A Solemn Appeal

CHASTITY. DEFINITION OF UNCHASTITY.

UNCHASTITY includes all the action, whether of body or mind, which is forbidden by the seventh commandment. And all that is therein forbidden, may be included under the two following heads: SOAP 7.1

1. Unchastity of the mind. SOAP 7.2

2. Unchastity of the conduct. SOAP 7.3

By unchastity of the mind, is meant the conception of unchastity in the mind, the cherishing of impure desire. All sin has its seat in the mind. The seventh commandment, like every other, extends to “thoughts, and intents of the heart.” “This,” says Dwight, “is unanswerable evident from our Saviour’s comment on this precept (the seventh commandment), ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.’” Matthew 5:28. And with this agrees another scripture, which says, “Out of the heart proceedeth ... adulteries.” SOAP 7.4

By unchastity of the conduct, we are to understand the acting out of unchastity in any of its various ways of developing sinful thoughts, as, SOAP 8.1

1. By unchaste conversation, writing, looks, and gestures. “Speech is the mirror of the soul.” And hence it is that “by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Matthew 12:37. But significant looks, writing, gestures etc., being but substitutes for words and the tongue, are, like them, capable of being made the ministers of sin; hence, also, they must be subject to the same general law. SOAP 8.2