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Use four. I shall give some directions, by way of antidote, to keep from the infection of this sin.
(1) Do not come into the company of a whorish woman; avoid her house, as a seaman does a rock. "Run from her! Don't go near the door of her house!" Proverbs 5:8. He who would not have the plague, must not come near infected houses; every whore-house has the plague in it. Not to avoid the occasion of sin, and yet pray, "Lead us not into temptation," is, as if one should put his finger into the candle, and yet pray that it may not be burnt!
(2) Look to your eyes. Much sin comes in by the eye. "Having eyes full of adultery." 2 Pet 2:14. The eye tempts the imagination, and the imagination works upon the heart. A lustful amorous eye, may usher in sin. Eve first saw the tree of knowledge--and then she took. Gen 3:6. First she looked--and then she loved. The eye often sets the heart on fire; therefore Job laid a law upon his eyes. "I made a covenant with my eyes--not to look with lust upon a young woman." Job 31:1. Democritus the philosopher plucked out his eyes, because he would not be tempted with vain objects; the Scripture does not bid us do this—but to set a watch before our eyes.
(3) Look to your lips. Take heed of any unclean word which may enkindle unclean thoughts in yourselves or others. "Evil communications corrupt good manners." 1 Cor 15:33. Impure discourse, is the bellows to blow up the fire of lust. Much evil is conveyed to the heart by the tongue. "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth!" Psalm 141:3.
(4) Look in a special manner to your heart. "Guard your heart with all diligence." Proverbs 4:23. Every person has a tempter in his own bosom. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts." Matt 15:19. 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--guards his head, so keep your heart, which is the spring from whence all lustful motions 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. Cuttings and braiding of the hair, a painted face, half-naked breasts, are allurements to immorality. Where the sign is hung out--people will go in and taste the liquor. Jerome says, "those who by their lascivious attire endeavour to draw others to lust, though no evil follows--are tempters--and shall be punished, because they offered the poison to others, even though they would not drink."
(6) Take heed of evil company. Sin is a very contagious disease; one person tempts another to sin, and hardens him in it. There are three cords which draw men to immorality:
the inclination of the heart,
the persuasion of evil company, and
the embraces of the harlot.
This threefold cord is not easily broken. "A fire was kindled in their company." Psalm 106:18. The fire of lust is kindled in bad company.
(7) Beware of going to theatres and plays. A play-house is often a preface to a whorehouse. "Plays furnish the seeds of wickedness." We are bid to avoid all appearance of evil; and are not plays the appearance of evil? Such sights are there, which are not fit to be beheld with chaste eyes. 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. "Dances are instruments of lust and wantonness." From dancing, people come to dalliance with another, and from dalliance to immorality. "There is," says Calvin, "for the most part, some unchaste behaviour in dancing." Dances draw the heart to immorality--by wanton gestures, by unchaste touches, and by lustful looks. Chrysostom inveighed against mixed dancing in his time. "We read," he says, "of a marriage feast—but of dancing there we read not." Matt 25:7. Many have been ensnared by dancing; as the duke of Normandy, and others. "Dancing is not the conduct of a chaste woman—but of the adulteress," Ambrose. Chrysostom says, "Where dancing is, there the devil is!" I speak chiefly of mixed dancing. We read of dances in Scripture—but they were sober and modest. Exo 15:20. They were not mixed dances—but pious and religious, being usually accompanied with singing praises to God.
(9) Take heed of lascivious books and pictures, which provoke to lust. As the reading of the Scripture stirs up love to God, so reading vile books stirs up the mind to wickedness. To lascivious books I may add lascivious pictures, which bewitch the eye, and are incendiaries to lust! They secretly convey poison to the heart.
(10) Take heed of excess in diet. When gluttony and drunkenness lead the van, immorality and wantonness bring up the rear. "Wine inflames lust." "Sodom's sins were pride, laziness, and gluttony." Ezekiel 16:49. The foulest weeds grow out of the fattest soil. Immorality proceeds from excess. "When I had fed them to the full, everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife." Jer 5:8. Get the "golden bridle of temperance." God allows the refreshment of nature, and what may fit us the better for his service; but beware of surfeit. Excess in temporal things--clouds the mind, chokes good affections, and provokes lust. "I discipline my body and bring it under strict control." 1 Cor 9:27. The flesh pampered--is liable to immorality.
(11) Take heed of idleness. When a man is idle, he is ready to receive any temptation. The devil sows most of his seeds of temptation in fallow ground. Idleness is the cause of sodomy and immorality. "Sodom's sins were pride, laziness, and gluttony." Ezek 16:49. When David was idle on the top of his house, he espied Bathsheba, and committed adultery with her. 2 Sam 11:4. Jerome gave his friend counsel to be always well employed in God's vineyard, that when the devil came, he might have no leisure to listen to 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. Chap 24:16. When Solomon had dissuaded from immoral women, he prescribed a remedy against it. "Rejoice with the wife of your youth." Proverbs 5:18. It is not having a wife—but loving a wife-- which 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 marital love is a gift of God, and comes from heaven; but, like the vestal fire, it must be nourished, so that it does not go out. He who does not love his wife, is the likeliest person to embrace the bosom of a harlot.
