12. And it is also very observable, that when men have once mastered conscience in this point, and reconciled it to this sin of fornication, it is a hundred to one that they are utterly hardened in all abomination, and scarce make conscience of any other villany whatsoever![453] If once fornication go for nothing, or a small matter with them, usually all other sin is with them of the same account: if they have but an equal temptation to it, lying, and swearing, and perjury, and theft, yea, and murder and treason, would seem small too: I never knew any one of these but he was reconcilable and prepared for any villany that the devil set him upon: and if I know such a man, I would no more trust him than I would trust a man that wants nothing but interest and opportunity to commit any heinous sin that you can name. Though I confess I have known divers of the former sort, that have committed this sin under horror and despair, that have retained some good in other points, and have been recovered; yet of this latter sort, that have reconciled their consciences to fornication, I never knew one that was recovered, or that retained any thing of conscience or honesty, but so much of the show of it as their pride and worldly interest commanded them: and they were malignant enemies of goodness in others, and lived according to the unclean spirit which possessed them.[454] They are terrible words, Prov. ii. 18, 19, "For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead: none that go unto her return again, neither take they hold on the paths of life." Age keepeth them from actual filthiness and lust (and so may hell, for there is no fornication); but they retain their debauched, seared consciences.
13. And it is the greater sin because it is not committed alone; but the devil taketh them by couples. Lust inflameth lust: and the fuel set together makes the greatest flame. Thou art guilty of the sin of thy wretched companion, as well as of thine own.