"o all \\TrJicll it may be replied,
]. If the ~ituation of the parties be the same thing
as marriage, why do they not marry?
2. If the man choose to have it in his power to
Jismiss the woman at his pleasure, or to retain her in
;) state of humiliation and dependence inconsistent with
~he rights which marriage would confer upon her, it
:"l not tlw ~iame thing.
B ~