be besotted with so Lethargick a stupidity as to harbour and caress this _strange woman_, He (like the _Hyrcanians_) may be said to keep a Dog to devour himself, or (like the mad _Romans_ in _Arrian_) court the Fever of his own Lust, that will soon consume him, and render him as meager and pellucid as the meerest Skeleton; causing withal a no less decay in his Estate then in his Body; and this I conceive induced _Solomon_ to say, [13]_That by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread, and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life_. But if this be not sufficient to deter the Adulterer from this Prostitutes company, I'le advance a step higher, and press {13} him with a third Argument, to prove, That those transitory pleasures the strange Woman affords us are accompanied with the sharpest and most permanent evils: and that 3. Because by her means an irreparable and irrecoverable damage will accrue to his immortal Soul. And in this St. _Paul_ shall be my President, who [14]bids us not be deceived, assuring us, _That neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate persons, shall enter into the Kingdome of God_. [15]It was not permitted to a Dog to enter into the _Acropolis_, because of his excessive heat in Venery; and so neither will it be permitted to those that (like the Dog) indulge themselves in the excessive heat of Venery, to enter into _Heaven_, which may for its heighth be called an _Acropolis_, which (being interpreted) is, a City built upon a Hill. Let us consider how impossible it is that our Prayers and Oblations should be acceptable to God, when they are offered with impure hands, reeking in lust: How can we expect to look God in the face (whose eyes are purer then to behold iniquity) with our impure {14} eyes? How can we hope to be Eagle-ey'd enough to look up to God, whose eyes are ten thousand times brighter then the Sun, when we have so weakned our eyes by the _Works of Darkness_, that (like Night-birds) we dread to behold the Light? How should _Chamberings_ and _Wantonness_ hope to get room in Heaven, whence all kind of Marriage is excluded? When the two opposite Poles of the World meet together, and two Contradictions at the same time prove true, then, and not till then, will I believe that the Fornicator and Heaven can kiss each other. How can we call God _Father_, who utterly renounces those spurious off-springs of our sinful lusts, which have not their Original, nor derive their Pedegree from God, but the World and our depraved Natures? Which S. _John_[16] intimates to us; who making an Inventory of the _Goods_, or rather of the _Evils_ of this World, besides _the Lust of the Eye_, and _the Pride of Life_, he tells us, that the _Lust of the Flesh is not of God_, but of the _World_.