Now sin may be considered three ways:
First, In the act.

Secondly, In the habit or custom. Thirdly, In the affection, or productive principle of it.

In all which we shall shew what a darkening and malign influence sin has upon the conscience or mind of man; and consequently with what extreme care and severe vigilance the conscience ought to be guarded and watched over in all these respects. And,

First, For sin considered in the single act. Every particular commission of any great sin, such as are, for instance, the sins of perjury, of murder, of uncleanness, of drunkenness, of theft, and, above all, of undutifulness to parents, (which being a thing so much against nature, nothing in nature can be said for it ;) these, I say, and the like capital, soul-wasting sins, even in any one single act or commission of them, have a strangely efficacious power to cloud and darken the conscience. Some of the schoolmen are of opinion, that one single act, if great and extraordinary, has in it the force of many ordinary and lesser acts, and so may produce a habit: which opinion, how true soever it may be of an act of demonstration producing a habit of science in the intellect, yet I cannot think it true of any moral habits whatsoever. For it is not to be thought that Saint Peter's denying and forswearing his Lord left behind it a habit of unbelief; nor that David's murder and adultury rendered him habitually murderous and adulterous. For no doubt it was not so.

But this I say, that every single gross act of sin is much the same thing to the conscience, that a great blow or fall is to the head; it stuns and bereaves it of all use of its senses for a time. Thus in the two forementioned sins of David, they so mazed and even stupified his conscience, that it lay as it were in a swoon, and void of all spiritual sense, for almost a whole year. For we do not find that he came to himself, or to any true sight or sense of his horrid guilt, till Nathan the prophet came and roused him up with a miessage from God; nor did Nathan come to him till after the child, begotten in that adultery, was born. Such a terrible deadness and stupefaction did these two sins bring upon his soul for so many months together, during which time, whatsoever notion of murder and adultery David might have in general, yet no doubt he had but very slight and superficial thoughts of the heinousness of his own in particular. And what was the reason of this? Why, his conscience was cast into a dead sleep, and could not so much as open its eyes, so as to be able to look either upwards or inwards. This was his sad and forlorn estate, notwithstanding that long course of piety and converse with God, which he was now grown old in. For he had been an early practiser, and

an eminent proficient in the ways of God, and was now past the fiftieth year of his age; and yet we see that one or two such gross sins dulled and deadened the spiritual principle within him to such a degree, that they left him for a long time, as it were, dozed and benumbed, blind and insensible; and, no doubt, had not a peculiar grace from God raised him up and recovered him, he had continued so to his life's end.

For this is most certain, and worth our best observation, that whatsoever carries a man off from God, will, in the natural course and tendency of it, carry him still farther and farther, till at length it leaves him neither will nor power to return. For repentance is neither the design nor work of mere nature, which, immediately after the commission of sin, never puts a man upon disowning or bewailing it, but upon studying and casting about him how to palliate and extenuate, and, rather than fail, how to plead for, and defend it. This was the course which Adam took upon the first sin that ever man committed and the same course in the same case will be taken by all the sons of Adam (if lef* to themselves) as long as the world stands.

Secondly, The frequent and repeated practice of sin has also a mighty power in it to obscure and darken the natural light of conscience. Nothing being more certainly true, nor more universally acknowledged, than that custom of sinning takes away the sense of sin; and we may add, the sight of it too. For though the darkness consequent upon any one gross act of sin be, as we have shewed, very great, yet that which is caused by custom of sinning is much greater, and more hardly curable. Particular acts of sin do, as it were, cast a mist before the eye of conscience, but customary sinning brings a kind of film upon it, and it is not an ordinary skill which can take off that. The former only closes the eye, but this latter puts it out; as leaving upon the soul a wretched impotence, either to judge or to do well; much like the spots of the leopard, not to be changed, or the blackness of an Ethiopian, not to be washed off. For by these very things the Spirit of God (Jer. xiii. 23) expresses the iron invincible force of a wicked custom.

Now the reason, I conceive, that such a custom brings such darkness upon the mind or conscience, is this, that a man naturally designs to please himself in all that he does; and that it is impossible for him to find any action really pleasurable, while he judges it absolutely unlawful; since the sting of this must needs take off the relish of the other, and it would be an intolerable torment to any man's mind, to be always doing, and always condemning himself for what he does. And for this cause a man shuts his eyes and stops his ears against all that his reason would tell

him of the sinfulness of that practice, which long custom and frequency has endeared to him; so that he becomes studiously and affectedly ignorant of the illness of the course he takes, that he may the more sensibly taste the pleasure of it. And thus, when an inveterate, imperious custom has so overruled all a man's faculties, as neither to suffer his eyes to see, nor his ears to hear, nor his mind to think of the evil of what he does; that is, when all the instruments of knowledge are forbid to do their office, ignorance and obscurity must needs be upon the whole soul. For when the windows are stopped up, no wonder if the whole room be dark.

