The Christian Life Part 3 Volume 4, Part 3 · Chapter 3
CHAP. III. Of some Motives to Mortification, taken from the Mischiefs of Sin.
HAVING shewn you at large what are the proper Instruments of Mortification, I shall in the next place proceed to press you with some prevailing Motives and Arguments faithfully to employ and use them. And here I shall not insist upon those Arguments which arise from the Consideration of the future State, because these will fall in hereafter, when I come to discourse upon it: All the Arguments that I shall here urge therefore to press you to mortify your Sins, shall be drawn from the Consideration of those present Miseries and Inconveniences which they bring you into. And these I shall rank under two general Heads:
First, SUCH as are outward and Bodily.
Secondly, SUCH as are inward and Spiritual.
I. THE outward and Bodily Inconveniences which our Sins bring upon us are chiefly these Four;
First, THEY destroy our Health and shorten our Lives.
Secondly, THEY stain our Reputation.
Thirdly, THEY waste our Estates.
Fourthly, THEY disturb even our sensual Pleasures and Delights.
I. CONSIDER how your Sins destroy your Health and shorten your Lives. And to convince you of this, I need do no more than only to lead you into the Slaughter-houses of Death, and to shew you how thick they are hung round about with the numerous Trophies of Lust and Intemperance: Behold, there lieth an Adulterer choaked with the stench of his own Rottenness; there a Drunkard fettered with Gouts, and drowned in Catarrhs and Dropsies; there a Glutton stifled with the Loads of his own undigested Meals; loe there lye the dismembred Martyrs of Revenge and Insolence, that have lost their Limbs upon the Field in a foolish Quarrel for Vanity and Mistresses; and there the Envoys of Rapine and Murder, whose infamous Carkasses have furnished the Scaffolds and the Gallows. These and such like woful Examples almost every day's Experience presents to our View, which one would think were sufficient to warn Men of those Vices, which they so commonly find attended with such tragical Effects: And indeed there is no Vice whatsoever, but does one way or other undermine our Health, and impair the Strengths of Nature. For all Viciousness consists in an Excess either of our Passions, or our Appetites; and it is plain and obvious, how destructive to our Health the wild Excesses of our Appetites are: how naturally Wantonness doth melt our Strength, consume our Spirits, and rot our Bones: how Gluttony obstructs our Breath, oppresses our Stomachs, and drowns our Bodies in unwholsome Crudities: how Drunkenness inflames our Livers, corrupts our Blood, dilutes our Brains, and converts us into walking Hospitals of Diseases. And as for the Excesses of our Passion, it is no less apparent how much they disturb and discompose our Natures: Thus Anger we see fires the Spirits and inflames the Blood, and makes the Humors sharp and corroding: Thus immoderate Sorrow oppresses the Heart, dries the Bones, shrivels the Skin, and overcasts the Spirits with Clouds of Melancholy: Thus Envy swells the Hypocondries, which by drinking up the Nourishment of the neighbouring Parts, makes the whole Body lean and meager: And in a word, thus excessive Fear stagnates the flowing Spirits, and turns the Blood into a trembling Ielly. And such Disorders as these, when they are frequent, must needs gradually undermine the Forts of Life, and hasten them into an untimely Ruin. Now is it not very strange, that those Men who are commonly so over-tender of their Lives, should be fond of Diseases, and court their own Executioners? That they should choose to swallow Sicknesses, to drink dead Palsies, and foaming Epilepsies, and to pass through so severe a Discipline of Torments, only to get an Habit of destroying themselves? 