contradiction, peevishness and indignation, pride and cursed principles; and therefore pleasure ought not to be the inscription of the box; for that is the least part of its ingredient and constitution. 8. The pleasures in the very enjoying of sin are infinitely trifling and inconsiderable, because they pass away so quickly: if they be in themselves little, they are made less by their volatile and fugitive nature; but if they are great, then their being so transient does not only lessen the delight, but changes it into a torment, and loads the spirit of the sinner with impatience and indignation. Is it not a high upbraiding to the watchful adulterer, that after he hath contrived the stages of his sin, and tied many circumstances together with arts and labor, and these join and stand knit and solid only by contingency, and are very often borne away with the impetuous torrent of an inevitable accident, like Xerxes' bridge over the Hellespont; and then he is to begin again, and sets new wheels a-going; and by the arts, and the labor, and the watchings, and the importunity, and the violence, and the unwearied study, and indefatigable diligence of many months, he enters on possession, and finds them not of so long abode as one of his cares, which in so vast numbers made so great a portion of his life afflicted? Πρόσκαιρον ἁμαρτίας ἀπόλαυσιν, the enjoying of sin for a season," * St. Paul calls it; he names no pleasures; our English translation uses the word of enjoying pleasures;' but if there were any, they were but for that season, that instant, that very transition of the act, which dies in its very birth, and of which we can only say, as the minstrel sung of Pacuvius, when he was carried dead from his supper to his bed, βεβίωκε, βεβίωκε. A man can scarce have time enough to say it is alive, but that it was: nullo non se die extulit, “it died every day," it lived never unto life, but lived and died unto death, being its mother and daughter: the man died before the sin did live; and when it had lived, it consigned him to die eternally. Add to this, that it so passes away that nothing at all remains behind it that is pleasant: it is like the path of an arrow *Heb. xi. 25. in the air; the next morning no man can tell what is become of the pleasures of the last night's sin; they are no where but in God's books, deposited in the conscience, and sealed up against the day of dreadful accounts; but as to the man, they are as if they never had been; and then, let it be considered, what a horrible aggravation it will be to the miseries of damnation, that a man shall for ever perish for that which if he looks round about he cannot see, nor tell where it is. "He that dies, dies for that which is not ;" and in the very little present he finds it an unrewarding interest, to walk seven days together over sharp stones only to see a place from whence he must come back in an hour. If it goes off presently, it is not worth the labor; if it stays long, it grows tedious; so that it cannot be pleasant if it stays; and if it does not stay, it is not to be valued. Hæc mala mentis gaudia. It abides too little a while to be felt, or called pleasure; and if it should abide longer, it would be troublesome as pain, and loathed like the tedious speech of an orator pleading against the life of the innocent. 9. Sin hath in its best advantages but a trifling, inconsiderable pleasure; because not only God and reason, conscience and honor, interest and laws, do sour it in the sense and gust of pleasure, but even the devil himself, either being overruled by God, or by a strange insignificant malice, makes it troublesome and intricate, entangled and involved; and one sin contradicts another, and vexes the man with so great variety of evils, that if in the course of God's service he should meet with half the difficulty, he would certainly give over the whole employment. Those that St. James speaks of, who' prayed that they might spend it on their lusts,' were covetous and prodigal, and therefore must endure the torments of one to have the pleasure of another; and which is greater, the pleasure of spending, or the displeasure that it is spent and does not still remain after its consumption, is easy to tell: certain it is, that this lasts much longer. Does not the devil often tempt men to despair, and by that torment put bars and locks on them, that they may never return to God? Which what else is it but a plain indication, that it is intended the man should feel the images and dreams of pleasure no longer, but till he be without remedy? Pleasure is but like sentries or wooden frames, set under arches, till they be strong by their own weight and consolidation to stand alone; and when by any means the devil hath a man sure, he takes no longer care to cozen him with pleasures, but is pleased that men should begin an early hell, and be tormented before the time. Does not envy punish or destroy flattery; and self-love sometimes torment the drunkard; and intemperance abate the powers of lust, and make the man impotent; and laziness become a hinderance to ambition; and the desires of man wax impatient on contradicting interests, and by crossing each other's design on all hands lessen the pleasure, and leave the man tormented? 