Sermon
Exodus 20:14. You shall not commit adultery.
God is [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], a pure holy Spirit, and has an infinite antipathy against all uncleanness. In this Commandment he has entered his caution against it. Non maechaberis, You shall not commit adultery. The sum of this Commandment is the preservation of corporal purity. We must take heed of running on the rock of uncleanness, and so making shipwreck of our chastity. In this Commandment there is something tacitly implied, and something tacitly forbidden.
1. Something tacitly implied, namely, that the ordinance of marriage should be observed.
2. Something expressly forbidden, namely, the infecting ourselves with bodily pollution: You shall not commit adultery.
(1.) Something implied: that the ordinance of marriage should be observed. (1 Corinthians 7:2) Let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband. Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled (Hebrews 13:4). God did institute marriage in Paradise; he brought the woman to the man (Genesis 2:22). He did as it were give them in marriage. And Jesus Christ did honor marriage with his presence (John 2:2). The first miracle he wrought was at a marriage, when he turned the water into wine. Marriage is a type and resemblance of the mystical union between Christ and his Church (Ephesians 5:32). Concerning marriage,
[1.] There are general duties. 1. The general duty of the husband is to rule (Ephesians 5:23). The husband is the head of the wife. The head is the seat of rule and government, but he must rule with discretion. He is head, therefore must not rule without reason. 2. The general duty on the wife's part is submission (Ephesians 5:22). Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. It is observable the Holy Ghost passes by Sarah's failings; he does not mention her unbelief; but he takes notice of that which was good in her, her reverence and obedience to her husband (1 Peter 3:6). Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.
[2.] Special duties belonging to marriage are love and fidelity. 1. Love (Ephesians 5:25). Love is the marriage of the affections. There is as it were but one heart in two bodies. Love lines the yoke, and makes it easy. Love perfumes the marriage relation, without which it is not Conjugium, but Conjurgium; it is like two poisons in one stomach, one is ever sick of the other. 2. Fidelity. In marriage there is a mutual promise of living together faithfully according to God's holy ordinance. Among the Romans, on the day of marriage the woman presented to her husband fire and water: fire refines metal, water cleanses. Hereby signifying, that she would live with her husband in chastity and sincerity. This is the first thing in the Commandment implied, that the ordinance of marriage should be purely observed.
(2.) The thing forbidden in the Commandment, that is, infecting ourselves with bodily pollution and uncleanness: You shall not commit adultery. The fountain of this sin is lust. Since the fall, holy love is degenerated into lust. Lust is the fever of the soul. There is a two-fold adultery. 1. Mental (Matthew 5:28). Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already with her in his heart. As a man may die of an inward bleeding, so he may be damned for the inward boilings of lust, if they be not mortified. 2. Corporal adultery; when sin has conceived and brought forth in the act. This is expressly forbidden, under a sub poena: You shall not commit adultery. This Commandment is set as a hedge to keep out uncleanness, and they that break this hedge, a serpent shall bite them. Job calls adultery a heinous crime (Job 31:11). Every failing is not a crime, and every crime is not a heinous crime, but adultery is Flagitium, a heinous crime. The Lord calls it villainy (Jeremiah 29:23). They have committed villainy in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives.
Question. Wherein appears the heinousness of this sin of adultery?
Answer 1. In that adultery is the [reconstructed: breach] of the marriage oath. When persons come together in a matrimonial way, they bind themselves by covenant each to other, in the presence of God, to be true and faithful in the conjugal relation. Unchastity is a falsifying this solemn oath. And herein adultery is worse than fornication, because it is a breach of the conjugal bond.
