As all Appetite you know is blind , so the Guides also of Carnall appetite ; The senses are very short sighted , they cannot look forward to the next Life , to the hopes of Heaven , or the pains of Hell , to bring them into the ballance with the present pleasure , and see which does over weigh : The Flesh onely lives extempore , looks but upon that which is before it , scarce on that : We have sufficient experience of this , for when one vice will not look forwards a year or two to the penury and rottenness some courses do pull down : And when another vice , as if it had learnt to fulfill our Saviours command , and take no care for the morrow , will not think of the next mornings pains and Headach ; Nay , when the ambitious Usurper will not look just before him , to see where he does place his steps , on Precipices and Sword points , to note how the Pyramids he does climb are made slippery with blood ; Pyramids , did I say ? pointed Reeds rather , things that have not strength to bear , but onely sharpnesse to stab ; and where the mans own weight makes his Upholders fail and wound him both together , at once sink under him and pierce him thorough . Nay , we see many whose sins inflict themselves , who may be truely said to bear their Iniquities , yet choose those sins that bring their Plagues along with them ; for we see men with most excessive difficulty practise a vice onely that they may have the vice , swallow sickness , drink Convulsions and dead Paralyses , foaming Epilepfies , onely that all this may be easie to them : And this is but one instance of the many that might be made ; just as the King of Pontus , that ate Poyson that so he might be used to it : Strange ! that a man should torture himself with all those deadly symptomes that Poyson racks the body with , onely that he might eat Poyson ; yet just such is the Sinners Design , and all the ease and pleasure he acquires at last in sinning , is but familiarity of Poyson , custome of Danger , and acquaintance of Ruine . Good God! that men should train and exercise themselves so for perdition ! that they should go through a discipline of torments to get an Habit of destroying themselves ! that they should work out their own condemnation with hardships and agonies ! that as if 't were too easie to goe down the hill to Hell , the descent shall be made craggy , and they force breaches into it , and great headlong Precipices to make the way more painful , and more dangerous , to make the fall more wounding and more irrecoverable ! And what shall give a check where difficulty does provoke , and torments do ingratiate ?

Well : But though Flesh be so short sighted and inconsiderate , the mind might trash it by suggesting other sorts of punishments that do await transgression . Why truely if rude unmannerly Conscience do sometimes thrust in the thoughts of Hell , the Flesh , which I told you , is not terrified with any thing but what it feels ( now Conscience presents Hell as a thing of hereafter , not till Death be past ) it satisfies Conscience with a Repentance of Hereafter , before Death come I will be sorry for my sins , and God is merciful . Conscience being thus quieted , and both Raines and Spur given to the Flesh , it takes its full carier , and leaves behind all thoughts of Repentance , and indeed , of God , or Heaven ; the hope and joyes of which , are the onely possible method that is left to take off the Man from his eager pursuit , or to divert him in his course . But as to that also , that I may shew you the next heat .

The Mind that is immerst in body , and hath been long accustomed to tast no pleasure but the carnal ones , its fancy fill'd with those Ideas , it does imbibe such a tincture of sensuality , receives such an infusion of Flesh , and is so impregnated with the fumes of Carnality , which clog the Spirit , that its complexion and temper is quite altered , it is diluted and deprest , and so grown stupid and unactive to all higher things : Heaven and all after things , it may be , are the prejudice of such persons , not their perswasions ; some thin conceptions of such things have been thrown into them , but never were improved ; for their Mind hath otherwise been employed , and they can have no appetite to them , because they have never had any tast or relish of any thing but sensual : And indeed that both longings after , and thoughts of a better Life should be altogether dead in the carnal man , is but a natural and necessary effect of the verge of his Delights . For what motive is there in Heaven to stir up his appetite , to whom Heaven it self would not be a place of Joy ? For I am verily perswaded , were the Carnal man in those Eternal Mansions compast with streams of Glory , it were impossible for him to take delight in them , and he would grope for Paradise in the midst of Heaven : As much impossible as for the most unlearned Ideot to satisfie himself with the pleasures of a Mathematical demonstration : Let him have the Hecatombe , and let Pythagor as be an Epicure on the dimensions of a Triangle , the other hath no palate for these pleasures ; and indeed how could the unclean lascivious person please himself in the enjoyment of those Felicities that have no Sex , a a Mat. 22. 30. Where they neither Marry , nor are given in Marriage ? Or how the Riotous , that Eats to eat , eats to hunger and provoke , not satisfie ; how will he content himself there where their happiness is , they shall neither hunger nor thirst , or the Incendiaries that love to set all on b b Rev. 7. 16. fire , what should they do there where there are no flames but such as kindle Seraphins ; so that flesh and blood , not only shall not , but cannot enjoy the Kingdome of God : And why then should they long after , or think of it ? Nay , I would this unhappy Age , and an unlucky axiome of Aristotles did not convince that they do think there are no such things ; Sensual pleasures , are corruptive of Principles , saith he ; and indeed where Damnation is the conclusion , 't is a much quieter and more easie thing for Men of Wit and Understanding to deny the Principles , than granting them , to lye under the torture of being lyable to such an inference ; they therefore that resolve to love this Life and all the sinful pleasures of it , at the next step resolve there is no other Life . And now this pamper'd and puft Flesh is got into the Psalmists Chair , the Chair of Scorners ; and 't is one of the c c Psal. 1. 1. Luxuries of their life to scoff at them who are so foolish as to be Religious , and to deny their flesh its present appetites and pleasures on such thin after-hopes ; here their Wit also is an Epicure , and Feasts and Triumphs , distates , and professes in that chair ; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , in the Chair of Pestilences , as the LXX translate , and very truly , for such men shed a Sphere of Contagion about them , and their Discourses are effluvia of the Plague , and the breath of Pestilence : But how to get Flesh down out of this Chair , that 's the difficulty ; yet that my Text will tell us , for all this progress of the Flesh is trasht and checkt by Sufferings , for , He that hath suffered hath ceast from Sin . Which how , I will briefly shew you .

