51. Your Body is the Temple of the Noly Ghost. I've sold myself to Him, Nor ask I from that hour I only ask, WHAT WILT THOU, LORD? And instantly, with one accord, My members all fulfil His word. I JOHN, ii. 16. "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." MATT. v. 28. “I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." EPH. V. 3-5. "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among 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, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." I COR. vi. 18-20. "Flee fornication. doeth is without the body; but he cation sinneth against his own body. that your body is the temple of the in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." WHAT Every sin that a man that committeth forniWhat! know ye not Holy Ghost which is HAT a serious sermon against all defilement of the flesh resounds from sacred Scripture! How it dignifies man by teaching him to look upon his body as a temple of God, a habitation of the Holy Spirit; and even because so great a monarch is enthroned in it, to keep holy the outward fabric! To Christianity is due the first effectual introduction into human life of the noble virtues of chastity in deed and word, temperance and modesty. The Gospel has not extirpated the instinct of nature, but has consecrated it, as it does all that is natural. The Almighty Maker of heaven and earth Himself brought his wife to Adam, and declared that "they twain were to be one flesh;"1 and thus, as Luther says, "the conjugal instinct has been enclosed in a divine word, as in a holy monstranz;" and that divine word, which the Jews had wellnigh forgotten, was by Jesus Christ brought again to light and inserted in His Gospel.2 The Gospel has converted marriage and the propagation of the race into a priestly function. It is in the Lord that marriages are contracted, in the Lord that husband and wife love each other, for the Lord and His kingdom that they study to edify and improve one another, and to the Lord that they train up their children to be His subjects. In this way the motions of the flesh are made tributary to the kingdom of God, as is the appetite for food by its ministering to the preservation and growth of the body, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost; so that here also applies the saying of the apostle, "Every creature of God is good (in itself), and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving." The Lord's Prayer, when prayed with a grateful heart over food, converts it from being poor food for the body into a spiritual blessing, a mean of promoting the Lord's kingdom, and a pledge of the munificent heart which is displayed in His manifold gifts to man. The same may be said of the natural instincts, in so far as they are consecrated in holy wedlock, and employed, not for carnal pleasure and in mere bondage to the flesh, but are refined and elevated by a spiritual affection for the mate assigned to us by God, and in order, if such be His will, to usher into the world future subjects for His kingdom. 1 Gen. ii. 22. 2 Matt. xix. et seq. 3 I Tim. iv. 4. Not until, in the light of divine truth, a clear conception of the nature of holy wedlock, and its efficacy in sanctifying the natural instincts, has dawned upon the mind, does a man learn what being unchaste really is. Then, however, with holy shame he recognises how every motion of the flesh, unless spiritually cleansed and sanctified in matrimony, lowers him to a level with the brute, just like the brutish appetites which cleave to meat and drink for the mere pleasure they afford. Then does he blush to feel how the female is degraded when made the mere partner of a low passion-then does his conscience begin to quake at the crime of ushering, from any such ignoble motive, a human life into the world—a life destined to endure for ever in felicity or woe, and that under circumstances wholly devoid of the means and appliances for training it for heaven. Oh ye who are the offspring of unguarded hours, the fruit of criminal passion, doomed to grow up without knowing what it is to have father or mother, or sister or brother, or any one to care for your bodies or to watch for your souls, without parental blessing or social respect-how if ye shall one day, before the throne of God, call down vengeance upon the authors of your birth, and all your sins be made to fall upon their heads! Human life is a holy thing, and we deem it a crime to put an end to it in thoughtless delirium. Is it less a crime in thoughtless delirium to give it a beginning? When a Christian has learned to treat with chaste and priestly reserve all that has a reference to sex, how he must abominate the levity with which the world is wont to make such subjects the theme of light and often filthy jests. The Christian, on the contrary, feels himself bound to say, This also is holy ground; and oh, how loud the call to seriousness in all that concerns chastity which resounds from the Word of God! "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." O terrible word! How like a flash of devouring lightning it darts in upon the frivolity of the world and the age! It is the word of a God who, from those He enlists in His service, requires purity in the heart as well as in the bodily members. Every sin begins much earlier than the outward act in which it breaks forth, just as the conflagration commences long before the flame bursts inextinguishably through window and roof. Oh, with how adulterous a generation we are encompassed on every side, if the men of our time are to be judged by this word of the Lord! Do they remember at all the seventh commandment to keep it holy, or ever think that it is possible to break it even with the lips and the heart? We are told to resist the beginnings of all passion; and in the case of a passion so inflammable as that of which we speak, it is of special necessity to smother the impure fire so long as it merely glimmers in the heart, and does not burst out at the windows. Know you not the adage, Beginning and end join hand in hand. How lightly the children of the world treat what the apostle calls "filthiness, and foolish talking, and jesting"! They say, forsooth, It was a mere passing word! But who does not know how every such word we utter has a retroactive effect upon the tinder of lust in the interior of the heart? As a draught of wind strengthens the flame on which it is let in, the same effect upon an impure desire has the utterance of it in speech. Oh, my friends, be assured there is no holier guardian of chastity than shame. There are persons who say, "If it be the heart at which God looks, does the emission of lust out of it make a man worse, or is he the better for keeping it in? The Lord Jesus Christ here tells us, that long before the act, adultery is already committed by a look. If, then, you say that a man does not become worse by the escape of his lust, how can he be better by its retention? why not give the enemy leave to make off, seeing he creates so great a disturbance within, and the matter is not mended?" This inference has a fair show of truth; but it masks a knave who pretends concern for the divine commandment and law, while he is really seeking a decent cloak for his licentiousness. It is a case to which the apothegm applies, "My gifts to the mother are meant for the daughter." Observe, t a distinction must be drawn between two sorts of passion. The one is a fire which has already spread over the whole house, and burned the rafters to ashes, so that nothing is wanting but a gust of air to set it in a blaze at every corner. The other is still a harmless spark, which keeps to the floor, and will never rise to a flame if you do not open the window. In the one case the heart is already filled with filth, and only needs a sluice through which it may be discharged; in the other it only becomes full if the sluice be opened. In the one the devil has already woven his beautiful web in the dark with both woof and warp, and lacks but opportunity to show it off to the people; in the other he has merely wrought in a few threads of the warp, being hindered by want of light from freely and openly carrying on his work, unless you let light in. Do no such thing, but instantly close every sluice and opening about you, such as eyes and mouth and ears. Mark, also, how here Christ has not said, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery," but has purposely subjoined the three little words, " in his heart;" thereby signifying that the act he speaks of is indeed an adultery, but not so heinous as when it is manifested to all the world. Oh how high the estimation in which sacred Scripture has set the frail earthly tabernacle of the human body! This the apostle tells us when he says, that since his spirit has been knit in wedlock to the Spirit of Christ, none of his members is any longer his own, but is the property of the Lord; and if so, none of them ought to be used under the capricious impulse of the wind of passion. There is another wind which blows in a Christian; for it is written that "the sons of God are led by the Spirit of God," and so are always led in a way which accords with His commandments, and of which he approves. A Christian man is therefore a priest, who, with all the members of his body and by every action of his life, perpetually presents an offering of frankincense to God, according to the words of the apostle: "Ye are bought with a price; therefore 1 Rom. viii. 14. |