(4.) His last argument is from Christ's right: ver. 19, 20, 'Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.' Christ hath a right to both, and therefore both must be used for him, and according to his direction. Neither are our souls nor our bodies at liberty that we may use them as we please. Therefore to use the body for fornication is sacrilege, and a robbing Christ of his right ; he is Lord of both.
Let me now add some natural arguments against fornication, that those who will not be di-awn from this carnality by scripture may yet be moved by nature. Our submission to God's authority, as having forbidden it in his law, and christian or gospel arguments, make the restraint less difficult or rigorous ; but if that will not do, nature itself will teach us that, if promiscuous lusts should be allowed, man would in nothing differ from the beasts, and such disorders would grow in the world as would make our abode unsafe therein. For what with rapes and violence, and frequent forsakings on man's part, and feminine revenge and impatiences on the woman's part, there would be no quiet and safe living one with another ; and all interests and possessions would be disturbed, for none could know in such a profane mixture what children were their own ; all love to posterity would be dimin- ished, and consequently due education hindered, that there could not be a greater plague to mankind than this brutish and promiscuous liberty.
2. The next word is, ' All uncleanness ; ' which is a more general word than fornication, for it implieth also adultery and filthiness between married persons, as well as simple fornication ; yea, incest and all brutish pleasures, which the lawless minds of men affect. There is uncleanness by inordinate desires: Mat. v. 28, 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' In the eyes, by lascivious looks: 2 Peter ii. 14, ' Having eyes full of adultery.' In the tongue, by filthy and rotten speech : Eph. v. 4, ' Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient.' In the life and conversation, by all manner of noisome and foul i)ractices which lust puts us upon ; of whatsoever kind they be, or by whatsoever name they be called. lu
192 SERMONS UPON EPHESIANS V. [SeR. III.
euch sins, modesty forbiddeth us to be too curious, or to make a par- ticular dissGctiou, or cutting up the branches and parts of them ; there- fore all is wrapt up in this general expression, 'And all uncleauness,'
3. The next word is ' Covetousness.' But how cometli this to be put among the nefanda, the things not to be named ? I answer —
[1.] The word is irXeove^'ia, or immoderate desire ; take it in the obvious sense for love to riches, or inordinate desire of wealth ; it is a base sin, and will make us act basely. We stroke it with a gentle oensure, but tlie scripture maketli other constructions of it, and always useth to represent it as an odious and detestable thing : ' Filthy lucre,' 1 Tim. iii. 3 ; Titus i. 7 ; 1 Peter v. 2. Omnis impiiritas est ex mixtura vilioris — All impurity arises from the mixture of something that is more base. To be addicted to it argueth a sordid or filthy frame of spirit. It is abominable to God, and should be detestable to us.
[2.] I think it beareth here a more particular sense, and may be rendered, 'inordinate lust or luxury;' for the word signifieth not only a desire of money, but excessive and unnatural lusts ; and that notion it clearly hath, Eph. iv. 19, ' They gave up themselves to work all uncleauness ev irXeove^la, with greediness.' Certainly it is some- thing that has affinity with uncleauness, and that is, acting it with greediness.
Secondly, The manner and degree of forbidding, * Let it not be once named among you.' You will think this over-strict ; and how can it be reproved if it be not named ? But let us consider the sense.
1. The apostle speaketh thus to express the height of detestation ; for things that we utterly detest we will not name them ; as David would not take the names of their idols into his lips, Ps. xvi. 4, to express the great detestation he had of them. So the apostle here ; let never these foul practices get the least admission among you ; or that they should be so far from committing these things, that they should not name them, or think of them, without detestation and utter abhor- rence.
2. That which is villanous to be done is also vile to be spoken of : ver. 12, ' It is a shame to speak of the things which are done of them in secret ; ' and 1 Cor. v. 1, ' Such fornication as is not so much as named among the gentiles, that one should have his father's wife ; ' that is, it was not a thing commonly practised among them, nor spoken of without great abhorrence. We should abstain i'rom the needless mention of things detestable, lest we should reconcile them, and familiarise them to our thoughts ; for vile things that are often spoken of seem less odious, and affect the sense (being common) with less horror then when stiange. So that they are not to be named, that is, not without need, nor without detestation. It were well if there were no occasion to speak of them at all.