The Fleshes first art was by immersing it self in the full Lawfull use of Pleasures , and by consequence , in the immoderate ; to prevail with the Soul to find a gust in them , and from a continued enjoyment to conclude them necessary ; and so from the importunities of a perpetual tem●…d an accustomed satisfaction to think of nothing 〈◊〉 this life . Now it is plain Affliction made this Art unpracticable , for that it did do so , was every ones complaint ; it rob'd them of the immoderate , and even of the lawful use of Pleasures , it took off those customary Delights by which the mind was habituated and glued to them , by not allowing them ; and made them so far from being necessary , that they were not acquirable ; Thus by denying us even the Lawful use of them , it stabs the Flesh in its first onset : Indeed it does that for us which every man in every state of life in his most plentiful prosperity must sometimes do for himself ; that is , Deny himself what he desires , and might enjoy without offence : Which he that does not do , but constantly gives his Appetite every sort and degree of lawful thing it asks , does teach it to crave on , and be importunate , and insolent , and not endure to be resisted , when it did alwayes find him to be so obsequious to it . If David never checkt Adonijah , did not at any time displease him , saying , Why hast thou done so ? he easily takes confidence to say I will be King , and step into the Throne . 1 Kings 1. 5. 6. But he that mortifies sometimes , that does acquaint even his most innocent desires with a denyal , how can unlawful ones assault him ? For can my Appetite hope to betray me into superfluities , who have taught my self not to wish for necessaries ? Will he be tempted with Excesses , or hearken to the invitations of Luxury , that will not hear his bowells when they croak for bread ? Or he gape for intemperate satisfactions , who will not let thirst call , but shuts his mouth against it ? Why should he covet more that hath learnt to give away , and want that which he hath ? Now Sufferings inflict this temper on us , and acquaints us with the necessity of all this , and in a while with the liking of it , teach us Content without Lawful Delights ; yea , by degrees make that content appear better than an assured enjoyment ; for were I offered the choice either of an uninterrupted Health , or of a certain Cure in all Diseases , sure I had rather never need a Potion than drink Antidote and Health it self . And even so the lawful good things of this life are at the best but Remedies and Reliefs , never good but upon supposition : Therefore while Affliction taught us to want , it hath destroyed this art of the Flesh.

