cleanliness is next to godliness

Physical  cleanliness  betokens  spiritual purity. The idea is an ancient one, found in both Babylonian and Hebrew reli- gious tracts. The precise phrase first appears in a sermon by John Wesley in

1778, which puts it in quotation marks but does not reveal the source. It is much  quoted  thereafter,  by  Dickens  and  Shaw  (“Cleanliness  which  comes next to godliness, if not before it,” Man and Superman, 1903), among others.