some are more glittering, but not less weighty, and every one is deprived of true liberty.

But the bondage is so pleasing, that corrupted man prefers it before spiritual and real freedom. Sensual lusts blind the understanding, and bind the will so, that he is unable, because unwilling, to rescue himself. He is deluded with the false appearance of liberty, and imagines that to live according to rule is a slavish confinement. As if the horse were free, because his rider allows him a full career in a pleasant road, when the bridle is in his mouth, and he is under its imperious check at pleasure: or a galley-slave were free, because the vessel wherein he rows with so much toil, roams over the vast ocean. And whereas there are two considerations which are proper to convince man that the full and unconfined enjoyment of worldly things cannot make him happy, because they are wounding to the conscience, and unsatisfying to the affections; yet these are ineffectual to take him off from an eager pursuit of them. I will particularly consider this, to show how unable man, in his lapsed condition, is to disentangle himself from miserable vanities, and consequently to recover his lost holiness,

1. Sensual pleasures are wounding to the conscience. There is a secret acknowledgment in every man's breast of a superior power, to whom he must give an account; and though conscience be much impaired in its integrity, yet sometimes it recoils upon the sinner by the foulness of his actions, and its testimony brings such terror, as makes sin very unpleasant. The poet tells us, that of all the torments of hell, the most cruel, and that which exceeds the rest, is,

Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem.

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And how can the sinner delight freely in that which vexes and frets the most vital and tender part? He cannot enjoy his charming lusts without guilt, nor embrace them without the reluctancy of a contradicting principle within him. As the fear of poison will imbitter the sweetest cup, so the purest pleasures are allayed with afflicting apprehensions of the future, and the presage of judgment to come. Now man, in his sensual state, tries always to disarm conscience, that he may please the lower appetites without regret. I will instance in the principal.

1. He uses many pleas and pretexts to justify or extenuate the evil, and, if possible, to satisfy carnality and conscience too. Self-love, which is the eloquent advocate of sense, puts a varnish upon sin, to take off from its horrid appearance; and endeavours not only to coleur the object, but to corrupt the eye by a disguising tincture, that the sight of things may not be according to truth, but the desire. Thus the heathens allowed intemperance, uncleanness, and other infamous vices, as innocent gratifications of nature. Now if the principles in man are poisoned, so that evil is esteemed good, he then lives in the quiet practice of sin without reflection or remorse. There is no sting remains to awaken him out of security. But if he cannot so far bribe conscience, as to make it silent, or favourable to that which delights the sense, if he cannot escape its internal condemnation, the next method is by a strong diversion to lessen the trouble.

2. When the carnal mind sees nothing within but what torments, and finds an intolerable pain in conversing with itself, it runs abroad, and uses all the arts of oblivion to lose the remembrance of its true state. As Cain, to drown the voice of conscience, fell a building cities; and Saul, to dispel his melancholy, called for music. The business and pleasures of this life are dangerous amusements to divert the soul, by the representation of what is profitable or pleasant, from considering the moral qualities of good and evil. Thus conscience, like an intermitting pulse, ceases for a while. Miserable consolation! which doth not remove, but conceal the evil till it be past remedy. But if conscience, notwithstanding all these evasions, still pursues a sinner, and, at times, something disturbs his reason and his rest, yet he will not part with carnal pleasures. For being only acquainted with those things that affect the senses, and having no relish of that happiness which is sublime and supernatural, if he part with them, he is deprived of all delight, which is to him a state more intolerable than that wherein there is a mixture of delight and torment. From hence it appears that the interposition of conscience, though with a flaming sword, between man carnal, and his beloved objects, is not effectual to restrain him.

2. All worldly things are unsatisfying to the affections. There are three considerations which depreciate and lessen the value of any good.

1. The shortness of its duration.

2. If it brings only a slight pleasure.

3. If that pleasure be attended with torments.

All which are contrary to the essential properties of the supreme good, which is perpetual, and sincere, without the least mixture of evil, and produces the highest delight to the soul. Now all these concur to vilify wordly things: 1. They are short in their duration. Isa. 40. 6. 7. Not only the voice of heaven, but of the earth declares this, "that all flesh is grass, and the glory of it as the flower of the grass." 1 Pet. 1. 24. 25. Life, the foundation of all temporal enjoyments, is but a span: * the longest liver can measure in a thought the space of time between his infant state and the present hour: how long soever, it seems as short to him as the twinkling of an eye. And all the glory of the flesh, as titles, treasures, delights, are as the flower of the grass, which is the most tender amongst vegetables, and so weak a subsistence, that a little breath of wind, the hand of an infant, the teeth of a worm can destroy it. "The pleasures of sin (under which secular greatness and wealth are comprehended) are but for a season." Heb. 11. 25. They are so short-lived, that they expire in the birth, and die whilst they are tasted. Again; they bring only a slight pleasure, being disproportionable to the desires of the soul. They are confined to the senses, wherein the beasts are more accurate than man, but cannot reach to the upper and more comprehensive faculties. Eccles. 1. Nay, they cannot satisfy the greedy senses, much less quiet the spiritual and immortal appetite. What the poet speaks with astonishment of Alexander's insatiable ambition,

