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tions are placed on their native country. This is the view the Apostle had before him in giving the exhortation contained in the text, Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.'

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DISCOURSE XXIII.

PART II.

THE Apostle in the text enforces his exhortation to abstain from fleshly lusts' by two considerations, which yet are near allied to each other. He calls on us to remember that we are strangers and pilgrims here on earth, and consequently that we have a better and a dearer interest in another country, which ought by no means to be neglected for the sake of the low and mean enjoyments which this world affords. Whoever allows the principle must needs allow the consequence. If we are related to two worlds, if this present be in all respects inconsiderable, compared to the other, no reason can justify or excuse us in sacrificing our interest in the other world to the allurements and temptations to be met with in this.

This being allowed, leads us to an inquiry worthy of all the pains we can bestow on it, how far we may pursue the pleasures of this life, consistently with our hopes and expectations of a better. Some enjoyments there are not below the care of a wise and good man in this world, though he forgets not that he is related to another: such are the pleasures of the mind, arising from the exercise of reason: such are, in a lower degree, the pleasures which our senses furnish, whilst used within the bounds of temperance, and so restrained as not to be prejudicial to ourselves and others. Whenever our appetites become so much too strong for our reason, as to carry us into offences in either of these respects, then it is that our 'fleshly lusts do war against the soul.' If we violate the laws of justice and equity, to make way for the gratification of our passions; or if we render ourselves incapable of discharging the duties of re

ligion and morality, arising from the relation we bear to God and man, we wound our own souls, and, for the sake of momentary pleasures, expose ourselves to death eternal.

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It ought to be a sufficient argument to Christians, to show them the express command of the gospel against drunkenness, fornication, adultery, and vices of the like nature for since the command comes from him who has power to execute his decrees, and the penalty of them, on every offender; to transgress such injunctions so given must discover a want of faith, as well as a want of virtue. But the Apostle in the text goes farther, and exhorts us to abstain from fleshly lusts,' by laying before us the reason in which the command to abstain is founded: was there no difference between abstaining and not abstaining; was the man who gives a loose to his passions, and indulges them to the utmost, in as fair a way to happiness as he who governs and restrains them, and bounds them on every side by the rules of justice and equity; the command to abstain would be merely arbitrary, and void of any reason to support itself. But the case is not so: sensual enjoyments have a natural tendency to debase the mind, to render it incapable of discharging its proper functions, and unworthy of the happiness to which it is ordained; for fleshly lusts war against the soul:' for which reason we are commanded to abstain from them: for which reason we ought to abstain from them, though the command had not intervened.

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If you consider wherein the dignity of man consists, and what are the means put into his hands to make himself happy, you will have a clear prospect of the ill effects of sensual lusts, and see how truly they war against the soul. There is no occasion to carry you abstracted speculations on this subject; it will be sufficient to the purpose to make use of the observations which common sense will furnish. There is no man so little acquainted with himself, but that he sometimes finds a difference between the dictates of his reason and the cravings of appetite; between the things which he would do, and the things which he knows he ought to do. This discord is the foundation of the difference to be observed among men with regard to their moral character and behavior. When men give themselves up to follow their appe

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tites, and have no higher aim than the gratification of their passions, all the use they have of their reason is to administer to their senses in contriving ways and means to satisfy them. Where this is the case, consider what a figure a man makes he has appetites in common with the brute creatures, and is led by them as much as they; only the reason he has enables him to be more brutish than they, and to run into greater excesses of sensuality than mere natural appetites, without the help and assistance of reason to contrive for them, can arrive to.

If our passions are to govern us, and the office of reason is only to be subservient, and to furnish means and opportunities of gratifying the desires, it will be very hard to account for the wisdom of God in making such a creature as man. If we have no higher purposes to serve than the brute creatures, why have we more understanding than they? We see that they do not want more reason than they have to follow their appetites; they move regularly as they are moved, and pursue constantly the path marked out by nature. It would be well if we could say as much for some sensual men; but they are ten times more mischievous to the world, than they could possibly be, if they had only appetites and no reason: for appetites, unassisted by a power of contriving, could be guilty of no treachery, no breach of trust; of no schemes to overreach, defraud, and undo multitudes, and a thousand other wickednesses, which sensual worldly men are daily guilty of, and will be guilty of as long as their reason is employed to promote the ends of their passion. So that, considering the case with respect to this world only, the sensual man, who gives himself to be conducted by his appetites, is a more mischievous, a more edious creature, and a greater reproach to his Maker, than any of the brutes; which he may perhaps despise, but ought indeed to envy, for being irrational.

