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for him to deflour the daughter of another; because this is the wish of an evil and inordinate will.

Let us now come to the Papists, who concede that fornication is a mortal sin; but maintain, nevertheless, that brothels and public harlots should be allowed in cities, lest the inclination of lustful men should transgress against married females. In human governments, says Aquinas, Q. 2. qu. 10. art. 11, they who preside, justly tolerate some evils, lest they should incur worse; and he instances lewd women. This was the very plea of the heathen; for thus says Cato, Young men ought to have recourse to harlots, lest they should approach the wives of others. But Augustine also is called in to their aid, and that expression, Take away harlots from human society, and you will disturb all things by lust, is cited from his lib. 2. De ordin. cap. 4.

I answer,

1. The Papists favour fornication too clearly, when for the sake of avoiding adultery, they tolerate fornication, and to avoid fornication do not allow marriage. I speak of the Clergy and Monks, to whom the extraordinary gift of continence is not granted by God. For why do they tolerate fornication among the laity, which they say is a mortal sin, and not allow marriage among the clergy, which the Holy Spirit, Heb. xiii. 4, has pronounced to be honourable in all; unless that (whatever they contend to the contrary,) they do not cordially and sincerely determine it to be a deadly sin? Hence that observation, Dist. 82, in Gloss: They declare that no one is now to be rejected for fornication, because our bodies are more frail than they were formerly. And Caus. 2. qu. 7, in Gloss, No one is at this day to be rejected for simple fornication. It is clear, therefore, that the Papists are the manifest Patrons of fornication : nor is it to be wondered at if they so willingly abstain from wedlock.*

In the Decretals of Gratian, which were upheld in credit by the Papacy, it is actually laid down on the alleged authority of a Council at Toledo, Qui non habet uxorem, loco illius CONCUBINAM DEBET HABERE. Dist. 39. Edit. Paris, 1512.

2. What they affirm, that brothels are to be tolerated lest married women should be violated, is contrary to the Divine command, Deut. xxiii. 17, There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, &c. It is contrary to Apostolic doctrine; which would have matrimony, not fornication, to be the remedy for lust. It is contrary to the received opinion of Theologians, who deny that a compensation of sins is to be admitted: Harlots, therefore, are not to be prostituted lest married women should be violated. Lastly, it is contrary to the duty of the Christian magistrate; who is bound, as much as in him lies, to take care that all may live piously, soberly, and righteously: Rom. xiii. He ought not, therefore, to suffer those who openly profess whoredom.

3. With respect to the remark of Augustine, Take away harlots from human society and you will disturb all things by lust; we answer, it is not of much weight: because he wrote those books De ordine, when he was a young man, and not then baptized, as is evident from the first of his Retractations. We also oppose to it the more serious of the Fathers. Lactantius, Instit. lib. 6, cap. 23, says, The devil set up brothels, and published the shame of unhappy women. Clemens, Pædag. 3. cap. 3, Brothels are trophies of public intemperance. Tertullian, de cultu fæminar. calls harlots the most unhappy victims of public lusts. But now how disgraceful to the Christian magistrate, if he defend the inventions of the devil, if he suffer that victims be publicly immolated to lust, if, in short, he do not demolish the trophies of intemperance. Besides, I say, that however diligently the magistrate may endeavour to repress fornication, yet he can never wholly remove from human society harlots or fornicators, no more than he can remove thieves or murderers. Therefore the Papists may dismiss this fear.

The use of Augustine's opinion in this matter, at a time when he was no Christian, is quite in papistical keeping, as to the mode of sheltering themselves under authority, or wresting the sentiments of the Fathers to their purpose. Of this many of their modern writers furnish eminent examples, as recent controversial works amply exhibit.

Lastly we must also add; that this remedy (the toleration of brothels*) is worse than even the disease which is dreaded. For although adultery be in itself worse than fornication; yet it is worse for a whole city to be continually polluted by brothels, than if it should sometimes happen that certain wedded women be violated. But even this is by no means to be conceded; that the honour and chastity of married women can be better preserved by the permission of fornication than by the severe punishment of it. For by impunity, and the continued habit of sinning we become more daring; and if we have served an apprenticeship to lust among harlots, becoming anon veterans, we the more confidently assault wedded females. This point acquires support from the fact, that we scarcely ever have either read or heard of married women having been defiled by any other than by those who were before accustomed to practices with harlots: so admirably does the toleration of brothels conduce to the protection of the chastity of married women !-And these remarks may suffice against those who either deny that fornication is to be accounted a sin, or say that it is to be tolerated for the sake of avoiding adultery. We have dwelt the longer in opposing fornication, because it has obtained its patrons. The other vices which remain we shall remark upon more briefly.

