4thly, The good that is in the gain is mixed and sophisticated; but the evil that is in the loss is pure and unmingled.

5thly, The good that is in the gain is full of intermissions; but the evil that is in the loss is continual.

6thly, The good that is in the gain is short and transitory; but the evil that is in the loss is eternal.

1st, The good that is in the gain is imaginary and fantastical; but the evil that is in the loss is real and substantial. For whatsoever we gain of this world's goods beyond what is necessary to serve the real occasions and modest conveniences of this present life, administers to no other purpose but only to gratify an extravagant fancy: for all the real need that a man hath of these worldly goods is only to maintain and provide for his body; for his soul hath no more need of them, than an angel hath of money to buy victuals and clothes with: and one would think so small a thing as an human body is, could not need many things, and that a piece of animate matter, some six foot long, might be very easily and cheaply provided for: and indeed so it would be, if we could once forbear fancying its needs to be greater than they are; but if we let loose the reins to an ungoverned fancy, that will so extend its needs beyond the capacities of its nature, that all the world will be too little to content the extravagant appetites of this little clod of earth. Lay but your fancies aside, and you will want no other apparel but what is sufficient to keep you warm, and clean, and modest, and with this you may be very cheaply provided; but if you will resolve to humour that capri

cious thing, you will want the revenue of a lordship to cover your nakedness. Keep but your fancies in order, and your appetites will be contented with plain and wholesome provisions; and this a small income will furnish you with: but if once you let loose that roving faculty, and suffer it to grow wanton and delicate, that will so stretch your appetites, that the stores of all the four elements will scarce be sufficient to gratify their luxuries. And so it is in all other things appertaining to the body; whose wants, according to nature's measures, are small, but according to fancy's, are infinite. So that if a man had all the world in his possession, yet all but that little, little part of it, that is either naturally necessary, or rationally convenient for his bodily subsistence, would be good for nothing but to humour the desires of an extravagant fancy, which are so far from being quenched, that they are but the more inflamed by enjoyment. If I had all the wealth of Croesus, the good fortunes of Cæsar, and the dominions of Alexander, what would it advantage me? I should only have abundance of things that I have no real need of; things, that if I would myself, I might easily be as happy without as I can be with them. For would I but make my nature and my reason the measure of my wants, I might always live next door to satisfaction; and as for my wants, they would be so light and portable, that I might easily take them and carry them along with me, and lay them down almost wheresoever I pleased. Whereas if I permit my fancy to grow wild and imaginative, I shall always find my wants doubled with my enjoyments; and whereas when I had but five pounds, I needed but five hundred; when I have five hundred, I shall need

five thousand; and so on, till at last I need beyond all possibility of satisfaction. Since therefore all that this world can do for me, besides the supplying of a few modest needs, which a very little of it will do, what a miserable loser shall I be, if, merely to gratify my fancy, I forfeit my soul, and incur the real miseries of a woful eternity, in pursuit of the fantastic joys of a moment? If to purchase things which I shall never be the better for, which while I have not I do not need, and which when I have I shall not enjoy, I should not only squander away the most substantial happiness, but plunge myself into a vast abyss of real and intolerable miseries; O good God! what a woful bargain shall I have of it! For though the pleasure of our sin doth always vanish on the brink of fruition, and, like a golden dream, concludes in a disappointed expectation; yet the sting that is to follow it will produce in us not only a real, but an extremely sharp and dolorous perception; so extremely sharp, that it will pierce our very hearts, and cause us to roar out with anguish for ever. And, alas! what a poor compensation is it for a man that must ere long be enduring the tortures of a tedious famine, to be entertained a few moments with the picture of a feast, or the story of Cleopatra's banquet! or, what man in his wits would ever forfeit himself, for the mere fancy of a pleasure, to the lingering torments of a rack? And yet, O wretched sinner! thou actest a thousand times more extravagantly, who, by thy unlawful pursuits of the imaginary pleasures of this world, betrayest thy soul to the bitter torments of hell.

2dly, The good that is in the gain of this world is narrow and particular; but the evil that is in the

loss of a soul is large and universal. It is but a part of ourselves, and that the worst part too, that this world's goods can benefit and advantage; they can only clothe our bodies more splendidly, and feed them more deliciously, and furnish them with more plenty of outward accommodations; but, alas! for the soul, they are as insignificant to her as musical sounds are to the eye of the body, or magnificent shows to the ear: they cannot improve the meanest faculty about her, nor make her in any respect either the better or the wiser. And as for the body itself, wherein all their lines do centre, there are a thousand cases in which they are perfectly useless ; for they cannot give health to it in any sickness, nor ease in any pain; they cannot recover a lost sense, nor restore a withered limb, nor rectify a deformed feature; nor is it in their power to reprieve it from the grave one moment beyond the natural period of its mortality. So extremely narrow are these worldly goods which we are so greedy of, that they can extend their benefits no farther than the body; nay, and even to that they are vastly inadequate, there being a thousand bodily necessities whereunto they cannot extend themselves. So that if to purchase these we expose ourselves to eternal perdition, we shall have in comparison but a drop of good to compensate ourselves for an ocean of misery. For the misery of hell is as vast and extensive as our capacity of suffering, and hath in it an appropriate torment for every sensible part of our natures. It racks the wretched soul in every faculty, and fills up all its capacities of misery with anguish and vexation: it afflicts its mind with horrid apprehensions, wounds and gashes its conscience with dismal reflections; it

festers its will with black and venomous passions, and starves its desires with everlasting famine. And as it leaves no part of the soul untormented, but covers it over from head to foot with wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, so when the body at the resurrection is reunited to it, the misery of hell will extend to this also; for then it will have superadded to its spiritual plagues the most exquisite instrument of corporeal torment, viz. the dark, and noisome, and scorching flames of a burning world, which will seize upon the bodies of reprobate sinners, they being finally abandoned to them by the last and final sentence, and stick close to and burn through them for ever. And their bodies being thus wrapped and clothed in flaming sulphur, must needs be exquisitely vexed in every part and member, and feel as many torments as they have senses to endure them. Thus the miseries of hell, you see, are far more extensive than the goods of this world; for whereas these extend only to our bodies, and can relieve them but in a few of their necessities, those overspread both the body and soul, and are both coeternal and coequal with their utmost capacities of suffering: so that when by our unlawful pursuits of the goods of this world we forfeit ourselves to eternal perdition, we plunge our whole nature into intolerable misery for the ease and the pleasure of one particular part. Now would any man in his wits, do you think, eat ratsbane for no other reason but only because it is sweet? Would he to please his lickerish palate diffuse a tormenting poison over all his parts and members? or would he think the pleasure of one sweet gust a sufficient compensation for all the succeeding spasms and con