5. Consider what lust is ; it is the disease of the soul. Natural desire is like the caIo7' vitalis — the vital heat ; but lust is like a feverish heat, that oppresseth nature. We should get rid of it as we would of a disease; the satisfaction of it is sweet to carnal nature, so is drink to a man in a fever. Who would desire a fever to relish his drink ? Better be without the disease than enjoy the pleasure of the satis- faction ; better mortify lust than satisfy it ; in the issue it will be sweeter. I am sure the pains of mortification will not be so bitter as the horrors of everlasting darkness. Lust let alone beginneth our hell ; it is a burning heat that at length breaketli out into everlasting flames. Again, lust is the disorder of nature : as it is monstrous in the body if the head be there where the feet should be, and the feet there where the head should be ; such a deordination is there in the soul when the afiections carry it ; and when reason should be in dominion, we suffer lust to take the throne. Man rightly constituted, his actions are governed in this manner: the understanding and conscience pre- scribe to the will ; the will, according to right reason and conscience, movetli the affections ; the affections, according to the command and counsel of the will, move the bodily spirits and members of the body ; but by corruption there is a manifest inversion and change ; pleasures affect the senses, the senses corrupt the fantasy, the fantasy moveth the bodily spirits, they the affections, and by their violence and in- clination the will is enslaved, and the mind blinded, and so man is carried headlong to his own destruction. Now, shall we cherish these lusts and brutish appetites ? The Lord forbid !
6. It is lusts that hinder the peace of the world, our ov>'n peace. How quietly and happily would men live if they were more mortified! Men desire more than they have, and so are made poor, not by want 80 much as desire. He that expects little is soon satisfied. It is our own passions that raise a storm in the soul. A man that is vile and
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little in his own eyes, when others contemn and slight him, they do but ratify his private opinion of himself; and who can be an^^ry with others because they are of the same judgment wiih ourselves? Take away the lust and the trouble ceaseth. What need Haman be troubled that Mordecai did not bow the knee, but that he looked for it ? Nay, lusts trouble our peace of conscience. Lusts let alone end in gross sins, and gross sins in desperation. Love of pleasures, if uncon- trolled, will end in drunkenness, or adultery ; and envy, in murder and violence. Sins unchecked grow licentious and unruly. Judas allowed his covetousness, and it brought him to betray his Master, and that brought him to the halter. Gehazi was first blasted with covetous- ness, and then with leprosy, and so became a burden to himself ; Ananias and Sapphira, taken off by a sudden judgment. The devil loveth by lust to bring us to sin, and by sin to shame, and by shame to horror and despair ; so that, if we walk after our lusts, it proveth a sad walk in the issue. Again, it disturheth our peace with others. These libertines were yokeless, and could not endure restraints, because wedded to their own lusts. It is not opinions divide the world so much as lusts and interests.
7. The more you walk after your lusts, the more you may. They are not quenched when they are satisfied, but increased rather, as the fire is, by laying on new fuel ; the distemper groweth every day, till you are quite enslaved : ' Given to much wine,' Titus i. 7, ii. 3 ; it is SeSouAcoyuei'ac, ' enslaved to wine,' in the Greek. In this sense we are said to be ' brought under the power ' of the creature, 1 Cor. vi. 12 ; so that whatever shame or loss ensueth, you cannot leave your lusts : Jer. xviii. 12, ' There is no hope,' &c. ; they see it is bad, and cannot see how it should be otherwise.
8. What can we get by sin but a little pleasure ? Titus iii. 3, ' Ser- ving divers lusts and pleasures.' This is the great sorceress that enchants the whole world, the root of all sin ; they 'loved pleasures more than God,' 2 Tim. iii. 4. It is not imaginable that an intelligent creature should rest in his own actions ; we aim at somewhat in walking after our own lusts ; if we balk that which is honest, it must be profit or pleasure. Now, that a man should enslave himself for ever, and that for a little pleasure, which is base in itself, and lost as soon as enjoyed, is monstrous and absurd. Breve est quod delecfat, ceternum quod crucial — the pleasure is but short, vanishing, but the pain is for ever. And will you for a thing of nought break with God, and forfeit your immortal souls ? Oh ! let it not be.