CHAPTER XX – 3. Wanton talk, love-songs, etc. to be denied
opportunities of committing it, and live not with temptations near you: especially take heed that you suffer not an unclean spirit to possess your minds; but cast out the first impure thoughts with abhorrency. O the daily filthiness that lodgeth in the thoughts and imaginations of some men! They can scarce look on a woman of any comeliness, but they have presently some filthy thought. If they attempted actual uncleanness, a chaste person may easily reject them with detestation; but in this secret way of heart-filthiness, they will commit fornication with whom they please, and as many as they please, and as often as they please; but the ruin and sin are only their own. As you love the favour of God, the credit of the Gospel, and the peace and salvation of your own souls, deny yourselves not only the lust of uncleanness, but of unchaste behaviour, and wanton dalliance, and the filthiness of your thoughts. For how unfit is that mind to converse with God, and to be employed in holy ordinances, that cometh but newly from thinking of filthiness, and feeding on lust!
CHAPTER XX
Wanton Discourse, Songs, &c. to be Denied 3. ANOTHER part of self-interest or sensuality to be denied, is, the use of wanton, filthy discourse, and of wanton books, and songs, and ballads, commonly called love-songs. As these are the fruits of vain minds that do invent them, so do they breed and feed the like vanity in others. Indeed they are the devil's psalms and liturgy, in which he is served with mirth and jollity, by persons of corrupt and sensual minds. They that will not be at the pains to learn a catechism, will learn a wanton song or ballad, which one would think should be as
hardly learned. When we desire them to learn any thing that is necessary to their salvation, they tell us that they are no scholars, and they have weak memories, and they cannot learn. But they can learn an idle tale, or a filthy song, though they are no scholars, and though their memories be weak. Their weak memories are strong enough to keep any thing that is naught; like a riddle that will not hold the corn, but it will hold the straws and rubbish; or like a sieve that will not hold the milk, but it will hold the hairs and filth. And so much greater is this sin than many others, because it is studied for, and laboured for, and therefore is committed purposely, resolvedly, and with delight, and not as some other sins which men are tempted to by sudden passions or surprisal! What abundance of children are sent to school to the devil, and must bestow many days and hours in learning their lessons; and when they have learned them, he must hear them say them over, usually more than once a day! As they are at work in their shops or fields, they are at it, either by wanton songs, or ribald, filthy talk: yea, they be not ashamed to sing them as they go about the streets: mark this, you that are the servants of Christ!
Will you evermore be ashamed of your Master, or of his holy service? will you be ashamed to confess him in the open streets, or to be heard at prayer, or reading, or singing the praise of God in your houses; when the devil's servants are trained up in their very childhood to sing his psalms in the open streets, and publicly to serve him without fear or shame? May not a man conjecture by their education, what trade they are intended for? They that serve an apprenticeship to a trade, are sure intended to live upon it. One would think by the talk and the songs of many of our children in the streets, that the parents had bound them apprentices to a brothelhouse, and intended that their trade should be fornication,
whoredom, and all uncleanness! why else do they learn the art of talking of it, but in order to the art of practising it? Sure I am, they are the apprentices of satan: and a doleful case it is to think on; that as the Turks do take the children of Christians, and breed them up to be their army of janizaries, to fight against Christians, as their stoutest soldiers, when they come to age; so the devil and their own parents do take the children that in baptism were dedicated once to Christ, and listed under his command, and they teach men to fight against Christ, by cursing, and railing, and swearing, and mocking at godliness, and by bawdy songs and ribaldry. Christ telleth us that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;" and therefore they cannot in reason blame us, if we judge of their hearts by their tongues: for though the tongue be too often better than the heart, it is seldom worse. And surely if many of our wretched neighbours may be judged of by this rule of Christ, we must needs conclude that they have lustful, filthy adulterous hearts; what else can we think of them when their discourse and songs are filthy, but that their hearts are filthy? Christ hath warranted us to conclude, that rotten speeches come from the abundance of a rotten heart.
Young people, I beseech you regard your credit, if you regard not your salvation. Will you openly proclaim in the ears of the world that you are trained soldiers of the devil, learning to be whores or whoremongers, or that you have lust and whoredom in your hearts?
Is it your meaning to tell this to all the town? what doth it in your mouths, if it be not in your hearts? will you not judge by a man's language what countryman he is? If he speak Welch, you will think he is a Welchman: if Irish, you will think he is an Irishman; if English, you will conjecture he is an Englishman: and if you speak the language of harlots and brothel-houses, what can we think but
that you are such yourselves, or at least that you are learning to be such? For shame do not so disgrace your parents that breed you up, and the houses that you live in! What may folk think and say, when they hear you talk filthily, and singing filthy songs? will they not think that you have adulterers or filthy persons to your parents, that teach or suffer you to learn such things? and that they are bringing you up for their own profession? Will they not think that you live in whore-houses, and not in Christian families? Do not for shame proclaim this suspicion of your parents, or the families you dwell in, in the hearing of the world, unless you think it an honour to be harlots. It would make the ears of a modest person glow on his head, to hear the ribbaldry that is ordinary in some profane families; especially in many inns and alehouses, where the quality of the company and the nature of the employment is such from whence no better can be expected.
Let all that would be accounted Christians, deny and abhor this part of sensuality in themselves and theirs. Again consider the command of God; "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not once be named amongst you, as becometh saints: neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient; but rather giving of thanks:" Eph. 5:3, 4. "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers; and grieve not the holy Spirit of God:" Eph. 4:29, 30. Mark here, how such filthy speech is called 'corrupt' communication, or rotten like carrion in a ditch, which should cause all that pass by to stop their noses. And yet this is our people's sport: what say these wretches,
'May we not jest and be merry, when we mean no harm, without all this ado?'. Have you no honester mirth than this? nor more cleanly