From hence it is evident in what manner sensual lusts do war against the soul, considered as the seat of reason, and all the nobler faculties; in the due use and improvement of which the dignity of man consists. If we look into the ages past, or into the present, we shall want no instances of the pernicious effects of passion, assisted by a corrupt and depraved reason.

The miseries which men bring on themselves and others are derived from this fountain; and these miseries, which we provide for ourselves and others, will be found, on a fair computation, to make nine parts out of ten of all the evil which the world feels and complains of. From whence come wars and fightings among you?' says St. James, come they not hence, even of your lusts, which war in your members?' He might have added to his catalogue many iniquities more, and repeated the same question and answer: for whence proceed jealousies, suspicions, the violations of friendship, the discord and ruin of private families? Whence come murder, violence, and oppression? Are these the works of reason given us by God? No, they are the works of sensuality, and of a reason made the slave of sensuality. Were all who are given to such works as these to be deprived of their reason, the world about them would be much happier, themselves more harmless, and, I think too, not less honorable. So effectually do sensual lusts war against the soul, that it would be better for the world, and not worse for the sensualist, if he had no soul at all.

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But to be more particular. Let us consider that the only part of man, capable of any improvement, is the soul: it is little or nothing we can do for the body; and if we could do more, it would be little worth. We cannot add to our stature; and if we could, where would be the advantage? The affections, which have their seat in the body, can yield us no honor: they are capable of no improvement; the higher they rise, the more despicable we grow they can yield us neither profit nor credit, but only when we conquer and subdue them. If therefore we have any ambition of being better than we are in any respect, either in this world or in the next, we must cultivate the mind, the only part of us capable of any improve

ment.

The excellency of a rational creature consists in knowlege and virtue, one the foundation of the other: these are the things we ought to labor after: but sensual lusts are great impediments to our improvement in either of these, and do therefore properly war against the soul.

As to knowlege, the best and most useful part of it is the knowlege of ourselves, and of the relation we stand in to God

and our fellow-creatures, and of the duties and obligations arising from these considerations. Now this knowlege is such an enemy to sensual lusts, that a sensual man will be very much indisposed to receive it. It is self-condemnation to him to admit the principles of this knowlege; and therefore his reason, as long as it continues in the service of his passion, will be employed to discredit such knowlege as this, and, if possible, to subvert and overthrow the principles on which it stands. Hence proceed the many prejudices to be met with in the world against the first principles of natural religion; the many labored arguments to destroy the very distinction of soul and body, and all hopes of a future existence such hard masters are the lusts of the flesh! They compel the soul to deny itself, -to resign all its pretensions to present or future happiness, in condescension to the passions and appetites of the body. Take out of the composition of a man the inclinations to sensualpleasures, and he must needs rejoice to hear of another life in which he may be for ever happy. If he sees not so much reason as to be sure of living for ever, yet he will be willing to hope he may, and his mind will be always open to receive whatever may strengthen and support such hopes. But the sensual man sees nothing that such a future state can afford him but misery and destruction; therefore he shuts his eyes against the light, and places a guard over his mind, to secure it from such unwelcome thoughts. He hopes, he believes, at last he comes to demonstrate, that souls, and spirits, and future states, are mere idle dreams, the inventions either of fools or of politicians.

If the fear of God be in truth, as in truth it is, the beginning of wisdom, sensuality cuts us off from all hopes of improvement, considered as rational beings, by choking the spring from whence all wisdom flows. It ties us down to the world, it materialises the soul, and makes it incapable of any noble thoughts or conceptions worthy itself. And thus men, by following the sensual enjoyments of the world, become carnal in their minds, as well as in their bodies; and instead of a reason qualifying them to be servants of God, the highest honor of which a rational being is capable, they get a low cunning to serve themselves and the worst of their own desires, which

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