before paradise, but before hell itself also, to keep men out of this, as well as out of the other. And conscience is the angel, into whose hand this sword is put. But if now the sinner shall not only wrestle with this angel, but throw him too, and win so complete a victory over his conscience, that all these considerations shall be able to strike no terror into his mind, lay no restraint upon his lusts, no control upon his appetites; he is certainly too strong for the means of grace, and his heart lies open, like a broad and high road, for all the sin and villainy in the world freely to pass through.

The truth is, if we impartially consider the nature of these sins against conscience, we shall find them such strange paradoxes, that a man must balk all common principles, and act contrary to the natural way and motive of all human actions, in the commission of them. For that which naturally moves a man to do any thing, must be the apprehension and expectation of some good from the thing which he is about to do: and that which naturally keeps a man from doing of a thing must be the apprehension and fear of some mischief likely to ensue from that thing or action that he is ready to engage in. But now, for a man to do a thing, while his conscience, the best light that he has to judge by, assures him that he shall be infinitely, unsupportably miserable, if he does it; this is certainly unnatural and, one would imagine, impossible.

And therefore, so far as one may judge, while a man acts against his conscience, he acts by a principle of direct infidelity, and does not really believe that those things that God has thus threatened shall ever come to pass. For, though he may yield a ge

neral, faint assent to the truth of those propositions, as they stand recorded in scripture; yet, for a thorough, practical belief, that those general propositions shall be particularly made good upon his person, no doubt, for the time that he is sinning against conscience, such a belief has no place in his mind. Which being so, it is easy to conceive how ready and disposed this must needs leave the soul to admit of any, even the most horrid, unnatural proposals that the devil himself can suggest: for conscience being once extinct, and the Spirit of God withdrawn, (which never stays with a man, when conscience has once left him,) the soul, like the first matter to all forms, has an universal propensity to all lewdness. For every violation of conscience proportionably wears off something of its native tenderness; which tenderness being the cause of that anguish and remorse that it feels upon the commission of sin, it follows, that when, by degrees, it comes to have worn off all this tenderness, the sinner will find no trouble of mind upon his doing the very wickedest and worst of actions; and consequently, that this is the most direct and effectual introduction to all sorts and degrees of sin.

For which reason it was, that I alleged sinning against conscience for one of the causes of this vile temper and habit of mind, which we are now discoursing of: not that it has any special productive efficiency of this particular sort of sinning, more than of any other, but that it is a general cause of this, as of all other great vices; and that it is impossible but a man must have first passed this notable stage, and got his conscience throughly debauched and hardened,

before he can arrive to the height of sin; which I account the delighting in other men's sins to be.

3dly, A third cause of this villainous disposition of mind, besides a man's personal commission of such and such sins, and his commission of them against conscience, must be also his continuance in them. For God forbid that every single commission of a sin, though great for its kind, and withal acted against conscience for its aggravation, should so far deprave the soul, and bring it to such a reprobate sense and condition, as to take pleasure in other men's sins. For we know what a foul sin David committed, and what a crime St. Peter himself fell into; both of them, no doubt, fully and clearly against the dictates of their conscience; yet we do not find, that either of them was thereby brought to such an impious frame of heart, as to delight in their own sins, and much less in other men's. And therefore it is not every sinful violation of conscience, that can quench the Spirit, to such a degree as we have been speaking of; but it must be a long, inveterate course and custom of sinning after this manner, that at length produces and ends in such a cursed effect. For this is so great a masterpiece in sin, that no man begins with it he must have passed his tyrocinium, or novitiate, in sinning, before he can come to this, be he never so quick a proficient. No man can mount so fast, as to set his foot upon the highest step of the ladder at first. Before a man can come to be pleased with a sin, because he sees his neighbour commit it, he must have had such a long acquaintance with it himself, as to create a kind of intimacy or friendship between him and that; and

then, we know, a man is naturally glad to see his old friend, not only at his own house, but wheresoever he meets him. It is generally the property of an old sinner, to find a delight in reviewing his own villainies in the practice of other men; to see his sin and himself, as it were, in reversion; and to find a greater satisfaction in beholding him who succeeds him in his vice, than him who is to succeed him in his estate. In the matter of sin, age makes a greater change upon the soul, than it does or can upon the body. And as in this, if we compare the picture of a man, drawn at the years of seventeen or eighteen, with a picture of the same person at threescore and ten, hardly the least trace or similitude of one face can be found in the other. So for the soul, the difference of the dispositions and qualities of the inner man will be found much greater. Compare the harmlessness, the credulity, the tenderness, the modesty, and the ingenuous pliableness to virtuous counsels, which is in youth, as it comes fresh and untainted out of the hands of nature, with the mischievousness, the slyness, the craft, the impudence, the falsehood, and the confirmed obstinacy in most sorts of sin, that is to be found in an aged, longpractised sinner, and you will confess the complexion and hue of his soul to be altered more than that of his face. Age has given him another body, and custom another mind. All those seeds of virtue and good morality, that were the natural endowments of our first years, are lost, and dead for ever. And in respect of the native innocence of childhood, no man, through old age, becomes twice a child. The vices of old age have in them the stiffness of it too. And as

it is the unfittest time to learn in, so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater.

Which considerations, joined with that of its imbecility, make it the proper season for a superannuated sinner to enjoy the delights of sin in the rebound; and to supply the impotence of practice by the airy, phantastic pleasure of memory and reflection. For all that can be allowed him now, is to refresh his decrepit effete sensuality with the transcript and history of his former life, recognised, and read over by him, in the vicious rants of the vigorous youthful debauches of the present time, whom (with an odd kind of passion, mixed of pleasure and envy too) he sees flourishing in all the bravery and prime of their age and vice. An old wrestler loves to look on, and to be near the lists, though feebleness will not let him offer at the prize. An old huntsman finds a music in the noise of hounds, though he cannot follow the chase. An old drunkard loves a tavern, though he cannot go to it, but as he is supported, and led by another, just as some are observed to come from thence. And an old wanton will be doating upon women, when he can scarce see them without spectacles. And to shew the true love and faithful allegiance that the old servants and subjects of vice ever after bear to it, nothing is more usual and frequent, than to hear that such as have been strumpets in their youth, turn procurers in their age. Their great concern is, that the vice may still go on.

4thly, A fourth cause of men's taking pleasure in the sins of others, is from that meanness and poor spiritedness that naturally and inseparably accom