A Sermon Against Sexual Immorality and Uncleanness
Part One
Although there is no lack, good Christian people, of great swarms of vices that deserve rebuke — so far has true godliness and virtuous living now decayed — yet above all other vices the raging seas of adultery (or breaking of wedlock) and sexual immorality[1] and uncleanness have not only burst in, but have also overflowed almost the whole world, to the great dishonour of God, the surpassing infamy of the name of Christ, the notable decay of true religion, and the utter destruction of the commonwealth. And that so abundantly that, through its habitual practice, this vice has grown to such a height that among many it is, in a manner, counted no sin at all, but rather a pastime, a dalliance, and merely a touch of youth — not rebuked, but winked at; not punished, but laughed at.
So it is necessary at this present time to speak of the sin of sexual immorality, declaring to you the greatness of this sin — how odious, hateful, and abominable it is, and has always been regarded before God and all good men, and how grievously it has been punished both by the law of God and the laws of various princes; and again, to show you certain remedies by which you may, through the grace of God, avoid this most detestable sin and lead your lives in all honesty and cleanness.
And so that you may perceive that sexual immorality is, in the sight of God, a most abominable sin, you shall call to remembrance this commandment of God: "You shall not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14) By this word "adultery," although it is properly understood of the unlawful union (or joining together) of a married man with any woman besides his wife, or of a wife with any man besides her husband, yet it also signifies all unlawful use of those parts which are ordained for generation. And this one commandment forbidding adultery sufficiently paints and sets out before our eyes the greatness of this sin of sexual immorality, and plainly declares how greatly it ought to be abhorred by all honest and faithful persons. And so that none of us may think himself excepted from this commandment — whether we are old or young, married or unmarried, man or woman — hear what God the Father says by his most excellent prophet Moses: "There shall be no prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor any sexually immoral man among the sons of Israel." (Deuteronomy 23:17) Here sexual immorality and all uncleanness are forbidden to all kinds of people, all ranks, and all ages, without exception.
And so that we may not doubt that this precept (or commandment) does indeed pertain to us, hear what Christ, the perfect Teacher of all truth, says in the New Testament. "You have heard," says Christ, "that it was said to those of old time, You shall not commit adultery; but I say to you, whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-28) Here our Saviour Christ does not only confirm and establish the law against adultery given in the Old Testament by God the Father through his servant Moses, and make it of full strength, continually to remain among those who profess his name under the new law; but he also, condemning the gross interpretation of the Scribes and Pharisees — who taught that the aforesaid commandment only required abstaining from outward adultery and not from filthy desires and impure lusts — teaches us an exact and full perfection of purity and cleanness of life, both to keep our bodies undefiled and our hearts pure and free from all evil thoughts, carnal desires, and consents of the flesh.
How then can we be free from this commandment, where so great a charge is laid upon us? May a servant do whatever he wishes in anything, when he has a commandment of his master to the contrary? Is not Christ our Master? Are we not his servants? How then may we neglect our Master's will and pleasure, and follow our own will and fancy? "You are my friends," says Christ, "if you keep the things that I command you." (John 15:14) Now Christ our Master has commanded us to forsake all uncleanness and lechery, both in body and in spirit; this therefore we must do, if we hope to please God.
In the Gospel of St. Matthew we read that the Scribes and Pharisees were grievously offended with Christ because his disciples did not keep the traditions of their forefathers, for they did not wash their hands when they went to dinner or supper; and among other things Christ answered and said:
Hear and understand. It is not the thing which enters into the mouth that defiles a man, but that which comes out of the mouth defiles a man. For the things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, breaking of wedlock, sexual immorality, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man. (Matthew 15:11, 18-19)
Here we may see that not only murder, theft, false witness, and blasphemy defile men, but also evil thoughts, breaking of wedlock, and sexual immorality. Who now is of so little wit that he would count sexual immorality a thing of small importance and of no weight before God? Christ, who is the Truth and cannot lie, says that evil thoughts, breaking of wedlock, and sexual immorality defile a man — that is to say, they corrupt both the body and soul of man, and make them, instead of the temples of the Holy Spirit, the filthy dunghill or dungeon of all unclean spirits; instead of the house of God, the dwelling place of Satan.