The truth is, such an habitual frequency of sinning, does, as it were, bar and bolt up the conscience against the sharpest reproofs and the most convincing instructions; so that when God, by the thunder of his judgments and the voice of his ministers, has been ringing hell and vengeance into the ears of such a sinner, perhaps, like Felix, he may tremble a little for the present, and seem to yield and fall down before the overpowering evidence of the conviction; but after a while, custom overcoming conscience, the man goes his way, and though he is convinced and satisfied what he ought to do, yet he actually does what he used to do: and all this, because, through the darkness of his intellect, he judges the present pleasure of such a sinful course an overbalance to the evil of it.

For this is certain, that nature has placed all human choice in such an essential dependence upon the judgment, that no man does any thing, though never so vile, wicked, and inexcusable, but, all circumstances considered, he judges it, pro hic et nunc, absolutely better for him to do it, than not to do it. And what a darkness and delusion must conscience needs be under, while it makes a man judge that really best for him, which directly tends to, and generally ends in, his utter ruin and damnation! Custom is said to be a second nature, and if by the first we are already so bad, by the second, to be sure, we shall be

much worse.

Thirdly, Every corrupt passion or affection of the mind will certainly pervert the judging, and obscure and darken the discerning power of conscience. The affections, which the Greeks call άon, and the Latins affectus animi, are of much the same use to the soul, which the members are of to the body, serving as the proper instruments of most of its actions; and are always attended with a certain preternatural motion of the blood and spirits peculiar to each passion or affection. And as for the seat or fountain of them, philosophers both place them in, and derive them from, the heart. But not to insist upon mere speculations: the passions or affections are, as I may so call them, the mighty flights and sallyings

out of the soul upon such objects as come before it; and are generally accompanied with such vehemence, that the Stoics reckoned them, in their very nature and essence, as so many irregularities and deviations from right reason, and by no means incident to a wise or good man.

But though better philosophy has long since exploded this opinion, and Christianity, which is the greatest and the best, has taught us, that we may be "angry, and yet not sin," (Ephes. iv. 26,) and that "godly sorrow" is neither a paradox nor a contradiction, (2 Cor. vii. 10,) and consequently, that in every passion or affection there is something purely natural, which may both be distinguished and divided too from what is sinful and irregular; yet, notwithstanding all this, it must be confessed, that the nature of the passions is such, that they are extremely prone and apt to pass into excess, and that when they do so, nothing in the world is a greater hinderance to the mind or reason of man, from making a true, clear, and exact judgment of things, than the passions thus wrought up to any thing of ferment or agitation. It being as impossible to keep the judging faculty steady in such a case, as it would be to view a thing distinctly and perfectly through a perspective glass, held by a shaking, paralytic hand.

When the affections are once engaged, the judgment is always partial and concerned. There is a strong bent or bias upon it; it is possessed and gained over, and as it were feed and retained in their cause, and thereby made utterly unable to carry such an equal regard to the object, as to consider truth nakedly, and stripped of all foreign respects; and as such to make it the rigid, inflexible rule, which it is to judge by; especially where duty is the thing to be judged of. For a man will hardly be brought to judge right and true, when by such a judgment he is sure to condemn himself.

But this being a point of such high and practical importance, I will be yet more particular about it, and shew severally, in several corrupt and vicious affections, how impossible it is for a man to keep his conscience rightly informed, and fit to guide and direct him in all the arduous perplexing cases of sin and duty, while he is actually under the power of any of them. This, I know, men generally are not apt to believe, or to think, that the flaws or failures of their morals can at all affect their intellectuals. But I doubt not but to make it not only credible, but undeniable.

Now the vicious affections which I shall single and cull out of those vast numbers, which the heart of man, that great storehouse of the devil, abounds with, as some of the principal, which thus darken and debauch the conscience, shall be these three,

First, Sensuality. Secondly, Covetousness. Thirdly, Ambition.

