alone; to deny the body its wholesome and pleasant food, yea, and to inflict severities upon it; to abstain from the enjoyments of domestic life; with whatever else is condemned by the Apostle under "will-worship, voluntary humility, and denial of the body;" and which hath been perfected by Papists in their monastic way of life. of life. Of all this the evil consisteth not in a false idea of the law of the flesh, but a false method of its cure. These are wanderings of the mind, under the deep conviction of the evil we have set forth above, ineffectual wanderings, to find in nature any remedy for the evil of nature. This hermit life, severe unto itself, which in all religions and in all moral systems hath found a place, and generally the highest place-as, for example, the Cynics and Stoics, the Fakirs, the Dervishes, the Pharisees, and the Monks-doth prove how deeply seated is the conviction in mankind that there is natural evil and disease in the flesh, which pleasure and gratification doth feed, and which self-denial and abstinence doth starve: as saith the poet; " Spare fast, that with the gods doth diet." And though it is now the use and wont to laugh at all these forms of human character, and to treat them as hypocrisy or folly, it ought never to be forgotten, that if in these seclusions and severities much mysticism hath been produced, and much hypocrisy practised, there also much devotion, deep thought, learning and philosophy, and

saint-like righteousness, have held their seats and kept their vigils. But, as I said, while it confirmeth, by the common consent of the best and wisest men, the maxim of our text, that the love of pleasure is opposite to the love of God, we are willing to allow that it applyeth a wrong remedy, and seeketh to cast out Beelzebub by Beelzebub. It affecteth to find in the wilderness, or in the cell, or in the food and raiment of the body, or in a regular canon of life, or in some other device of human wisdom, a remedy for that evil, which by human wisdom may be somewhat abated, but by the Holy Spirit alone can be overcome; because a man can never flee from himself. Death alone can make the flesh to cease from sin: while it liveth, it liveth under the bondage of corruption; and never, until the baptismal regeneration of fire, shall it rise pure and incorruptible. The hairy girdle, the chain of cold iron, the shirt of sackcloth, the bed of stone or of thorns or of iron spikes, cannot do for human flesh that office which the power of the resurrection alone will perform. Inasmuch, therefore, as these substitute the inventions of man for the regeneration and work of the Spirit, or make these too prominent, to the hiding of this, they are greatly to be blamed. I speak not now of their wickedness, as the great nursery, and

I

may say manufactory, of human merits, because this point is not before us. These inventions prove that there may be a love of severi

ties, as well as a love of pleasures, opposite to the love of God. There is another error, which cometh of this system of ascetic morals; that, by separating a particular outward order of life, it doth in a measure not only give a sanction to this, as if it were holy in itself; but also it fixeth a stigma upon the secular way of life, as if it were necessarily unholy, and could not otherwise be mastered but by fleeing out of the midst of it. There was common and holy while the Jewish religion stood; which made this separation, not for the end of calling the separated part holy in itself, but for the end of shewing the whole lump to be unholy: now, however, that the body of Christ hath holiness in itself, and as such hath appeared in the holy presence of God for us; and now that the Holy Ghost from his risen body hath proceeded forth, in order to sanctify our sinful bodies, and give us that victory over the devil, the world, and the flesh, which Christ achieved; it is wholly to cast us back upon the beggarly elements and carnal ordinances, thus to suppose an invincible and insuperable power remaining in any person, place, or thing, for which it ought to be fled away from, instead of being, by the power of Christ's risen body, withstood and conquered there where it standeth.

And thus at length have we come to the true divinity, and likewise to the true morality, of the question before us-which is, that, though there be in the flesh a desire and a lust, which,

being by the evil spirit of Satan inflamed, and by all things visible fed and nourished, doth operate directly against the light of reason, the liberty of the will, and the well-pleasing of God; so that a man by nature cannot do the things which he would: yet is there also a power of the body of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost thence proceeding, whereunto every Christian is baptized, which is able effectually to resist and overcome the evil inherent in the flesh of man, the power exercised by the devil, and the deception residing in the visible world; which is able to keep a man holy in all conditions of life, in all places, in the midst of all pleasures, and in the enjoyment of all possessions. Now, the love of pleasures, spoken of in the text, consisteth in the love of what is pleasant merely on its own account, because it is pleasant, without any discernment of its procession from a sinful origin and its tendency to a sinful end. It is not the enjoyment of that which ministers to enjoyment, and which God hath given to be enjoyed as his good creatures; but it is the enjoyment of it without any acknowledgment of its Giver, without any thanksgiving for the gift, without any piety in the use, without any religion in the dispensation of it unto others but, above all the rest, it consisteth in the eager seeking after the objects of pleasure with that desire and zeal of heart, with that devotedness of soul and strength of mind, which is due to God only. Whether it be

the love of intellectual pleasures: poetry, sentiment, philosophy, wit, criticism, genius;--whether it be the love of sensual pleasures: meats, drinks, beautiful sights, pleasant entertainments of melody, gratification of every appetite ;—whether it be the love of the pleasures of ambition: power, dignity, wealth, renown ;whether it be the love of the pleasures of benevolence: educating the poor, comforting the prisoner, improving the laws, delivering the oppressed, reforming the abuses, and treating the grievances of life :-whatever form of pleasure it be, so that it is contemplated out of God, and pursued without respect of his commandment or of his glory, and beloved for its own sake and for the sake of the gratification which it affordeth to the natural man, it cometh under the character mentioned in the text, -the love of pleasures, rather than the love of God. It tasteth, it enjoyeth, it revelleth in his gifts, and yieldeth him no thanks. It setteth up human nature and its dispositions, in the room of God and his commandments. It acknowledgeth not the fallen estate of the creature; it acknowledgeth not the redemption which is in Christ; it acknowledgeth not the sanctification of the Spirit; it acknowledgeth not the right of election and reprobation, which is in the Father; it denieth Christ and the resurrection; it subverteth the foundation of the Throne of God: and the more noble, the more pure, the more benevolent, the more high-minded it is, even so much the more dan