Again, in the Gospel of St. John, when the woman taken in adultery was brought to Christ, did he not say to her, "Go your way, and sin no more"? (John 8:11) Does he not here call sexual immorality a sin? And what is the reward of sin but everlasting death? If sexual immorality is sin, then it is not lawful for us to commit it. For St. John says, "He who commits sin is of the devil." (1 John 3:8) And our Saviour says, "Everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin." (John 8:34)
If sexual immorality had not been sin, surely St. John the Baptist would never have rebuked king Herod for taking his brother's wife; but he told him plainly that it was not lawful for him to take his brother's wife. He did not wink at that adultery of Herod, although Herod was a king of great power, but boldly reproved him for his wicked and abominable living — though for it he lost his head. He would rather suffer death than see God so dishonoured by the breaking of his holy precept (or commandment), or allow sexual immorality to go unrebuked even in a king.
If sexual immorality had been but a pastime, a dalliance, and a thing not to be cared about, as many count it nowadays, truly John would have been more than twice mad to incur the displeasure of a king, to be cast into prison and lose his head, for a trifle. But John knew very well how filthy, stinking, and abominable the sin of sexual immorality is in the sight of God; therefore he would not leave it unrebuked — no, not even in a king. If sexual immorality is not lawful in a king, neither is it lawful in a subject. If it is not lawful in a public (or commons) officer, neither is it lawful in a private person. If it is not lawful in king or subject, in common officer or private person, then truly it is lawful in no man or woman, of whatever rank or age they may be.
Furthermore, in the Acts of the Apostles we read that when the Apostles and elders, with the whole congregation, were gathered together to calm the hearts of the faithful living at Antioch — who were disquieted by the false doctrine of certain Jewish preachers — they sent word to the brethren that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to them to charge them with no more than necessary things; and among others, they told them to abstain from idolatry and sexual immorality: "from which, if you keep yourselves, you shall do well." (Acts 15:28-29) Note here how these holy and blessed fathers of Christ's Church would charge the congregation with no more matters than were necessary. Note also how, among those things from which they commanded the brethren of Antioch to abstain, sexual immorality is numbered.
It is therefore necessary — by the determination and consent of the Holy Spirit, and of the Apostles and elders with the whole congregation — that, just as from idolatry and superstition, so likewise we must abstain from sexual immorality. Is it necessary for salvation to abstain from idolatry? So it is to abstain from sexual immorality. Is there any nearer way to lead to damnation than to be an idolater? No. Even so, there is no nearer way to damnation than to be sexually immoral. Now where are those people who so lightly regard the breaking of wedlock, sexual immorality, and adultery? It is necessary, says the Holy Spirit, the blessed Apostles, the elders, with the whole congregation of Christ — it is necessary to salvation, they say, to abstain from sexual immorality. If it is necessary for salvation, then woe to those who, neglecting their salvation, give their minds to so filthy and stinking a sin, to so wicked a vice, to such detestable abomination.
Part Two
You have been taught in the first part of this sermon how that vice today reigns above all other vices; what is meant by this word "adultery"; how holy Scripture dissuades (or counsels against) doing that filthy sin; and finally, what corruption comes to man's soul through the sin of adultery.
Now, to proceed further, let us hear what the blessed Apostle St. Paul says on this matter. Writing to the Romans, he has these words:
Let us cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the daytime — not in eating and drinking, neither in sexual indulgence and wantonness, neither in strife and envying; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts. (Romans 13:12-14)
Here the holy Apostle exhorts us to cast away the works of darkness, which (among others) he calls gluttonous eating, drinking, sexual indulgence, and wantonness — all of which are servants to that vice, and preparations to induce and bring in the filthy sin of the flesh. He calls them the deeds and works of darkness, not only because they are customarily done in darkness or in the night (for everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be reproved), but because they lead the straight way to that utter darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And he says in another place of the same Epistle, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Romans 8:8) And again: "We are debtors, not to the flesh, that we should live after the flesh; for if you live after the flesh, you shall die." (Romans 8:12-13)
Again he says:
Flee from sexual immorality. For every sin that a man commits is outside the body, but whoever commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? And you are not your own, for you are dearly bought. Therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)
And a little before he says, "Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a prostitute? God forbid. Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute is made one body with her? There shall be two in one flesh, he says. But he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit." (1 Corinthians 6:15-17) What godly reasons the blessed Apostle St. Paul brings forth here, to dissuade (or counsel) us from sexual immorality and all uncleanness! "Your members," he says, "are the temple of the Holy Spirit"; and whoever defiles it, God will destroy, as St. Paul says. If we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, how unfitting it is to drive that Holy Spirit from us through sexual immorality, and in his place to set the wicked spirits of uncleanness and sexual immorality, and to be joined and made servants to them! "You are dearly bought," he says; "therefore glorify God in your bodies." Christ, that innocent Lamb of God, has bought us from the servitude of the devil — not with corruptible gold and silver, but with his most precious and dear heart's blood. To what end? That we should fall again into our old uncleanness and abominable living? No indeed; but that we should serve him all the days of our life in holiness and righteousness, that we should glorify him in our bodies by purity and cleanness of life.
