Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor.

The evil consequents of Uncleanness.

The blessings and proper effects of chasti∣ty we shall best understand by reckoning the evils of uncleanness and carnality.

1. Uncleanness of all vices is the most shameful.* 1.1 The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight saying, No eye shall see me and disguiseth his face.* 1.2 In tha dark they dig through houses which they have marked for themselves in the day time: they know not the light: for the morning is to them as the shadow of death, he is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth, he behold∣eth not the way of the vineyards.* 1.3 Shame is the eldest daughter of Uncleanness.

2. The appetites of uncleanness are full of cares and trouble, and its fruition is sorrow and repentance.* 1.4 The way of the adulterer is hedged with thorns: full of fears and jealou∣sies,* 1.5 burning desires and impatient waitings, tediousness of delay, and sufferance of af∣fronts, and amazements of discovery.

3. Most of its kinds are of that conditon, that they involve the ruine of two souls: and he that is a fornicatour or adulterous, steals the soul as well as dishonours the body of his Neighbour: and so it becomes like the sin of falling Lucifer, who brought a part of the stars with his tail from Heaven.

4. Of all carnal sins it is that alone which the Devil takes delight to imitate and coun∣terfeit; communicating with Witches and impure persons in the corporal act, but in this only.

5. Uncleanness with all its kinds is a vice which hath a professed enmity against the body.* 1.6 Every sin which a man doth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his owne body.

6 Uncleanness is hugely contrary to the spirit of Government by embasing the spi∣rit of a man, making it effeminate,* 1.7 sneak∣ing, soft, and foolish, without courage, with∣out confidence. David felt this after his folly with Bathsheba, he fell to unkingly arts and stratagems to hide the crime, and he did nothing but increase it; and remain∣ed timorous and poor-spirited, till he prayed to GOD once more to establish him with a free and a Princely spirit.* 1.8 And no superiour dare strictly observe discipline upon his charge, if he hath let himselfe loose to the shame of incontinence.

7. The Gospel hath added two arguments against uncleanness which were never before used, nor indeed could be, since GOD hath given the holy Spirit to them that are bapti∣zed, and rightly confirmed, and entred into covenant with him, our bodies are made temples of the holy Ghost in which he dwels: and therefore uncleanness is Sacrilege & de∣files a Temple.* 1.9 It is S. Pauls argument [Know ye not that your body is the temple of the holy Ghost?] & [He that defiles a Temple,* 1.10 him will God destroy.] Therefore gloryfie God in your

bodies that is, flee Fornication.] To which for the likeness of the argument adde, that our bodies are members of Christ, and therefore God forbid that we should take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot. So that uncleanness dishonours Christ, and dishonours the holy Spirit: it is a sin against God, and in this sense a sin against the Holy Ghost.

8. The next special argument which the Gospel ministers especially against adultery,* 1.11 and for the preservation of the purity of marriage, is that [Marriage is by Christ hal∣lowed into a misterie to signifie the Sacra∣mental and mystical union of Christ and his Church. He therefore that breaks this knot which the Church and their mutual faith hath tied, and Christ hath knit up into a my∣sterie, dishonours a greate rite of christianity, of high, spirituall and excellent signification.

* 1.129. S. Gregory reckons uncleaneness to be the parent of these monsters: Blindness of minde, inconsideration, precipitancy or gid∣diness in actions, self-love, hatred of God, love of the present pleasures, a dispite or despaire of the joyes of religion here, and of heaven hereafter. Whereas a pure mind in a chast body is the mother of wisdome and deliberation, sober counsels and ingenuous actions, open deportment and sweet carri∣age, sincere principles and unprejudicate un∣derstanding, love of God and self denial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and spi∣ritual comfort,* 1.13 and a pleasure of Spirit infi∣nitely greater then the sottish and beastely pleasures of unchastity. For to overcome plea∣sure

is the greatest pleasure and no victory is greater then that which is gotten over our lusts and filthy inclinations.