10. Sin is of so little relish and gust, so trifling a pleasure, that it is always greater in expectation than it is in the possession. But if men did beforehand see, what the utmost is, which sin ministers to please the beastly part of man, it were impossible it should be pursued with so much earnestness and disadvantages. It is necessary it should promise more than it can give; men could not otherwise be cozened. And if it be inquired, why men should sin again, after they had experience of the little and great deception; it is to be confessed, it is a wonder they should: but then we may remember, that men sin again, though their sin did afflict them; they will be drunk again, though they were sick; they will again commit folly, though they be surprised in their shame, though they have needed an hospital; and therefore, there is something else that moves them, and not the pleasure: for they do it without and against its interest; but either they still proceed, hoping to supply by numbers what they find not in proper measures; or God permits them to proceed as an instrument of punishment; or their understandings and reasonings grow cheaper; or they grow in love with it, and take it on any terms; or contract new appetites, and are pleased with the baser and the lower reward of sin: but whatsoever can be the cause of it, it is certain, by the experience of all the world, that the fancy is higher, the desires more sharp, and the reflexion more brisk, at the door and entrance of the entertainment, than in all the little and shorter periods of its possession: for then it is but limited by the natural measures, and abated by distemper, and loathed by enjoying, and disturbed by partners, and dishonored by shame and evil accidents; so that as men coming to the river Leucos, ἔχει μὲν λευκότατον ὑδάτων καὶ ῥεῖ διειδέστατα, and seeing "waters pure" as the tears of the spring, or the pearls of the morning, expect that in such a fair promising bosom the inmates should be fair and pleasant; τίκτει δὲ ἰχθῦς μελάνας ioxvpus, but find "the fishes black," filthy, and unwholesome; so it is in sin; its face is fair and beauteous, Ἡ τακεραῖς λεύσσουσα κόραις μαλακώτερον ὕπνου, Softer than sleep, or the dreams of wine, tenderer than the curds of milk; et Euganea quantumvis mollior agna: but when you come to handle it, it is filthy, rough as the porcupine, black as the shadows of the night, and having promised a fish it gives a scorpion, and a stone instead of bread. 11. The fruits of its present possession, the pleasures of its taste, are less pleasant, because no sober person, no man that can discourse, does like it long. breve sit quod turpiter audes. Juv. viii. 165. He approves it in the height of passion, and in the disguises of a temptation; but at all other times he finds it ugly and unreasonable; and the very remembrances must at all times abate its pleasures and sour its delicacies. In the most parts of a man's life he wonders at his own folly, and prodigious madness, that it should be ever possible for him to be deluded by such trifles; and he sighs next morning, and knows it over-night; and is it not therefore certain, that he leans on a thorn, which he knows will smart, and he dreads the event of to-morrow? But so have I known a bold trooper fight in the confusion of a battle, and being warm with heat and rage, received, from the swords of his enemy, wounds open like a grave; but he felt them not; and when, by the streams of blood, he found himself marked for pain, he refused to consider then what he was to feel to-morrow: but when his rage had cooled into the temper of a man, and clammy moisture had checked the fiery emission of spirits, he wonders at his own boldness, and blames his fate, and needs a mighty patience to bear his great calamity. So is the bold and merry sinner, when he is warm with wine and lust, 66 wounded and bleeding with the strokes of hell, he twists with the fatal arm that strikes him, and cares not; but yet it must abate his gaiety, because he remembers that when his wounds are cold and considered, he must roar or perish, repent or do worse, that is, be miserable or undone. The Greeks call this τῶν σάκκων εὐδαιμονίαν, “ the felicity of condemned slaves feasted high in sport." Dion Prusias reports, that when the Persians had got the victory, they would pick out the noblest slave, καὶ καθίζουσιν εἰς τὸν θρόνον τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ τὴν ἐσθῆτα δίδωσιν τὴν αὐτὴν καὶ τρυφᾷν, καὶ παλλακαῖς χρῆσθαι, “ they make him a king for three days, and clothe him with royal robes, and minister to him all the pleasure he can choose, and all the while he knows he is to die a sacrifice to mirth and folly." But then, let it be remembered, what checks and allays of mirth the poor man starts at, when he remembers the axe and the altar where he must shortly bleed; and by this we may understand what that pleasure is, in the midst of which the man sighs deeply, when he considers what opinion he had of this sin in the days of counsel and sober thoughts; and what reason against it he shall feel to-morrow, when he must weep or die. Thus it happens to sinners according to the saying of the prophet, Qui sacrificant hominem, osculabuntur vitulum, He that gives a man in sacrifice shall kiss the calf;'* that is, shall be admitted to the seventh chapel of Moloch to kiss the idol: a goodly reward for so great a price, for so great an inquiry. After all this I do not doubt but these considerations will meet with some persons that think them to be protestatio contra factum, and fine pretences against all experience; and that, for all these severe sayings, sin is still so pleasant as to tempt the wisest resolution. Such men are in a very evil condition: and in their case only I come to understand the meaning of those words of Seneca; Malorum ultimum est mala sua amare, ubi turpia non solum delectant, sed etiam placent: "It is the worst of evils when men are so in love with sin that they are not only delighted with them, but pleased also;" not only feel the relish with too quick a sense, but also feel none of the objections, nothing of the pungency, the sting, or the lessening circum TAY. * Hosea, xiii. 2. VOL. II. B |