live without Care or any sort of Seriousness keep what the World calls the best Company have their choice of Women and Wine and deny themselves nothing of Sensuality And all this as the World now goes without running any great Hazard of losing their Reputation but not of losing their immortal Souls which sure ought most to be regarded by them To these supine Christians and Slaves to their own Lusts who know better but yet as it were in their own Defence take the Liberty not only of living Counter to but also of drolling upon all that is serious or sacred even the Holy Scriptures and our blessed Saviour himself rather than be stopp'd or check'd in their Career or in the leastwise hindred the following the full Swinge of their own unbridled Appetites and ungovernable Wits I can only propose First The Impurity and Filthiness of such Sins and Secondly The severe Punishments that inseparably attend them CHAP. II. Of the Impurity and Filthiness of such Sins PAssions Frailties and Infirmities are the common Plea and Pretence of Sinners Whereas the defect and proneness of our Nature to sin is in it self no Sin so long as not compli'd withall and besides is abundantly repaired and supernatural Assistance recovered by the Incarnation of our Saviour and the Means he hath afforded us to a holy Life if we are not wanting in the Application The loss of our Innocency hath not deprived us of any of our Faculties Our Understanding and Will are still the same and we have the same freedom to chuse the Good and reject the Evil nor is the divine Assistance God be thanked denied to any that seek it So that the Commission of Sin is entirely from our selves Perditio tua ex te Thy Destruction is from thy self Hos 13.9 says the Prophet and the preventing of it wholly in our own power And one would think we should not readily fall in love with so great deformity My present Subject however is those grosser Sins the Sins of the Flesh as being most rise amongst us and such as destroy all seriousness the foulness and filthiness whereof appears 1st From the great offence they give to God's own Holiness and Purity To which every evil even in Thought is opposite Sanctity being his great and most proper Attribute than which the Seraphims could find none greater when they sung Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth Besides the Divine Nature being absolute Purity without any Mixture or Composition whatsoever and being also absolute Perfection so that no defect or want of any good thing is in him it must needs be that what is contrary to those as is all imperfection and evilness must also be opposite to him Which speaking according to the manner of men is to be displeasing to be grievous to be loathsome and odious to him but most of all these grosser sins And this we know also from God's putting all along in Scripture a particular mark of his displeasure upon them setting them in the front as the Captains and Ring-leaders of the rest These are the members we are to mortify upon Earth Col. 3.5 Fornication Vncleanness inordinate Affection evil Concupiscence c. So again 1 Cor. 6.9 be not deceived neither Fornicators c. nor Adulterers Rom. 1 24 c. Thess 4.5 Eph. 4.1 nor Effeminate Persons nor Abusers of themselves with Mankind c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God These are the sins with which the Gentiles when they offended God most of all before the light of the Gospel shone amongst them stand every where in Scripture principally charged Nay so great an offence are these sins to the Holiness of Almighty God that he seems to equal them to the greatest sin of all 1 Cor. 6.9 Rev. 22.15 Col. 3.5 And therefore in Holy Write we find them ordinarily linked together with the sin of Idolatry And sometimes also with Covetousness taken in its largest sence for Coveting either Persons or Riches which last is said also to be Idolatry And the former may be called so too for the same reason because it is hard to say which of the two Harlots or Money is most powerful and most idolized in this lower World The Impurity and filthiness of Fornication and other grosser sins of the Flesh appears yet farther from their oppositeness to that Holiness and Cleanness which ought to be in the Body as well as in the Soul of all those who profess themselves Members of Christ Not that this filthiness of the Flesh is any External Deformity in the Body or any Diseases Ulcers or Sores For we find Job Lazarus and many other great Saints who had been well pleasing in God's sight were before men very loathsom Persons But it is a real defilement of the Body as the Body is the honourable Instrument and Associate of the Soul and ought by it to be employed to a more noble end even together with the Soul to be employed to the Glorifying God and one day also to be presented with it before him in his Heavenly Tabernacle 1 Thess 4.4 This is the will of God saith St. Paul even your Sanctification that you should abstain