Of each of which I shall speak particularly: and,

First, for sensuality, or a vehement delight in, and pursuit of, bodily pleasures. We may truly say of the body, with reference to the soul, what was said by the poet of an ill neighbour," Nemo tam prope tam proculque, None so nearly joined in point of vicinity, and yet so widely distant in point of interest and inclinations."

The ancient philosophers generally holding the soul of man to be a spiritual, immaterial substance, could give no account of the several failures and defects in the operations of it, (which they were sufficiently sensible of,) but from its immersion into, and intimate conjunction with matter, called by the Greeks van. And accordingly all their complaints and accusations were still levelled at this van, as the only cause of all that they found amiss in the whole frame and constitution of man's nature. In a word, whatsoever was observed by them, either irregular or defective in the workings of the mind, was all charged upon the body, as its great clog and impediment. As the skilfullest artist in the world would make but sorry work of it, should he be forced to make use of tools no way fit for his purpose. But whether the fault be in the spiritual or corporeal part of our nature, or rather in both, certain it is, that no two things in the world do more rise and grow upon the fall of each other, than the flesh and the spirit: they being like a kind of balance in the hand of nature, so that as one mounts up, the other still sinks down; and the high estate of the body seldom or never fails to be the low, declining estate of the soul. Which great contrariety and discord between them, the apostle describes, as well as words can do, (Gal. v. 17,) “The flesh," says he, "lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh and these two are contrary;" like two mighty princes whose territories join, they are always encroaching and warring upon one another. And as it most commonly falls out, that the worse cause has the best success; so when the flesh and the spirit come to a battle, it is seldom but the flesh comes off victorious. And therefore the same great apostle, who so constantly and severely exercised himself to keep a conscience void of offence, did as constantly and severely exercise himself, "to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection," (1 Cor. ix. 27.) And the same in all ages has been the judgment and practice of all such as have had any experience in the ways of God and the true methods of religion. For all bodily pleasure dulls and weakens the operations of the mind, even upon a natural account, and much more upon a spiritual. Now the pleasures which chiefly affect, or rather bewitch the body, and by so doing become the very pest and poison of the nobler and intellectual

part of man, are those false and fallacious pleasures of lust and intemperance.

Of each of which severally: and, First, for lust. Nothing does or can darken the mind or conscience of man more: nay, it has a peculiar efficacy this way, and for that cause may justly be ranked amongst the very powers of darkness; it being that which, as naturalists observe, strikes at the proper seat of the understanding, the brain; something of that "blackness of darkness" mentioned in the thirteenth of Saint Jude, seeming to be of the very nature as well as punishment of this vice.

Nor does only the reason of the thing itself, but also the examples of such as have been possessed with it, demonstrate as much.

For had not Samson, think we, an intolerable darkness and confusion upon his understanding, while he ran roving after every strumpet in that brutish manner that he did? Was it not the eye of his conscience which his Delilah first put out, and so of a judge of Israel rendered himself really a judg ment upon them? And when the two angels (as we read in Gen. xix.) struck those monsters, the men of Sodom, with blindness, had not their own detestable lust first stricken them with a greater? Or could Herod have ever thought himself obliged by the religion of an oath to have murdered the Baptist, had not his lust and his Herodias imprisoned and murdered his conscience first? For surely the common light of nature could not but teach him, that no oath or vow whatsoever could warrant the greatest prince upon earth to takeaway the life of an innocent person. But it seems his besotted conscience having broken through the seventh commandment, the sixth stood too near it to be safe long: and therefore his two great casuists, the devil and his Herodias, (the worse devil of the two,) having allowed him to lie and wallow in adultery so long, easily persuaded him that the same salvo might be found out for murder also. So that it was his lust obstinately continued in, which thus darkened and deluded his conscience; and the same will, no doubt, darken and delude, and in the end extinguish the conscience of any man breathing, who shall surrender himself up to it. The "light within him" shall grow every day less and less, and at length totally and finally go out, and that in a stink too. So hard, or rather utterly unfeasible is it, for men to be zealous votaries of the blind god, without losing their eyes in his service, and it is well if their noses do not follow. From all which it apears, what a paradox it is in morals, for any one under the dominion of his lust, to think to have a right judgment in things relating to the state of his soul: and the same, in the