'Tis true indeed, some there are that have been so naturaliz'd to their Vices, that they cannot live, nor be well without them; that are sick while they are temperate, and are not able to sleep, but in a Sea of Liquor, and are fain to put themselves into Excesses of Passion to ferment their Blood, and rouse their drousy Spirits: But then it is to be considered, that generally they bring themselves to this sad pass by their own evil Habits, and Customs which they acquire, by doing great Violence to themselves, and committing forcible Outrages on their own Natures. There is no unreasonable Passion, or Appetite can be necessary to our Health, or Ease, till we are first habituated to them; and before we can be habituated, we must undergo a tedious Course of Pain and Uneasiness; many a Fit of tormenting Rage must be endured, many an uneasy Draught and sickly Qualm and fainting Sweat must be undergone, before Wrath and Intemperance can be made easy and pleasant to us; and much more before they become necessary Remedies: And it is rare, if ever we have need of these Excesses, till by a long Course of Violence upon our selves we have first over-turned our natural Temper and Constitution. And what Man in his Wits would ever swallow Poyson, meerly to force his Nature into a Reconciliation with it; when he is sure before hand, that if he doth not die in the Experiment, (as 'tis a great Chance but he doth) yet that he must undergo many a Sickness and bitter Agony, before his Nature is so accustomed to it as to be preserved and nourished by it? But alas! by that time we are arrived to that Pitch of Intemperance, as to be drunk without the Penance of a Surfeit or a Fever, the Heat and Vigour of our Nature is usually so quenched with crude Humors, our Spirits so drowned in Rheums, and Dropsies, and our Brains so drenched in Clouds of unwholsome Moisture, that all our Life after we are but so many walking Statues of Earth and Flegme; and having washed away all the Principles of Reason and Discretion in us, we grow old in Folly and Sottishness, and at the last die Changelings. Thus Sin, you see, is a Disease to the Body; it wasts our Strength, and either makes the Candle of our Life to burn dim, or blazes it out into an untimely Period. Why then should we not be as earnest in the Cure of this, as we are of our other Diseases? For doubtless would we but as carefully apply the Means and Instruments of Mortification, as we do, when we are sick of a Feaver or an Ague, the proper Remedies against them; we should quickly cure those Excesses of our Passions, and Appetites, which do so disease our Bodies, and disturb our Natures.
II. CONSIDER how your Sins do stain and blemish your Reputation. For there is nothing in the whole World more natural to Men, than to admire Virtue and disesteem Vice wheresoever they find it: This we seem to do by a Natural Instinct, antecedently to all our Reasoning and Discourse; and it is no more in our Power not to do it, than it is to chuse whether our Pulse shall beat, or our Blood circulate. For that Virtue is an Ornament, and Vice a Deformity to humane Nature, is a Proposition so self-evident, that at the first Proposal it commands the Assent of all Rational Beings; nor is it in any Man's Power so far to offer Violence to his own Faculties, as to believe Vice praise-worthy, or commendable, any more than it is to believe that to be white and strait, which he sees to be black and crooked: And accordingly you will find, that by all Mankind it hath ever been branded with an infamous Character, and looked on as a Disparagment to the noblest Accomplishments. For in all the Monuments of former Ages; never were any Man's Lusts and Intemperances recorded among the Titles of his Honour; nor was there ever any one Canonized in the Records of Fame, for being a Villain, or a great Debauchee. But generally they are the Wise, or the Valiant, the Iust, or the Merciful, the Chast, or the Liberal, whose Names have been consecrated in History; and no Man ever acquired a Glorious Memory, but it was either by being vertuous, or by seeming to be so. And though wicked Men, like Glow-worms, do sometimes shine in the dark, where either their Vice is not seen, or is mistaken for Vertue; yet usually at the Approach either of Time, or Light, their Luster vanishes and goes out in Stink and Dishonour. So that methinks had we any regard to our own Reputation, we should scorn to harbour those infamous Lusts, which in the Opinion of all the World are so great Disparagements to us: For what a monstrous Shame is it to be despised by all wise Men, to be hooted at by Boys, to be talked of in Fairs and Markets, and pointed at and described by Appellatives of Scorn? And yet all this we expose our selves to for the sake of a few base Lusts, which cause us to rot above ground and to stink alive, and when we are dead will strew our Graves with Dishonour, and inroll our Names in the black Records of Infamy.
