8.18 23. 1 Thess 4.7 Sin which is so far from Purity that it is the direct contrary thereto and called by the name of corruption uncleanness pollution filthiness the lust of uncleanness ungodly lust a spotting and defiling thing And what indeed is in the whole story and business of it but nastiness and beastliness filthiness and uncleanness not to be seen by Christian Eye not to be spoken by Christian Mouths not to be heard by Christian Ears Whence the Apostle would not have it once named among Saints and saith it is a shame even to speak of those things Eph. 5.3 12. And thirdly It is a Sin against all the Persons in the sacred Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost 1. Against the Father in that it is a dishonouring of his Creature abusing that to vileness and baseness and bruitishness which he made for himself and for his own Honour and Glory Whence the Apostle cells us above v. 13 that the Body is not for Fornication but for the Lord and helow v. 20. bids that we should glorifie God in our Body as being that which is his upon a double right first of Creation and after of Redemption and therefore is only to be used according to his Will in all Purity and not to be abused according to our Lust in any Uncleanness 2. Against the Son for it is a Dishonouring and a defiling of a Member of him even so far as to make it a Member of a Harlot Know ye not says our Apostle v. 15. that your bodies are the members of Christ Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of an harlot God forbid As by Marriage the two Parties become one in Body so by Religion which imports a holy tye of a Christian unto Christ Christ and the Christian become one in Spirit there is a spiritual Union betwixt them as a civil Union betwixt married couples But then Fornication is the breaking of this Union for by a mans joyning himself to another to a Harlot he becomes one body with a Whore which is a high disloyalty against Christ and a breaking off from Union with Christ a forsaking of him to follow after and be joyned with a Whore which is a strong Argument against this Sin Memento quia Christo sacrata sunt menbra tua nou misceantur membris meretricis Chrysost O remember that your Members are consecrated unto Christ and that is reason enough why you should not commit Fornication inasmuch as that 't is the making of your Members to become the Members of an Harlot or Whore 3. Against the Holy Ghost For it is a dishonouring and a defiling of his Temple and a turning it into a Stve or rather a Den of Uncleanness What says the Apostle here v. 19. know you not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you So that this defiling of the Body is the defiling of the Temple of the Hold ghost and to a doing of despite unto that Spirit of Grace a forcing him with our nastiness to forsake his Habitation which is also a sure way to bring on our Destruction For says our Apostle 1 Cor. 3.16 17. Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple are ye Now this Consideration raises up this Sin to so exceeding an height of sinfulness as that it seems not needful to add any thing more to shew the sinfulness of it And yet more may be said to shew it For it is a Sin against a mans own Body and abusing of a mans self a doing a Dishonour and Despite to their own bodies Rom. 1.24 And our Apostle argues by way of Motive to disswade from this Sin in the following members of the Text Flee Fornication Every Sin that a man doth is without the Body but he that committeth Fornication sinneth against his own body The meaning is That whereas most other Sins are against others God or our Neighbour this is a Sin against a man's own self whereby he defiles that part of himself into filthy abuse which was sanctified by God to an use of holiness even to be the Temple of his most holy Spirit It is a robbing of a man's self of so great an Honour and so great an Happiness as to have his Body to be the Temple of Gods Spirit than which what worse Discourtesy what greater Mischief can a man do unto himself And not only against himself but it is a Sin also against the body of Another the Body of her with whom Fornication is committed as well as his own Body It is a doing to her as much mischief as to himself bringing as great a Sin upon her and involving her into as great a share of Punishment as himself For this is a Sin that cannot be committed by one there must ever be two at it A man may commit Murder or Thiest alone he may forswear and lye alone he may gluttonize and be drunken himself alone but he cannot play the fornicator alone by himself he must have a Partner with him in his Sin whereby he doubles his Sin as being guilty not only of his own act but others also whom he tempted to the consenting to him in the acting of that filthiness which is a great aggravation