There are times when and conditions under which it is both our right and our duty to speak on this subject. We may offend delicacy by speech, and must therefore be careful what we say. But we may neglect obligation and opportunity by silence, and must therefore use fitting occasion for speech. There is a time to warn the young against an evil which may slay them with a mortal wound. We may glance, and only glance, at -

I. THE FEARFUL LENGTH TO WHICH IMPURITY MAY PASS. God made man male and female that, related to one another thus, they might be happy in one another's fellowship; that husband, wife, and child might complete the harmony of human life. But for the confusing and disturbing element of sin, there would have been nothing but holy conjugal affection and happy human homes. How dark and sad a contrast to this does society present! How melancholy the thought that impurity should Dot only have tainted so many souls, but should have taken so may forms! that not only have the natural relations of the sexes been too unlimited, too unrestrained, but that sin of this description has taken unnatural, shocking, and abominable forms! that its dark and shameful manifestations are such as we hardly like to Dame, and do not dare to think of (verses 22, 23)! Only a holy compulsion will induce us even to make passing reference to such things. So low, to such dark depths, into such a "far country" of vileness does the sin of impurity extend.

II. THAT GUILTY INDULGENCE IS THE ONLY EXPLANATION OF THIS EVIL PROGRESS. How can such things be? is the simple question of the pure heart. How by any possibility can human nature sink into such a gulf of depravity? How can we account for it that the soul which once knew the innocency of childhood finds an awful pleasure in such shameful deeds? The answer is undoubtedly here. The very possibility of it is a part of the penalty of the sins which have been committed. Sins of impurity leave a stain upon the soul; the seducer has not only to suffer the rebuke of God, the reproaches of the one he has wronged and ruined, and the stings of his own conscience - some day to be awakened, but he has to "bear his iniquity" in a depraved taste, in a stained and injured nature, in a lowered and baser appetite. In this, as in other matters, perhaps more fearfully than in most, "he that sinneth against God wrongeth his own soul" (Proverbs 8:36). Let the man who gives way to impurity remember that he is traveling on a downward course that ends in saddest depravation of soul, and that will leave him open to those more vile temptations which would disgrace and even disgust him now.

III. THE TRUE TREATMENT OF THIS DESTROYING SIN. Trace the evil back from its worst developments to its mildest form; from its fullest crime to its source in the soul. Incest, adultery, fornication, seduction, indecency, indelicate conversation, the impure thought. This last is the source of all. It is that which must be assailed, which must be expelled. In this matter of the relation of the sexes, there are three main truths.

1. God gives to most of us the joy of conjugal love, and this is to be sanctified by being accepted as his gift (James 1:17). Where it is denied we must be well satisfied with other mercies so freely given.

2. Its lasting happiness is only assured to the pure of heart. With all others its excellency will soon fade and die.

3. Therefore let us, by all possible means, guard our purity:

(1) by avoidance of temptation (evil company, wrong literature);

(2) by energetic expulsion of unworthy thoughts;

(3) by realization of the presence of the heart-searching Holy One;

(4) by earnest prayer; let us "keep our heart beyond all keeping," etc. (Proverbs 4:23). - C.

1. God the institutor of marriage (ver. 6).

2. Faith in Christ not commanded in the law (ver. 5).

3. Of the several kinds of kindred by consanguinity or affinity.

4. Of the computation of the degrees of consanguinity.(1) Consanguinity is a communicating in blood, derived from one stock.(2) Affinity is a respective alliance and kindred which comes in by marriage.(3) A line is a collection of persons coming from the stock.(4) And it is threefold: the right line Ascending, as the father, grandfather; or descending, as the son, &c.; or collateral above, as the father's brother — or in the middle, as brother, sister, uncle's children — or below, as brother's son or daughter, and their sons and daughters.(5) A degree is the distance of persons from the stock.(6) In the right line ascending or descending, there are as many degrees as generations and persons.(7) In the collateral line there are as many degrees as persons.(8) In the collateral line the prohibition is extended to the fourth degree.(9) In the right line ascending and descending, the impediment is perpetual when they are alive or dead, as grounded upon the law of nature.(10) The same degrees are forbidden ascending and descending by the like analogy.(11) The same degrees are restrained by the like analogy in both sexes.(12) Where the degree further off is forbidden, the nearer are inclusively interdicted.

5. Of the computation of the degrees of affinity.(1) In what degree of consanguinity the husband is distant, in the same degree of affinity the wife is removed, because man and wife are one flesh.(2) One person added to another by carnal copulation changes the kind of affinity, not the degree: as the brother's wife is of affinity in the second degree, and first kind; if after she marry another husband, he is in the same degree of affinity, but in the second kind.(3) There are three kinds of affinity — the near, middle, and remote: as the brother's wife is in the first kind, the brother's wife's second husband in the second, the second husband's second wife in the third.(4) Affinity in the first kind is a perpetual impediment.(5) Between such as are of kindred in blood to the husband, and them that are of kin to the wife, there is no affinity to hinder marriage: as, two brothers may marry two sisters.(6) In the degrees of affinity ascending and descending in the right line, the prohibition is infinitely extended without any limitation: as, it is not lawful to marry the wife's daughter's daughter, and so downward, nor the wife's mother, or grandmother, and so upward.(7) In the collateral line, affinity is restrained to the third degree, as to uncle's wife, who is in the same degree of affinity that her husband is in consanguinity.(8) Of the agreements and differences between the degrees of consanguinity and affinity.(1) Agreement.

(a)In what degree one is of consanguinity, the wife or husband is in the same degree of affinity.

(b)The impediment in both continues not only during life but afterward.

(c)The prohibition extends itself in both alike, in the right line ascending and descending without limitation; and in the collateral to the third degree expressly, and by a certain analogy to the fourth.(2) Differences.

(a)The efficient cause of consanguinity is a natural obligation, without any relation to the will and consent of man, in the propagation and the line of consanguinity; but in affinity there is a voluntary bond or obligation by consent in marriage.

(b)Consanguinity is by generation from one, both father and mother; affinity is by the copulation of two. The first is real, the second by relation.

(c)In consanguinity, on both sides the bond holds, both by the father and mother, but the kinsmen of the husband are not of affinity to the kindred of the wife; on the contrary, affinity holds only in the first kind, which changes by a new copulation, though the degree alter not, as the brother's wife's second husband is not properly of affinity; but in consanguinity, the kind and degree hold out together.

6. Marriage of divers wives successively, lawful, though not together (ver. 18).

7. The Scripture most pure, even when it makes mention of impure and obscene things.

(A. Willet, D. D.)