He also declares that our bodies are the members of Christ. How unseemly a thing it is, then, to cease to be incorporate (or embodied) and one with Christ, and through sexual immorality to be joined and made all one with a prostitute! What greater dishonour or injury can we do to Christ than to take from him the members of his body, and join them to prostitutes, devils, and wicked spirits? And what greater dishonour can we do to ourselves than, through uncleanness, to lose so excellent a dignity and freedom, and to become bondslaves and miserable captives to the spirits of darkness? Let us therefore consider first the glory of Christ, and then our own estate, our dignity, and the freedom in which God has set us by giving us his Holy Spirit; and let us valiantly defend it against Satan and all his crafty assaults, that Christ may be honoured, and that we may not lose our liberty (or freedom), but still remain in one spirit with him.
Moreover, in his Epistle to the Ephesians the blessed Apostle wills us to be so pure and free from adultery, sexual immorality, and all uncleanness that we do not so much as name them among us, as is fitting for saints — nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not proper, but rather the giving of thanks. "For this you know," he says, "that no sexually immoral or unclean person, nor any covetous person (who is an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." (Ephesians 5:5) And so that we should remember to be holy, pure, and free from all uncleanness, the holy Apostle calls us saints, because we are sanctified and made holy in the blood of Christ through the Holy Spirit. Now if we are saints, what have we to do with the manners of the heathen? St. Peter says, "As he who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves in all your conversation; because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:15-16)
So far we have heard how grievous a sin sexual immorality is, and how greatly God abhors it throughout the whole Scripture. How can it be anything other than a sin of most abomination, seeing that it may not even once be named among Christians, much less be in any way committed? And surely, if we would weigh the greatness of this sin and consider it in its true kind, we should find sexual immorality to be that most filthy lake, foul puddle, and stinking sink into which all kinds of sins and evils flow, where also they have their resting place and abode.
For does not the adulterer take pride in his sexual immorality? As the Wise Man says, "They are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in things that are utterly wicked." (Proverbs 2:14) Is not the adulterer also idle, delighting in no godly exercise but only in his most filthy and beastly pleasure? Is not his mind plucked and utterly drawn away from all virtuous studies and fruitful labours, and given over only to carnal and fleshly imaginations? Does not the sexually immoral man give his mind to gluttony, that he may be the more apt to serve his lusts and carnal pleasures? Does not the adulterer give his mind to covetousness, and to the fleecing and plundering of others, that he may be the more able to maintain his harlots and prostitutes, and to continue in his filthy and unlawful love? Does he not also swell with envy against others, fearing that his prey may be lured and taken away from him? Again, is he not full of anger, filled with wrath and displeasure even against his best beloved, if at any time his beastly and devilish request is hindered?[2] What sin, or kind of sin, is there that is not joined with sexual immorality? It is a monster of many heads. It receives all kinds of vices and refuses all kinds of virtues. If one single sin brings damnation, what is to be thought of that sin which is accompanied with all evils, and has waiting upon it whatever is hateful to God, damnable to man, and pleasant to Satan?
Great is the damnation that hangs over the heads of the sexually immoral and adulterers. What shall I say of the other disadvantages[3] which issue and flow out of this stinking puddle of sexual immorality? Is not that treasure which is most regarded by honest persons above all else — the good fame and name of man and woman — lost through sexual immorality? What patrimony (or livelihood), what substance, what goods, what riches does sexual immorality quickly consume and bring to nothing! What valour and strength is many times made weak and destroyed by it! What wit is so fine that it is not dulled and defaced through it! What beauty, however excellent, is not disfigured by it! Is not sexual immorality an enemy to the pleasant flower of youth? Does it not bring grey hairs and old age before their time? What gift of nature, however precious, is not corrupted by it? Do not the French pox, with various other diseases, come from it? From where come so many bastards and misbegotten children — to the high displeasure of God and the dishonour of holy wedlock — but from sexual immorality? How many consume all their substance and goods, and at last fall into such extreme poverty that afterward they steal, and so are hanged, through sexual immorality! What contention and manslaughter comes of it! How many maidens are deflowered, how many wives corrupted, how many widows defiled, through it! How much is the commonwealth impoverished and troubled by it! How much is God's word despised and depraved by sexual immorality and the sexually immoral!
Of this vice comes a great part of the divorces which nowadays are so commonly practised by men's private authority — to the great displeasure of God and the breaking of the most holy knot and bond of matrimony. For when this most detestable sin has once crept into the breast of the adulterer, so that he is entangled with unlawful and unchaste love, at once his true and lawful wife is despised; her presence is abhorred; her company stinks and is loathsome; whatever she does is disparaged; there is no quietness in the house so long as she is in sight. Therefore, to make a short tale, away she must go, for her husband can endure her no longer. Thus through sexual immorality the honest and harmless wife is put away, and a harlot received in her place; and in like manner it often happens with the wife toward her husband. O abomination!
Christ our Saviour, very God and man, coming to restore the law of his heavenly Father to its right sense, understanding, and meaning, among other things reformed the abuse of this law of God. For whereas the Jews used, by long permission and custom, to put away their wives at their pleasure for every cause, Christ, correcting that evil custom, taught that if any man puts away his wife and marries another, for any cause except only adultery (which then was punishable by death under the law), he is an adulterer; and he also causes his wife, so divorced, to commit adultery if she is joined to any other man, and the man also, so joined with her, to commit adultery. In what case, then, are those adulterers who, for the love of a prostitute, put away their true and lawful wife against all law, right, reason, and conscience? O damnable is the state in which they stand! Swift destruction shall fall on them if they do not repent and amend. For God will not forever allow holy wedlock to be thus dishonoured, hated, and despised. He will one day punish this fleshly and licentious manner of living, and cause his holy ordinance to be held in reverence and honour. For surely wedlock, as the Apostle says, "is honourable among all men, and the bed undefiled; but the sexually immoral God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4) — that is to say, he will punish and condemn them.
But to what purpose is this labour taken, to describe and set forth the greatness of the sin of sexual immorality and the disadvantages that flow out of it, seeing that breath and tongue will sooner fail any man than he will be able to set it out according to its abomination and heinousness? Nevertheless, this is spoken to the intent that all men should flee sexual immorality and live in the fear of God. God grant that it may not be spoken in vain!
Part Three
In the second part of this sermon, which was last read, you have learned how earnestly the Scripture warns us to avoid the sin of adultery and to embrace cleanness of life; and that through adultery we fall into all kinds of sins and are made bondslaves to the devil, while through cleanness of life we are made members of Christ; and finally, how far adultery carries a man from all goodness, and drives him headlong into all vices, mischief, and misery. Now I will declare to you, in order, with what grievous punishments God in times past plagued adultery, and how certain worldly princes also punished it, that you may perceive that sexual immorality is a sin no less detestable in the sight of God and all good men than I have so far described.
In the first book of Moses we read that, when mankind began to multiply upon the earth, the men and women gave their minds so greatly to fleshly delights and filthy pleasure that they lived without all fear of God. God, seeing this their beastly and abominable living, and perceiving that they did not amend but rather increased daily more and more in their sinful and unclean ways, repented that he had ever made man; and, to show how greatly he abhorred adultery, sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, he made all the fountains of the deep earth burst out, and the floodgates of heaven be opened, so that the rain came down upon the earth for the space of forty days and forty nights; and by this means he destroyed the whole world and all mankind, except for eight persons only — that is to say, Noah, the preacher of righteousness (as St. Peter calls him), and his wife, his three sons, and their wives. O what a grievous plague God cast here upon all living creatures for the sin of sexual immorality! For which God took vengeance not only on man, but also on beasts, birds, and all living creatures. Manslaughter had been committed before, yet the world was not destroyed for that; but for sexual immorality the whole world, few only excepted, was overflowed with waters and so perished. An example worthy to be remembered, that you may learn to fear God.
We read again that for the filthy sin of uncleanness Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities near them, were destroyed with fire and brimstone from heaven, so that there was left neither man, woman, child, nor beast, nor anything that grew upon the earth, undestroyed. Whose heart does not tremble at hearing this history? Who is so drowned in sexual immorality and uncleanness that he will not now forever after leave this abominable living — seeing that God so grievously punishes uncleanness, raining fire and brimstone from heaven, destroying whole cities, killing man, woman, and child, and all other living creatures dwelling there, consuming with fire all that ever grew? What can be more manifest tokens of God's wrath and vengeance against uncleanness and impurity of life? Mark this history, good people, and fear the vengeance of God.
Do we not also read that God smote Pharaoh and his house with great plagues, because he ungodly desired Sarah the wife of Abraham? Likewise we read of Abimelech king of Gerar, although he did not touch her by carnal knowledge.
These plagues and punishments God cast upon filthy and unclean persons before the Law was given, while only the law of nature reigned in the hearts of men — to declare how great a love he had for matrimony (or wedlock), and again how much he abhorred adultery, sexual immorality, and all uncleanness. And when the law forbidding sexual immorality was given by Moses to the Jews, did not God command that those who broke it should be put to death? The words of the law are these: "Whoever commits adultery with any man's wife shall die the death, both the man and the woman, because he has broken wedlock with his neighbour's wife." (Leviticus 20:10) In the Law it was also commanded that a young woman and a man taken together in sexual immorality should both be stoned to death. In another place we also read that God commanded Moses to take all the chief rulers and princes of the people and hang them upon gibbets openly, so that every man might see them, because they had either committed sexual immorality or had not punished it. Again, did not God send such a plague among the people for sexual immorality and uncleanness that twenty-three thousand died in one day?
I pass over, for lack of time, many other histories of the holy Bible which declare the grievous vengeance and heavy displeasure of God against the sexually immoral and adulterers. Certainly this extreme punishment appointed by God shows plainly how greatly God hates sexual immorality. And let us not doubt that God at this present time abhors all manner of uncleanness no less than he did under the old Law, and will undoubtedly punish it both in this world and in the world to come. For he is a God who can abide no wickedness; therefore it ought to be avoided by all who care for the glory of God and the salvation of their own souls. St. Paul says that all these things are written for our example, and to teach us the fear of God and obedience to his holy law. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare us, who are but grafts, if we commit the like offence.
If God destroyed many thousands of people, many cities — yes, the whole world — for sexual immorality, let us not flatter ourselves and think that we shall escape free and without punishment. For he has promised in his holy law to send most grievous plagues upon those who transgress (or break) his holy commandments.
Thus we have heard how God punishes the sin of adultery. Let us now hear certain laws which the civil magistrates devised in various countries for its punishment, that we may learn how uncleanness has always been detested in all well-ordered cities and commonwealths, and among all honest persons. The law among the Lepreans was this: that when any were taken in adultery, they were bound and carried for three days through the city, and afterward, as long as they lived, they were despised, and with shame and confusion counted as persons void of all honesty. Among the Locrensians, adulterers had both their eyes thrust out. The Romans in times past punished sexual immorality sometimes by fire, sometimes by sword. If a man among the Egyptians had been taken in adultery, the law was that he should openly, in the presence of all the people, be scourged naked with whips to the number of a thousand stripes; the woman who was taken with him had her nose cut off, so that she was known ever after to be a prostitute, and therefore to be abhorred by all men. Among the Arabians, those taken in adultery had their heads struck from their bodies. The Athenians punished sexual immorality by death in like manner. So likewise did the barbarous Tartars. Among the Turks, even at this day, those taken in adultery, both man and woman, are stoned to death at once, without mercy.
Thus we see what godly acts were devised in times past by those in high authority for the putting away of sexual immorality, and for the maintaining of holy matrimony (or wedlock) and pure conversation. And the authors of these acts were not Christians, but heathen; yet they were so inflamed with the love of honesty and pureness of life that, for its maintenance and preservation (or keeping up), they made godly statutes, allowing neither sexual immorality nor adultery to reign unpunished in their realms.
Christ said to the people, "The Ninevites shall rise at the judgment with this nation" — meaning the unfaithful Jews — "and shall condemn them; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; but behold," he says, "a greater than Jonah is here" — meaning himself — "and yet they do not repent." (Matthew 12:41) Shall not, do you think, the Locrensians, Arabians, Athenians, and such others likewise rise up at the judgment and condemn us — seeing that they ceased from sexual immorality at the commandment of man, while we have the law and the plain precepts and commandments of God, and yet do not forsake our filthy conversation? Truly, truly, it shall be easier at the day of judgment for those heathen than for us, unless we repent and amend.