2. The heinousness of adultery lies in this, that it is such a high dishonor done to God. God says, You shall not commit adultery. The adulterer sets his will above God's law, tramples upon God's command, affronts him to his face; as if a subject should tear his prince's proclamation. The adulterer is highly injurious to all the persons in the Trinity. (1.) To God the Father. Sinner, God has given you your life, and you waste the lamp of your life, the flower of your age in lewdness. He has bestowed on you many mercies, health and estate, and you spend all on harlots. Did God give you wages to serve the Devil? (2.) Injurious to God the Son, two ways. First, as he has purchased you with his blood (1 Corinthians 6:20). You are bought with a price. Now, he who is bought is not his own; it is a sin for him to go to another without consent from Christ, who has bought him with a price. Secondly, by virtue of Baptism you are a Christian, and profess that Christ is your head, and you are a member of Christ; therefore what an injury it is to Christ, to take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot (1 Corinthians 6:15). (3.) It is injurious to God the Holy Ghost, for the body is his temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? And what a sin it is to defile his temple.
3. The heinousness of adultery lies in this, that it is committed with mature deliberation. First, there is the contriving the sin in the mind, then consent in the will, and then the sin is put forth into act. To sin against the light of nature, and to sin deliberately, is like the dye to the wool, it gives sin a tincture, and dyes it of a crimson color.
4. That which makes adultery so heinous is, that it is a sin after remedy. God has provided a remedy to prevent this sin (1 Corinthians 7:2). To avoid fornication let every man have his own wife. Therefore, after this remedy prescribed, to be guilty of fornication or adultery is inexcusable; it is like a rich thief, that steals when he has no need. This does enhance and accent the sin, and make it heinous.
Use 1. It condemns the Church of Rome, who allow the sin of fornication and adultery. They suffer not their priests to marry, but they may have their courtesans. The worst kind of uncleanness, incest with the nearest of kin, is dispensed with for money. It was once said of Rome, — Vrbs est jam tota Lupanar, — "Rome was become a common stews." And no wonder, when the Pope could, for a sum of money, give them a license and patent to commit uncleanness; and if the patent were not enough, he would give them a pardon. Many of the Papists judge fornication venial. God condemns the very lusting (Matthew 5:28). If God condemns the thought, how dare they allow the fact of fornication? You see what a cage of unclean birds the Church of Rome is. They call themselves the Holy Catholic Church. But how can they be holy, who are so steeped and parboiled in fornication, incest, sodomy, and all manner of uncleanness.
Use 2. It is matter of lamentation to see this commandment so slighted and violated among us. Adultery is the reigning sin of the times. (Hosea 7:4) They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker. The time of King Henry the 8th was called the Golden Age, but this may be called the unclean age, wherein whore-hunting is common. (Ezekiel 24:13) In your filthiness is lewdness. Luther tells of one who said, If he might but satisfy his lust, and be carried from one whore-house to another, he would desire no other heaven. Afterwards he breathed out his soul between two notorious strumpets. This is to be the right seed of Adam, to love the forbidden fruit, to love to drink of stolen waters. (Ezekiel 8:8-9) Son of Man, dig in the wall; and when I had dug, behold a door; and he said, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. Could we, as the prophet, dig in the walls of many houses, what vile abominations should we see there! In some chambers we might see fornication, dig further and see adultery, dig further and we might see incest, etc. And may not the Lord go from his sanctuary? As (Ezekiel 8:6) Do you see the great abominations that the house of Israel commits, that I should go far off from my sanctuary. God might remove his gospel, and then we might write Ichabod on the nation, The glory is departed. Let us mourn for what we cannot reform.
Use 3. It exhorts us to keep ourselves from this sin of adultery. Let every man have his own wife, says Paul (1 Corinthians 7:2). Not his concubine, not his courtesan. Now that I may deter you from adultery, let me show you the great evil of it.
First, it is a thievish sin. Adultery is the highest sort of theft. The adulterer steals from his neighbor that which is more than his goods and estate, he steals away his wife from him, who is flesh of his flesh.
Secondly, adultery debases a person, it makes him resemble the beasts. Therefore the adulterer is described like a horse neighing. (Jeremiah 5:8) Every one neighed after his neighbor's wife. Nay, this is worse than brutish; for some creatures that are void of reason, yet by the instinct of nature observe a kind of decorum, or chastity. The turtle-dove is a chaste creature, and keeps to its mate. The stork, wherever he flies, comes in no nest but his own. Naturalists write, if a stork leaving his own mate joins with any other, all the rest of the storks fall upon him, and pull his feathers from him. Adultery is worse than brutish, it degrades a person of his honor.