Estuat infelix angusto limite mundi,

That the whole world seemed to him as a narrow prison, wherein he was miserable, and as it were suffocated, is true of every one. If the world was seated in the heart of man, it can no more satisfy it, than the picture of a feast can fill the stomach. Besides, vexation is added to the vanity of worldly things. And that either because the vehement delights of sense corrupt the temperament of the body, in which the vital complexion consists, and expose it to those sharp diseases, that it may be said with

* Exias ovag av pwn. Pindar.

out an hyperbole, that a thousand pleasures are not equal to one hour's pain that attends them : or, because of the inward torture of the mind, arising from the sense of guilt and folly, which is the anticipation of hell itself, the beginning of eternal sorrows.

Now these things are not obscure articles of faith, nor abstracted doctrines, to be considered only by refined reason, but are manifest and clear as the light, and verified by continual experience: it is therefore strange to amazement, that man should search after happiness in these things where he knows it is not to be found, and court real infelicity under a deceitful appearance, when the fallacy is transparent. Who from a principle of reason would choose for his happiness a real good, which after a little

а time he should be deprived of for ever? or a slight good for ever? as the sight of, a picture, or the hearing of music. Yet thus unreasonable is man in his corrupt state, whose soul is truly immortal, and capable of infinite blessedness, yet he chooses those delights which are neither satisfying nor lasting. And because the human understanding from time to time is convinced of the vanity of all sublunary things, therefore to lessen the vexation which arises from disappointment, and that the appetite. may not be taken off from them, corrupted man tries,

1. By variety of objects to preserve uniformity in delight. The most pleasing, if confined to them, grow nauseous and insipid; after the expiring of a few moments there remains nothing but satiety and sickly resentments; and then changes are the remedies, to take off the weariness of one pleasure by another. The human soul is under a perpetual instability of restless desires, it despises what it enjoys, and values what is new, as if novelty and goodness were the same in all temporal things. And as the birds remain in the air by constant motion, without which they would quickly fall to the earth as other heavy bodies, there being nothing solid to support them; so the spirit of man, by many unquiet agitations and continual changes, subsists for a time, till at last it falls into discontent and despair, the centre of corrupt nature.

2. When present things are unsatisfactory, he entertains himself with hope: for that being terminated on a future object, which is of a double nature, the mind attends to those arguments which produce a pleasant belief, to find that in several objects, which it cannot in any single one, and to make up in number,

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what is wanting in measure, whereas the present is manifest, and takes away all liberty of thinking. Upon this ground sensual pleasure is more expectation than fruition : for hope by a marvellous enchantment, not only makes that which is future present, but representing in one view that which cannot be enjoyed but in the intervals of time; it unites all the successive parts in one point, so that what is divided and lessened in the fruition, which is always gradual, is offered at once and entire. Thus man carnal, deceived by the imperfect light of fancy, and the false glass of hope, chooses a fictitious felicity. “Man walks in a vain show." Psal. 3. 6. His original error hath produced this in its own image. And although the complacency he takes in sensual objects, is like the joy of a distracted person, the issue of folly and illusion, and experience discovers the deceit that is in them; as smelling to an artificial rose undeceives the eye; yet he will embrace his error. Man is in a voluntary dream, which represents to him the world as his happiness, and when he is awakened, he dreams again, choosing to be deceived with delight rather than to discover the truth without it. This is set forth by the prophet, Isa. 57. 10. “ Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way, yet saidst thou not, there is no hope:” that is, thou art tired in the chase of satisfaction from one thing to another, yet thou wouldest not give over, but still pursuest those shadows which can never be brought nearer to thee. And the true reason of it is, that in the human nature, there is an intense and continual desire of pleasure, without which life itself hath no satisfaction. For life consisting in the operations of the soul, either the external of the senses, or the internal of the mind, it is sweetened by those delights which are suitable to them. So that if all pleasant operations cease, without possibility of returning, death is more desirable than life. And in the corrupt state there is so strict an alliance between the flesh and spirit, that there is but one appetite between them, and that is of the flesh.

All the designs and endeavours of the carnal man are by fit means to obtain satisfaction to his senses : as.if the contentment of the flesh and the happiness of the soul were the same thing; or as if the soul were to die with the body, and with both, all hopes and fears, all joys and sorrows at an end. The flesh is now grown absolute, and hath acquired a perfect empire, and

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