III. CONSIDER how your Vices do waste and consume your Estates. For generally it is a very chargeable thing to be wicked, there being few Lusts but do require a large Revenue to maintain them: For what a vast Expence is the Epicure at to provide Meat and Drink-Offerings for that Idol-God his Belly? What an inestimable Charge is it to the prodigal ostentatious Fool to gratify all his Vanities, and plume the Wings of his Fantastick Pride? How much does it cost the insatiate Wanton to make Provision for his unbounded Sensuality? How many a fair Estate hath there been spent in litigious Suits at Law, meerly to improve a Quarrel, and gratify a silly Revenge? And how many a prosperous Trader hath undermined himself by his own Fraud and Knavery; whilst for a present dishonest Gain he loses a Customer, by whom he might have honestly gotten ten times more in seven years Trade and Commerce? And indeed for the generality there is a world of ill Husbandry in being wicked; most of our Lusts being like the Holes of a Sieve, through which our Estate runs out as fast as we can pour it in: And I believe it were easy to demonstrate, that the Ruin of most Families, and the Beggery of most Persons, is owing to one Vice or other; and that where one is sunk by meer Misfortune, there are twenty ruined by their own Wickedness. Now what Man in his wits would keep such a company of devouring Lusts about him, that are perpetually spunging upon his Estate, and eating the Bread out of his Childrens Mouths? Who would ever expose himself and his Family to the hazard of Want and Beggery, meerly to gratify an unreasonable Passion, or to satiate a wild and intemperate Appetite? But perhaps you think that there is no great Danger of this; for whatever comes of it, you will take care of the main Chance, and be such good Husbands in your Wickedness, as to be sure not to impair your Estates by it. Alas poor Men! you know not what you will be; for when once you are set into a Course of Wickedness, you are like so many eager Gamesters, that when they set to it resolve to lose but a Crown, or a Piece at most; but when they have lost that, they double their Stakes in hope to recover all again, and so game on till they have no more to lose. And first perhaps your Lusts will be very modest, and content themselves with the cheapest Provisions you can make for them; but when once they have inveagled and drawn you in, they will still be craving more costly Entertainments, and will by degrees so encroach upon you, that you know not when or where you shall stop: So that 'tis in vain for you to talk what you will do, for either you must mortify your Lusts, or resolve to gratify them; and if you do the latter, there is no End of it; for like the Daughters of the Horseleech, they will still be crying Give, Give, till you have no more to give, and then they will prey upon your selves.
Fourthly and Lastly, CONSIDER how your Vices do disturb and interrupt even your sensual Pleasures and Delights. For how often do you embroil the Peace of your Families by your own peevish Passions, and disturb the whole Neighbourhood with whom you might enjoy the Pleasures of a friendly Conversation? How many Enemies do you create your selves by your own Malice and Ill Nature, whom you might as easily oblige by Kindness and Good Will, at least to a fair Correspondence, if not to a Return of mutual Indearments? To how many Hazards and Difficulties, Iealousies and Disappointments, Impatiencies of Desire and Fears of discovery does Lasciviousness expose you? When as would you but confine your vagrant Lusts within the holy Circles of Conjugal Chastity, you might entertain your Appetites with Innocence and Ease, with equal Pleasure and less Difficulty, with a pure Conscience, and without the Hazard either of Disappointment or Discovery. How do you perplex and entangle your selves by Lying and Knavery, consuming the Pleasure of your Lives within a winding Maze of little Tricks and intricate Contrivances? And what shameful Retreats and false Colours and Daubings are you fain to use to avoid Contradiction and Discovery? Whereas were you but honest and sincere in your Professions and Actions, your way would be open and easy and uniform; where you might pursue all your Ends by the directest Means, and need never wander about in the Labyrinths of a mysterious Sub tilty; where you may walk without Blushing in the sight of the Sun, and the View of the World, and have no occasion to skulk into Coverts and Retirements. Once more, What miserable Drudges doth Covetousness make of us? It will not let us rest Day nor Night, but sends us about in everlasting Errands; now to be scorched in the Southern, anon to be frozen in the Northern Parts of the World; this day it exposes us to be shipwracked at Sea, the next to be terrify'd on shoar; and all this to get a great Heap of Wealth, which when we have gotten, it will not let us enjoy: So that when we have what we so impatiently hungered after, we have only acquired a greater Necessity; because before we needed only what we had not, but now we need what we have too; our covetous Desires luring us off, and not enduring we should feed upon our own Quarry: And so after all our Toil, we shall need as much at least as we did before; only before we did not possess what we needed, whereas now we shall need what we do possess. But did we take the pains to learn that great Lesson of Christian Contentment, we should then pursue the World with far less Vehemence, and enjoy it with far more freedom: We should be industrious without that eager Solicitude, and if it pleased God to bless our Industry, we should neither waste what we have, nor want it; and many a happy year we should enjoy that which now we consume in vexatious Care to keep, and restless Desire to increase it. How unpleasant is the Life of the intemperate Epicure, who lives in a continual Lethargy, and dozes away his time in Sottishness and Stupidity; and by perpetually sucking in Rheums and Defluxions, doth so weaken and dilute the Vigour of the Organs of Sense, that he perceives not the briskness of his own Relishes; but after his delicious Gobbets are past his Throat, they load and oppress him, and his Stomach is fain to do Penance for the Folly and Extravagance of his Palate; and those deep Draughts wherein he seeks to drown his Conscience and his Melancholy, leave behind them such an Uneasiness both in his Body and Mind, as nothing can reprieve? For as soon as he hath slept away the Fumes of his Intemperance, he finds himself sick as well of Company as of Solitude, and is fain to endure all the four Regrets both of his Conscience and his Stomach. Whereas would but this Man govern his Appetite by the Laws of Temperance; would he eat to satisfy, and not to invite his Hunger, and drink to refresh and not to force and oppress himself; his Relish would be quick and vigorous, his Gust sincere, and his Digestion easy; and his Appetite being not overloaded with the foregoing Meal, would quickly return again and give a pleasing Relish to his next Morsel: When he rose from his Table, his Nature would not be burdened, but refreshed and recreated; his Eyes would not swim in Floods of Rheum, nor his Brains in Seas of Liquor; his Face would not be fired with the unwholesome Inflammations of his Liver, nor his Reason overcast with the Clouds and Vapours of his gorged Stomach; but after his frugal Meals, he would still find his Organs fresh, and vigorous; and when he went to bed, his Sleep would not be broken with so many unquiet Starts, nor sickly Qualms; nor in the Morning would he awake in a Feaver: but all his Life would be serene and calm, and he would enjoy all that is pleasant in Luxury, and be only barred from the apparent Sting of it. Many other Instances I might add, but these I think are sufficient to demonstrate, that Vice is the great Disturber even of those sensual Pleasures and Delights that it promises to us: So that it plainly contradicts its own Pretensions, and though it invites to Pleasure, yet entertains us with nothing but Distraction and Uneasiness. The Cup of Fornication which it holds out to us, tho' 'tis spiced at the top, is Gall and Wormwood at the bottom; and all those Delights that it courts us with, are only so many painted Miseries; which though they may look amiable and inviting at a distance, yet upon a more considerate View will be found to be most wretched Cheats and Impostures. So that methinks were we but ingenious Epicures, that understood the Pleasures of the Body, and the true Methods of enjoying them; we should for their sakes discard those Lusts, that are so contrary and destructive to them; and it would be as impossible for us not to hate our Sins, as not to love our Pleasures.
AND thus you see, how many Mischiefs and Inconveniencies our Lusts bring upon us in respect of our Bodies and outward Circumstances; so that if we had no immortal Spirit to take care of, no Interest beyond the Grave to look after, yet methinks had we but Reason enough to understand, and Self-Love enough to pursue our present Welfare, that were sufficient to oblige us to mortify our Lusts. For so long as they live they will be Plagues to us, and we must never expect a quiet Possession of our own Happiness, till we have utterly destroy'd these mutinous Disturbers of it, that are as so many Thorns in our Eyes, and Goads in our Sides. But alas! 'tis not our bodily Happiness only that they interrupt, and invade; but (which is more intolerable) they poison our Souls with their contagious Breath, and scatter Plagues and Infection over our noblest Faculties.) Which brings me to the Second sort of motives, to persuade you to mortify your Sin, viz. those that are drawn from the present Mischiefs and Inconveniencies that it brings upon our Souls; which are chiefly these three.
