Great persons have a great privilege. What is that ? They shall be greatly tormented. That is all the privilege that I know if they be naught.* Those that shake off all bonds, any earthly privilege and pre- * That is, ' naughty,' = wicked. — G.
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rogative is so far from exempting them from misery, that it makes them more miserable ; for unless they have grace to use those things that might be an advantage to bettor things, they sink deeper and deeper into sin, and so into terrors of conscience first or last ; and, by consequence, to damnation. Oh it is a fearful condition to be the greatest monarch in the Avorld and not to be in Christ, and under the law of ' the Spirit of life in Christ' ! They are the objects of pity above all kind of men to truly judicious souls, that know out of God's truth, and by the light of the Spirit, what is to be judged of the state of men. You see then -what kind of misery it is that natural men are under, being under the law of sin.
6. To declare it a little further, for men will hardly think it is such a bondage to be under sin. Therefore, I beseech you, do but consider hoiv sin tyranniscth uhere it r/ets strength. See it in some instances. The covetous -worldly man that is under the law of that lust, he hath the law of other lusts, but that is predominant — see how it tyranniseth. It takes away his rest ; the use of God's blessings ; the good things he hath given him to enjoy. It makes him in thrall to the creature. We see it in carnal pleasure. Amnon, when he lusted after his sister Tamar, it took away his rest, 2 Sam. xiii. 2, scq. And how doth this base affection tyrannise in some men ? It makes them forget their bodies so, that they overthrow their health and hasten death temporal. It hurts the natural man. It makes them forget their credit ; it makes them forget their souls ; it makes them stink, by living in that carnal noisome sin. The judicious heathen were sensible of it, by the strength of natural judgment ; yet sin where it is in any strength uncurbed, it so tyranniseth, that it makes men forget both health and life and credit and estate in this world, that they come to nothing. What should I speak of forgetting life eternal and damnation ? They have no faith to believe that. But such is the tyranny of sin, that it makes them forget things sensible ; that by experience, after they see how dearly they have bought their base pleasures, with the loss of credit, and health, and comfort ; with the loss of the estate that God hath trusted them withal in this Avorld.
Take a man that is under the base law of ambition, a proud person. See how it tyranniseth over him. It makes him forget blood and kindred, all the bonds of nature. He will kill his brethren to make his way ; as you know in our own stories, such tyrants. If there were not stories enow in this kind, daily experience shews it. Where the law of ambition and pride reigns, it makes the heart wherein this tyrant sets up his throne, to forget all bonds whatsoever, of nature and justice. You know whose speech it was, ' If the law must be violated, it must be for a kingdom' [b). But men will do it for far less. We see what men will do for a base place to command others in this world, when they are conscious of their own ill courses, and commanding corruptions ; and all to give way to the base affection of ambition. A touch is enough of these things, for experience witnesseth and goes along with me. All men that are not in Christ, they have some predominant sin ; either some base sin, or some more refined sin and lust, that keeps them from Christ and salvation ; and this tyran- niseth over them.
And this is the nature of this tyrant sin. It hath such possession of a man till he be got out of it and be in Christ, that it takes away the sight of itself. It hinders the knowledge of itself ; it puts out a man's ej-es. For that whereby a man should judge of corruption, it is corrupt itself. ' The wisdom of a man is death, it is enmity to God,' Eom. viii. 7. The wit that
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he hath that should discern of his base courses, it tangles him more and more to his own lusts ; so that wit and wisdom, the highest part of the soul, it is imprisoned by base affections ; and that power that should discern cor- ruption, it is set on work to satisfy corruption. What is the wit of a man that is not in Christ occupied about all his lifetime ? It is nothing but a drudge and a slave, to devise means to satisfy his base lusts. Take a worldly man : he is exceeding witty to contrive worldly plots and business, though he be a dunce and a sot in matters that are spiritual. In his own tract and course, he hath a shrewd wit. AVhy ? Because his lusts to the world, they whet his wit. So we see the best thing in man now is en- thralled to sin, his very wisdom itself; therefore it is enmity to God.