to the sinsulness of it And yet neither is this all For In the next place it is a Sin committed against clear light and knowledge and so cannot but be against Conscience For the Scripture hath clear and plain Prohibitions and Dehortations from it and Denunciations or Threatnings against the Committers of it which none can be ignorant of that knows any thing of the Scriptures of God Prohibitions and Dehortations we have mentioned before and such is this in my text Flee Fornication Such is that in Act 15.29 where abstaining from Fornication is made a necessary Injunction upon all that would be Christians Such again that in 1 Thess 4.3 where it is declared to be the will of God that we should abstain from Fornication And for Denunciations or Threatnings they are plain nad clear and full Such is that of the Apostle Hib. 13.4 Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge Such that of his again in Eph. 5.5 No Whoremonger nor unclean Person hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God So v. 6 For these things cometh the wrath of God upon the Children of Disobedience And to name no more such is that Rev. 21.8 where Whoremongers are of that number that shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death Are not these clear and plain Prohibitions and Denunciations And do these lie fair and clear in our Books to read And are they not frequently read in our Churches and published in our Congregations Who then can plead ignorance of
Jealousie when the Soul of Man the Daughter of God and the Spouse of Christ becomes guilty of this Harlotry and gives her self to his Uncleanness as that of corporal Fornication is in the most literal Sense of that Word No marvel if God will judge Whoremongers and Adulterers no marvel if he have provided a Lake of Fire and Brimstone to wash or rather burn away the filthiness of Fornicators 2. As it renders him odious to God so it outs him of the Protection of Angels God sends forth his Angels to be ministring spirits to them who shall be heirs of Salvation Heb. 1.14 And gives them charge over them to keep them in all their ways Ps 91.11 But now the Fornicator by acting that which disinherits him of Salvation for as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 6.9 10. Neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor effeminate Persons shall inherit the Kingdom of God he acts that by which he is disinterested in the Angelical Protection And besides how can the Fornicator but be odious to the Angel that was deputed to the Guardianship over him when he immerses and soaks himself into nastiness and filthiness so utterly contrary to the Angelical Nature and Purity Angels are Beings of a pure and spiritual Nature and the Fornicator swills himself in bodily filthiness and uncleanness so odious to the Angelical Fineness and Purity that an Angel in Representation and to shew their detestableness of this Sin unto their Nature is in the Lives of the Fathers reported to have stopt his Nose at the sight of a Fornicator as not able to endure the noisom Savour and Stench of so polluted and unclean Person And when once the good Angels of God have withdrawn from any man their Protection who can we think but the evil Angels of Satan do take him into Possession Now this cannot but be thought a great mischief to a man to be forsaken of his Defence and invested by his Enemies to be outed of the Protection of Angels and put into Subjection to Devils 3. It dspossesses him of the Spirit of God The Holy Spirit of God will not dwell but in a holy Temple thereupon the Body of a Fornicator can be no Temple for him to inhabit 't is too nasty and filthy polluted and defiled a place for him to abide in 't is a Sink of Uncleanness and therefore can be no suitable Mansion for the Spirit of holiness For the Temple of God that is that Temple which God by his Spirit will dwell in is holy 1 Cor. 3.17 That Body which is defiled with Pollution of Lust and Uncleanness is no Temple of his none that he will dwell in Uncleanness chaseth him out of his Habitation outs him of his Temple dispossesses him of his Dwelling which he will no longer abide in than it continues to be holy And therefore St. Chrysostom saith Non polluas Templum sacratum Domino ne fias à Spiritu ejus alienum take heed ye defile not that Temple of your Body which is consecrated unto the Lord lest thereby ye become a Stranger to his Spirit i.e. lest his Spirit be withdrawn from you and forsake you Our Church in her Morning Service suitably hereunto as to me it seems first prays that God would make clean our Hearts within us and then not to take his Holy Spirit from us intimating that unless our Herarts be clean within us God will not suffer his Holy Spirit to abide with us What a Mischief is this that the Fornicator doth himself He