Commandments: Thou Shalt Not Commit
Adultery of Wedlock; Against All Intemperance; of Continency. The Tenth Sermon
ΤῊΕΒ nearest to our life and body is every one’s several mate in wedlock; for by wedlock two bodies are joined together?, and are made one: for the Lord said, “” And two shall be one flesh” In this third precept, therefore, which is next after the forbidding of murder, commandment is given for the holy keeping of honourable wedlock, and for the true
[[ conjugio enim conjunguntur, Lat. P.] [4 Gen. ii. 24; 1 Cor. vi. 16.]]
sanctifying of the body against adulteries, wandering lusts, and all incontinency. ~Wedlock is prepared to this end and purpose, that honesty and chastity may flourish among good men, and children may be brought up in the fear of the Lord. This commandment again is briefly expressed in as few Words as may be: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” In the exposition of this commandment, by the help of Gods good Spirit, I will first speak of holy matrimony; then, of adultery; thirdly, I will shew you what is contained under the name of adultery; and lastly, I will make an end with a treatise of continency.
Wedlock, which is also called matrimony, is an alliance
or holy joining together of man and woman, coupled and brought into one by mutual consent of them both, to the intent that they, using all things in common betwixt themselves, may live in chastity, and train up their children in the fear of the Lord. The gospel verily calleth wedlock a joining together which God hath made: for Christ said, “What God hath joined together, let no man separate2.” Neither is it lawful to make any other the author of matrimony than God himself. God did, by the mean and ministery of his angels and chosen men, appoint other good and necessary ordinances for mankind’s commodity; but he himself did immediately, without the ministery of any person, ordain matrimony; he himself did establish and ratify it with laws for the purpose; he himself did couple the first married folks; and he, being the true high priest indeed, did himself bless the couple then whom he did join together.
By this we may easily gather the excellent dignity of of marriage or matrimony. For God did ordain it; yea, he ordained it in paradise, when man as yet was free from all kind of calamities. Adam, when he was in the great felicity of paradise, seemed not yet to live commodiously nor sweetly enough, except a wife were given to be joined unto him. “It is not good,” saith God, “for man to be alone; I will make him a helper to tarry or dwell with him” For God brought to Adam all living creatures, which he had created, for him to name them: but among them all there was no-
[1 Exod. xx. 14.—duobus exprimitur verbis, Non meechaberis, Lat. ] [2 Matt. xix. 6.] [3 Gen. ii. 18.—adjutorium, quod ei cohabitet, Lat.]]
thing that Adam had lust unto; his mind and nature did utterly abhor to be coupled with any of them. God therefore, casting Adam into a dead sleep, doth out of his side, as he slept, frame up a woman; which so soon as Adam set his eye upon, when she was brought unto him by God who had made her, he straightway crieth, that this was such a one as he desired, that this was such a one as he could love, and wherewith his nature could very well agree. This now,” saith he, “is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” I have found, saith he, I have found an help fit for me, which hath part of my flesh, of my blood, and my very substance. From hence riseth and yet remaineth that natural proneness of men toward women: when, on the other side, overthwart mingling and meddling of cursed men with beasts, contrary to man’s nature, was long ago destroyed by fire; which shewed that God did abhor it. The Lord moreover said: “A man shall forsake his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife, and two shall be one flesh.” But in the exposition of the fifth commandment we perceived, how much God doth set by the love and good-will of children to their parents, and what a charge he giveth to children to honour them. It must needs be, therefore, that wedlock is a most heavenly ordinance, since it is preferred before the honouring of parents: and yet, nevertheless, it is so preferred, as that, by the law of matrimony, the precept for the honour due to parents may not be abolished; but that thereby married folks may know to behave themselves so, if their parents go about to breed discord betwixt them and their spouses, that then they suffer not themselves for their parents’ words to be severed, but in all things else to honour them as they should.
The holy patriarchs kept the law of matrimony, and reverenced wedlock very devoutly. For no small parcel of the first and most excellent book of the bible, called Genesis, is spent in rehearsing the marriages of holy men. Neither is Moses, the peerless servant of God ashamed to make mention of the business and works of wedlock as pure and excel-