from Fornication that every one of you should know how to possess his Vessel i. e. his body in Sanctification and Honour Vers 7. not in Lust of Concupiscence for God hath called us not to uncleanness but unto holiness And the same Apostle in his first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.20 addresses himself to the Men of this Age as well as those of all others after a most prevailing manner Know you not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you and not your own or at your own disposing for ye are bought with a price the precious Blood of our Lord to be also his Spouse and his Members therefore ought to glorifie God both in Body and Soul which are God's And is there not good reason that after being purchased even our body as well as soul at so dear a rate as the Inestimable Blood of our Lord we should at least in gratitude sanctifie and devote our selves wholly to his honour and service But to compell us to it unless we will deny our selves to be Men and rational Creatures the Apostle's Argument here and in his other Epistles runs thus The Church is the Spouse of Christ Eph. 5.29 30 c. 1 Cor. 6.17.6 13. whom he bought and purchased to himself with his own Blood and Life whom he Cherisheth also with the like care as the same Flesh and Bone and the same Spirit with himself And for the same reason is now our Body as wel as our Soul for the Lord and the Lord for the Body If therefore the Wife have not power over her own Body but the Husband no more hath Christ's Spouse the Church or we her Members 1 Cor. 7.34 power over our selves but Christ And tho' it be said only of
driving out all those mighty Nations from Canaan and destroying them and giving their Land to the Children of Israel for a possession was it not for these abominable sins See the eightenth Chapter of Leviticus Lev. 18. whereafter variety of those sins rehearsed such as are not fit to be named amongst Christians but with horror and detestation of them it follows Verse 27. For all these abominations the Name God himself there gives to these loathsome sins have the Men of the Land done before you and the Land is defiled and therefore in the Verse following this defiled Land is said to have spewed out the Inhabitants thereof who defiled it In like manner the Destruction of the Shechemites the Death of Sampson of Amnon the Judgment of God upon the Three and twenty thousand of the Children of Israel 1 Cor. 10.8 who fell in one Day at Baal-Peor before they entered Canaan were they not for such Sins as these And for the like Sins even for one luxurious adulterous Act was not the whole Tribe of Benjamin cut off Judg. 20. except only Six hundred Men I might here add the remarkable Wars and Slaughters that suddenly followed upon David's Adultery as also the rending of the ten Tribes from Solomon as a Judgment for his being seduced to the Toleration of Idolatry by his exorbitant Lusts and unlawful Marriages and many more the like sad Examples even out of the Annals of our own and other neighbouring Countries And here also I might set down more at large God's particular Denunciations against such Sins by the Mouth of all his Prophets sometimes inflicting his great Judgments Plague Pestilence Famin Sword removing his Candlesticks c. But I think what is already said is enough to shew that these Sins of Uncleanness tho seeming most excusable and natural to Man are most abominable and loathsom in the sight of God Especially since by the new Contract that is made between us and our Lord we are become in a more peculiar manner Eph. 5. the Spouse of Christ and are therefore to keep our selves Chast and Holy We are become likewise by a particular and higher degree of Sanctification the Temples of the Holy Ghost 2 Cor. 6.19 and are therefore not sacrilegiously to violate 'em but to cleanse them from all Filthiness 2 Cor. 7.1 so perfecting that Holiness which becomes God's House for ever Ps 92.5 And this at our utmost Peril For these Temples saith St. Paul whoso defileth 1 Cor. 3.17 him will God eternally destroy And a great Moralist that lived at the same time with Saint Paul and probably also was made a Christian by him with some others of Nero's Houshold says in a manner the same thing according to Lactantius De Div. Instit Lib. 6. C. 25. The most agreeable Temple we can build for God is to consecrate him in our Hearts And therefore to build otherwise would be to ruin our selves to all Eternity which transcendently exceeds all temporal Punishments put together CHAP. IV. Of the Chastity of Marriage and the Purity of a single Life THus far concerning First The Impurity and Filthiness of the Sins of the Flesh with their Oppositeness to the Purity and Holiness of Almighty God and the defilement and dishonour they bring to the Persons that commit them And Secondly the severe Punishments and tremendous Judgments of Almighty God towards such Sins above others But I would not by any means be thought so to have