loveth himself? Why do you love those above their worth who think highly of you, and are on your side, and use to praise you behind your back, or that do you a good turn, but because you first overlove yourselves? Why doth lustful love inflame you, or the love of meat, and drink, and sport, and bravery, carry you into such a gulf of sin, but that first you overlove your fleshly pleasure? What ensnareth you in fondness to any person, but that you think they love you, or are suitable to your carnal end. See therefore that you mortify the flesh.

Direct. IV. Still remember how jealous God is of your love, and how much he is wronged when any creature encroacheth upon his right.' 1. You are his own by creation and did he give you love to lay out on others, and deny it to himself? 2. He daily and hourly maintaineth you; he giveth you every breath, and bit, and mercy that you live upon, and will you love the creature with his part of your love? 3. How dearly hath he bought your love in your redemption? 4. He hath adopted you and brought you into the nearest relation to him that you may love him. 5. He hath pardoned all your sins and saved you from hell (if you are his own) that you may love him. 6. He hath promised you eternal glory with himself that you may love him. 7. His excellency best deserveth your love. 8. His creatures have nothing but from him, and were purposely sent to bespeak your love for him rather than for themselves. And yet after all this shall they encroach upon his part? If you say, it is not God's part that you give them, but their own; I tell you all that love which you give the creature above its due, you take from God. But if it be such a love to the creature as exceedeth not its worth, and is intended ultimately for God, and maketh you not love him the less but the more, it is not it that I am speaking against, or persuading you to mortify.

Direct. v. Look on the worst of the creature with the best, and foresee what it will be when it withereth, and what it will appear to you at the last.' I have applied this against worldliness before, Chap. iv. Part vi. and I shall afterwards apply it to the lustful love. Bring your beloved

creature to the grave, and see it as it will appear at last, and much of the folly of your love will vanish.

Direct. vi. Understand well the most that it will do for you, and how short a time you must enjoy it, and flatter not yourselves with the hopes of a longer possession than you have reason to expect.' If men consider for how short a time they must possess what they dote upon, it would somewhat cool their fond affections.

Direct. VII. Remember that too much love hath the present trouble of too much care, and the future trouble of too much grief, when you come to part with what you love,' Nothing more createth care and grief to us, than inordinate love. You foreknow that you must part with it: and will you now be so glued to it that then it may tear your flesh and heart. Remember you caused all that yourselves.

Direct. VIII. Remember that you provoke God to deprive you of what you overlove, or to suffer it to grow unlovely to you. Many a man's horse that he overloved hath broke his neck and many a man's child that he overloved hath died quickly, or lived to be his scourge and sorrow: and many a husband or wife that was overloved, has been quickly snatched away or proved a thorn, or a continual grief and misery.

Direct. Ix. If there be no other means left, prudently and moderately embitter to thyself the creature which thou art fond of: which may be done many ways, according to the nature of it.' By the seldomer or more abstemious use of it: or by using it more to benefit than delight; or by mixing some mortifying, humbling exercises; or mixing some self-denying acts, and minding more the good of others, &c.

Direct. x. In the practice of all directions of this nature, there must abundance of difference be made between a carnal, voluptuous heart, that is hardly taken off from sensual love, and a mortified, melancholy, or overscrupulous person, who is running into the contrary extreme, and is afraid of every bit they eat, or of all they possess, or wear, or use, and sometimes of their very children and relations, and ready to overrun their mercies, or neglect their duties, suspecting that all is too much loved.' And it is a very hard thing for us so to write or preach to one party, but the other will misapply it to themselves, and make an ill use of it. All that we can write or say is too little to mortify the

fleshly man's affections: and yet speak as cautiously as we can, the troubled soul will turn it into gall, to the increase of his trouble: and what we speak to his peace and settlement, though it prove too little and uneffectual, yet will be effectual to harden the misapplying sensualist in the sinful affections and liberty which he useth. Therefore it is best in such cases to have still a wise, experienced, faithful guide, to help you in the application in cases of difficulty and weight.

Tit. 3. Directions against sinful Desires and Discontent.

I shall say but little here of this subject, because I have already treated so largely of it, in my book of Self-denial, and in that of Crucifying the World; and here before in Chap. iv. Part vi. and vii. against worldliness and fleshpleasing, and here against sinful love which is the cause".

