[2.] This addictedness to present delights and pleasures makes us impatient of the restraints of religion. Our natural desires carry us to those things which religion forbids. We cannot endure to be bridled, and kept from forbidden fruit, but we have all an appetite after it : Ps. ii. 3, ' Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us ; ' and Jer. v. 5, ' They have altogether broken the yoke and burst the bonds ;' andKom. viii. 7, ' The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.' Niti- mur in vetitum, the prohibition doth but irritate corruption, as a stream if checked grows more furious. A man wholly given up to present satisfactions cannot endure the yokes and fetters religion would lay upon him ; he would be a free creature, and live as he list. Indeed it is to be a captive creature, but this he accounts his liberty and freedom,
[3.] It maketh those duties seem u-ksome and unnecessary which are necessary as the way to salvation. Look into the book of God, and you will find we are called upon to strive to enter into heaven, and required ' to work out our salvation with fear and trembling,' Phil. ii. 12, with all holy solicitude, with all lively diligence, to be still employed in this work ; ' To strive to enter in at the strait gate,' Luke xiii. 24 ; ' To walk worthy of God, who hath called us to his kingdom and glory,' 1 Thes. ii. 12. Now they that are addicted to ease, pleasure, and sen- sual delights cannot endure to be held to this work ; they do either openly refuse this work, or delay it, which is the more modest denial,
68 SERMONS UPON MARK X. 17-27. [SeR XIIL
or else are cold in it. Some profane persons cast off all 'care of duty, as if religion were but a point of policy, heaven but a dream, and hell but a false fire, the gospel but a fable to busy men's heads with, and so resolve to please the flesh, and never trouble themselves about uncertain futurities. Many thus live in delSance of God and Christianity, or else they delay to a more convenient season, they have no mind to the work : Acts xxiv. 25, ' Go thy way for this time ; when I have a more con- venient season, I will send for thee.' Lust must have present satisfac- tion, but Christ comes always out of season. When Christ makes an offer of heaven to their souls, hereafter they will be glad to hear of him, but now he comes before the time. As he said in Seneca, A quinqua- gessima in otiuni discedam — When I am fifty years old, then I will retire and study philosophy ; so when their youthful vanities are spent, then they will look after these things. When the heart cannot keep out light and conviction of our duty, it seeks to keep off care, and so by making fair promises for the future we elude the importunity of present conviction. Or else a heart addicted to present satisfaction is very cold in religion, for the heart that is diverted by other pursuits cannot make religion its work, but only minds it by the by. The world, that is their business, but religion, that is put in the place of a recreation, and ' they mind earthly things,' Phil. iii. 19. Their heads and hearts are full of the world, so that they have no room for God. Their time, thoughts, discourses are wholly swallowed up of present things and complying with their present lusts.
[4.] This addictedness to present satisfactions will make us shrink at the trials God exerciseth us with before we go to heaven : Acts xiv. 22, ' Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God.' All good things are hard to come by, and God will show that heaven is worth something. When men have cheap thoughts of it, God will enhance the price of heaven. There must be striving and suffering before we get thither. The howling wilderness was the ready way to Canaan. The captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering. We should else neither esteem the cross of Christ nor long for heaven ; but present ease, present safety, present wealth doth wonderfully enchant us, to have good da}^ here, and a quiet life without any trouble. If we could compound with God for this world and heaven too, then we should like it ; but now, while we are so wholly inclined and addicted to present things, it must needs be a difficult thing to hear of trials and crosses that we must endure.
III. This difficulty must be sufficiently understood and seriously thought of by us. And here —
1. Negatively. We should so reflect upon the difficulty — (1.) Not to murmur against God because heaven is not to be had upon cheaper terms, and his ways lie so cross to our desires. Take heed of this ; as if he were envious, and had not a good respect for the happiness of his creature. . It is but reasonable that we should labour for heaven, as we do for all other things that are good and excellent ; that which costs nothing is worth nothing. Besides, there are so many corruptions to be mortified, duties to be performed, and trials to be endured, that the faith of the elect ' may be found to the more praise and honour,' 1 Peter i. 7, and therefore all the pains, and shame, and loss, and trouble, is but