nate desires are a higher degree. 3. Inordinate contrivance and consent are yet a higher. And when such thoughts and desires become the ordinary inhabitants of the soul, and pollute it when they lie down and when they rise, and shut out holy and sober thoughts, and become a filthy habit in the mind, then the degree is so great as that an unclean devil hath got great advantage, if not a kind of possession of the imagination and the soul.* Q. 16. Which way are the other senses guilty of this sin? A. 1. When an ungoverned eye is suffered to fetch in lustful thoughts and desires into the mind. 2. Much more when to such immodest or unchaste looks there is added immodest actions and dalliance, unfit to be named. 3. And when fleshly appetite and ease do bring in fuel to unchaste inclinations. 4. And when the ear is set open to ribald and defiling words. Q. 17. How is the tongue guilty of uncleanness ?

A. By the aforesaid filthy or wanton talk, reading alluring books, using alluring words to others; but, worst of all, by defending, extenuating, or excusing any filthy lusts.

Q. 18. What are the chief causes of this sin?

A. It is supposed that God put into nature an ordinate governable appetite to generation in mankind: but that which rendereth it inordinate, and unruly, and destructive, is, 1. Overmuch pampering the flesh by pleasing meats and drinks. 2. Idleness; not keeping under the body by due labour, nor keeping the mind in honest employment about our callings, and the great matters of our duty to God, and of our salvation, which leave no room for filth and vanity. 3. Want of a sanctified heart and tender conscience to resist the first degrees of the sin. 4. Specially wilful running into temptation."

Q. 19. By what degrees do persons come to fornication? A. 1. By the aforesaid cherishing the causes, appetite and idleness.

2. By this means the lustful inclinations of the flesh grow as strong and troublesome in some as a violent itch, or as a thirst in a fever."

3. Then an ungoverned eye must gaze upon some tempting piece of flesh.

4. And if they get opportunity for frequent privacy and

* Matt. v. 28, 29; Eph. v. 4, 5; Jam. i. 21; 2 Pet. ii. 18; 1 John ii. 16; Job xxxi. 1.

y Deut. vi. 21; Ezek. xvi. 19.

· Eph. ii. 3; Jud. xii. 7, 8 ; 2 Pet. ¡i. 14, 16, 18 ; 1 John ii. 16; Gal. v. 19, 20.

familiarity, and use it in immodest sights and actions, they are half overcome.

5. For then the devil, as an unclean spirit, gets possession of the imagination, and there is a strong inclination in them to think of almost nothing else but fleshly filth, and the pleasure that their sense had in such immodest brutishness. When God should have their hearts morning and night, and perhaps at church and in holy actions, this unclean spirit ruleth their thoughts.

6. Then conscience growing senseless, they fear not to feed these pernicious flames with ribald talk, and romances, and amorous foolish plays, and conversing with such as are of their own mind.

7. After this, where their fancy is infected, they study and contrive themselves into further temptation, to get that nearness, opportunity, and secrecy which may encourage them.

8. And from thence Satan hurrieth them, usually against conscience, into actual fornication.

9. And when they are once in, the devil and the flesh say, 'Twice may be pardoned as well as once.'

10. And some, at last, with seared consciences, grow to excuse it as a small sin; and sometimes are forsaken to fall into utter infidelity or atheism, that no fear of judgment may molest them. But others sin on in horror and despair; of whom, of the two, there is more hope, as having less quietness in their sins to hinder their repentance.

20. What are the best remedies against all unchastity and uncleanness of mind and body?

A. 1. The principal is the great work of renewing grace, which taketh up the heart of man to God, and maketh him perceive that his everlasting concerns are those that must take up his mind and life; and this work still mortifieth the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof.

2. Another is to make it seriously a great part of our religion to subdue and destroy all fleshly, sinful lusts: and not to think a bare conviction or wish will do it: but that it requireth more labour than to kill weeds in your ground, or to tame unruly colts or cattle.a

3. Another means is, to resolve upon a constant diligence in a lawful calling. Poor labouring men are seldom so vicious in lust as idle gentlemen are.b

* Rom. viii. 1, 5, 7, 12, 13; 2 Pet. ii. 10; Gal. v. 13, 17, 24.

b Jude 28; 1 Cor. ix. 17; Rom. xiii. 13, 14; Prov. v. 8; Gen. xxxiv.

4. Temperance and fasting, when there is need, and avoiding fulness, and flesh-pleasing meats and drinks. Gluttons and drunkards are fitted to be boars and stallions.

5. To keep a conscionable government of the eye, and thoughts, and call them off as soon as Satan tempteth them.

6. Above all, to be sure to keep far enough from tempting persons. Touch them not; be not private with them. There is no safety when fire and gunpowder are long near, and in an infectious house. Distance is the greatest means of safety.

