guilt increased by so much fruitless pains used upon us! how can we answer it now to our own consciences! how shall we answer it to Jesus when he comes in his glory! We should seriously consider, that sin committed, how long soever ago, is guilt contracted; that guilt contracted is punishment insured; that punishment insured will never be remitted but only by the mercy of God in the merits of a Redeemer; and that mercy will never be ours unless we humbly, heartily, and penitently sue for it. You see the use we should make of the commandments. I pray you set yourselves thus to improve them. May the Lord so bless what I am now to say on the seventh commandment to all your souls.

As we are men, and so the one part of our composition is body, we have all animal desires and appetites in common with other sensitive creatures; hunger, thirst, and the like, are common to us with all the animal world. But then, seeing we are reasonable beings also, and should be religious, God will have these animal appetites kept in due subjection, and directed according to the measures he has prescribed for that purpose that is to say, no animal appetite must be allowed to usurp a place that does not belong to it, by engrossing the heart, and taking to itself the direction of our minds and wills; but must be kept within such bounds, and ordered by such rules, as God has set it. When thus kept in subjection and thus ordered, as it has nothing sinful in itself, being purely animal, so it will answer the great purpose of preservation for which God designed it. And this is the rule of duty regarding the natural appetites of hunger and thirst. Meat and drink must be used for preservation, and therefore the natural desire of them must be kept within the bounds of a sober moderation. To delight the soul in the expectation of them and to use them with excess, is intemperance. And so it is regarding that animal appetite more specially designed in this commandment. When indulged in the heart with delight it becomes a sinful lust; and, when gratified out of the bounds God has prescribed to it, it becomes a sinful act, varying according to the nature of the act itself, as committed with others or with our own bodies only, and so called fornication, adultery, self-pollution, and other abominable names, which I care not to mention. Hunger is no excuse for gluttony, nor

thirst for drunkenness; no more is that other animal appetite for lust and uncleanness: gluttony, drunkenness, lust, are first in the heart; there they defile the soul, and turn the reasonable man into a very animal; and from the heart they come out in such various acts as respectively belong to each of them.

What has been said may serve to show that the general design of the commandment is to keep our bodies in a due state of subjection to our spirits: and therefore that there are these two great duties enjoined upon us by it, chastity and temperance.

First. It requires us to be chaste: now, from what was just above advanced, you understand there is an inward and outward chastity.

Inward chastity is keeping the heart for God, not suffering it to be defiled by any unchaste and filthy delights. Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,** is Christ's interpretation of the spiritual meaning of this commandment. And what he says of looking upon a woman to lust after her must be extended to all manner of unclean desires. We must harbour no such guests. Whenever we do, we hurt our own souls, and sin against God. Every indulgence of this kind is a sin.-But then how much more when these are formed into habits, and lewdness is the very character of the soul, takes fire at every object, is entertained and even courted, and speaks at every look; when, as the Scripture expresses it, it appears with a whore's forehead, and eyes full of adultery? What a ghastly creature then how deformed in the sight of man and God !-Chastity must reign upon our hearts; heaven-born Chastity, the daughter of divine Love; and her child Modesty must be with her; Modesty, harmless in look, decent in apparel, reserved in gesture, innocent in words, her face apt to blush, and her back turned upon every appearance of indecency.

Chastity is also outward, expressive of that purity of heart which lodges within. The hand, the tongue, the eye, every member of the body, must be kept pure: and accordingly all kind of actions, which are in any degree contrary hereto, are absolutely condemned. It is a shame,' saith our Apostle, 'even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.' But + Ephes. v. 12.

Matt. v. 28.

he had before said what kind of things they were, Fornication, and all uncleanness, let it not be once named amongst you, as becometh saints. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and of God.'* Most peremptorily every act of uncleanness is condemned; I refer the parties concerned to the particulars, being both ashamed, and also holding it improper, to speak of them. Only, considering the importance and need there is in this our day of the alarming remark, I would observe concerning fornication and adultery, that they are sins which damn two souls at once; and yet that self-uncleanness is held by divines to be a greater sin than either of them.

Secondly.-Temperance is the other duty required by this commandment. By temperance is meant an holy moderation concerning meat, drink, sleep, and relaxation. Now intemperance is here forbidden in a double respect, both as it is an indulgence of the body; and as, by being so, it ministers occasion to, and nourishes lust.

