the mother of wisdom and deliberation, fober counfels and ingenuous actions, open deportment and fweet carriage, fincere principles and unprejudicate understanding, love of God and felf denial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and fpiritual comfort, and a pleafure of Spirit infinitely greater than the fotS. Cyprian de tifh and beaftly pleatures of unchaftity. For to overbono pudici come pleasure is the greatest pleafare, and no victory is greater than that which is gotten over our lufts and filthy inclinations. tiæ. Num. 5.14. 10. Add to all thefe, the publick difhonefty and difreputation that all the nations of the world have caft upon adulterous and unhallowed embraces. Abimelech to the men of Gerar made it death to meddle with the wife of Ifaac: and Judah condemned Thamar to be burnt for her adulterous conception: and God, befides the Law made to put the adulterous perfan to death, did conftitute a fettled and conftant miracle, to discover the adultery of a fulpected woman, that her bowels fhould burft with drinking the waters of Jealoufie. The Egyptian Law was to cut off the note of the adulterefs, and the offending part of the adulterer. The Locrians put out both the adulterer's eyes. The Germans (as Tacitus reports) placed the adulterefs amidft her kindred naked, and fhaved her head, and caused her husband to beat her with Clubs through the City. The Gortynaans crowned the man with wool, to fhame him for his effeminacy; and the Cumani caufed the woman to ride upon an Afs naked and hooted at, and for ever after called Voßátis her by an appellative of fcorn, [A Rider upon the Afs.] All nations barbarous and civil agreeing in their general defign of rooting fo difhoneft and fhameful a Tribur. c. 49. vice from under heaven. • Concil. Concil. Au rel. 1. fub. + Cod. de a The middle ages of the Church were not pleased C'odoveo. that the adulterefs fhould be put to death, but in the dulteriis ad primitive ages the civil Laws, by which Chriftians legem Juli were then governed, gave leave to the wronged hufam, 1. 1. & band to kill his adulterous wife, if he took her in the Cod. Theod. fact but because it was a privilege indulged to men, rather than a direct deteftation of the crime, a confi de adulteriis, c. placuit. deration deration of the injury rather than of the uncleanness, therefore it was foon altered, but yet hath caused an enquiry, Whether is worse, the adultery of the man or the woman. de adulter. The refolution of which cafe in order to our present affair, is thus: In respect of the perfon, the fault is greatter in a man than in a woman, who is of a more pliant and eafie fpirit, and weaker understanding, and hath nothing to fupply the unequal Strengths of men, but the defenfative of a paffive nature and armour of modefty, which is the natural ornament of that fex. And Apud Ang. it is unjust that the man should demand chastity and feve- conjug. rity from his wife,which himself will not obferve towards Plut. conjug. ber, faid the good Emperour Antoninus: It is as if the præcept, man fhould perfuade his wife to fight against thofe enemies to which he had yielded himself a prisoner. 2. In refpect of the effects and evil confequents, the adultery of the woman is worse, as bringing baftardy into a family, and difinherifons, or great injuries to the lawful children, and infinite violations of peace, and murthers, and divorces, and all the effects of rage and madness. 3. But in refpect of the crime, and as relating to God, they are equal, intolerable and damnable and fince it is no more permitted to men to have many wives, than to women to have many husbands, and that in this respect their privilege is equal, their fin is fo too. And this is the cafe of the queftion in Chriftianity. And the Church anciently refused to admit fuch perfons to the holy Communion, until they had done (even years penances in fafting, in fackcloth, in fevere inflictions and inftruments of chastity and forrow, according to the difcipline of thofe ages. Ats of Chastity in general. The actions and proper offices of the Grace of Chaftity in general, are thefe: 1. To refift all unchaft thoughts, at no hand entertaining pleasure in the unfruitful fancies and rememF 4 brances brances of uncleanness, although no definite defire or refolution be entertained. 2. At no hand to entertain any defire, or any phantaflick, imaginative loves, though by fhame, or difability, or other circumftance, they be reftrained from act. Caffo faltem delectamine amare quod potiri non licet. Poeta Patellas, luxuria oculos, dixit Ifidorus Time videre unde poffis cadere, & noli fieri perversâ fimplicitate securus. S. Aug. Sp. Minutius Pontifex 1 3. To have a chaft eye anda hand; for it is all one with what part of the body we commit adultery: and if a man lets his eye loose, and enjoys the luft of that, he is an adulterer. Look not upon a woman to luft after her. And fuppofing all the other members reltrained, yet if the eye be permitted to luft, the man can no otherwife be called chaft, than he can be called fevere and mortified, that fits all day long feeing plays and revellings, and out of greedinefs to fill his eye, neglects his belly. There are fome veffels which if you offer to lift by the belly or bottom, you cannot ftir them, but are foon removed if you take them by the ears. It matters not with which of your members you are taken and carried off from your duty and feverity. 