censured in the beginning of this Discourse the present Age as if there were not many amongst the married Persons whom God hath reserved to himself even in our own Nation most inviolably constant to one another and that live strictly within the Bounds and Obligations of that honourable State And some also of the Unmarried that live single out of Choice not Necessity upon the account of Vertue and Religion not Licentiousness and Luxury And many also who after one Marriage abstain from a Second upon the same serious account as did those Widows in the Primitive times of Christianity 1 Tim. 5. who were for that very reason taken into the Charity and Service of the Church MARRIAGE Marriage is Honourable in all and the Bed undefiled with sin Eph. v. 32. So Honourable that St. Paul compares the Union of Man and Wife with that of Christ and his Church But yet doubtless conjugal Chastity hath many Degrees in it and in some is far more pure than in others More pure in those who for better performance of Holy Duties or in Times of Humiliation such as Lent Ember-Weeks c. before receiving the Blessed Sacrament and the like abstain and separate that they may give themselves to Fasting and Prayer So in the Old Testament Exod. 19.15 1 Sam. 21.4 before the descent of the Lord upon Mount Sinai the People were commanded three days Sanctification and not coming at their Wives Women kept from the Young Men for about three days and the Vessels of the Young Men Holy i. e. from their Wives And in times of more earnest Addresses to God this separation from Carnality was continually used amongst the Jews as appears from the Prophet Zechary Zech. 7.3 But Conjugal Chastity is still more pure in those who being separated for a longer time either upon the account of Sickness in one Party or by necessary absence of either of them about Worldly Affairs in Journeys Publick Employments Embassies or being taken Captive by an Enemy and the like yet both continue constant and faithful to one another and this perhaps for many years notwithstanding the many strong Temptations the world presents So in the Case of Divorcement or of a resolved Separation by consent many there are who take from hence an occasion of being more diligent in the Service of God and afterwards perhaps of removing themselves out of all danger of being ensnared and ruined by the Sollicitations of Sense And so likewise after Espousals some there have been tho' not many who according to the Transcendent Example of our Blessed Lady and her Espoused Husband St. Joseph have never proceeded any further but instead of Consummating the Marriage have transferred their Love and Affection to our Lord. So St. Austin treated with his Spouse and after having once vanquished himself and his exorbitantly Incontinent Desires of which himself so much complains and in his Confessions Laments so as to be content even without Marriage it self became a most Holy Bishop and one of the most Glorious Lights in the Church of God that ever the World saw since the times of our Saviour and his Apostles And in our own Nation King Edward commonly called the Saint lived together with his Queen a holy Virginal Life as Surius shews out of a very Ancient Manuscript As did also Henry the First Emperour Bolislaus the modest King of Poland Alphonsus II King of Castile Peter Vrceoli Duke of Venice with may others And St. Austin
for he that stands must take heed least he falls Rom. 11.21 and be not high minded but fear we will not however abandon our selves to it but on the contrary renew and make stronger Resolutions against it with severer Penalties annexed and so valiantly continue on the fight till it shall please God to give us the Victory Such voluntary Mortifications are likewise Efficacious not only for the taming and keeping under the body but for the obtaining also from God by our thus siding and taking part with his Divine Justice against our sins the particular Gift and Grace of which we stand in need Some unclean Lust is not to be subdued Mat. 17.21 some Devil not cast out without Fasting as well as Prayer Our sparing Self-Mortifications is like sparing the Rod to the Child but the using of them is the ready way to prevent God's Judgments from falling upon us in particular or upon our Countrey for our sakes and by reason of our sins or to remove them when begun Thus Ezra and his People fasted and besought God Ezra 8.21 and he was entreated for them And so another time Queen Esther and the whole Jewish Nation just as they were going to be Massacred Est 4.16 were preserved by the same means of Fasting and Prayer The Ninevites also were spared upon the same account of their great Humiliation Jon. 3.10 And so the Prophet Daniel attained to so great Knowledge and Wisdom and so high a degree of the Divine Favour by his long fasting and mourning and praying for God's only Church and People Dan. 1.17 Dan. 10.3 And indeed I know no other way of stoping God's Judgments