deprives himself of the Presence of the Assistance of the Comfort of the Counsel of Gods Spirit and hath no fellowship with the Holy Ghost He tears off his Seal of Adoption and throws away the Farnest of eternal Salvation and so hath now neither Right to Heaven nor Evidence for it Yea when the good Spirit is once departed out of its Habitation the evil Spirit will he ready to enter into and take it up for his own Possession and then the end of that Man is worse than his beginning Devils dwell in him now for a time and he must dwell hereafter with Devils to all eternity in the World to come And which is consequent to his it disfurnisheth him of the Grace of God For that which deprives a man of the Grace of the Spirit must divest him of the Spirit of Grace When the Spring is withdrawn no wonder if the Streams dry up and fail But besides Grace is a work of the Sprit and Fornication as all other Sins of Uncleanness are is a Work of the Flesh Now the Flesh and the Spirit as the Apostle saith Gal. 5.17 are contrary the one to the other And therefere as the Principles of these Works the Flesh and the Spirit are contrary each to other so these Works which flow from these Principles are contrary the one to the other This and so any Sin of Uncleanness is not privatively only but positively also even contrariantly opposite unto Grace there is in it not only a want of Holiness but something of positive filthiness Now as Logicians say Contraria se mutuó destruunt alterumque alterius contractione remittitur Contraries do destroy each other and the presence of the one is abated by the access of the other So that this Sin when it is admitted diminishes and destroys Grace the Act of it is a Diminution and the Habit of it a Destruction to it Now surely the Destruction of Grace in a man is a great Mischief to him it is the defacing of his Evidence for and a destroying of his Title to Heaven For as the pure in heart shall see God so without holiness shall no man see the Lord mat 5.8 Heb. 12.14 It is the depriving him of every thing of Divine nature in him and the stripping him of all so much as likeness unto God It is the rereturning of him into a state of corrupted nature to a state of Damnation a Condition far worse than that of Beasts which perish which whatever they suffer yet they do not sin and find at once an end of their lives and of their miseries whereas the end of an ungracious mans life is but the beginning of an endless Death yea further it is the makingway for the Image and Nature of the Devil to enter upon and overspread the man for as the Divine Nature and Image stands in Purity and Holiness so the Diabolical Image and Nature consists in Impurity and Uncleanness So that in effect it is the making of a man who was before the Child of God to become the Child of the Devil Whereupon St. Ambrose says our Apostle did well to warn Christians to flee Fornication per quam filii Dei fiunt silii Diaboli inasmuch as by that the Children of God did become the Children of the Davil A greater Mischief is hard to say 4. It wounds and wasts and destroys his Conscience This is a Sin that is done with Knowledge most an end for it is tare that a
man should be so far gone from himself through Drink or any other Course as that like Lot he should not know hedoth commit the sin when he doth commit it It is a Sin that requires much study in most Cases how to contrive and compass the commission of it and therefore especially in such Cases is a Sin of knowledge a Sin committed with deliberation and therefore is a wilful Sin and such Sins are wounding Sins to the Soul wasting Sins to the Conscience the first Act wounds the second wasts and the Habit of it when it grows to that quite destroys the Conscience the custom of sinning takes away all both Sense and Conscience of Sin like those Gentiles spoken of by St. Paul Eph. 4.17 18 19. who walked in the vanity of their mind having their understanding darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in them because of the blindness or rather hardness of their heart who being past feeling gave themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Which blindness and hardness senselesness and stupidity of Mind and Heart when men once have through continued custom of sinning in this way brought upon themselves then it is but just that God should give them up in a Judicial way unto Uncleanness and unto vile Affections and even give them over unto a reprobate mind a mind void of Judgment as he did those Romas St. Paul speaks of Rom. 1.24 26 28. And this to be given over to a reprobate sense to have the Conscience cauterized to be under a benummedness of mind and a brawniness of heart to be without Sense and Conscience of sin is to be under a most dismal Judgment the high Road to and the very Gate into and month