“A Discourse on Fornication” Response

John Turner’s 1698 text “A Discourse on Fornication” uses Biblical references to center its argument around Christianity and immoral sexual behavior. Similar to other texts regarding sexuality in the eighteenth century, “A Discourse on Fornication” focuses its attention on identifying the deviancy of sexual behavior. Turner goes as far as labeling sexual activity outside of the institution of marriage as an ultimate sin. The text creates its argument by comparing acts of men against God’s “Original Institution”, emphasizing that adultery and fornication violate the Christian ideals of good, and fornicators are refusing their chances at the pure and holy life.

The argument cements itself around the works of God and His approval: there is no discussion of societal assumptions of gender or sex, but an in-depth look at God’s proposed plan and man’s ability to follow his word. Turner blames man’s downfall on their ability to succumb to vice: “the looseness of men’s manners has corrupted their judgments, and defaced their sense of good evil”. Nothing can fall between, no one can be in a purgatory of morality: one is either good, or evil, and sexual deviance leaves you to the “humiliation of God”.

The language of the text is loaded with statements that emphasize patriarchal power structures. Turner speaks on the foul nature of adultery, “especially on the woman’s side, where there is a manifest injury to the whole family”. Women are not seen as their own, but as vehicles that carry their families and are therefore responsible for their moral uplift—or downfall.

Turner’s discourse places emphasis on traditional heterosexual institutions of marriage. It is reiterated through the text that man’s body is not his to own, but it is a possession of God, and one must conduct themselves through the principles of God. Women’s bodies are commodities under male possession and must give themselves to men and become “one flesh”. There is no idea of bodily autonomy; one’s body is not just theirs to own and conduct, but it is a “Servant of God” and must be used to carry out his deeds; bodies are not for individual pleasure, but for servicing those above you:

Christ was raised from the Dead, that he might raise us also to Immortality: and therefore we are bound not to live unto our selves, by giving up our Bodies to Pleasure in the Lusts of the Flesh; but to devote our selves to the Service of that Great God who made us, and to the Obedience of Christ, who died to expiate our Guilt.

Christian morals often center themselves around guilt and the duty of man to obey and service Christ. Man’s existence is validated by spreading the word of God and following the ‘right’ path. By using the Old Testament as the basis of his arguments, all of Turner’s points are his own reconstruction of biblical literature, and how he perceives God’s word: “We are commanded also to be Holy; and Holiness is expressly declared to be that qualification without which no Man shall see the Lord”. There is no salvation if there is no obedience.  Turner strongly emphasizes the evil of all vices, but the language surrounding sexuality places sexual activity in a negative light, deeming it impure and vile. The text stigmatizes sex and any sort of lustful behavior, referring to sexual activity as “vile affection”. Desire is viewed condition under strict religious rule—it is viewed as a problem, not a feeling.

Turner relates vice to uncleanliness; those who indulge their pleasures are not clean to the eyes of God and his disciples:

He becomes in every sence polluted and defiled.^*Every other Sin that a Man doth is without the Body, but he that committeth Fornication sinneth against his own Body. The Prophane is injurious to God, and the Fraudulent to his Brother, and the Mischief of all other Sins falls first at a distance from ones self. But the Mischief of Fornication falls more immediately on the Offenders own Head; his own Body is debased in the very Trespass he has committed.

Those who succumb to sexual vices are “Harlots, Jezebels, and Whoremongers” who will be denied entrance to God’s kingdom. To sin against the body is to commit an ultimate crime: one is sinning against the gift that God has given you.

The article “A Discourse on Fornication” gave clear insights into the opinions on sexual deviancy during the eighteenth century. As noted in some of the texts we read for class, such as Trumbach and Harvey, the enlightenment was allowing for more leniency regarding the culture around sexuality, but the prevailing ideas of proper sexuality in Christian religions shaped popular notions of morality and created a discourse around sexuality that emphasized it as shameful behavior.

Works Cited

Butler, John. “A Discourse on Fornication”. London, 1698.