First, IT spoils our Understandings.
Secondly, IT subverts the natural Subordination of our Faculties.
Thirdly, IT disturbs the Tranquillity of our Minds.
I. CONSIDER how much your Sins do spoil and waste your Understandings. For Sin is an Affront to our Understandings, and a plain Contradiction to the Reason of our Minds; there being no Vice whatsoever but what is founded in Folly and Unreasonableness. Whilst therefore we live in Sin, we do so far lay aside our Reason, (which ought to be the Moderator of our Actions) and abandon our selves to the Conduct of our own blind Appetites and head-strong Passions; which will naturally weaken our Rational Faculties, and bring a lingering Consumption on our Understandings. For as our Powers are improved and perfected by Exercise, so they are impaired and wasted by Disuse and Inactivity; and therefore our Reason being such a Power as is not naturally to be perfected but by Action, it necessarily follows that the less active it is, the more imperfect it must be. Whilst therefore we live in Sin, or (which is all one) in the Neglect of our Reason, we consume and waste our Rational Faculties; which being unemploy'd will naturally contract Rust, and grow every day more weak and restive. For a Life of Sin is all transacted by Sense and Passion; Reason sits looking on, and having no part in the brutish Scene, melts away in Sloth and Idleness: Its Vital Powers freeze for want of Motion, and like standing Waters stagnate, and gather Mire till they corrupt and putrify. And besides this Decay that Sin brings upon our Understanding, by taking us off from the exercise of it, it is also injurious to those bodily Organs, by which our Understanding while we are in the Flesh, doth reason and operate. For our Body is as it were the Musical Instrument, upon which our Mind sets all its Harmony, and by which it runs all the curious Divisions of Discourse: And the Blood and Spirits and Brain, and other Parts of it are the Strings of this Instrument, upon the well-tuning of which depends all the Musick of Reason. But now there is scarce any Sin, that doth not some way or other indispose our Bodies for the use of our Minds, and render them unfit, especially for the most perfect Exercise of our Reason. Thus Drunkenness dilutes the Brain, which is the Mint of the Understanding, and drowns those Images which are stamp'd upon it in a Deluge of unwholsome Moistures. Thus Gluttony cloggs the Animal Spirits, which are as it were the Wings of the Mind, and renders them incapable of performing the noblest and sublimest Flights of Reason. Thus Anger and Wantonness force up the boiling Blood into the Brain, and by that disorders the Motions of the Spirits there, confounds the Fantasms, and disturbs the Conceptions, and shuffles the Ideas of the Imagination into an heap of inarticulate and disorderly Fancies. And how is it possible our Minds should strike true Harmony, when its Instrument is thus disorder'd, and all the Strings of it are so out of Tune? How should we understand well, while our Brains are overcast with the thick Fumes of sensual Lusts; and those Spirits, which should wing our minds, are grown so listless and unactive, that they rather hamper and entangle them? For what Clearness is to the Eye, that Purity is to the Mind: As Clearness doth dispose the Eye to a quick and distinct Perception of Material Objects; so Purity from Lust and Passion disposes the Mind to a more clear Apprehension of Intellectual ones; and the more any Man's Soul is cleansed from the Filth and Dregs of Sensuality, the brighter it will be in its Conceptions, and the more nimble and expedite in its Operations. For Purity doth naturally fit the Body to the Mind; it puts its Organs all in Tune, and renders its spirits fine and agil, and fit for the noblest Exercises of Reason: which they can never be, whilst they are subject to disorderly Passions, and drenched in the unwholsome Reeks of Sensuality and Voluptuousness. But besides this Mischief which Sin doth to our Understandings, by rendering our Bodies unapt to all Intellectual Purposes; it also dyes the mind with false Colours, and fills it with Prejudice, and undue Apprehensions of Things. For while our Souls