First.-Intemperance is prohibited for its own sake. The heart must not be in any of these things to delight in them, nor the body be indulged in them. You may not set your heart upon eating, be nice and curious about it, nor eat beyond the refreshment of nature; this is gluttony and I am sure the Scriptures rank gluttony and drunkenness in the same degree of sinfulness, however we may have learnt to do otherwise. You may not set your heart upon drink, nor use it to excess: if you do, you are a drunkard. And take it with you, that God will judge whether you have loved or indulged in drink by his reckoning, not yours. You may not fancy it to be no sin to love your pillow, and to indulge yourself there, when God would have you up to pray and labour. You may not set your heart on relaxations; as far as you do, You are a lover of pleasures, more than a lover of God;'t and if you give yourself up to them, squander your time upon them, and lose yourself in them, though man may not condemn you for it, yet assuredly God will. These, gluttony, drunkenness, sloth, and idleness, are * Ephes. v. 4, 5. + 2 Tim. iii. 4.

bodily indulgences, and absolutely forbidden. They set the body above the soul; and turn the man into an animal. For what need of being a reasonable creature, to eat, and drink, and sleep, and be idle? The beast of the field can do this as well as we. Questionless, God has given us a reasonable soul for higher purposes; and doubtless he expects a better account from us of the use we have made of that noble distinction than to have levelled ourselves with the brutes. Could a brute speak, would it be any other language than this, "Let us eat and drink, and be merry?" Alas! that ever this should be the language of reasonable man! that so many of mankind should have lost the thought and inclination of speaking any other!

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But, Secondly.-Intemperance is not only prohibited as it is sinful in itself, but also as it gives occasion to and nourishes lust. And this a life of indulgence does: it is the very food of lust. The grievous sin of Sodom is ascribed to this very cause in the Prophet Ezekiel. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness, was in her and in her daughters. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me."* And Jeremiah speaks in the very same manner of the Jews. • When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. They were as fed horses in the morning,' (what can so strongly represent a body pampered with indulgence? the consequence follows,) every one neighed after his neighbour's wife.' Thus lust is the effect of a body gratified in meat, drink, sloth, and idleness. — Yea, and if we consider only either of these separately, we may find Scripture instances of horrible lusts committed under the influence of each of them. Thus what made the Sodomites so wanton but fulness of bread? That is, their delicate living and high feeding. What made Lot commit such dreadful incest with his own daughters but drunkenness? Or what filled David, or his son Amnon after him, with so much lust, but a fit of sloth and idleness ?§ The case of Amnon is very particular. In the heat of his youth, and no doubt in the abundance of sloth and idleness also, being the king's son, he was Gen. xix. 31–36.

* Ezekiel xvi. 49, 50.

↑ Jer. v. 7, 8.
§ 2 Sam. xi. 2.-xiii. 1-14.

a

fallen in love with Tamar, his brother Absalom's sister. Instead of taking any methods of self-denial, it is said, he was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar;' that is, he gave way to the passion, and let it occupy his whole soul, leaving no room for other employment. Sloth now and idleness had their full power; and his unclean desires grew to such head, that he is ready to sacrifice everything to his inclination. He readily complies with the wicked counsel of his friend Jonadab. He lays himself down on his bed, and feigns himself sick; his father comes to see him; it is his father must send his own daughter and Amnon's own sister to be sacrificed to his passion; and, while she is affectionately doing him the kindest offices, he takes advantage of them to ruin her. What a scene of villany, hypocrisy, and ingratitude, was here! Was there ever a more dreadful scene acted? It cost him his life quickly after but he was so under the absolute dominion, so under the raging influence of passion, that he considered no consequences; and lust made him set no value upon (I do not say his conscience, for it is plain he had none, but) his honour and his life. And now, after such instances, we may cry, if we will, what harm is there in living high, in taking a glass, and following indolence, ease, and pleasures, so one can afford such things? Why, if there were not, which yet there is, any sin in such indulgences, separately and in themselves considered, yet you see what provocatives they are to lust and so I doubt not all have found them who have given themselves to them.

And therefore this commandment, which regards chastity, does enjoin us all such means as serve to restrain lust; and these are the contraries of this gluttony, drunkenness, sloth, and idleness, by which it is promoted. I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection,'* saith St. Paul. Well, and how did he do this? What, by faring sumptuously and drinking plentifully, living at his ease, and doing little or nothing? No. We hear nothing of his feastings, but he tells us, 'He was in fastings often.' He tells us, 'He suffered much hunger and thirst, that he was in labours more abundant, and knew what it was to undergo weariness and painfulness, cold and nakedness.'† By such a life as this it was he kept under his body, and brought † 2 Cor. xi. 23—27.

* 1 Cor. ix. 27.