(13) Labour to get the fear of God into your hearts. "By the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil." Proverbs 16:6. As the embankment keeps out the water, so the fear of the Lord keeps out immorality. Such as lack the fear of God, lack the bridle which should check them from sin! How did Joseph keep from his mistress' temptation? The fear of God pulled him back! "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God!" Gen. 39:9. Bernard calls holy fear, "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) Take delight in the Word of God. "How sweet are your words unto my taste." Psalm 119:103. 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." "Let the Scriptures be my pure pleasure," says Augustine. The reason why people seek after unchaste, sinful pleasures--is because they have nothing better. Caesar riding through a city, and seeing the women play with dogs and parrots, said, "Surely, they have no children." So those who sport with harlots have no better pleasures. He who has once tasted Christ in a promise, is ravished with delight; and he would scorn a temptation to sin! Job said, that the Word was his "appointed food." Job 23:12. No wonder then, that he made a "covenant with his eyes."
(15) If you would abstain from adultery, use serious consideration.
[1] Consider that God sees you in the act of sin! He sees all your curtain wickedness. He is totus oculus--"all eye." The clouds are no canopy, the night is no curtain--to hide you from God's eye! Whenever you sin--your Judge looks on! "I have seen your detestable acts--your adulteries and your neighing." Jer 13:27. "They have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives. I know it and am a witness to it!--declares the Lord." Jer 29:23.
[2] Consider that few who are entangled in the sin of adultery, ever recover from the snare. "None that go to her return again." Proverbs 2:19. This made some of the ancients conclude that adultery was an unpardonable sin; but it is not so. David repented. Mary Magdalene was a weeping penitent; upon her amorous eyes which sparkled with lust, she sought to be revenged, by washing Christ's feet with her tears! Some, therefore have recovered from this snare. "None that go to her return," that is, "very few." It is rare to hear of any who are enchanted and bewitched with the sin of immorality, who recover from it. "I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare." Eccl 7:26. Her "heart is a trap," that is, she is subtle to deceive those who come to her; and "her hands are chains," that is her embraces are powerful to hold and entangle her lovers. This consideration should make all fearful of this sin. Soft pleasures, harden the heart.
[3] Consider what Scripture says, which may lay a barricade in the way to this sin. "I will be a swift witness against the adulterers." Mal 3:5. It is good when God is a witness "for us", when he witnesses to our sincerity, as he did to Job's; but it is sad to have God a "witness against us." "I," says God, "will be a swift witness against the adulterer." And who shall disprove God's witness? He is both witness and judge. "God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery." Heb 13:4.
[4] Consider the sad farewell, which the sin of adultery leaves. It leaves a hell in the conscience. "The lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But the result is as bitter as poison, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to hell." Proverbs 5:3-5. The goddess Diana was so artfully drawn, that she seemed to smile upon those who came into her temple—but frown on those who went out. So the harlot smiles on her lovers as they come to her--but at last, they come to the frown and the sting! "Until an arrow pierces his liver." Proverbs 7:23. "Her end is bitter."
When a man has been virtuous, the labour is gone—but the comfort remains; but when he has been wicked and immoral, the pleasure is gone—but the sting remains. "He gains momentary pleasure--and then eternal torment," says Jerome. 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 sweet in the mouth, it torments the conscience. Sin always ends in tragedy! Sad is that which Fincelius reports of a priest in Flanders, who enticed a young girl to immorality. When she objected how vile a sin it was, he told her that 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 the devil should come and carry away all that are guilty of immorality in this nation--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 armour against sin; it quenches the wild fire of lust. If prayer will "cast out the devil," it will certainly cast out those lusts which come from the devil.
Use five. If the body must be kept pure from defilement, much more the soul of a Christian must be kept pure. The meaning of the commandment is not only that we should not stain our bodies with immorality—but that we should keep our souls pure. To have a chaste body—but an unclean soul, is like a beautiful face with a cancerous heart. "Be holy, for I am holy." 1 Pet 1:16. The soul cannot be lovely to God, until it has Christ's image stamped upon it, which consists in righteousness and true holiness. Eph 4:24. The soul must especially be kept pure, because it is the chief place of God's residence. Eph 3:17. A king's palace must be kept clean, especially his presence-chamber. If the body is the temple, the soul is the "Holy of holies," and must be consecrated. We must not only keep our bodies from carnal pollution—but our souls from envy and malice.
How shall we know our souls are pure?
(1) If our souls are pure, we flee from the appearance of evil. 1 Thess 5:22. We shall not do that which looks like sin. When Joseph's mistress courted and tempted him, he "left his garment in her hand, and fled." Gen 39:12 He was suspicious to be near her.
(2) If our souls are pure, the 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 the life. We are adorned with patience, humility, good works, and shine as "Lights in the world." Phil 2:15. Carry Christ's picture in your life! 1 John 2:6. O let us labour for this soul purity! Without it there is no seeing God. Heb 12:14. "What communion has light with darkness?" 2 Cor 6:14. To keep the soul pure—have recourse to the blood of Christ, which is the "fountain open, to cleanse from sin and impurity." Zech 13:1. A soul steeped in the briny tears of repentance, and bathed in the blood of Christ, is made pure. Pray much for a pureness of soul. "Create in me a clean heart, O God." Psalm 51:10. Some pray for children, others for riches; but you are to pray for soul purity. Say, "Lord, though my body is kept pure—yet my soul is defiled, I pollute all I touch. O purge me with hyssop, let Christ's blood sprinkle me, let the Holy Spirit come upon me and anoint me. O make me evangelically pure, that I may be translated to heaven, and placed among the cherubim, where I shall be as holy as you would have me to be, and as happy as I can desire to be."
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