Thirdly, adultery does pollute and befoul a person. The Devil is called an unclean spirit (Luke 11:24). The adulterer is the Devil's firstborn; he is unclean; he is a moving quagmire; he is all over ulcerated with sin: his eyes sparkle with lust, his mouth foams out filth, his heart burns like Mount Etna in unclean desires: he is so filthy, that if he dies in this sin, all the flames of hell will never purge away his uncleanness. And as for the adulteress, who can paint her black enough? The Scripture calls her a deep ditch (Proverbs 23:27). She is a common shore. Whereas a believer, his body is a living temple, and his soul a little heaven, bespangled with the graces as so many little stars. The body of a harlot is a walking dunghill, and her soul a lesser hell.
Fourthly, adultery is destructive to the body. (Proverbs 5:11) And you mourn at last, when your flesh and your body is consumed. It brings into a consumption. Uncleanness turns the body into a hospital; it wastes the radical moisture, rots the skull, eats the beauty of the face. As the flame wastes the candle, so the fire of lust consumes the bones. The adulterer hastens his own death. (Proverbs 7:23) Till a dart strike through his liver. The Romans had their funerals at the gate of Venus' temple, to signify that lust brings death. Venus is lust.
Fifthly, adultery is a purgatory to the purse, as it wastes the body so the estate. (Proverbs 6:26) By the means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread. Whores are the Devil's horseleaches, sponges that will soon suck in all one's money. The prodigal had soon spent his portion when once he fell among harlots (Luke 15:30). King Edward the Third's concubine, when he lay a dying, got all she could from him, and plucked the rings off his fingers, and so left him. He that lives in luxury dies in beggary.
Sixthly, adultery blots and eclipses the name. (Proverbs 6:33) Whoever commits adultery with a woman, a wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away. Some while they get wounds get honor. The soldier's wounds are full of honor. The martyr's wounds for Christ are full of honor: these get honor while they get wounds: but the adulterer gets wounds in his name, but no honor. His reproach shall not be wiped away. The wounds of the name no physician can heal. The adulterer, when he is dead, his shame lives. When his body rots under ground, his name rots above ground. His base-born children will be the living monuments of his shame.
Seventhly, this sin does much eclipse the light of reason; it steals away the understanding, it stupefies the heart. (Hosea 4:11) Whoredom takes away the heart: it eats out all heart for good. Solomon besotted himself with women, and they enticed him to idolatry.
Eighthly, this sin of adultery ushers in temporal judgments. The Mosaic Law made adultery a death penalty (Leviticus 20:10): The adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. The usual death was stoning (Deuteronomy 22:24). The Saxons commanded the persons taken in this sin to be burnt. The Romans caused their heads to be stricken off. This sin, like a scorpion, carries a sting in the tail of it. The adultery of Paris and Helena, a beautiful strumpet, ended in the ruin of Troy, and was the death both of Paris and Helena. Jealousy is the rage of a man, and the adulterer is often killed in the act of his sin. Adultery cost Otho the Emperor and Pope Sixtus the Fourth their lives.
Laeta venire Venus tristis abire solet.
I have read of two citizens in London, 1583, who defiling themselves with adultery on the Lord's Day, were immediately struck dead with a fire from heaven. If all that were now guilty of this sin should be punished in this manner, it would rain fire again, as on Sodom.