even when they are breaking out upon us than by thus applying our selves to Mollify his Justice that we may not fail of his Mercy But yet the greatest Humiliation of all and most Beneficial Jam. 5.16 is the telling our sins to one another as often as we commit them particularly to our Spiritual Pastors which will be apt to awe us if not hardned from sinning in that kind any more and our Pastor by his good Directions Prayers and the power with which Almighty God hath entrusted him is able with our concurrence to administer the best Remedy to all our sins And then another Person tho' he were not more Learned being no way concerned or interested in our Affairs must needs be more void of Passion more Impartial and Consequently can better Judge of us better Direct and Guide us than we our selves O that we could thus die to all things but God and take no pleasure but in Self-denials and Mortifications for the sake of Jesus From whence flows that Humility Purity of heart Mat. 5.8 to which our Saviour hath Emphatically annexed the Blessedness of seeing God! CHAP. VII The Third Rule Of the Occasions of grosser Sins THirdly We are to avoid the Occasions of the sins of the Flesh Some of them I shall name 1st The making Provision for the Flesh to fulfill the Lusts thereof Rom. 13.14 Strong Meats strong Drinks high Sauces are not convenient as being many times very hurtful to the Memory and Understanding always heightening and disordering the Passions Be not drunk with Wine saith St. Paul to his Ephesians wherein is Excess Eph. 5.18 And in Excess a Man knows not what he does but is ready to go along with his Company and to commit with them the greatest lewdness and outrage whatsoever under the pretence of a Frolick Lev. 10.9 Wherefore Priests under the Old Law in the time of their Attendance on God in the Execution of their Function were forbidden such things And all Christians now are in some manner God's Priests Rev. 5.10 Great Caution therefore is to be taken of Invitations and publick Entertainments It is much safer to eat alone or with few and those Abstemious Persons And then rather mean Diet to be chosen than Delicacies poor Peoples Children we see thrive best often calling to mind the hard fare of our Lord and his poor Disciples whom he chose poor Who fed on Ears of Corn Barley-Bread Mat. 12.1 Joh. 6.9 Fish an Honey-Comb Water and the like and St. John Baptist upon Locusts and Wild-Honey and the holy Men of Egypt according to St. Jerom upon much harder Fare Often remembring also the All-satisfying Food promised us in Heaven which will keep us from ever hungering or thirsting any more Blessed are they that shall eat Bread in the Kingdom of God Luk. 14.15 Rev. 19.9 And Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Lord evermore give us that Heavenly Bread that never perishes and that Heavenly Water also which shall be in us a well of Water Springing up to everlasting Life The great reason why we ought if we intend to avoid the sins of the Flesh to take particular care of living Temperate in our Diet and of observing frequent Fastings especially the Solemn Fasts of the Church is because by our Eating and Drinking the Flesh arms and furnishes it self as it were with new Provisions for fighting against the Spirit New Matter and Fuel is administred to Concupiscence and the Brain many times so heated as not to be able to make a right Judgment of things It was after a great Dinner when Herod for the sake of a filly Dancing Mar. 6.21 Girl consented to the beheading of the Venerable and Chast St. John Baptist as having been an open Enemy to his Incestuous Marriage It was in Drunkenness when Lot committed double Incest with his Two Daughters Gen. 19. Hos 4.11 Rom. 13.13 And we find all along in Scripture Drunkenness and Gluttony inseparable Companions of Lust And then the necessary Repairs of our Body returning so often we are obliged in a manner to be continually upon our Guard and to put a Knife to our Throat as the Wise Man adviseth that we be not overcome by our Appetite This Concupiscence in Eating and Drinking by reason of the dayly necessities of the Body is no such thing says St. Austin in his Confessions which we can resolve to cut off at once and touch no more as we may do other things Eat and Drink we must yet not to Excess The reins therefore of the Throat are to be held with a moderate hand between too little and too much And who is he O Lord says the same Father that is not sometimes transported beyond the Lists of Necessity Whoever he be a great one he is let him magnifie thy Name So that in one word our living temperate and watching over our Appetite so as to thwart it in every thing is the taking away the chief and most principal occasion of Lust and as I may say the quenching of it in its very Cause Fraena gulam c. Bridle your Appetite says Thomas a Kempie and you will the more easily bridle every Inclination of the Flesh To Temperance in Meat and Drink and frequent