Part 72

_Direct._ III. Abhor not only adultery itself, but all that tendeth to unchasteness and the violation of your marriage-covenant.[10] Adultery is so contrary to the conjugal bond and state of life, that though _de facto_ it do not actually dissolve the bond, and nullify the marriage; yet it so far disobligeth the wronged innocent party, that _de jure_ it is to such a sufficient ground to warrant a divorce. And God required that it be punished by death, Lev. xx. 10. When lust is the chiefest cause of marriage, and when married persons live not in the fear of God, but pamper the flesh and live licentiously, no wonder if marriage prove an insufficient remedy against such cherished lust. Such carnal, beastly persons are still casting fuel on the fire; by wanton, unbridled thoughts and speeches, by gluttony, drinking, sports, and idleness, by vain, enticing company, and not avoiding occasions, opportunities, and temptations, they burn as much when they are married as they did before. And the devil that bloweth up this fire in their flesh, doth conduct and accommodate them in the satisfying of their lusts; so that their brutish concupiscence is like a fire burning in the sea; water itself will not quench it. One woman will not satisfy their bestiality; and perhaps they loathe their own wives, and run after others, though their own (in the eye of any impartial man) be the more comely and amiable, and their whores be never so deformed, or impudent, filthy lumps of dirt. So that one would think that they had no other reason to love and follow such unlovely things, but only because that God forbiddeth it; as if the devil did it to show his power over them, that he can make them do that, as in despite of God, which else they would abhor themselves. When once their sensuality and their forsaking of God, hath provoked God to forsake them, and give them up to the rage of that sensuality, an unclean spirit sometimes takes possession of them, and wholly inclineth them to wallow in uncleanness: they can scarce look a comely person in the face, that is of the other sex, but unclean thoughts are rising in their hearts; they think of filthiness when they are alone; they dream of filthiness in the night; they talk of filthiness with others: the tongues of the dogs that licked Lazarus his sores, were not used in such a filthy employment as theirs are. "They are as fed horses in the morning; every one neigheth after his neighbour's wife," Jer. v. 8. "They declare their sin as Sodom, and hide it not," Isa. iii. 9. And usually when they are given over to this filthy sin, it utterly debaucheth their consciences, and maketh them like blocks or beasts, insensible of their misery and the wrath of God, and given over to all other villanies, and even to hate and persecute godliness, if not civility itself.[11] Some few adulterers I have known, that sin so much against their consciences, that they live in continual despair; tormented in the sense of their own unhappiness, and yet sinning still, as if the devil would make them a derision: and yet these are the better sort, because there is some testimony for a better life remaining in their minds; but others of them "being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness," Eph. iv. 19. "They have eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin--as natural brute beasts that are made to be taken and destroyed," 2 Pet. ii. 10-12. Take heed therefore of the causes of this odious sin, and of all appearance of it; suffer not your eye or thought to go after a stranger, nor to begin a breach in your covenant and conjugal fidelity.