Ninthly, adultery (without repentance) damns the soul. (1 Corinthians 6:9) Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, shall enter into the kingdom of God. The fire of lust brings to the fire of hell. (Hebrews 13:4) Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Though men may neglect to judge them, yet God will judge them. But, will not God judge all other sinners? Yes. Why then does the Apostle say, Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge? The meaning is, (1.) He will judge them assuredly; they shall not escape the hand of justice. (2.) He will punish them severely (2 Peter 2:10): The Lord knows how to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished, but chiefly them that walk in the lust of uncleanness. The harlot's breast keeps from Abraham's bosom. Momentaneum est quod delectat Aeternum, q. d. Cruciat. Who would for a cup of pleasure drink a sea of wrath? (Proverbs 9:18) Her guests are in the depths of hell. A wise traveler when he comes to his inn, though many pleasant dishes are set before him, yet he forbears to taste, because of the reckoning which will be brought in. We are here all travelers to Jerusalem above; and though many baits of temptation are set before us, yet we should forbear, and think of the reckoning which will be brought in at death. With what stomach could Dionysius eat his dainties, when he imagined there was a naked sword hung over his head as he sat at meat? While the adulterer feeds on strange flesh, the sword of God's justice hangs over his head. Causinus speaks of a tree that grows in Spain, that is of a sweet smell, and pleasant to the taste, but the juice of it is poisonous. The emblem of a harlot: she is perfumed with powders, and fair to look on, but poisonous and damnable to the soul. (Proverbs 7:26) She has cast down many wounded; indeed, many strong men have been slain by her.
Tenthly, the adulterer does not only wrong his own soul, but does what in him lies to destroy the soul of another, and so kill two at once. And thus the adulterer is worse than the thief. For suppose a thief rob a man, indeed, take away his life, yet that man's soul may be happy, he may go to heaven, as well as if he had died in his bed. But he who commits adultery endangers the soul of another, and deprives her of salvation so far as in him lies. Now, what a fearful thing is it to be an instrument to draw another to hell.
Eleventhly, the adulterer is abhorred of God. (Proverbs 22:14) The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit: he who is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein. What can be worse than to be abhorred of God? God may be angry with his own children; but for God to abhor a man, it is the highest degree of hatred.
Question: But how does the Lord show his abhorring of the adulterer?
Answer: In giving him up to a reprobate mind and a seared conscience (Romans 1:26). And now he is in such a condition that he cannot repent. This is to be abhorred of God: such a person stands upon the threshold of hell, and when death gives him a jog he tumbles in. All which may sound a retreat in our ears, and call us off from the pursuit of so damnable a sin as uncleanness. I will conclude with two scriptures (Proverbs 5:8): Come not near the door of her house. (Proverbs 7:27) Her house is the way to hell.
Twelfthly, adultery is a sower of discord: it destroys peace and love, the two best flowers which grow in a family. Adultery sets husband against wife, and wife against husband, and so it causes the joints of the same body to smite one against another. And this division in a family works confusion: for a house divided against itself cannot stand (Luke 11:17). Omne divisibile est corruptibile.
Question: How may we abstain from this sin of adultery?
Answer: I shall lay down some directions, by way of antidote, to keep you from being infected with this sin.
(1.) Come not into the company of a whorish woman; avoid her house as a seaman does a rock. (Proverbs 5:8) Come not near the door of her house. He who would not have the plague, must not come near houses infected. Every whore-house has the plague in it. Beware of the occasion of sin: to venture upon the occasion of sin, and then pray, Lead us not into temptation, is, as if one should put his finger in the candle, and then pray that it may not be burnt.
(2.) Look to your eyes. Much sin comes in by the eye. (2 Peter 2:14) Having eyes full of adultery. The eye tempts the fancy, and the fancy works upon the heart. A wanton amorous eye may usher in sin. Eve first saw the tree of knowledge, and then she took (Genesis 3:6). First she looked, and then she loved; [illegible]. The eye often sets the heart on fire: therefore Job laid a law upon his eyes. (Job 31:1) I made a covenant with my eyes, why then should I think upon a maid? Democritus the philosopher plucked out his eyes, because he would not be tempted with vain objects: the Scripture does not bid us do so, but set a watch before our eyes.
(3.) Look to your lips. Take heed of any unseemly word that may enkindle unclean thoughts in yourselves or others. (1 Corinthians 15:33) Evil communications corrupt good manners. Impure discourse is the bellows to blow up the fire of lust. Much evil is conveyed to the heart by the tongue. (Psalm 141:3) Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.