are under the sway of any disorderly Passion or Appetite, they will naturally warp our Iudgments into a Compliance with their own Interest; and bribe us to judge of things, not according to what they are, but according to what we would have them: And when our Iudgments are thus bribed by our Interest, and swayed by our Passions, it is impossible we should judge truly of Things. For our Passions will discolour the Objects of our Understandings, and disguise them into such Shapes as are most agreeable to our Humor and Interest; and so our Opinions of Things will alter upon every Variation of our Humours, and our Thoughts, like Weather-cocks, will be wheeling about upon every Change of Wind. So that while we are encompassed with the Mists of sinful Prejudice, they will necessarily hinder the Prospect of our Reason, and obscure the Brightness of our Understandings, and the Clearness of our discerning Faculties. And thus you see, how natural it is to Vice to spoil and wast our Understandings, and to choke up those Fountains of Light within us with Clouds and Darkness. And that it doth so is very apparent in Fact; for how much wicked Men have lost their Reason, is apparent by the ridiculous Principles upon which they generally act; which generally are so very weak and absurd, that it would be impossible for Men to assent to them, were not their Understandings perished, and the Reason of their minds wofully impaired and wasted. As for instance; the desperate Atheist wishes that there were no God, upon this Principle, that it is better for Men to be without a God, than to be without their Lusts; then which there can be nothing more wild or extravagant: For it is plain that without our Lusts we can be happier than with them; whereas it is the common Interest of Mankind, that the World should be governed by infinite Goodness conducted by infinite Power and Wisdom; and no Man, or Society of Men can be happy without it. For take God out of the World, and you take away all Hope from the miserable, all Comfort from the sorrowful, and all Support from the dejected and calamitous; and at one blow cut in sunder all the Bands of Society, rase the Foundations of Virtue, and confound all Distinction between Good and Evil. And yet the besotted Wretch, for the sake of a paltry Lust that betrays him with a Kiss, and stings him in the Enjoyment, would fain banish God out of the World; though it is apparent that in so doing he would do Mankind more Mischief, than if he should blow out all the Lights of Heaven, or pull down the Sun from the Firmament. And in the general, what more ridiculous Principles can there be thought, than such as these; That Sense is to be preferred before Reason, Earth before Heaven, Moments before Eternity; that the short-liv'd pleasures of sin, which expire in the fruition, are sufficient to ballance the loss of an immortal Heaven, and the sense of an eternal Hell; that 'tis time enough to repent when we can sin no more; and that God is so fond a Being, as that rather than ruin those that wilfully spurn at his Authority, and trample upon his Laws, he will accept a few Tears and Promises to live well, when we can live no longer, in exchange for all the Duty we owe him; and that we may sit all the day in the lap of our Lusts, and enjoy them without controul, and then at night when we can enjoy them no longer fly up to Heaven, upon the Wings of a Lord have mercy upon us. And yet a wicked Life is either built upon no Principles at all, or upon such as these; which are ridiculous beyond all the extravagant Conceits of Fools, or Madmen. 'Tis no wonder therefore, that the Scripture so frequently brands the Sinner with the infamous Character of a Fool; for if you measure him by the Principles he acts upon, there is not a greater Fool in Nature: which is a plain Evidence, how much Vice doth besot the Understandings of Men, and like those Barbarous Philistines, puts out their Eyes, only to sport it self with their Follies and Extravagances. So that methinks had we any Reverence for our own Reason, by which we are constituted Men, and distinguish'd from the Beasts that perish; we should never endure those Lusts within our Bosoms, that do so much impair, and wast it.