7. Another means is to foresee the end, and think what will follow specially think of death and judgment. Consider what the alluring flesh will be when the small-pox shall cover it with scabs, or when it shall have lain a few weeks stinking in a grave. This must be. But O the thoughts of the judgment of God, and the torment of a guilty conscience, should be more mortifying helps. To go to the house of mourning, and see the end of all men, and see what the dust and bones of men are when they are cast up out of the grave, and to think where the souls are and must be for ever, methinks should cure the folly of lust.

Q. 21. Is it unlawful for men and women, especially the unmarried, to set out themselves in such ornaments of apparel as may make them seem most comely and desirable?

A. 1. The common rule is to be clothed with decent, but modest apparel, such as shows the body without deceit to be what it is, which is neither loathsome nor alluring. 2. And persons must be invited to conjugal desires by truth, and not by deceit, and by the matters of real worth, such as wisdom, godliness, patience, and meekness, and not by fleshly snares; for marriages so contracted are like to turn to continued misery to both, when the body is known without the ornaments, and deceit and diseases of the soul become vexatious.

3. But there is much difference to be made of the time, and ends. A young woman that hath a suitor, and intendeth marriage, may go further in adorning herself to please him that chooseth her, and a wife to please her husband's eye, than they may do to strangers, where there is no such purpose or relation. To use a procatious garb to be thought amiable to others, where it may become a snare, but can do no good, is the act of one that hath the folly of pride, and some of the disposition of a harlot; even a pleasure and desire to have those think them

© Jer. ii. 32; 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4; Gen. xxxviii. 16; Prov. vii. 10.

amiable, desirable persons, in whom it may kindle concupiscence likelier than good.

Q. 22. But may not a crooked or deformed person hide their deformity by apparel, or other means?

A. Yes, so far as it only tends to avoid men's disdain in a common conversation; but not so as to deceive men in marriage desires, or purposes, or practice.

Q. 23. What if one's condition be such that marriage is like to impoverish them in the world, and cast them into great straits and temptations, and yet they feel a bodily necessity of it?

A. God casteth none into a necessity of sinning. Fornication must not be committed to avoid poverty. If such can by lawful means overcome their lust, they must do it; if not, they must marry, though they suffer poverty.

Q. 24. What if parents forbid their children necessary marriage?

A. Such children must use all lawful means to make marriage unnecessary to them. But if that cannot be done, they must marry whether their parents will or not. For man hath no power to forbid what God commandeth.

Q. 25. Is that marriage void which is without the consent of parents, and must such be separate as adulterers?

A. Some marriage, as aforesaid, is lawful without their consent; some is sinful, but yet not null, nor to be dissolved, which is the most usual case. Because all at age do choose for themselves, even in the matters of salvation: and though they ought to be ruled by parents, yet when they are not, their own act bindeth them. But if the incapacity of the persons make it null, that is another case.

Q. 26. How shall men be sure what degrees are prohibited, and what is incest, when Moses's law is abrogated, and the law of nature is dark and doubtful in it, and Christ saith little of it?

A. 1. Those passages in Moses's laws, which are but God's explication of a dark law of nature, do still tell us how God once expounded it, and consequently how far it doth extend, though Moses's law as such be abrogated.

2. The laws about such restraint of marriage are laws of order; and therefore bind when order is necessary for the thing ordered, but not when it destroyeth the good of the thing ordered, which is its end. Therefore incest is unlawful out of VOL. XIX,

such cases of necessity; but to Adam's sons and daughters it was a duty and all the children of Noah's three sons must needs marry either their own brothers and sisters, or the children of their father's brethren, which moved Lot's daughters to do what they did.

3. In these matters of order some laws of the land must be obeyed, though they restrain men more than the laws of God. Q. 27. Is marriage in every forbidden degree to be dissolved? A. Not if it be a degree only forbidden by man's laws or if it were in such foresaid cases of absolute necessity, but that which God doth absolutely forbid, must not be continued but dissolved; as the case of Herod, and him, 1 Cor. v., tells us.

CHAP. XLI.

Of the Eighth Commandment.

Q. 1. WHAT are the words of the eighth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not steal.

Q. 2. What is the stealing here forbidden?

A. All injurious getting or keeping that which is another's. Q. 3. When is it injurious?

A. When it is done without right: and that is, when it is done without the owner's consent, or by a fraudulent and forcible getting his consent, and without just authority from a superior power, who may warrant it.

Q 4. What power may allow one to take that which is another's?

A. 1. God, who is the only absolute owner of all, did allow the Israelites to take the Egyptians' and Canaanites' goods; and so may do by whom he will. 2. And a magistrate may take away the goods of a delinquent who forfeiteth them; and may take from an unwilling subject such tribute as is his due, and as much of his estate as the law alloweth him to take for the necessary defence of the commonwealth, and may force him to pay his debts and a father may take from his child, who is but a conditional sub-proprietor, what he seeth meet.

Q. 5. But what if it be so small a matter, as will be no loss to him? Is it sinful theft to take it?