of Hell For when once a man is past seeling or sin he is the past sorrowing for sin and past repenting of it without an extraordinary and miraculous Work of Conviction wrought upon him and without Repentance there can be no Salvation And therefore that sin which brings a man into this desperate Condition is a sin that is mischievous with a Witness it blinds the mind perverts the judgment benumbs the heart sears the Conscience leaving the mind under stupefaction and senselesness hardness and impenitency 5. It distracts him in those Duties to God whereby he should obtain the Grace of God and preserve and encrease it when it is obtained This fleshly Lust will not suffer him rightly to attend to any spiritual Duty it will not suffer him to have any Communion with God either by hearing God speak to him in his Word or speaking to God himself in Prayer it so takes up all his Thoughts that he can mind nothing of the Worship and Service of of God as he ought When he should be thinking of God he is thinking of his Whore and instead of praying for Grace to abstain from his sin and to mortifie his Lust he is plotting how to fulfil his Lust and commit his sin So true is that of St. Ambrose Nullus peccandi modus inexplexibilis scelerum sitis nisi morte amantis extingui non potest This sin is unmeasurable unsatiable the burning Thirst whereof never quenched by any thing but Death Now surely it is a very great mischief to be so distracted in ones Duty to God that is a plaguy Lust that will not let a man be quiet till he hath said his Prayers but be as ill or worse a Tempter to a man than the Devil himself And yet such a mischievous sin Lust is that whereby the Fornicator is swayed and governed in his Course of Uncleanness And no marvel for it besots and fools him so that he neither minds nor regards what he is about unless it be when he is getting satisfaction to his Lust It dispirits and unmans the man and turns him all into Beast well nigh saving what he is in shew and shape Who could think any other that should find Hercules the only Worthy and Wonder in his time for strength and Valour stooping to the meanness of being a Servant to Omphale and in the quality of a Wench working at the Rock and Spindle And what other can we think was meant by the ancient Poets when they tell us of the strange Transformations of Jupiter and other Gods into a Bull a Swan and the like bruitish Creatures for the love of and to satisfie his lust with this or that admired Beauty but that lust this lust of Fornication transforms and turns men even the greatest of them into very Beasts makes them do brutish things as if they had no more of the Heart of a man in them than Nebuchadnezzar had when he was turned to Grass than the Beasts of the Field have And this probably was meant by the Prophet Hosea when in his fourth Chapter and cleventh Verse he makes Fornication to be one of those things that take away the Heart Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the Heart do turn a man into a very beast and suitably the Prophet Jeremy compares these unclean sinners to Horses lustful Creatures Jer. 5.8 They were as fed horses saith he every one neighed after his Neighbours Wife And so the Apostle St. Peter speaking of those that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness compares them to natural bruit beasts made to be taken and destroyed and even to Dogs and Swine two most unclean Creatures and more irrational than any other Creatures in their lusts 2 Pet. 2.10 12 22. which is a great mischief to a man as being the turning of him out of himself and the degrading of him into a Beast rendring him unfit for any manly acting and dissolving him all into softness and folly And having bereft him of Judgment and Spirit the less marvel is it if it do also bereave him of his Freedom and make a very Slave of him It is an imperious lust this it makes them in whom it reigns very Servants and Slaves to it Hence these kind of people are by the Apostle St. Peter called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 servants of corruption adding this for the reason of his so calling them because that of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought into bondage 2 Pet. 2.19 And so the Apostle St. Paul Rom. 6.16 Know ye not to whom ye yield your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness And after v. 19. speaks of their having yielded their members servanos to uncleanness So that this sin of Uncleanness is a tyrannous lust it bereaves its Subjects of their Liberty and Freedom and brings them under bondage and slavery A fornicator and a Free-man are two terms that cannot be said of the same Man He that is a worker of Uncleanness is in a state of very servitude and a base a wretched servitude is it that he serves He is made a Servant to