10. Adde to all these, the publick disho∣nesty and disreputation that all the Nations of the world have cast upon adulterous and unhallowed embraces. Abimelech to the men of Gerar made it death to meddle with the wife of Isaac: and Judah condemned Tha∣mar to be burnt for her adulterous concepti∣on: and God, besides the Law made to put the adulterous person to death, did consti∣tute a setled and constant miracle to disco∣ver the adultery of a suspected Woman,* 1.14 that her bowels should burst with drinking the waters of Jealousie. The Egyptian Law was to cut off the nose of the adulteresse, and the offending part of the adulterer. The Locrians put out the adulterers both eyes. The Ger∣mans (as Tacitus reports) placed the adulte∣resse amidst her kindred naked, and shaved her head, and caused her husband to beat her with clubs through the city. The Gortinaeans crowned the man with wool to shame him for his effeminacy: and the Cumani caused the woman to ride upon an asse naked and hooted at:* 1.15 and for ever after called her by an appellative of scorn [A rider upon the asse] All nations barbarous and civil agree∣ing in their general designe of rooting so dis∣honest and shameful vice from under heavē.* 1.16

The middle ages of the Church were not pleased that the adulteresse should be put to death: but in the primitive ages the * 1.17 civil Laws by which Christians were then gover∣ned,

gave leave to the wronged husband to kill his adulterous wife, if he took her in the fact: but because it was a privilege indulg'd to men, rather then a direct detestation of the crime, a consideration of the injury ra∣ther then of the uncleanness, therefore it was soon altered: but yet hath caused an in∣quiry, Whether is worse, the Adultery of the man or the woman.

The resolution of which case in order to our present affair, is thus: In respect of the person, the fault is greater in a man then in a woman, who is of a more plyant and easie spirit, and weaker understanding, and hath nothing to supply the unequal strengths of men, but the defensative of a passive nature and armour of modesty, which is the natural ornament of that sex.* 1.18 And it is unjust that the man should demand chastity and severity from his wife, which himself will not observe towards her, said the good Emperour Anto∣ninus: it is as if the man should perswade his wife to fight against those enemies to which he had yeilded himself a prisoner. 2. In respect of the effects and evil conse∣quents, the adultery of the woman is worse, as bringing bastardy into a family, and dis∣inherisons or great injuries to the Lawfull children, and infinite violations of peace, and murders and divorces, and all the ef∣fects of rage and madness. 3. But in respect of the crime, and as relating to God, they are equal intolerable, and damnable: and since it is no more permitted to men to have many wives, then to women to have many husbands, and that in this respect

their privilege is equal, their sin is so too. And this is the case of the question in Chri∣stianity. And the Church anciently refused to admit such persons to the holy Commu∣nion, until they had done seven years penan∣ces in fasting, in sack-cloth, in severe inflicti∣ons and instruments of chastity and sorrow, according to the discipline of those ages.

Notes

• * 1.1

  prov. 6.23.
• * 1.2

  Iob 24.15.
• * 1.3

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• * 1.4

  2 Hos 6.
• * 1.5

  Appetitus fornicationis anxietas est fatieras vt ò poenitentia. S. Hieron
• * 1.6

  1 Cor. 6.1••.
• * 1.7

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.8

  Spiritu prin∣cipali me con∣firma, Ps. 51.
• * 1.9

  1 Cor 6.19
• * 1.10

  1 Cor. 3.17.••
• * 1.11

  Ephes. 5.32.
• * 1.12

  Moral:
• * 1.13

  S Cyprian de bono pudici∣tiae.
• * 1.14

  Num 5.14.
• * 1.15

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• * 1.16

  Concil Tri∣bur c 49. Concil Au∣rel 1. sub Clodovaeo.
• * 1.17

  Cod. de al∣dulteciiis, ad legem J••••éam. l. 1. & Cod. Theod. de adulteriis c. placuit.
• * 1.18

  Apud Aug: de adulter. conjug.

  Plut•• conjug. praecept.