+I. A wrong relation.+ The relationship here forbidden is wrong. 1. _Because it is a sin against the tempter._ The tempter in Eden had his load of iniquity increased by the yielding of the tempted one to his persuasion. He increased his crime when he made another a partaker of his disobedience. Satan, doubtless, becomes worse every time that he persuades another to sin. The gambler's guilt and misery is increased in proportion to his success in bringing others to ruin. The young man in the text increases the guilt of the "strange woman" by yielding to her enticements. He burdens her with new guilt and intensifies her iniquity, and therefore helps to treasure up for her a greater remorse when her conscience shall awake and arise from the grave of sensuality. 2. _Because it is a sin against a man's own body._ That which is our own is generally valued by us, and there is nothing material which is ours in a more exclusive sense than our bodily frame. It is nearer to us than any other material possession, and to sin against _it_ is to sin against that which stands in the nearest relation to our personal moral individuality. There are sins done in the body by the mind which are purely mental, from which the body does not suffer; but adultery forces the body into a relation which brings misery and disease upon it, and in due season consumes and destroys it like a devouring flame. "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body" (1 Cor. vi. 18). 3. _Because it is a sin against human nature in general, and national life in particular._ Human nature is like the human body, every man is linked to his fellow-men as the several members of the body are parts of one whole. This _solidarity_--this union of interest--is more obvious when considered in relation to a particular community or nation; and, as no member of the human body can be disfigured without bringing the whole frame into a state of imperfection and loss of dignity, so no man can degrade himself without bringing degradation upon the whole race. The fornicator is a plague-spot upon the body of humanity; and although other sinners bring disfigurement upon the body universal, there is none who defiles it as he does. God has written His mark upon the crust of the earth against this enormous sin (Gen. xix. 24, 25). 4. _Because it makes God, in a sense, to bear the iniquity with the transgressor._ The youth who spends the money his father gives him in furthering his own wicked purposes makes his father an unwilling partaker of his crimes, because the money was supplied by him. God made this complaint against sinners in the olden time. The good gifts of the earth which God bestowed upon the Hebrew people were used by them in their debasing idol-worship. God gave them the means of honouring Him, and they used His gifts in dishonouring His name. So God gives to every man power to glorify Him and to bless