Law of the _Aegyptians_ was
to cut off the Nose of an Adulterer; the _Locrians_ put out the Adulterers
Eyes; and (the more notoriously to intimate his effeminacy) others cloathed
him with wool; and _Solons_ Law was this, _If any man take an Adulterer in
the fact, he may use him how he pleases_: And in the Twelve Tables, [12]If
you {9} take a man in the act of Adultery, you may kill him without danger
of punishment; Impunity was intailed upon the murther of him. You may
observe, that this sin of Adultery is in Scripture called a _sin of
darkness_; intimating to us, how the Adulterer, asham'd of the light,
sneaks up and down in obscure recesses, and is onely active and vigilant
when others are quiet and taking their repose. Other sinners iniquities are
in Scripture numbred by the hairs of the head; but we cannot number the
Adulterers so, because _as his sins increase his hairs do fall_; the
_Spring_ of his sins is his hairs _Fall o' th' leaf_. The second account
upon which the Adulterer will conclude, That the transitory pleasures which
the strange woman affords us are accompanied with the sharpest evils, is,

2. Because hee'l finde she will impair the health of his body; for though
her Lips drop as an Honey-comb, and she distil the Quintessence of
Rhetorick in every expression; though she does amorously caress and embrace
him, yet 'tis but as the encircling Ivie does the Oak, to make him rot,
wither, and decay. {10} Though he may think himself in Heaven, and imagine
her _curled Arms_ about him to be his _Celestial Zodiack_, yet hee'l (at
length) finde them but as chains and fetters to enslave and captivate him
to her insatiable Lust; the gratifications whereof whilest he endeavours to
shew her, he must undergo as many _gripes_ in his guilty Conscience, as
_Aches_ in his impure and vitious Body. She, it may be, will foment and
cherish the flames of his Lust with these pleasing Blasts, by telling him
that the Virgin _Spring_ does not appear less chaste because many thirsts
are there quenched; and that those Waters stink soon that continue long in
one place, but remain sweet and wholsome whilest they leave one bank and
kiss another. But let us (like a prudent _Ulysses_) stop our ears to the
fatal voice of this dangerous _Siren_, least, while we sail in the _Ocean_
of this World, we suffer _shipwrack_ of Grace and a good Conscience: Don't
let us stand to dispute the case, and parley with her, but rather flie from
her, and avo