Second place, holds equally in that other branch of sensuality, intemperance; where

upon we find them both joined together by the prophet Hosea, (iv. 11,) "Whoredom," says he," and wine take away the heart ;" that is, according to the language of Holy Writ, a man's judging and discerning abilities. And therefore, whosoever would preserve these faculties (especially as to their discernment of spiritual objects) quick and vigorous, must be sure to keep the upper region of his soul clear and serene; which the fumes of meat and drink luxuriously taken in will never suffer it to be. We know the method which this high and exact pattern of spiritual prudence, Saint Paul, took to keep the great sentinel of his soul, his conscience, always vigilant and circumspect. It was by a constant and severe temperance, heightened with frequent watching and fastings, as he himself tells us, (2 Cor. ix. 27,)" in watchings often, in fastings often," &c. This was the discipline which kept his senses exercised to a sure and exquisite discrimination of good and evil, and made the lamp within him shine always with a bright and a triumphant flame.

But gluttony, and all excess, either in eating or drinking, strangely clouds and dulls the intellectual powers; and then it is not to be expected that the conscience should bear up, when the understanding is drunk down. An epicure's practice naturally disposes a man to an epicure's principles, that is, to an equal looseness and dissolution in both: and he who makes his belly his business will quickly come to have a conscience of as large a swallow as his throat; of which there wants not several scandalous and deplorable instances. Loads of meat and drink are fit for none but a beast of burden to bear, and he is much the greater beast of the two, who carries his burden in his belly, than he who carries it upon his back. On the contrary, nothing is so great a friend to the mind of man, as abstinence; it strengthens the memory, clears the apprehension, and sharpens the judgment; and, in a word, gives reason its full scope of acting; and when reason has that, it is always a diligent and faithful handmaid to conscience. And therefore, where men look no farther than mere nature, (as many do not,) let no man expect to keep his gluttony and his parts, his drunkenness and his wit, his revellings and his judgment, and much less his conscience, together: for neither grace nor nature will have it so. It is an utter contradiction to the methods of both. "Who hath wo? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?" says Solomon, (Prov. xxiii. 29.) Which question he himself presently answers in the next verse, "They who tarry long at the wine, they who seek after mixed wine." So say I, Who has a stupid intellect, a broken memory, and a blasted wit, and (which is worse than them all) a blind and benighted conscience, but the

intemperate and luxurious, the epicure and the smell-feast? So impossible is it for a man to turn sot, without making himself a blockhead too. I know this is not always the present effect of these courses, but at long run it will infallibly be so; and time and luxury together will as certainly change the inside, as it does the outside of the best heads whatsoever; and much more of such heads as are strong for nothing but to bear drink; concerning which, it ever was, and is, and will be a sure observation, that such as are ablest at the barrel, are generally weakest at the book. And thus much for the first great darkener of man's mind, sensuality; and that, in both the branches of it, lust and intemperance.

Secondly, Another vicious affection, which clouds and darkens the conscience, is covetousness; concerning which it may truly be affirmed, that of all the vices incident to human nature, none so powerfully and peculiarly carries the soul downwards as covetousness does. It makes it all earth and dirt, burying that noble thing which can never die. So that, while the body is above ground, the soul is under it, and therefore must needs be in a state of darkness, while it converses in the regions of it.

How mightily this vice darkens and debases the mind, Scripture instances do abundantly shew. When Moses would assign the proper qualifications of a judge-which office certainly calls for the quickest apprehension and the solidest judgment that the mind of man is well capable of,-(Deut. xvi. 19,) "Thou shalt not," says he, "take a gift." But why? He presently adds the reason; "because a gift," says he, "blinds the eyes of the wise." And no wonder, for it perverts their will; and then, who so blind as the man who resolves not to see? gold, it seems, being but a very bad help and cure of the eyes in such cases. In like manner, when Samuel would set the credit of his integrity clear above all the aspersions of envy and calumny itself, (1 Sam. xii. 3,) "Of whose hands," says he, "have I received a bribe, to blind my eyes therewith?" Implying thereby, that for a man to be gripe-handed and clearsighted too was impossible. And again, (Ecel. vii.7,) "A gift," says the wise man, "destroyeth the heart; that is, (as we have shewn already,) the judging and discerning powers of the soul. By all which we see, that in the judgment of some of the wisest and greatest men that ever lived, such as Moses, Samuel, Solomon himself, covetousness baffles and befools the mind, blinds and confounds the reasoning faculty; and that, not only in ordinary persons, but even in the ablest, the wisest, and most sagacious. And to give you one proof, above all, of the peculiar blinding power of this vice, there is not the most covetous wretch breathing, who does sc much as see or perceive that he is covetous.

