GONORRHOEA. This word in Greek signifies a Flux, which Modesty does not permit us to name, and which should happen in the use of marriage only. This sort of Flux, when procured by luxury, or any other more criminal motive, as that upon which Onan acted, is an abominable action, and deserves the severest penalty. The Rabbins place it among the several sorts of 1 Cor. vi. 9.murder; and St. Paul says, that the Effeminate shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Whenever it happened in the use of marriage, the man became thereby unclean until the evening; that is to say, incapable of partaking in things holy: but it did not exclude him from the use of common things, or the commerce of life.
Deut. xxiii. 10.When it happened while he was asleep, the person whom this accident befel, went out of the camp, and was not to come in again till the evening, after he had bathed in water.
Levit. xv. 1, 2, 3.Lastly, when the Gonorrhœa was a permanent disease, he who was attacked with it, was reckoned unclean as long as this indisposition lasted. Every thing that he touched, or made use of, contracted the same pollution. Whosoever touched him, continued unclean until the evening, and was not restored to his ordinary purity, till he had washed himself and his clothes in water. When this accident was stopped, he who had been under this flux, reckoned seven days from his cure; and after he had washed his body and his clothes in running water, was purified. On the eighth day, he took two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, presented himself before the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle, gave them to the Priest, who offered one for a Sin-offering, the other for a Burnt-offering, and prayed for him, that he might be cleansed from his indisposition.