In the second place, then, axadapoia, or uncleanness, follows: By which term the Apostle would comprehend all the more filthy kinds of lust, as adultery, incest, rape, and especially those sins of excess which even nature herself abhors. Therefore, they who not only wallow in one kind of lust, but in different kinds, and those the most foul, are called the unclean. This uncleanness prevailed among almost all the Gentiles; which you may easily gather from their poets, who often blame, although they sometimes approve these impurities, Rom. i. 27. Tertullian, in his book, De

• The horrid fact may not be generally known among Protestants that Public Stews, or houses of prostitution, are to this day officially licensed in Papal States, and that his Holiness derives a large portion of his revenue therefrom. Papal Rome is literally "the Mother of harlots!"

Pudicitia, speaks of this uncleanness: Those impious furies of lusts, says he, contrary to nature itself, we remove not only from the threshold, but from the whole house of the Church; for they are not sins merely but portentous vermin.* Therefore, because the unrestrained appetite of the lustful is wont to proceed sometimes from fornication to this uncleanness; so, after fornication, the Apostle declares that all other uncleanness is also to be mortified.

Observe, 1. There is no sin so foul, so foreign from hu-. manity itself, into which the inbred corruption of our nature may not impel a man not yet mortified.

2. Lesser sins pave and fence a path, as it were, to greater; this uncleanness always follows in the train of fornication: Hence says the Apostle, Ephes. v. 3, But fornication and all uncleanness.

If

3. To avoid greater sins, it is most safe not to tolerate the lesser, but as much as in us lies to root them out. you resist vice at its birth there will be no growth to worse; but if in this you indulge ever so little, the iniquity increases. Thus far we have contended against the external acts of lust.

Πάθος.] Some translate this effeminacy, others lust. The Apostle teaches that after all the external acts of lust have been repressed, the internal motion itself, and the unbridled passion must be restrained. Ilados, then denotes that disposition of the mind whereby any one is fitted and ready for the sin of lust, when any occasion is offered; and because this vice arises from the effeminacy of a mind unwilling to sustain the attack even of the least temptation, therefore some not improperly render Пados effeminacy. For they are justly deemed effeminate whose minds do not resist the temptations of the flesh; but willingly and immediately yield themselves to the bonds of lust, even as Samson yielded himself up to be bound by Dalilah.

Alluding probably to the abundance of particular insects as an indication of impending judgments; as in the case of the plagues of Egypt. + See Bishop Hopkins's most instructive and impressive Sermon on "The great evil and danger of Little Sins."

In our version it is translated inordinate affection.

The Apostle teaches that such a disposition of mind is to be mortified and abandoned by a Christian man; nor may any Christian whatever refuse to do it;

Whence
Whence says the

1. Because it is Heathenish to serve his own lusts; it is Christian to serve God and holiness. Apostle, 1 Thess. iv. 3, &c This is the

will of God, even

your sanctification, that every one should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of concupiscence, as the Gentiles which know not God.

2. Not only is it Heathenish, but it is brutish, to labour under this disease. For it is the property of brutes to be actuated and governed by their passions; it is the part of a man to restrain them, and to reduce them within the sphere of reason. He, therefore, who is drawn aside by every appearance of pleasure presented to his mind or his sight, becomes like to a horse or a mule, which hath no understanding. Ps. xxxii. 9.

3. All holy and praiseworthy men have been accustomed to banish afar off this effeminacy of mind. The example of Joseph recorded in Genesis xxxix. stands pre-eminent, whom his mistress daily solicited with her enticements to lust, yet could not prevail. If he had laboured under this effeminacy, he would also have yielded immediately to gratify lust. But as Tertullian wisely says in his Apologet. A pious and chaste man beholds a woman with safe eyes, because his mind is blind to lust. Unless their minds are firmly set against the allurements of sin, and strengthened by Divine grace, men become the wildest slaves of lust, and resist not even its slightest temptations, but are led away as captives to every vice.

Evil concupiscence.] Now the Apostle endeavours to cut up the very root of wickedness. For fornication and uncleanness, as hath been said, denote evil acts; Ilados, or effeminacy, that lustful and intemperate habit of mind, whereby men are so prepared, that straightway they seize every occasion of exercising lust, nor can restrain themselves; such as the Greeks call xuжpoμaves-(Venus-mad). But now evil concupiscence denotes the first motion of inordinate desire; which is called evil to distinguish it from

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