For the truth is, preach to the conscience of a covetous person (if he may be said to

have any) with the tongue of men and angels, and tell him of the vanity of the world, of treasure in heaven, and of the necessity of being "rich toward God,” and liberal to his poor brother, and it is all but flat, insipid, and ridieulous stuff to him, who neither sees, nor feels, nor suffers any thing to pass into his heart, but through his hands. You must preach to such an one of bargain and sale, profits and perquisites, principal and interest, use upon use; and if you can persuade him that godliness is gain in his own sense, perhaps you may do something with him: otherwise, though you edge every word you speak with reason and religion, evidence and demonstration, you shall never affect, nor touch, nor so much as reach his conscience; for it is kept sealed up in a bag under lock and key, and you cannot come at it.

And thus much for the second base affection that blinds the mind of man, which is covetousness a thing directly contrary to the very spirit of Christianity, which is a free, a large, and an open spirit; a spirit open to God and man, and always carrying charity in one hand and generosity in the other.

Thirdly, The third and last vile affection which I shall mention, (as having the same darkening effect upon the mind or conscience,) is ambition. For as covetousness dulls the mind by pressing it down too much below itself, so ambition dazzles it by lifting it up as much above itself; but both of them are sure to darken the light of it. For if you either look too intently down a deep precipice upon a thing at an extreme distance below you, or with the same earnestness fix your eye upon something at too great a height above you, in both cases you will find a vertigo or giddiness. And where there is a giddiness in the head, there will be always a mist before the eyes. And thus, no doubt, it was only an ambitious aspiring after high things, which not long since caused such a woful, scandalous giddiness in some men's consciences, and made them turn round and round from this to that, and from that to this, till at length they knew not what bottom to fix upon. And this, in my opinion, is a case that admits of no vindication.

Pride, we know, (which is always cousingerman to ambition,) is commonly reckoned the forerunner of a fall. It was the devil's sin and the devil's ruin, and has been ever since the devil's stratagem, who, like an expert wrestler, usually gives a man a lift before he gives him a throw. But how does he do this? Why; by first blinding him with ambition; and when a man either cannot or will not mind the ground he stands upon, as a thing, forsooth, too much below him, he is then easily justled down, and thrust headlong into the next ditch. The truth is, in this case men seem to ascend to a high station, just as

they use to leap down a very great steep: in both cases they shut their eyes first; for in both the danger is very dreadful, and the way to venture upon it is not to see it.

Yea, so fatally does this towering, aspiring humour intoxicate and impose upon men's minds, that when the devil stands bobbing and tantalizing their gaping hopes with some preferment in church or state, they shall do he basest, the vilest, and most odious things imaginable; and that not only in defiance of conscience, but, which is yet more impudent and intolerable, shall even allege conscience itself as the very reason for the doing them; so that such wretches shall, out of mere conscience, forsooth, betray the country that bred, and the church that baptized them, and having first practised a dispensing power upon all law within them, shall help to let the same loose upon all laws without them too. And when they have done, shall wipe their mouths, and with as boon a grace and as bold a front look the world in the face, as if they expected thanks for such villainies as a modest malefactor would scarce presume to expect a pardon for.

But as for these ambitious animals, who could thus sell their credit and their conscience, wade through thick and thin, and break through all that is sacred and civil, only to make themselves high and great, I shall say no more of them but this, that, instead of being advanced to what they so much desired, it is well for them that they have not been advanced to what they so highly deserved. For this I am sure of, that neither Papists nor fanatics (both of them our mortal, implacable enemies) can conceive a prayer more fully and effectually for their own interest, than this, That the Church of England may never want store of ambitious, time-serving men. And if God should, in his anger to this poor church and nation, grant them this, they doubt not but in a little time to grant, or rather give themselves the rest. Let this therefore be fixed upon as a certain maxim, that ambition first blinds the conscience, and then leads the man whither it will, and that is, in the direct course of it, to the devil.

I know there are many more irregular and corrupt affections belonging to the mind of man, and all of them in their degree apt to darken and obscure the light of conscience. Such as are wrath and revenge, envy and malice, fear and despair, with many such others, even too many a great deal to be crowded into one hour's discourse. But the three forementioned (which we have been treating of) are, doubtless, the most predominant, the most potent in their influence, and most pernicious in their effect: as answering to those three principal objects which, of all others, do the most absolutely command and domineer over the desires of men; to wit, the