(4.) Look in a special manner to your heart (Proverbs 4:23). Keep your heart with all keeping. Every one has a tempter in his own bosom (Matthew 15:19). Out of the heart come evil thoughts. And thinking of sin makes way for the act of sin. Suppress the first risings of sin in your heart. As the serpent, when danger is near, keeps his head: so keep your heart, which is the spring from where all lustful motions do proceed.
(5.) Look to your attire. We read of the attire of a harlot (Proverbs 7:10). A wanton dress is a provocation to lust. Curlings and towerings of the hair, a painted face, naked breasts, are allurements to vanity. Where the bush is hung out, people will go in and taste of the liquor. Jerome says, such as by their lascivious attire endeavor to draw others to lust, though no evil follow; yet these tempters shall be punished, because they offered poison to others, though they would not drink.
(6.) Take heed of evil company. Serpunt vitia & in proximum quemque transiliunt. Sin is a disease very catching: one man tempts another to sin, and hardens him in sin. There are three cords to draw men to adultery: the inclination of the heart, the persuasion of evil company, and the embraces of the harlot; and this three-fold cord is not easily broken. A fire was kindled in their company (Psalm 106:18). I may allude to it, the fire of lust is kindled in bad company.
(7.) Beware of going to plays. A play-house is often a preface to a whore-house. Ludi praebent semina nequitiae. We are forbidden to avoid all appearance of evil: are not plays the appearance of evil? Such sights are there as are not fit to be beheld with chaste eyes. Both fathers and councils have shown their dislike of going to plays. A learned divine observes, that many have on their death-beds confessed with tears, that the pollution of their bodies has been occasioned by going to plays.
(8.) Take heed of mixed dancing. Instrumenta luxuriae tripudia. From dancing people come to dalliance one with another, and from dalliance to uncleanness. There is, says Calvin, for the most part some unchaste behavior in dancing. Dances draw the heart to folly by wanton gestures, by unchaste touches, by lustful looks. St. Chrysostom did inveigh against mixed dancing in his time. We read, says he, of a marriage feast, and of virgins going before with lamps (Matthew 25:7), but of dancing there, we read not. Many have been ensnared by dancing; as the Duke of Normandy, and others. Saltatio ad adulteras non ad pudicas pertinet. Ambrose. Chrysostom says, where dancing is, there the devil is: I speak chiefly of mixed dancing. And whereas we read of dances in Scripture (Exodus 15), those were sober and modest. They were not mixed dances, but pious and religious, being usually accompanied with singing praises to God.
(9.) Take heed of lascivious books, and those pictures that provoke to lust. 1. Books. As the reading of Scripture stirs up love to God, so reading of bad books stirs up the mind to wickedness. I could name one who published a book to the world full of effeminate, amorous and wanton expressions; before he died he was much troubled for it, and did burn that book which did make so many burn in lust. 2. And to lascivious books, I may add lascivious pictures, which bewitch the eye, and are the incendiaries of lust. They secretly convey poison to the heart. Qui aspicit innocens aspectu fit nocens. Popish pictures are not more prone to stir up to adultery, than unclean pictures are to stir up to concupiscence.
(10.) Take heed of excess in diet. When gluttony and drunkenness lead the van, chambering and wantonness bring up the rear. Vinum fomentum libidinis; any wine inflames lust: and fullness of bread is made the cause of Sodom's uncleanness (Ezekiel 16:49). The rankest weeds grow out of the fattest soil. Uncleanness proceeds from excess. When they were fed to the full, every one neighed after his neighbor's wife (Jeremiah 5:8). Get the golden bridle of temperance. God allows recruits of nature, and what may fit us the better for his service; but beware of surfeit. Excess in the creature clouds the mind, chokes good affections, provokes lust! St. Paul did [illegible], keep under his body (1 Corinthians 9:27). The flesh pampered is apt to rebel. Corpus impinguatum recalcitrat.
