mach; but after his frugal meals, he would still find his organs fresh and vigorous; and when he went to bed, his sleep would not be broken with so many unquiet starts nor sickly qualms; nor in the morning would he awake in a fever; but all his life would be serene and calm, and he would enjoy all that is pleasant in luxury, and be only barred from the apparent sting of it. Many other instances I might add, but these, I think, are sufficient to demonstrate, that vice is the great disturber even of those sensual pleasures and delights that it promises to us: so that it plainly contradicts its own pretensions, and though it invites to pleasure, yet entertains us with nothing but distraction and uneasiness. The cup of fornication which it holds out to us, though it is spiced at the top, is gall and wormwood at the bottom; and all those delights that it courts us with are only so many painted miseries; which, though they may look amiable and inviting at a distance, yet upon a more considerate view will be found to be most wretched cheats and impostures. So that methinks were we but ingenious epicures, that understood the pleasures of the body, and the true methods of enjoying them, we should for their sakes discard those lusts that are so contrary and destructive to them; and it would be as impossible for us not to hate our sins, as not to love our pleasures.

And thus you see how many mischiefs and inconveniencies our lusts bring upon us, in respect of our bodies and outward circumstances; so that if we had no immortal spirit to take care of, no interest beyond the grave to look after, yet methinks had we but reason enough to understand, and self-love enough to pursue our present welfare, that were sufficient to

oblige us to mortify our lusts. For so long as they live they will be plagues to us, and we must never expect a quiet possession of our own happiness, till we have utterly destroyed these mutinous disturbers of it, that are as so many thorns in our eyes and goads in our sides. But, alas! it is not our bodily happiness only that they interrupt and invade; but (which is more intolerable) they poison our souls with their contagious breath, and scatter plagues and infection over our noblest faculties. Which brings me to the second sort of motives to persuade you to mortify your sin, viz. those that are drawn from the present mischiefs and inconveniencies that it brings upon our souls; which are chiefly these three : First, It spoils our understandings.

Secondly, It subverts the natural subordination of our faculties.

Thirdly, It disturbs the tranquillity of our minds. 1. Consider how much your sins do spoil and waste your understandings. For sin is an affront to our understandings, and a plain contradiction to the reason of our minds; there being no vice whatsoever but what is founded in folly and unreasonableness. Whilst therefore we live in sin, we do so far lay aside our reason, (which ought to be the moderator of our actions,) and abandon ourselves to the conduct of our own blind appetites and headstrong passions; which will naturally weaken our rational faculties, and bring a lingering consumption on our understandings. For as our powers are improved and perfected by exercise, so they are impaired and wasted by disuse and inactivity; and therefore our reason being such a power as is not naturally to be perfected but by action, it necessarily follows, that the less

active it is, the more imperfect it must be. Whilst therefore we live in sin, or (which is all one) in the neglect of our reason, we consume and waste our rational faculties; which being unemployed will naturally contract rust, and grow every day more weak and restive. For a life of sin is all transacted by sense and passion; reason sits looking on, and having no part in the brutish scene melts away in sloth and idleness: its vital powers freeze for want of motion, and, like standing waters, stagnate and gather mire, till they corrupt and putrefy. And besides this decay that sin brings upon our understanding, by taking us off from the exercise of it, it is also injurious to those bodily organs, by which our understanding, while we are in the flesh, doth reason and operate. For our body is as it were the musical instrument, upon which our mind sets all its harmony, and by which it runs all the curious divisions of discourse: and the blood and spirits and brain, and other parts of it, are the strings of this instrument, upon the well tuning of which depends all the music of reason. But now there is scarce any sin, that doth not some way or other indispose our bodies for the use of our minds, and render them unfit, especially for the most perfect exercise of our reason. Thus drunkenness dilutes the brain, which is the mint of the understanding, and drowns those images which are stamped upon it in a deluge of unwholesome moistures. Thus gluttony clogs the animal spirits, which are, as it were, the wings of the mind, and renders them incapable of performing the noblest and sublimest flights of reason. Thus anger and wantonness force up the boiling blood into the brain, and by that disorders the motions of the spirits there,

confounds the phantasms, and disturbs the conceptions, and shuffles the ideas of the imagination into an heap of inarticulate and disorderly fancies. And how is it possible our minds should strike true harmony, when its instrument is thus disordered, and all the strings of it are so out of tune? how should we understand well, while our brains are overcast with the thick fumes of sensual lusts; and those spirits, which should wing our minds, are grown so listless and unactive, that they rather hamper and entangle them? For what clearness is to the eye, that purity is to the mind: as clearness doth dispose the eye to a quick and distinct perception of mate, rial objects, so purity from lust and passion disposes the mind to a more clear apprehension of intellectual ones; and the more any man's soul is cleansed from the filth and dregs of sensuality, the brighter it will be in its conceptions, and the more nimble and expedite in its operations. For purity doth naturally fit the body to the mind; it puts its organs all in tune, and renders its spirits fine and agile, and fit for the noblest exercises of reason: which they can never be whilst they are subject to disorderly passions, and drenched in the unwholesome reeks of sensuality and voluptuousness. But besides this mischief which sin doth to our understandings, by rendering our bodies unapt to all intellectual purposes; it also dyes the mind with false colours, and fills it with prejudice and undue apprehensions of things. For while our souls are under the sway of any orderly passion or appetite, they will naturally warp our judgments into a compliance with their own interest; and bribe us to judge of things, not, according to what they are, but according to what we

dis

would have them: and when our judgments are thus bribed by our interest, and swayed by our passions, it is impossible we should judge truly of things. For our passions will discolour the objects of our understandings, and disguise them into such shapes as are most agreeable to our humour and interest; and so our opinions of things will alter upon every variation of our humours, and our thoughts, like weathercocks, will be wheeling about upon every change of wind. So that while we are encompassed with the mists of sinful prejudice, they will necessarily hinder the prospect of our reason, and obscure the brightness of our understandings, and the clearness of our discerning faculties. And thus you see how natural it is to vice to spoil and waste our understandings, and to choke up those fountains of light within us with clouds and darkness. And that it doth so is very apparent in fact; for how much wicked men have lost their reason, is apparent by the ridiculous principles upon which they generally act; which generally are so very weak and absurd, that it would be impossible for men to assent to them, were not their understandings perished, and the reason of their minds wofully impaired and wasted. As for instance; the desperate atheist wishes that there were no God, upon this principle, that it is better for men to be without a God, than to be without their lusts; than which there can be nothing more wild or extravagant: for it is plain that without our lusts we can be happier than with them; whereas it is the common interest of mankind, that the world should be governed by infinite goodness conducted by infinite power and wisdom; and no man or society of men can be happy without it. For take God out