4. To have a heart and mind chaft and pure; that is detefting all uncleanness,difliking all its motions,paft actions, circumftances, likeneffes, difcourfes: and this ought to be the chastity of Virgins and Widows, of old perfons and Eunuchs efpecially, and generally of all men according to their feveral neceffities. 5. To difcourfe chaftly and purely; with great care declining all undecencies of language, chaftening the tongue, and reftraining it with grace, as vapours of wine are reftrained with a bunch of myrrh. 6. To difapprove by an after-act all involuntary and Pofthumium natural peliutions for if a man delights in having fufmonuit nè fered any natural pollution,and with pleature rememverbis vitæ bers it, he chutes that which was in it felf involuntanon æquanti ry; and that which being natural was innocent, be bus uteretur. coming voluntary is made finful. caftimoniam Plut. de cap. ex inim, uti 7. They 7. They that have performed thefe duties and parts of Chaftity, will certainly abstain from all exteriour actions of uncleannefs, thofe noon-day and mid night devils, thofe lawlefs and ungodly worfhippings of fhame and uncleannefs, whofe birth is in trouble, whofe growth is in folly, and whofe end is in fhame. But befides thefe general acts of Chaftity which are common to all states of men and women, there are fome few things proper to the feverals. Acts of Virginal Chastity. 1. Virgins must remember that the Virginity of the Body is only excellent in order to the purity of the Soul; who therefore muft confider, that fince they are in fome measure in a condition like that of Angels, it is their duty to spend much of their time in angelical employment: for in the fame degree that Virgins live more fpiritually than other perfons, in the fame degree is their Virginity a more excellent ftate. But elle it is no better than that of involuntary or constrained Eunuchs; a mifery and a trouble, or elle a mere privation, as much without excellency as without mixture. 2. Virgins muft contend for a fingular modefty; whole firft part must be an ignorance in the diftinction of fexes, or their proper inftruments; or if they accidentally be inftructed in that, it must befupplied with an inadvertency or neglect of all thoughts and remembrances of fuch difference: and the following parts of it must be pious and chaft thoughts, holy language, and modelt carriage. 3. Virgins must be retired and unpublick: for all freedom and loofnefs of fociety is a violence done to Virginity not in its natural,but in its moral capacity: that is, it lofes part of its faverity, ftrictness and opportunity of advantages, by publishing that perfon, whole work is Religion, whofe company is Angels, whofe thoughts muft dwell in Heaven, and feparate from all mixtures of the world. 4. Virgins have a peculiar obligation to charity: for this is the virginity of the foul; as purity, integrity and feparation is of the body: which doctrine we are taught 1 Pet. 1. 22. by S. Peter, Seeing you have purified your Souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, fee that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. For a Virgin that confecrates her body to God, and pollutes her fpirit with rage, or impatience, or inordinate anger, gives him what he most hates, a moft foul and defiled Soul. 5. Thefe Rules are neceffary for Virgins, that offer that state to God, and mean not to enter into the ftate of marriage: for they that only wait the opportunity of a convenient change, are to fteer themselves by the general Rules of Chastity. Rules for Widows, or vidual Chastity. For Widows, the fontinel of whofe defires hath been opened by the former permiffions of the marriage-bed, they must remember, 1. That God hath now restrained the former licence, bound up their eyes, and fhut up their heart into a narrower compaís, and hath given them forrow to be a bridle to their defires. A widow must be mourner; and fhe that is not, cannot fo well fecure the chastity of her proper state. 2. It is against publick honefty to marry another man,fo long as fhe is with child by her former husband: and of the fame fame it is in a lefler proportion, to marry within the year of mourning: but anciently it was infamous for her to marry, till by common account the body was diffolved into its first principle of earth. 3. A Widom muft reftrain her memory and her fancy, not recalling or recounting her former permiffions and treer licences with any prefent delight: for then she opens that fluce which her husbands death and her own forrow have fhut up. 4. A Widow that defires her widowhood fhould be a ftate pleafing to God, must spend her time as devoted Virgins should, in faftings, and prayers, and charity. |