(11.) Take heed of idleness. When a man is out of a calling, now he is fit to receive any temptation. We do not use to sow seed in fallow ground: but the devil sows most seed of temptation in such as lie fallow. Idleness is the cause of sodomy and uncleanness (Ezekiel 16:49). When David was idle on the top of his roof, then he espied Bathsheba, and took her to him (2 Samuel 11:4). Jerome gave his friend this counsel, to be always well employed in God's vineyard, that when the devil came he might have no leisure to listen to a temptation.
(12.) To avoid fornication and adultery, let every man have a chaste entire love to his own wife. Ezekiel's wife was the desire of his eyes (Ezekiel 24:16). When Solomon had dissuaded from strange women, he prescribes a remedy against it: Rejoice with the wife of your youth (Proverbs 5:18). It is not the having a wife, but the loving a wife, makes a man live chastely. He who loves his wife, whom Solomon calls his fountain, will not go abroad to drink of muddy poisoned waters. Pure conjugal love is a gift of God, and comes from heaven. This, like the vestal fire, must be cherished, that it do not go out. He who loves not his wife, is the likeliest person to embrace the bosom of a stranger.
(13.) Labor to get the fear of God into your hearts (Proverbs 16:6). By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. As the banks keep out the water, so the fear of the Lord keeps out uncleanness. Such as lack the fear of God, lack the bridle that should check them from sin. How did Joseph keep from his mistress's temptation? The fear of God pulled him back. How should I do this great wickedness and sin against God? (Genesis 39:9). St. Bernard calls holy fear Ianitor Animae, the door-keeper of the soul. As a nobleman's porter stands at the door, and keeps out vagrants, so the fear of God stands and keeps out all sinful temptations from entering.
(14.) Get a delight in the Word of God. Psalms 119:123: How sweet is your Word to my taste! St. Chrysostom compares God's Word to a garden. If we walk in this garden, and suck sweetness from the flowers of the promises, we shall never care to pluck the forbidden fruit. Sint castae deliciae meae Scripturae. Aug. The reason why persons seek after unchaste sinful pleasures is because they have no better. Caesar riding through a city, and seeing the women play with dogs and parrots, said, Sure they have no children. So they that sport with harlots, it is because they have no better pleasures. He that has once tasted Christ in a promise is ravished with delight, and how would he scorn a motion to sin! Job said, the Word was his appointed food (Job 23:12). No wonder then he made a covenant with his eyes.
(15.) If you would abstain from adultery, use serious consideration. Consider,
1. God sees you in the act of sin. He sees all your curtain-wickedness. He is Totus Oculus, all eye. Aug. The clouds are no canopy, the night is no curtain to hide you from God's eye. You cannot sin, but your Judge looks on. Jeremiah 13:27: I have seen your adulteries and your neighings. Jeremiah 29:23: They have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, even I know, and am a witness, says the Lord.
2. Few that are entangled in the sin of adultery recover out of the snare. Proverbs 2:19: None that go to her return again. That made some of the ancients conclude that adultery was an unpardonable sin. But not so: David repented, and Mary Magdalen was a weeping penitent. Her amorous eyes that had sparkled with lust, she seeks to be revenged of them; she washed Christ's feet with her tears. So that some have recovered out of the snare. But None that go to her return — that is, very few. It is rare to hear of any who are enchanted and bewitched with this sin of adultery, that recover out of it. Ecclesiastes 7:26: Her heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands. Her heart is snares — that is, she is subtle to deceive those who come to her. And, Her hands are bands — that is, her embraces are powerful to hold and entangle her lovers. Plutarch said of the Persian kings, They were captives to their concubines. They were so inflamed, that they had no power to leave their company. This consideration may make all fearful of this sin; None that go to her return again. Soft pleasures harden the heart.
