dwell on your Understandings, more than the displeasure and contempt of Men; let but the Concerns of your Souls have more of your Contemplations than the fatisfaction of the flesh, and you'll fee other effects.

But where Men suffer the fenfual fatisfaction, they have either felt or heard of, to play upon their fancy, and sport it self with their imagination; where they dandle the foft conceit,and call the fmiling pleasure to mind oftner than the real and folid pleasures of Holiness; there the former cannot but get the better, and play the Sovereign, and rule the Soul, as will appear (to mention no more) from these two inftances: Such a Man is troubled with lafcivious Thoughts, and lufiful Defires; when the finful Thought fhoots first into the Mind, if he do presently call in Confiderations of God's prohibition, and anger, and of everlafting burnings, and fet before his Eyes the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the brevity and tranfitorinefs of these flefhly fatisfactions, the tears, the anguish, the grief they must cost him, if ever God should accept of him; the uncertainty of his Life, the hazard he runs of being cut off before he may have a Heart to repent; the multitude and variety of Sins his Lufts will engage him in; the Diseases and Infirmities he may procure; the unquietnefs of Confcience he fhall pull down upon himfelf, &c. and refolve to enlarge upon thefe difcouragements, and do it as often as he finds his Flesh grow unruly and troublefom, he'll certainly get the victory, and captivate his Luits to the obedience of Chrift Jefus.

But

But when thefe Confiderations are called in only for Formality's fake; and the Sinner, to make God fome recompence for the folly he delights in, and ftop the mouth of the crying Child, his Confcience, not out of any love to the Duty, but forced and dragged, as Men go to the Gallows, is content to think a little of his extravagance, and that which gratifies his fickly Paffions is fuffered to be the chief guest of his Understanding; when instead of Arguments against these Lufts, he lays out for Topicks, and Confiderations, which may diminish and take off from the greatnefs of the Sin; as that God will not be angry for one Sin, and that fure God remembers how frail and weak his Nature is, and that he doth not intend to allow himself long in it, and that he would avoid it, but cannot; and that the ftrength of his Paffion will excufe the heinoufness of his Crime, and that moft Men have had their frolicks in their younger days, &c. where he fuffers the Circumftances of his laft Nights Revelling to roul in his Mind, how foft fuch embraces were, how kind the person was that loved him, how sweet her addresses were, how melting her Smiles and Favours, how pleafing what the faid and did, how merry the meeting was, how eafie he was under thofe fenfual raptures, how glad other perfons would be to have fuch an opportunity as he had; how he was heightned by fuch a Cup, how elevated with that curious Drink, how that Liquor with the frange name difpofed him for the careffes of fuch a Beauty, how fuch a one applauded him

for

for his Wit; how taking that Jeft was, how delighted the Company was with his Rallery, &c. Where, I fay, the Mind dwells upon fuch light and frothy Conceptions; and whatever would dash them, is only fhewn, as it were, to the mind, but is not fuffered to enter in to take poffeffion; beats only against the Fancy, is not permitted to mingle with it, or if it enter, is quickly thrust out again; and if it be allowed a feat there, is foon difmiffed, and turned away again; there certainly the Man must continue a flave to his Corruptions and paffionate Defires; and the Confiderations, which were to produce feriousness and obedience in him, cannot but be ineffectual, because they do not lie on long enough; as falted Meat will not lofe much of its faltish tafte, if but dipt in water, nor Cloth imbibe a tincture that is but only fprinkled upon't.

Another receives a fignal Injury, the affront he fuffers is great and notorious; on a fudden his Paffions are up; his Understanding is fruitful, fuggefts a thoufand methods to him, how he might right himself. The Devil fecretly helps to enlarge the heinoufnefs of the Fact, enriches the Invention, makes it quick, apprehenfive, fills him with the unhappy Images of ag gravating circumftances, reprefents to his Mind the sweetness of Revenge, the difmal aspect of the Indignity, the unfufferableness of the Difgrace, the ways and means how to compass his vindictive defign, the fhame that's thrown upon his Honour, the bafeness of the Injury, the fordidness of the Action, the Ingratitude that's

fhewn

fhewn in it; the Incivility the Offender hath difcovered; the Verdicts of his acquaintance in case he doth not reward the Offender according to his work; the blot that will be upon his Family for ever; the various Advantages he formerly had against the wretch, which yet he fcorned to take, &c. And while his mind is filled with these imaginations, it's poffible Reflections on the folly of his Anger, and the Charity he owes to all Mankind, the example of Chrift and his Apoftles, praying for their Perfecutors; the generofity of pardoning an Offence, and forbearing of Revenge, when it lies in our power to be even with the Offender; fuch Thoughts as these, I fay, may ftrike his Mind; but if he fuffer the Motives to Revenge to lodge more quietly in his Mind than the Motives to Patience and Forgiveness, it's foon guefs'd which of these will be Conquerors. Let but his Mind ruminate and enlarge more upon the great Duty of forbearing Revenge, than upon the pleasure of taking Revenge; let him refolve to lay afide the thoughts of the latter, and only take a view of the former; and when any motions to reflect on the Injury, and to take it ill, come in, be peremptory that he will think of nothing but the beauty of Meeknefs and Patience; and the Thoughts which inflamed his Spirits, and made the Blood boil in his veins, will cool by degrees, and the motions of the flesh will give ground to those of the Spirit.

The fame may be faid of all other Sins, which he that names the Names of Chrift is obliged to depart from; he that would be rid of them, muft

not

very

not let the tranfitory fatisfaction thofe Sins afford, hover in his mind, more than the great worth of an immortal Soul; where the latter is made the most frequent Object of our Thoughts, Love to the other will dwindle away, and at last expire. For our love changes, and moves from one thing to another as the charms of the new object are more frequently reprefented to our Minds, and the attractives of the one are more thought on than the other. It is fo in the ways of Sin. The luftful Sot leaves the Beauty he doted on juft now, and is tranfported with another. What's the Reason? The new Object rolls in his Mind and Fancy more than the other, and confequently captivates his affections more; so that were the lovelinefs, that is in Goodness, fet before the eye of Reafon, more than the gaudes of Sin; Goodnefs, by the Grace of God, would at last preponderate, and carry away the Victory.

To make this appear, we need no other proof but common experience; and tho' after a Man hath ruminated on the odiousness of a darling bofom Sin, he may fall into it again; yet the Arguments which make against it, and prompt him to part with it, being called in again and again, and laid on afresh; and as they wear out, or decay, renewed and ftrengthened with greater inforcives,it will be found, That he who finned with courage and confidence before, begins now to fin with trembling, and reluctancy of Mind, and at laft is moved to bid an Eternal farewel to it. The frequent thinking on these Reafons, the renewed and reiterated Contemplations