II. SIN subverts the natural Subordination of our Faculties. For the natural Order and Politie of our Natures consists in the Dominion of our Rational Faculties, over our sensitive Passions and Appetites; so that then only we live according to the Law of our Nature, when we eat and drink, and love and hate, and fear and hope, and desire and delight, according as right Reason, prescribes. For the noblest Principle of Humane Nature is Reason, by which it is that we are constituted Men, and advanced into a Form of Beings above all sublunary Creatures; and this Reason of ours is implanted in us, by the great Author of our Beings, for no other End, but only to steer and direct us; to be an Eye to our blind and brutish Affections, to correct the Errors of our Imaginations, and bound the Extravagances of our Passions and Appetites, and to regulate the whole Course of our Actions; so as that we may demean our selves, as becomes such Beings as we are, and placed in such Relations and Circumstances. God therefore having compounded us of contrary Natures, viz. Rational and Sensual, which are pregnant with contrary Inclinations and Affections; from hence arises the Necessity of all those Heroic Virtues, which consist in the Dominion of our Reason over our Sensitive Affections and Appetites; such as Chastity and Sobriety, Meekness and Equanimity, and the like; all which are proper to us as Beings made up of contrary Principles, from whence spring those contrary Inclinations, in the good or bad Government whereof consists the Nature of Virtue and Vice. Whilst therefore we keep our Brutal Passions and Appetites in Subjection to our Reason, we follow the genuine Current of Humane Nature; in which our best and noblest Principle rules, and all our inferiour Powers are regularly subordinate to it: But when we degenerate into a State of Sin, we thereby discompose the Harmony of our Natures, and put all our well-ranked Faculties into a strange Disorder and Confusion. For every Sin is a Rebellion either of our Passions, or Appetites against our Reason; and we never commit any known Evil, but we wilfully affront our own Understandings, and offer open Violence to those superiour Faculties that should rule and govern us. So that when by a Custom of sinning, our Passions and Appetites have been train'd up for a while in Disobedience to our Reason, they will by degrees grow so headstrong and ungovernable, that it will be a hard matter to restrain them within any Compass of Reason and Sobriety; and unless we take a world of pains to suppress them, they will never leave rioting and tumultuating within us, till they have broke through all their natural Confinements into a licentious, wild, and boundless Anarchy; and having thus got head within us, and beaten our Reason from its native Throne, they will hurry us headlong into all manner of Follies and Extravagances. For now we shall act no longer from Reason, but from Sense; our Nature being turn'd upside-down, and the Cardinal Points of our Motion chang'd into quite contrary Positions; so that our Reason will stand us in no other stead, but only to cater for our Flesh and sensitive Affections, and to make us Brutes with greater Luxury and Relish: And being thus wholly acted by our brutish Sense, and led only by the blind Instincts of the Flesh, our Reason will have no hand in the Government of our Lives; but, like the Beasts of the Field, we shall live at random, and do things, not because they are reasonable in themselves, but because they are pleasing to our unreasonable Affections and Appetites. Such a strange Disorder doth Sin bring upon our Natures; so miserably doth it blend and confound our Faculties, that were it not for our Speech and Shape, it would scarce leave us any remaining Character of Distinction from the Beasts that perish. For it dissolves our Reason into a meer sensual Sagacity, and enslaves that high-born Power to every base Passion and Appetite; and so reduces our well-formed Natures into an undistinguish'd Chaos, where Sense and Reason, Brute and Man are shuffled together in a heap of rude and undigested Ruins. So that methinks had we any Reverence for that excellent Nature that we carry about with us, that Nature by which we are allied to Angels, and do border upon God himself; we should never endure to harbour those inhumane Lusts, that do so disorder and confound it, that make such Spoils and Devastations within us, that do so disturb the Harmony of our Faculties, and disjoint the very Frame of our Beings.