3. Consider what the Scripture says, and it may ponere obicem — lay a bar in the way to this sin. Malachi 3:5: I will be a swift witness against the adulterers. It is good when God is a witness for us — when he witnesses for our sincerity, as he did for Job. But it is sad to have God a witness against us. I (says God) will be a witness against the adulterer. And who shall disprove his witness? And he is both witness and judge. Hebrews 13:4: Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
4. Consider the sad farewell this sin of adultery leaves; it leaves a hell in the conscience. Proverbs 15:4: The lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, her end is bitter as wormwood. The goddess Diana was so artificially drawn, that she seemed to smile upon those that came into her temple, but frown on those that went out. So the harlot smiles on her lovers as they come to her, but at last comes the frown and sting — a dart strikes through their liver (Proverbs 7:23). Her end is bitter. When a man has been virtuous, the labor is gone, but the comfort remains. But when he has been vicious and unclean, the pleasure is gone, but the sting remains. Delectat in momentum, cruciat in aeternum. Jerom. When the senses have been feasted with unchaste pleasures, the soul is left to pay the reckoning. Stolen waters are sweet. But as poison, though it be sweet in the mouth, it torments the bowels. Sin always ends in a tragedy. Memorable is that which Fincelius reports of a priest in Flanders, who enticed a maid to uncleanness. She objected how vile a sin it was. He told her, By authority from the Pope he could commit any sin. So at last he drew her to his wicked purpose. But when they had been together a while, in came the Devil and took away the harlot from the priest's side; and notwithstanding all her crying out, carried her away. If all that are guilty of bodily uncleanness in this nation should have the Devil come and carry them away, I fear more would be carried away than would be left behind.
(16.) Pray against this sin. Luther gave a lady this advice, that when any lust began to rise in her heart, she should go to prayer. Prayer is the best armor of proof. Prayer quenches the wild-fire of lust. If prayer will cast out the Devil, why may it not cast out those lusts which come from the Devil?
Use ult. If the body must be kept pure from defilement, much more the soul of a Christian must be kept pure. This is the meaning of the commandment — not only that we should not stain our bodies with adultery, but that we should keep our souls pure. To have a chaste body, but an unclean soul, is like a fair face with bad lungs; or a gilt chimney-piece, that is all soot within. (1 Peter 1:16) Be you holy, for I am holy. The soul cannot be lovely to God, till it has Christ's image stamped upon it, which image consists in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). The soul must especially be kept pure, because it is the chief place of God's residence (Ephesians 3:17). A king's palace must be kept clean, especially his presence-chamber. If the body of the temple — the soul — is the Holy of Holies, this must be consecrated. We must not only keep our bodies from carnal pollution, but our souls from envy and malice.
Quest. How shall we know our souls are pure?
Resp. 1. If our souls are pure, then we fly from the appearance of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22). We will not do that which looks like sin. When Joseph's mistress did court and tempt him, he left his garment in her hand, and fled (Genesis 39:12). It was suspicious to be near her. Polycarp would not be seen in company with Marcion the heretic, because it would not be of good report.
If our souls are pure, this light of purity will shine forth. Aaron had Holiness to the Lord written upon his golden plate. Where there is sanctity in the soul, there Holiness to the Lord is engraved upon our life; we are adorned with patience, humility, good works, and shine as lights in the world (Philippians 2:15). We carry Christ's picture in our conversations (1 John 2:6). O let us labor for this soul-purity, without it there is no seeing of God (Hebrews 12:14). What communion has light with darkness? And that we may keep our souls pure, (1.) have recourse to the blood of Christ: this is the fountain set open for sin and uncleanness (Zechariah 13:1). A soul steeped in the brinish tears of repentance, and bathed in the blood of Christ, is made pure. (2.) Pray much for pureness of soul (Psalm 51:10). Create in me a clean heart, O God. Some pray for children, others for riches, but pray for soul-purity. Say, Lord, though my body is kept pure, yet, Lord, my soul is defiled, I pollute all I touch. O purge me with hyssop: let Christ's blood sprinkle me, let the Holy Ghost come upon me and anoint me. O make me evangelically pure, that I may be translated to heaven, and placed among the cherubims, where I shall be as holy as you would have me to be, and as happy as I can desire to be.
