amended, as it ought to be if those things were tolerated only for
necessity? No, but they remain still as a very affront to marriage.
The haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to courtesans, are
no more punished in married men than in bachelors. And the depraved
custom of change, and the delight in meretricious embracements, (where
sin is turned into art,) maketh marriage a dull thing, and a kind of
imposition or tax. They hear you defend these things, as done to
avoid greater evils; as advoutries, deflowering of virgins, unnatural
lust, and the like. But they say this is a preposterous wisdom; and
they call it Lot's offer, who to save his guests from abusing, offered
his daughters: nay they say farther that there is little gained in
this; for that the same vices and appetites do still remain and abound;
unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you stop the flames
altogether, it will quench; but if you give it any vent, it will rage.
As for masculine love, they have no touch of it; and yet there are
not so faithful and inviolate friendships in the world again as are
there; and to speak generally, (as I said before,) I have not read of
any such chastity, in any people as theirs. And their usual saying is,
That whosoever is unchaste cannot reverence himself; and they say,
That the reverence of a man's self, is, next to religion, the chiefest
bridle of all vices."

And when he had said this, the good Jew paused a little; whereupon I,
far more willing to hear him speak on than to speak myself, yet
thinking it decent that upon his pause of speech I should not be
altogether silent, said only this; "That I would say to him, as the
widow of Sarepta said to Elias; that he was come to bring to memory
our sins; and that I confess the righteousness of Bensalem was greater
than the righteousness of Europe." At which speech he bowed his head,
and went on in this manner: