The Reasonableness of Personal Reformation, Treatise 1 · Chapter 5
CHAP. V.
Containing the result and issue of the Third Consultation with Reason, upon the Case of Vncleanness; and the true Report of the Determination of every mans Reason, with respect thereunto.
SECT. I.
THe Bountiful and Indulgent God hath made more abundant provision for the Pleasure and Delight of Rational, than of Brutal Beings: And his Wise and Righteous Laws order and limit their Pleasures to their great advantage; his Allowances under those Restrictions being large and full enough. Both Reason and Experience assure us, that the truest Pleasures are most freely and honourably to be enjoyed within the Pale and Boundary of his Laws; and that there are none fit for the enjoyment of a Man or Christian, to be found without or beyond them.
That prudent Owner provides best for his Cattel, who puts them into inclosed fragrant Fields, where they have plenty of proper and pleasant Food, Sweet and pure Springs of Water, the pleasant Covert of shady Trees, and all that is either necessary or convenient for them; altho' those Fields be so inclosed within Pales or Walls, that they cannot stray without those Boundaries i… to other mens Grounds, to be by them impounded, and brought back lank, tired, and dirty, to their Owner; or by straying into Wasts and Wildernesses, fall a Prey (as Straglers use to do) to Wolves and Lyons.
God envies not any true, rational and proper pleasure to Men or Women; when he bounds them in by his Command, within the allowance whereof, sufficient provision is made for the benefit and delight of propagation. And though it be all mens Duty, to tremble at the awful Solemnity, yet it would be any mans sin to repine and murmur at the strictness and severity of his Command delivered with Thunder and Lightning from Mount Sinai, Thou shalt not commit Adultery. Man's honourable Liberty, and God's wise and just Restraint and Limitation thereof, are both set together before our eyes, in that one Scripture, Heb. 13. 4. Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled; but Whoremongers and Adulterors God will judge. Here's a liberal allowance granted, and a severe Punishment threatned for the inordinancies and exorbitancies of boundless and ungovernable Lusts. God will judge with temporal Judgments in this world; and upon impenitent persistents, with eternal Judgments in the world to come.
SECT. II.
Such is the corruption of Man's Nature by the Fall, that it hates Inclosures, Restraints and Limitations. These things which were intended to regulate, serve only to sharpen and e…age their sensual Appetite. No Fruit so sweet to corrupt Nature, as forbidden Fruit. Nitimur in vetit… sempèr, cupimusque negata. The very restraint of Evil makes it look like a pleasant and desirable Good. Sons of Belial can endure no yoke of restraint. There's a great truth in that Observation of the Divine Herbert, That if God had laid all common, man himself would have been the Incloser. For his Reason and Experience would have plainly informed him of the great and manifold advantages of distinction and propriety. How many Quarrels and barbarous Murders have been occasioned by Whores! which by keeping within God's bounds and rules, had been both honestly and honourably prevented.
Were Men left to that Liberty Brutes are, to scatter their Lusts promiscuously, Fathers would not know their own Children, nor Children their Fathers; whereby both their Duties and Comforts would be prescinded together. Such Mischiefs as these would make men glad of that Inclosure, which the Laws of God have made for them. But behold with admiration the perverse wickedness of Corrupt Nature, manifested in this, that because God hath enclosed and secured their Relations to them by his Laws (which Inclosure is every way to their advantage) yet this makes their Lusts the more head-strong and outragious, and they cannot take that comfort in their own, because their own, that they think to find in another's, because another's.
Remarkable to this purpose is that Relation of Mr. Firmin's,Real Christian, pag. 60. which he received from his near Relation, who was Minister to the Company of English Merchants in Prussia. The Consul or Governour of that Company being a Married Man, and that to a very proper and comely Woman, was yet enslaved to others not to be compared with his own Wife for comeliness. This Minister dealt with him about it. One Argument he urged was this; That of all Men he had the least Temptation, having a Wife so comely, that few Women were like her. He answered, yea, were she not my Wife I could love her. Had she been his Whore, he could have loved her; he thought none like her; but because she was his Wife, hedged in by God, he cared not for her. Oh! what hearts have Men, that they should ever think that to be best for them, which is most cross to God! Why should stolen Waters be sweeter than those of our own Fountain?
SECT. III.
God's choice must needs be far better for us than our own. Ordinate and lawful Pleasures and Enjoyments far better and sweeter than exorbi…ant and forbidden ones. And the Reason is evident and undeniable. For amongst all the operations of the Mind, its reflex acts are the acts that best relish pleasure. And indeed without self-reflexion, a man cannot tell whether he delights or no. All sense of pleasure implies some reflection of the Mind: And those pleasures of a man must needs be the sweetest, which afford the sweetest reflections upon them afterward: And those the ba…est pleasures, which are accompanied and followed with present regret, or the stinging and cutting reflections of the Conscience upon them afterwards.
Lawful and ordinate Enjoyments are as Honey without the Sting. Forbidden Pleasures are imbitter'd and extinguished by these regrets and reflections of the Conscience, They are like that pleasant Fruit which the Spaniards found in the Indies, which were sweet to the taste, but so environed and armed on every side with dangerous Briers and Thorns, that they tore not only their Cloathes off their Backs, but the Skin off their Flesh to come at th…m: And therefore they called them Comfits in Hell; and such are all forbidden and unlawful Pleasures.
A Merchant (saith the forenamed Author) dining with the Fryars at Dantzick, his Entertainment was very noble.Pag. 63. After he had dined and seen all, the Merchant fell to commending their Pleasant Life. Yea, said one of the Friars to him) we live gallantly indeed, if we had any body to go to Hell for us when we die. You see what mingles with Mens Sensual and Sinful Lusts.
2. Your Honour is secured by keeping within God's Bounds and Limits. Marriage is honourable in all. Here Guilt can neither wrong your Consciences, nor Infamy your Reputations. …ornicators and Adulterers go up and down the world, as men burnt in the Hand: Their Conscience lashes them within, and men point at them abroad. They are a terror to themselves, and a scorn to men.
3. The Health of the Body is secured by chast and regular Enjoyments; but exposed to destruction the other way. God hath plagued the Inordinacy of mens Lusts with most strange and horrid Diseases. That Morbus Gallicus, Sudor Anglicus, and Plica Polonica were Judgments sent immediately by God's own hand, as the Witnesses of his high displeasure, against the bold and daring contemners of his sacred and awful Command. Thus as Prov. 5. 11. They mourn at last, when their flesh and body are consumed. Other sins are committed in the Body, but this against it, as well as in it.
4. The blast and waste of our Estates (which is the usual consequent of uncleanness) is prevented and avoided, by keeping within God's Rules. The truth of what the Scripture tells us, Prov. 10. 5. is often exemplified before our eyes; that by reason of a whorish woman, a man is brought to a morsel of bread. Adultery gives a man Rags for his Livery; it lodges his Substance in the House of Strangers, and entails wants and curses on him and his.
5. In a word, Continence or lawful Marriage exposes not the Soul to the eternal wrath of God, as Uncleanness doth, 1 Cor. 6. 9, 10. This sin does not only shut a man out of his own House, and the Hearts of good men, but out of Heaven it self, without thorow Repentance and Reformation.
SECT. IV.
The case standing thus, 'tis matter of just Admiration how the Sin of Uncleanness should grow so Epidemical and Common, as it doth, seeing such as live in this filthy Course, must needs counteract and oppose their own Reason and Interest together. For they forsake God's way, which gives them as much liberty as can be reasonably desired, and cast themselves into a course of Life, clog'd with all manner of temporal and eternal Miseries of Soul and Body, Honour and Estate.
The plain Rule and Dictate of common Reason, which I laid down before, being applied to this particular Case, manifestly condemns it. For seeing Honesty and Chastity comprizes the true Pleasure, Profit, and Honour of the whole Man, is more congruous to humane Nature, and Preservative of it, it ought therefore to be preferred in the Estimation and Choice of all Men to unlawful adulterous Pleasures, which (for the Reasons above) are inferior in themselves to chast, conjugal Enjoyments; and besides that, are attended and followed with such a Train of present and future Miseries, destructive to the whole Man.
And yet for all this, to the amazement of all serious Observers, never was any Age more infamous for this Sin, than the present Age is, and that under the clear shining Light of the Gospel.
What the special Causes and Inducements to the overflowing and abounding of this Sin, are in the present Age, will be well worth the enquiring and sifting at this time
SECT. V.
Inducement 1.
'Tis highly probable the influencing Examples of great Men have had no small hand in the spreading of this abominable and crying Sin amongst all inferior Ranks and Orders of Men.
Great Mens ill Examples, like a bag of Poyson in the Fountain, corrupt and infect Multitudes. The Vulgar think they are priviledged, or at the least very much excused, when they do but follow the Presidents and Examples of Great and Eminent Persons.
But this will be found a weak and foolish Plea for Uncleanness, which will never be able to endure the test of your own Reason. For the inbred Notions of a God, and of a future Life of Retribution being so firmly sealed and engraven upon humane Nature, that they can never be utterly eradicated; your own Reason will argue from those inbred Notions in this manner, and how you will be able to refel the Argument, and escape Conviction and Self-condemnation, quite surmounts my Imagination, whatever it do yours. And thus it will dispute, and Dilemma you, do what you can.
That God, before whom greater and lesser, honourable and baser Sinners shall appear in Judgment, will be either partial or impartial in his Judgments upon them. There is, or there is not Respect of Persons with him. If there be (which both his Nature and Word utterly deny) then those great and honourable Adulterers or …ornicators, whose Examples you follow, may haply be excused for their Eminency and Honours sake; but you that have no such Eminency and Honour in the World, as they have, must be condemned, tho you thought to escape as well as they.
But if there be no Partiality, or Respect of Persons with God (as most assuredly there is none) then both greater and lesser, honourable and baser Adulterers must be condemned together to the same common and intolerable Misery.
So that to take any (tho the least) encouragement to Sin from the Presidents and Examples of Great Ones, is a most senseless and irrational thing, utterly unworthy of one that believes there is a just and impartial God; and he is worse than a Devil that believes it not. For the Devils themselves believe and tremble.
SECT. VI.
Inducement 2.
But others would perswade us they are drawn into this Sin by a kind of inevitable necessity, they being neither able to contain, nor Marry.
They are not yet arrived to Estate sufficient to maintain a Family with Reputation: But when they have gotten enough by Trade, or by the fall of their paternal Estates to live in equal Reputation with their Neighbours, then they design to alter their Course of Life, and abandon these Follies.
But, Reader, if this be thy Plea for Uncleanness, thou shalt have as fair a Tryal for a foul Fact, as thine own heart can desire; be still thine own Judg, and let thine own Reason give a fair Answer to these three pertinent Questions▪
Quest. 1.
Whether Whoredom be as likely and promising a way to engage God's Blessing upon your Trades and Employments, as Continence or conjugal Chastity are? That is to say plainly, Whether Obedience and Disobedience to the Law of God, be all one, and please him alike? You know your success of Business is not in your own hand; 'tis God that giveth thee Power to get Wealth. His Blessing maketh Rich. And is Sin as likely a way to engage his Blessing, as Duty and Obedience is? I am confident your own Reason will never give it.
Object. If you say such Persons prosper in the World, as well as others for ought you can see.
Sol. The contrary is evident in the common Observation of Mankind; by reason of Whoredom, Multitudes are brought to a piece of Bread. And tho God suffer some unclean Persons to prosper in the World, yet Chastity with Poverty, is infinitely preferable to such accursed Prosperity.
Quest. 2.
Whether the Course of Sin you are now driving and accustoming your selves to, will not in all probability so infatuate and bewitch you, that when you come into a married Estate, you shall still be under the Power of this Sin, and so ruin the Person you Marry, as well as your self? If the Word of God signify any thing with you' it signifieth this, that there is a Witchcraft in Whoredom; and comparatively speaking, None that go to her return again, neither take they hold of the Paths of Life, Prov. 2. 18, 19.
Object. If to invalidate this Testimony you shall say, That he that spake this, did himself go after strange Women.
Sol. 'Tis true, he did so; but when withal, you must remember, that he hath warned you by his own sad Experience, that you never follow him in those his footsteps, Eccles. 7. 26. I find (saith he) more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands. Whoso pleaseth God, shall escape from her; but the sin…er shall be taken by her.
Quest. 3.
And lastly, I demand of your reason, whether it can, or will allow any place to this Plea of necessity, before you have used and tried all God's appointed Remedies, which are sufficient to prevent that necessity you plead.
There are lawful Remedies enough, sufficient with God's blessing to keep you from such a necessity to Sin; such as Temperance, and more abstemiousness in Meats and Drinks; avoiding lascivious Books, Play-houses, and filthy Company; laborious Diligence in your lawful Callings, and fervent Prayer for mortifying and preventing Grace; and if Temptations still stir amidst all these preventives, then casting your selves upon the Directions and Supply of Providence in the honourable Estate of Marriage. Never plead necessity, whilst all these preventives might, but have not been used.
SECT. VII.
Inducement 3.
Others plead the absence of their lawful Remedies, and presence of tempting Objects. This is the Case of our Soldiers and Seamen. But tho this be the most colourable pretence of all the rest, yet your own Reason and Consciences will even in this Case so Dilemma and Non-plus you, that if you will adventure upon the Sin, you shall never have their leave or consent with you. For they have a special and peculiar consideration of you, as Persons more eminently and immediately exposed to the Dangers of Death than other Men. And thus (would you but give them a fair hearing) they will expostulate and reason out the matter with you.
Either thou shalt escape, or not escape the hazard of this Voyage or Battel. If thou fall (as to be sure many will) will this be an honourable, safe, and comfortable close and winding up of thy Life! What, from a Whore to thy Grave! God forbid. From burning Lusts to everlasting Burnings! Better thou hadst never been born.
Or if thou do escape and return again to thy Family, how canst thou look her in the Face, with whom thou hast so basely broken thy Marriage Vow and Covenant? Whatever else thou bring home with thee, to be sure thou shalt bring home Guilt with thee, and a Blot never to be wiped away.
Object. If you say, you are not such Fools to publish your own Shame, you'll follow Caesar's Advice to the young Adulterer, Si non castè, …amen cautè; If I act not chastly, I'll act cautelously.
Sol. Your Reason and Conscience will both de…ide the Weakness and Folly of this Pretence. For they both very well know, no Man sins so secretly, but he Sins before two infallible Witnesses, …iz. God and his own Conscience, and that the last and least of these, is more than a thousand Witnesses. That God usually detects it in this World, carry it as closely as you will; but to be sure, it shall be published as upon the House-top, before Men and Angels in the great Day.
SECT. VIII.
Inducement 4.
Another Inducement to this Sin, (and the last I shall mention) is the Commonness of it, which …bates the Shame of it.
What need they trouble themselves so much, or be so shy of that which is practiced by thousands, which is so frequently acted in every place, and little made of it?
But if either your Reason or Conscience will admit this Plea for good and lawful, the Devil hath utterly blinded or infatuated the one or other, as will evidently appear by the following Reasons. For,
Reason I.
If the thing be Evil, (as you cannot deny but it is) then by how much the commoner, by so much the worse it must needs be. Indeed, if a thing be good, by how much the commoner, so much the better; but to atttibute this essential Property of Good unto Evil, is to confound and destroy the difference between them, and make Good and Evil both alike.
Reason II.
If the commonness of Uncleanness will excuse you, it will more excuse all others that shall commit this Sin after you; and still by how much more the numbers of Adulterers and Fornicato… are increased, still the less scruple Men need make to commit it; and so the whole Community shall in a little time be so infected and defiled, that Christian Kingdoms shall quickly become like Sodo… ▪ and God provoked to deal with them, as he did by that wretched City.
Reason III.
If the commonness of Sin be an Excuse and Plea for it, suppose the Roads should be more infested than they are with Highway-men, so that every Month you should see whole Cart-loads of them drawn to Tyburn; would your Reason infer from thence, that because Hanging is grown so common, you need not scruple so much, as you were wont to do, to Take a Purse, or Pistol an honest innocent Traveller upon the Road?
Object. If you shall say, Uncleanness is not so costly a Sin as Robbery is, there's a great deal of difference between Tyburn, and a Whore-house punishment.
Sol. There is a great difference indeed, even as much as is betwixt Tyburn and Hell, or a small Mulct in the Courts of Men, and the Eternal Wrath of a Sin-revenging God. So great will the difference betwixt the Punishments of all Sins by God, and by Men be found.
Thus you see, Gentlemen, the common Pleas for Uncleanness over-ruled by your own Reasons and Consciences.
We live in a plentiful Land, abounding with all the Comforts of this Life, and with thousands of full-fed Wantons, of whom the Lord complains this day, as he did of the Jews, whom that flowing-land vomited out, Jer. 5. 7. When I had fed them to the full, they committed Adultery, and assembled themselves by Troops in the Harlots houses; they were as fed Horses in the morning, every one neighed after his Neighbours Wife. How many such Stallions are thus neighing in the fat Pastures of this good Land!
Nor do I wonder at all to see the growth of Atheism, in a Land swarmed and over-run with so many thousands of Blasphemers, Drunkards, and Adulterers. It was a grave Observation of that gallant Moralist, Plutarch, If Epicurus (saith he) should but grant a God in his full Perfections, he must change his Life presently, he must be a Swine no longer.
The Lord purge out this crying Abomination also, with Atheism and Drunkenness the inlets of it, which darken our Glory, and threaten to make us desolate.