How sinful desires may be known, you may gather from the desires of sinful love: as, 1. When you desire that which is forbidden you. 2. Or that which will do you no good, upon a misconceit that it is better or more needful than it is. 3. Or when you desire it too eagerly, and must needs have it, or else you will be impatient or discontented, and cannot quietly be ruled and disposed of by God, but are murmuring at his providence, and your lot. 4. Or when you desire it too hastily, and cannot stay God's time. 5. Or else too greedily as to the measure, being not content with God's allowance, but must needs have more than he thinks fit for you. 6. Or specially when your desires are perverse, preferring lesser things before greater; desiring bodily and transitory things more than the mercies for your souls which will be everlasting. 7. When you desire any thing ultimately and merely for the flesh, without referring it to God, it is a sin. Even your daily bread and all your comforts, must be desired but as provender for your horse, that he may the better go his journey, even as provision for your bodies, to fit them to the better and more cheerful service of your souls and God. 8. Much more when your desires are for wicked ends, (as to serve your lust, or pride,

Read Mr. Burrough's excellent treatise, called 'The Jewel of Contentment.' And that excellent tract of a Heathen, Plutarch de tranquillitate animi.'

or covetousness. or revenge), they are wicked desires. 9. And when they are injurious to others.

Direct. 1. Be well acquainted with your own condition, and consider what it is that you have most need of; and then you will find that you have so much grace and mercy to desire for your souls, without which you are lost for ever, and that you have a Christ to desire, and an endless life with God to desire, that it will quench all your thirst after the things below.' This if any thing will make you wiser, when you see you have greater things to mind. A man that is in present danger of his life, will not be solicitous for pins or fool-gawds: and the hopes of a lordship or a kingdom will cure the desire of little things: a man that needeth a physician for the dropsy or consumption, will scarce long for children's balls or tops. And methinks a man that is going to heaven or hell, should have somewhat greater than worldly things to long for. O what a vain and doting thing is a carnal mind: that hath pardon, and grace, and Christ, and heaven, and God, to think of, and that with speed before it be too late; and can forget them all, or not regard them or eagerly long for some little inconsiderable trifle; as if they said, I must needs taste of such a dish before I die I must needs have such a house, or a child, or friend, before I go into another world! O study what need thy distressed soul hath of a Christ, and of peace with God, and preparation for eternity, and what need thy darkened mind hath of more knowledge, and thy dead and carnal heart of more life, and tenderness, and love, to God, and communion with him; feel these as thou hast cause, and the eagerness of thy carnal desires will be gone.

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Direct. 11. Remember how much your carnal desires

2 Mentem nullis imaginibus depictam habeat: nam si corde mundus et ab universis imaginibus liber esse cupit, nil penitus cum amore possidere, nulli homini per voluntarium affectum singulari familiaritate, nullus ipsi, adhærere debet. Omnis namque familiaritas aut conversatio pure propter Dei amorem non inita, variis imaginibus inficit et perturbat hominum mentes, cum non ex Deo, sed ex carne originem ducat. Quisquis in virum spiritualem et divinum proficere cupit, is, carnali vitâ penitus renunciata, Deo soli amore adhæreat, eundemque interiori homine suo peculiariter possideat, quo habito mox omnis multiplicitas, omnes imagines, omnis inordinatus erga creaturas amor fortiter ab eo profligabuntur; Deo quippe per amorem intus possesso protinus ab universis homo imaginibus liberatur. Deus spiritus est, cujus imaginem nemo proprie exprimere aut effigiare potest. Thaulerus flor. p.

79, 80.

do aggravate the weakness of your spiritual desires, and make the sin more odious and unexcusable.' Are you so eager for a husband, a wife, a child, for wealth, for preferment, or such things, while you are so cold and indifferent in your desires after God, and grace, and glory? Your desires after these are not so earnest! They make you not so importunate and restless: they take not up your thoughts both day and night: they set you not so much on contrivances and endeavours: you can live as quietly without more grace, or assurance of salvation, or communion with God, as if you were indifferent in the business: but you must needs have that which you desire in the world, or there is no quiet with you. Do you consider what a horrible contempt of God, and grace, and heaven, is manifested by this? Either you are regenerate or unregenerate. If you are regenerate, all your instructions, and all your experience of the worth of spiritual things, and the vanity of things temporal, do make it a heinous sin in you to be now so eager for those things which you have so often called vanity, while you are so cold towards God whose goodness you have had so great experience of. Do you know no better yet the difference between the creature and the Creator? Do you yet no better understand your necessities and interest, and what it is that you live upon and must trust to, for your everlasting blessedness and content? If you are unregenerate (as all are that love any thing better than God) what a madness is it for one that is condemned in law to endless torments, and shall be quickly there, if he be not regenerate and justified by Christ, to be thirsting so eagerly for this or that thing, or person, upon earth, when he should presently bestir him with all his might to save his soul from endless misery! How incongruous are these desires to the good and bad?

Direct. 111. Let every sinful desire humble you, for the worldliness and fleshliness which it discovereth to be yet unmortified in you; and turn your desires to the mortifying of that flesh and concupiscence which is the cause.' If you did not yet love the world, and the things that are in the world, you would not be so eager for them. If you were not too carnal, and did not mind too much the things of the flesh, you would not be so earnest for them as you