SERMON XV.

LOVERS OF PLEASURES MORE (RATHER) THAN

LOVERS OF GOD.

This know also,

shall come.

2 TIM. iii. 1, 4.

that in the last days perilous times For men shall be......lovers of pleasures more (rather) than lovers of God.

IT is written, in the First Epistle of John (ii. 15-17), "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him: for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." And, again, it was said by our Lord unto his disciples: "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.......If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. These two passages of Holy

Writ form the best commentary upon our text, wherein the love of pleasure is set in opposition to the love of God, and the Christians of the last time are declared to prefer the worse unto the better part. Concerning this opposition-between pleasures, which the Apostle John divideth into three classes, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; and declareth to be of the world, and not of God; which world, again, the Lord declareth doth hate and persecute his disciples-concerning this opposition, I say, between the love of sensual worldly pleasures and the love of God, if we inquire diligently, we shall find that it hath its origin in the subjection of all visible things unto vanity or folly, in consequence of the curse of God imposed upon all things at the fall. From which it hath come to pass that Satan is the governor and head, and man the subject, brought under his wicked dominion. Wherefore he is said "to rule in the children of disobedience" (Eph. ii. 1); and to

possess the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them" (Matt. iv.) Sin hath introduced into our flesh a law which is contrary to the law of the Spirit of God: as it is written; "I feel a law in my members warning against the law of my mind ;" which is "not subject unto the law of God, neither indeed can be." And again it is written; "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, blasphemies, adulteries, fornications, murders." It is not to be doubted, therefore, that sin hath made that

to be pleasant unto the flesh which is forbidden by the law of God. From which impurity it is the end of Baptism to deliver us: therefore the Apostle, having opened the mystery of baptism, doth (Rom. vi. 11) entreat the baptized to reckon themselves "to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ the Lord. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof; neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead; and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." These declarations of holy Scripture, confirmed by the initiatory rite of the Christian church, do sufficiently shew that there is a natural and rooted antipathy between the fleshly part of man and the law of God: and that it is no acquired habit, no mere principle of imitation, no propensity which errs only by excess, but a rooted and infixed, and I may say in-irradicable, law of our nature, to love and desire and delight in what is evil, and not in what is good. Indeed, what is sin, but this very condition of preferring evil unto good? Sin is not a being, it is not a creature; but the condition of a creature and as holiness expresseth the condition of the creature which is right with God, and beareth a love to him continually; so doth sin represent the condition of a creature which is not right with God, nor beareth love unto him at all. That, therefore, which is

will be found to be Wherefore, in beourselves, we are

naturally pleasant unto us, contrary to the Lord God. coming religious we deny crucified unto the flesh, and unto the world: the grace of God, which hath appeared unto all men, teacheth us, that, "denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in a present evil world."

If any one doubt or disbelieve this great prin ciple of Divine revelation, he hath only to reflect upon himself and upon the world, in order to be disabused of his error. Look, for example, at a child, in which there are as yet revealed no desires of the flesh, save those of taste; and behold what need there is on the part of the mother for restraint and denial, and very soon for correction also. Behold the youth: what constant need of discipline, and of threatening, and of chastisement! insomuch that it should be taken in Scripture as the proof of a parent's love and of a child's true nativity that it receiveth its proper share of correction: "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not? If ye receive not chastisement, then are ye bastards, and not sons." "We have had fathers of our flesh, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence." Again, if we consider the estate of opening manhood: how oft that strength, which should be husbanded for a laborious life of welldoing, is exhausted, in intemperance of various kinds, faster than it can arise, and restrained

in most cases only by weakness and disease-I may say, in all cases, where the grace of God is not present, and where the means of indulgence are supplied: insomuch, that to withhold the means of indulgence is considered by all wise parents one of the greatest points of duty towards children. If, again, you consider laws, how they bank in the overflowings of a man's natural inclinations; and how the decencies and decorums, and other forms of life, do the same; you will perceive at once, that there is in mankind in general a disposition to indulge their pleasures beyond what even man can endure; that the love of pleasure is contrary, not only to the love of God, but likewise to the love of our brother, and even to our own well-being.

Some will argue, that it is only the excess of pleasure, and the immoderateness of enjoyment, which makes it evil, but that pleasure in itself is good and desirable; and that it is no argument against a thing, that it is pleasant; nor argument for it, that it is unpleasant. There is here a very nice point of morality and divinity, to which we shall endeavour to give heed. Pleasure is not, and cannot be, removed from things naturally pleasant; in which the godly man hath the same, generally a greater, pleasure than the ungodly man, because he partaketh of them within proper bounds. It is the great error of the ascetic life, to abstain from things merely because they are pleasant, and on that account to separate from society and live