III. SIN disturbs the Tranquillity of our Minds; and this naturally follows from the former: For the Mind of Man can never be at Ease, so long as its Bones are out of joint, and all its Faculties so wofully disorder'd. For thus every thing is at Ease, so long as it is in its own natural State and Condition; but when once its Parts are displaced, or put into a Disorder, or distorted into an unnatural Figure; it is in restless Motion, till it returns again to the specifick State and Posture of its own Nature. And so it is with the Mind of Man; which while it preserves its own natural Station, and Superiority over our Affections and Appetites, is calm and quiet and serene, and enjoys within it self perpetual Ease and Tranquility: But being thrown out of its native Throne, and led into Captivity by its own Vassals, it can find no Rest in this preternatural State; but, like a disjointed Member, is in perpetual Anguish, and Anxiety; and having, like all other Things, an inward strong Propension to its own natural State and Condition, it will be perpetually struggling and contending towards it, till it hath quite wearied and tired out it self with its own vain and ineffectual Efforts; and then it will sit down and bemoan it self, and pine away with Grief and Diffatisfaction. And hence it is that in the Course of a wicked Life we feel such Contentions between the Flesh, and the Spirit, such perpetual Broils between the Law in our Minds, and the Law in our Members; which proceeds from this natural Struggling, and Conatus of the Mind to recover its native Empire over our Affections and Appetites: From which it will never wholly surcease, till it is wholly subdu'd to the Will of the Flesh; and when it is so, it will be perpetually torn and distracted by those various wild and inconsistent Affections, whereunto it will be subjected. For so long as our Passions are subject to our Reason, there can be no Division among them; because nothing can divide our Passions, but only our proposing to our selves different and contrary Ends: But the Ends of Reason are all consistent with, and subordinate to one another, its lesser and inferiour Ends being only the Inns at which it baits upon the Road towards its superiour ones; and whilst we are under the Power and Conduct of one Sovereign End, our Passions must necessarily joyn hand in hand, and walk together like Brethren in Unity. But when once they have shaken off the Yoke of Reason, and submitted themselves to the Dominion of Sense; among that great Variety of Ends and Objects which Sense proposes to them, they must needs be torn and divided one from another. For such is the Scantiness of Sensual Goods, that we not being able to content our selves with any one of them, are fain to walk the Rounds in a constant Succession and Circle of Varieties; and then every one of these various Goods will create within us a various Desire: And so as Sense doth multiply its Temptations, we shall still multiply our Desires and Affections; and at every new Game that springs, we shall still let fly new Passions. But now the Ends of Vice are not only various, but also contrary to, and inconsistent with one another: For all Vices consisting in Extreams, either in Excesses or Defects, their Ends must be contrary too, and so they cannot but disagree; Excess and Defect being in themselves most contrary. And these contrary Vices must needs raise contrary Factions in the Mind, and people it with a Rabble of wild and inconsistent Passions; which will be always bandying one against another, and consequently embroiling the Soul in eternal Mutinies and Tumults. And this is the State of every vicious Man; he is divided into infinite Schisms and Separations; and like a barbarous Countrey, cantoned out into a World of petty Principalities, which are always together by the Ears, and continually invading one anothers Dominions. Now what a miserable Distraction must a Man's Mind be in, when it is thus justl'd to and fro in such a crowd of contrary and impetuous Passions; when Pride shoves it one way, and Covetousness another; when Ambition thrusts it forward, and Cowardise pulls it back again; and so many different Lusts do at the same time hurry it so many different and contrary Ways? How is it possible it should escape Actaeon's Fate, to be worried till it is torn in pieces by its own Hounds? And therefore as we value the Peace of our own Minds, and would not have the inward Harmony discompos'd by the perpetual Iarrings of so many contrary Passions; it concerns us to subdue and mortify our Lusts: For so long as we entertain these seditious Incendiaries, they will be perpetually raising Tumults within us, and our Minds will never be at quiet for them. For the only Way to keep our Minds at Peace, is to unite our Affections; which we can never hope to do, till we have subdu'd them to the Empire of our Reason. But when we come to be under the Command of that one supreme End, which our Reason will propose to us, as the utmost Scope of our Desires; then and not till then will these scattered Rivulets of our Affections unite themselves in one and the same Channel, and flow towards one and the same Ocean: And then our Mind will be at Rest, and all its contrary Passions being laid, which now like the boisterous Waves dash one against another, it will no longer be capable of being ruffl'd into a Storm; but in the midst of all the Changes of this World, will find it self perpetually inspired with the most calm, and gentle Thoughts.