Secondly, Sickness is caught sometimes through superfluity and intemperance. Ex- cess produceth sickness. When our first pa- rents lost the golden bridle of temperance, and did eat of the forbidden tree, they, and all their posterity surfeited on it, and took a sickness. The tree of knowledge had sick- ness and death under the leaves ; it was fair to the eye, Gen. iii. G., but poison to the taste ; we all grew desperately sick by eating of this tree. Adam's intemperance hath brought us to fasting and weeping ; and be- sides that disease at first by propagation, we have added to it by actual perpetration. We have increased our sickness, therefore sin- ners are said to wax worse and worse, 2 Tim. iii. 13.
2. Sin may be resembled to sickness for the nature of it. As, 1. Sickness is of a spreading nature, it spreads all over the body, it works into every part, the head, stomach, it disorders the whole body. So sin doth not rcHt in one part, but spreads into all the fa- culties of the soul, and members of the body, Isa. i. 5, 6. " The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no sound- ness in it, but wounds and bruises, and pu- trefying sores," &c.
1. Sin doth corrupt the understanding, Gregory Nazianzene calls the xmderstanding
the lamp of reason, this lamp burns dim, Eph. iv. 18. " Having their underst^mding darkened ;" sin hath drawn a vail over the understanding, it hath cast a mist before our eyes, that we neither know God nor our- selves ; naturally we are only wise to do evil, Jer. iv. 21. Witty at sin, wise to damn our- selves; the understanding is defiled, 1 Cor ii. 14. We can no more judge of spiritual objects till the Spirit of God anoint our eyes, than a blind man can judge of colours ; oiu: understandings are subject to mistakes ; " we call evil good, and good evil ; we put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter," Isa. v. 20. A straight stick underwater seems crooked; so to a natural understanding the straight line of truth seems crooked.
2. The memory is diseased ; the memory at first was like a golden cabinet in which divine truths were locked up safe ; but now it is like a colander or leaking vessel, which lets all that is good run out. The memory is like a scarcer, which sifts out the flour, but keeps the bran. So the memory lets saving truths go, and holds nothing but froth and vanity. Many a man can remember a story, when he hath forgot his creed. Thus the memory is diseased ; the memory is like a bad stomach that wants the retentive faculty, all the meat comes up again : so the most precious truths will not stay in the memory, but are gone again.
3. The will is diseased; the will is the soul's commander-in-chief, it is the master- wheel; but how irregular and eccentric is it! The will in the creation was like that golden bridle which Minerva was said to put upon Pegjisus to guide and rule him ; it did answer to God's will : this was the language of the will in innocency, " I delight to do thy will, O God," Psal. xL 8. but now it is distemp- ered, it is like an iron sinew that refuseth to yield and bend to God, Isa. xlviii. 4. John V. 40. " Ye will not come to me that ye may have life." Men ^vill rather die than come to their physician. The Arminians talk of free will ; the will is sick, what freedom hath a sick man to walk ; the will is a rebel against God, Acts \'ii. 51 . " Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." The will is diseased.
4. The affections are sick.
First, The affection of desire ; a sick man
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THE SOUL'S MALADY AND CURE.
desires that which is hurtful for him, he calls for wine in a fever. So the natural man be- ing sick, he desires that which is prejudicial for him ; he hath no desire after Christ, he doth not hunger and thirst after righteous- ness ; but he desires poison, he desires to take his fill of sin, he loves death, Prov. viii. 36.
Secondly, The affection of grief; a man grieves for the want of an estate, but not for the want of God's favour : he grieves to see the plague or cancer in his body, but not for the plague of his heart.
Thirdly, The affection of joy; many can rejoice in a wedge of gold, not in the cross of Christ. The affections are sick and dis- tempered.
5. The conscience is diseased, Titus i. 15. " Their mind and conscience is defiled." Conscience is either, 1. Erroneous, binding to that which is sinful, John xvi. 2. Acts xxvi. 9. " I verily thought with myself I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus." Conscience is an ignis fa- tuus, leading out of the right way. Or, 2. Dumb, it will not tell men of sin ; it is a si- lenced preacher. Or, 3. Dead, Ephes. iv. 19. Conscience is stupified and senseless; the custom of sinning hath taken away the sense of sinninof. Thus the sickness of sin hath gone over the whole soul, like that cloud which overspread the face of the heavens, 1 Kings xviii. 45.