8. *But pride is not the only sort of idolatry, which we are all by nature guilty of. _Satan_ has stamped his own image on our heart in _self-will_ also. _I will_, said he, before he was cast out of heaven, _I will sit upon the sides of the north_. I will do my own will and pleasure, independently on that of my Creator. The same does every man born into the world say, and that in a thousand instances. Nay, and avow it too, without ever blushing upon the account, without either fear or shame. Ask the man, “Why did you do this?” He answers, “Because I had a mind to it.” What is this but, “Because it was my will;” that is in effect, because the devil and I are agreed: because _Satan_ and I govern our actions, by one and the same principle. The will of God mean-time is not in his thoughts, is not considered in the least degree: although it be the supreme rule of every intelligent creature, whether in heaven or earth, resulting from the essential, unalterable relation, which all creatures bear to their Creator.
9. *So far we bear the image of the devil, and tread in his steps. But at the next step we leave _Satan_ behind, we run into an idolatry whereof he is not guilty: I mean, _Love of the world_, which is now as natural to every man, as to love his own will. What is more natural to us, than to seek happiness in the creature, instead of the Creator? To seek that satisfaction in the works of his hands, which can be found in God only? What more natural than the desire of the flesh? That is, of the pleasure of sense in every kind? Men indeed talk magnificently of despising these low pleasures, particularly men of learning and education. They affect to sit loose to the gratification of those appetites, wherein they stand with a level with the beasts that perish. But it is mere affectation: for every man is conscious to himself, that in this respect he is by nature a very beast. Sensual appetites, even those of the lowest kind, have, more or less, the dominion over him. They lead him captive, they drag him to and fro, in spite of his boasted reason. The man, with all his good breeding and other accomplishments, has no pre-eminence over the goat: nay, it is much to be doubted, whether the beast has not the pre-eminence over him? Certainly he has, if we may hearken to one of their modern oracles, who very decently tells us.
“Once in a season, beasts too taste of love: Only the beast of reason is its slave, And in that folly drudges all the year.”
A considerable difference indeed, it must be allowed, there is between man and man, arising (beside that wrought by preventing grace) from difference of constitution, and of education. But notwithstanding this, who, that is not utterly ignorant of himself, can here cast the first stone at another? Who can abide the test of our blessed Lord’s comment on the seventh commandment? _He that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart._ So that one knows not which to wonder at most, the ignorance or the insolence of those men, who speak with such disdain of them that are overcome by desires, which every man has felt in his own breast! The desire of every pleasure of sense, innocent or not, being natural to every child of man.
10. *And so is _the desire of the eye_, the desire of the pleasures of the imagination. These arise either from great, or beautiful, or uncommon objects: if the two former do not coincide with the latter; for perhaps it would appear upon a diligent enquiry, that neither _grand_ nor _beautiful_ objects please, any longer than they are _new_: that when the novelty of them is over, the greatest part, at least, of the pleasure they give is over; and in the same proportion as they become familiar, they become flat and insipid. But let us experience this ever so often, the same desire will remain still. The inbred thirst continues fixt in the soul: nay the more it is indulged, the more it increases, and incites us to follow after another, and yet another object; altho’ we leave every one with an abortive hope, and a deluded expectation. Yea
“The hoary fool, who many days Has struggled with continued sorrow, Renews his hope, and fondly lays The desperate bet upon to-morrow!
“To-morrow comes! ’Tis noon! ’Tis night! This day like all the former flies: Yet on he goes, to seek delight To-morrow, till to-night he dies!”