As for the Second , Then the lulling asleep all sense or thoughts of any Life hereafter , neither minding the fear of one , or hopes of the other ; Affliction surely met with this too : For Sufferings bring both the hereafters to remembrance , the Sad one while every Punishment was an Essay and tast of that which is prepared for those that live after the Flesh , and the more insupportable our Firey Tryal was , the more it caution'd us to beware of that Fire which is never quenched . And for the other Life , surely when our Condition was such , that if we lookt unto the Earth , behold nothing but Darkness and dimness of Anguish , and darknesse as of the shadow of Death , we could not choose but turn away our Eyes and lift them up to Heaven . When the Soul is thrown down by Oppression , it mounts by a resiliency , and with the force of pressure is crush'd Upwards ; or if the Load be heavy , so as to make it grovel and lie prostrate , it is but prest into the posture of Devotion : When she 's disseised of all , turn'd out of every possession , then she begins to think of an abiding City , and eternal Mansions . For the Soul that is restless , when it sees nothing here below to stay upon , but all is hurried from her , roams about for some hold to rest on , and being able in that case to find nothing but God , there she does grasp and cling ; and when the storms splits all enjoyments , and devours Friends which make enjoyments comfortable , all perish in one wrack , then she sees she must catch at him that sits above the Water-Floods . I told you out of Job , Affliction did discover better than Revelation , and in the dimnesse of Anguish we might see more than by Vision ; and truely of two Visions which our Saviour gave to his most intimate Apostles Peter , James , and John , the one of Glory on Mount Tabor , the other of Sufferings in Gethsemane ; shewing in the one Heaven and Himself transfigured , a glimpse of beatificall vision ; and in the other Hell transfigured , and a sad Scene of all its Agonies , he thought this a more concerning sight , for when they fell asleep at both , at his Transfiguration , Luke 9. 32. Peter , and they that were with him , were heavy with sleep ; yet he does not rouse them up to behold his Glory , when they did awake , indeed they saw a glimpse of it , but straight a Cloud did overshadow it . verse 34. But at his Passion he bids them Watch with him , Mat. 28. 38. and when he findeth them asleep , he sayes , What , could ye not watch with me one hour ? v. 40. and bids them watch again , v. 41. and comes again a third time and upbraids their drowsiness , v. 45. So much more necessary vvas it to behold his Agonies , than to see his Felicities : Glory does not discover or invite to Heaven , so much as Sufferings drive to it ; and we are more concerned to take a view of that Garden in Gethsemane , than that of Paradise , and the going down from the Mount of Olives does more advantage us in climbing the Eternal hills , than all Mount Tabors height . Nor do Afflictions onely drive us toward heaven , but they beget an hope of it . Knowing that Tribulation worketh Patience , Patience Experience , and Experience Hope . Rom. 5. 3. 4. And I will give them the Valley of Achor for a door of Hope , Hos. 2. 14. As if Dispaire opprest them into Hope , and that low troublous Valley opened into the highest Firmament . Now he that rides at Anchor of this Hope though his Anchor lye buryed under Waves , yet those rouling Hills of Sea , swell'd by storms of Affliction , and raised too by his Tears , do without Hyperbole mount him to Heaven : He that hath entertained these Expectations in earnest , how will he slight temptations here below ? What will he not sacrifice to Christs Command ? See , Abraham that did but hope for Canaan , and that far off too , to be possest by the Posterity of his Son Isaack , yet when God commands him to flay Isaack before he had any posterity , and so to dash all his own Promises , and quite cut off the very motive to Abrahams Obedience , yet he hopes and obeys even to a contradiction , * * Rom. 4. 18. Does both against hope : And had we but the shadow of his hope , as he had but the shadow of our promises , how would we sacrifice a sin at his Command , and think a Fleshly lust a good exchange for the hope of Heaven , which Tribulation worketh ? and he that had suffered in the Flesh would certainly cease from sin .

And now my last work is to view our own Concern in this , and surely that must be all Exultation and Triumph , and this not so much that our sufferings are ceast , as that our sins are so ; not that our Enemies are sunk , but that our flesh is vanquisht , that sub hoc signo ninces is thus also come to passe , with the Standard of the Crosse , that Cross on which our selves were Crucified , we have overcome ; and with this Christian banner we have put to flight the Armies of our Heathen Vices . For thus it must be , if my Text be true ; and sure it is not possible it should be otherwise : For look upon the Muster-roll of these our Foes which S. Paul does produce , Gal. 5. 19. 20 , 21. and see which of them could escape ; it runs thus , Adultery , Fornication , uncleanness , lasciviousness , Idolatry , Witchcraft , Hatred , Variance , Emulations , Wrath , Strife , Seditions , Heresies , Envyings , Murder , Drunkenness , Revellings .

To begin with the great Commanders , those that lead the Van and bring up the Reare , Uncleannesse , and Revellings ; They that consider how they not onely suffered for , but by these Vices , which did misplace mens watches and attendances ; sins that were not onely like Achans in our Army , and ruin'd it by bringing the accursed thing into it , but were like Hannibal's Numidians in the Roman Army , that did at once betray to , and inflict Ruine ; sins that did merit and effect Destruction , and made as well as provok'd , overthrows ; and sins that by Gods goodnesse did cut off themselves , whilethey did bring men into a condition that would not bear such Vices : These are the guilts of Wealth and Splendor , that do attend Felicity and Pomp ; it is not onely hopeful that men did resolve to be reveng'd on these great workers of their mischief , and will no more resett such traitors in their bosoms ; but sure these sins are ceast that did put out themselves .

Then for Seditions ; They who consider when they broke the Scepter , they left us nothing but the Rod of God instead of it ; a Rod that turned straight into a Serpent , that changed our Seas into Blood , or rather made new Seas of our own blood ; that brought Locusts over the Earth , and Frogs into the Temple also , to croak there ; that struck Lights here worse than Egyptian Darkness , and destroyed all the first born of the Nation , all the Nobles of the Land , these will easily believe that we have felt this Rod too much to seize upon it hastily again ; the Scepter is restored , and this Rod like to that in Israel , laid up , I hope , within the Ark together with the Tables of the Law , never to be disjoyn'd from Gods Commands , nor taken thence against them .