Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines.”

“Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines.” Here I am again, my brethren, to resume the chase of these foxes which, as the Psalmist expresses it, turn out of their path to plunder the vineyard. It is not enough for them to abandon the right way unless they can also ruin the vines, adding prevarication to error. It is not enough for them to be heretics unless they are also hypocrites, so that their sin might be exceedingly great. These are they that come in the clothing of sheep in order to strip the ewes and to despoil the rams. And do you not think they have accomplished both these objects where the people are found to have been robbed of their faith and the priests of their people? But who or what are these robbers? They are sheep in their covering, foxes in their cunning, wolves in their conduct and in their cruelty. They are those who desire to appear virtuous without being so, and to be vicious without appearing so. They are wicked and wish to be regarded as good, lest they should remain alone in their wickedness. They are afraid of being reputed evil, lest they should not be evil enough. For manifest evil is always comparatively powerless for mischief. It is only the simulation of virtue that can ever seduce the virtuous. These, therefore, although wicked, endeavour to appear good, for the ruin of those who are really good. They are unwilling to be known as evil lest their power for evil should thereby be restricted. The practice of the virtues is not in favour amongst them, but they employ a semblance of virtue as a varnish for vice. They even call their impious superstition by the honourable name of religion. According to their definition, innocence consists in abstaining from openly injuring anyone. Hence they are satisfied with the outward colour of innocence. They make vows of continency simply as a shelter for their turpitude. Marriage is regarded by them as the only means of offending against good morals, whereas in truth it is only marriage that could justify their own unlawful practices. As I have already remarked, they are boorish, ignorant clowns, and altogether beneath contempt. But for all that, I assure you, it is necessary to deal with them carefully. “For they grow much towards ungodliness,” as the Apostle says, “and their speech spreadeth like a canker.”

The Holy Spirit has not neglected to warn us against these sectaries. Long ago He gave a clear premonition of their coming, by the mouth of St. Paul, who says, speaking to Timothy, “Now the Spirit manifestly saith, chat in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy and having their conscience seared, forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving.” Such, my brethren, are our modern heretics, of whom beyond a doubt these words have been spoken. For they certainly “forbid to marry” and enjoin abstinence “from the meats which God hath created,” as we shall see afterwards. But consider now if this burlesque of religion may not be more properly ascribed to devils than to men, as the Holy Spirit foretold of it. For if you ask its upholders who was the founder of their superstition they cannot tell you. Which of the other religious sects has not had for author its own human heresiarch? The Manicheans acknowledge Manes as their founder and lawgiver; the Sabellians recognise Sabellius; the Arians, Arius; the Eunomians, Eunomius; the Nestorians, Nestorius. Similarly, all the rest of these pestiferous heresies are known to have each its own earthly deviser, from whom it derive both its name and its origin. But by what name or eponym are these latter-day sectaries called? By none. For their heresy “is not from man nor did (they) receive it through man.” God forbid that we should say it came to them “by the revelation of Jesus Christ”! No, they received it without any doubt, and, as the Holy Ghost predicted, through the inspiration and deceit of the devils, “speaking lies in hypocrisy and forbidding to marry.”

Surely it is in hypocrisy and in the cunning of foxes that they declare marriage unlawful. For whilst they pretend to be actuated by the love of continence, the real purpose of their innovation is simply to encourage and to multiply sin. This is so manifest that I find it hard to conceive how any Christian could ever have been imposed upon. Either those who represent the sect are so brutishly dull that they cannot perceive how the prohibition of marriage gives free rein to every species of sensuality; or else they are so steeped in iniquity, so plunged in diabolical malevolence, that they connive at the consequences which they fully realise, and take pleasure in the loss of human souls. Banish from Christendom “marriage honourable in all and the bed undefiled,” and have you not filled it thereby with all manner of uncleanness and corruption? Choose therefore one or other of these alternatives: either affirm that no kind of immorality, be it never so horrible, can be an obstacle to salvation; or limit the number of the predestinate to the few that have strength to remain continent. How rigorous are you in the latter! How liberal in the former! But the Saviour will not sanction either the one or the other. What? Shall moral turpitude be crowned in heaven? Nothing could be less worthy of the Divine Author of purity. Shall the whole human race be condemned save only the few who are continent? But Christ could not then be truly called the Saviour of mankind. Continence is a rare gift amongst men. Nor is it to be supposed that the Word emptied Himself of His plenitude for the sake of so small a harvest on earth. And how can it be said that we have all received of that plenitude, if it has communicated itself to none but the continent? They—the heretics—have nothing to answer to this. But I think they shall find it equally impossible to defend the other alternative. For if heaven is the home of purity, and if virtue can have no fellowship with vice, any more than light with darkness, certainly there can be no room for the unclean in the company of the saved. To deny this would be to contradict the Apostle, who declares in unmistakable terms that “they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.” By what way shall the crafty fox be able to escape now from his den? I think we have at last caught him in his cavern, in which he had made for himself two openings, one for entrance and the other for exit. Such is the custom of foxes. See then how both ways have been blocked to prevent his escape: if he will admit into heaven none cave the continent, the vast majority of men are excluded from salvation; if he opens paradise to the licentious with the pure, then purity perishes. But rather and more justly shall the fox himself perish, since he can get away neither by this way nor by that, being caught and confined for ever in the pit which he himself hath digged.