For although the death of the body seems to us a grievous punishment in this world for sexual immorality, yet that pain is nothing in comparison with the grievous torments which the immoral, adulterers, and all unclean persons shall suffer after this life. For all such shall be excluded and shut out of the kingdom of heaven, as St. Paul says:
Do not be deceived; for neither the sexually immoral, nor worshippers of images, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor those who curse, nor plunderers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
And St. John, in his Revelation, says that the sexually immoral shall have their part with murderers, sorcerers, enchanters, liars, idolaters, and such others, in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. The punishment of the body, although it is death, has an end; but the punishment of the soul, which St. John calls the second death, is everlasting. There shall be fire and brimstone; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; the worm that shall there gnaw the conscience of the damned shall never die.
O whose heart does not drip even drops of blood, to hear and consider these things? If we tremble and shake at the hearing and naming of these pains, O what shall they do who shall feel them, who shall suffer them — yes, and shall suffer them forever, world without end? God have mercy on us! Who is now so drowned in sin and so past all godliness that he will value a filthy and stinking pleasure, which soon passes away, more than the loss of everlasting glory? Again, who will so give himself to the lusts of the flesh that he fears nothing at all the pains of hell fire?
But let us hear how we may avoid the sin of sexual immorality and adultery, that we may walk in the fear of God and be free from those most grievous and intolerable torments which await all unclean persons. To avoid sexual immorality, adultery, and all uncleanness, let us see to it that above all things we keep our hearts pure and clean from all evil thoughts and carnal lusts; for if the heart is once infected and corrupted, we fall headlong into every kind of ungodliness. This we shall easily do if, when we feel inwardly that Satan our old enemy is tempting us to immorality, we by no means consent to his crafty suggestions, but valiantly resist and withstand him by strong faith in the word of God, always alleging against him in our heart this commandment of God: "It is written, You shall not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14)
It will also be good for us always to live in the fear of God, and to set before our eyes the grievous threatenings of God against all ungodly sinners; to consider in our minds how filthy, beastly, and brief that pleasure is to which Satan moves us, and again how the pain appointed for that sin is intolerable and everlasting. Moreover, to use temperance and sobriety in eating and drinking, to avoid unclean talk, to shun all filthy company, to flee idleness, to delight in the reading of holy Scripture, to keep watch in godly prayers and virtuous meditations, and at all times to busy ourselves in some godly labours — all this shall help greatly toward the avoiding of sexual immorality.
And here all people are to be admonished — whether married or unmarried — to love chastity and cleanness of life. For the married are bound by the law of God so purely to love one another that neither of them seeks any strange love. The husband must cleave only to his wife, and the wife again only to her husband. They must so delight in one another's company that neither of them covets any other. And, as they are bound thus to live together in all godliness and honesty, so likewise it is their duty to bring up their children virtuously, and to provide that they do not fall into Satan's snare or into any uncleanness, but that they come pure and honest to holy wedlock when the time requires. Likewise all masters and rulers ought to provide that no sexual immorality, nor any point of uncleanness, be practised among their servants. And again, those who are single, and feel in themselves that they cannot live without the company of a woman, let them get wives of their own, and so live godly together. For "it is better to marry than to burn" (1 Corinthians 7:9); and, to avoid sexual immorality, says the Apostle, "let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband." (1 Corinthians 7:2) Finally, let all such as feel in themselves a sufficiency and ability, through the working of God's Spirit, to lead a single and chaste life, praise God for his gift, and seek all possible means to maintain it — by the reading of holy Scriptures, by godly meditations, by continual prayers, and other such virtuous exercises.
If we will all, in this way, endeavour to avoid sexual immorality, adultery, and all uncleanness, and lead our lives in all godliness and honesty — serving God with a pure and clean heart, and glorifying him in our bodies by leading an innocent and harmless life — we may be sure to be in the number of those of whom our Saviour Christ speaks in the Gospel in this manner: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8) To whom alone be all glory, honour, rule, and power, world without end. Amen.
The 1859 text reads "whoredom" and "fornication" throughout; both are rendered "sexual immorality," while "adultery" (which the homily defines as a married person's unfaithfulness) and "uncleanness" are kept distinct. Where the source pairs "whoredom" and "fornication" as exact synonyms, the pair is given as the single modern term.↩︎
Original "letted" (= hindered).↩︎
Original "incommodities" (= disadvantages).↩︎