72 SECOND SERMON blood, and at once sells a soul, and a Saviour, for so base a price as thirty pieces of silver, Matt. xxvi. 15. Profane Esau makes merchandise of his birth - right, whereunto belonged the inheritance, or double portion, the princely power, and the office of priesthood, the blessing, the excellency, and the government, Gen. xlix, 3. 2 Chron. xxix. 3. all which he parts with for one morsel of meat, Heb. xii. 16. being therein a type of all those profane wretches, who deride the ways of godliness, and promises of salvation, drowning them- selves in sensual delights, and esteeming heaven and hell, salvation and perdition but as the vain notions of melancholy men ; having no other God but their belly, or their gain, Phil. iii. 19. 1 Tim. vi. 5. So much monstrous wickedness is there in the hearts of men, that they add spurs and whips unto a horse which of himself rusheth into the battle : when the tide of their own lusts, the stream and current of their own headstrong and impetuous affections do carry them too swiftly before, yet they hoist up sail, and, as it were, spread open their hearts to the winds of temptation, precipitating and urging on their natural lusts by voluntary engagements, tying them- selves yet faster to misery than Adam by his fall had tied them, and making themselves not by nature only, but by compact the children of wrath. One makes beforehand a bargain for drunkenness, another con- trives a meeting for uncleanness, a third enters into a combination for robbery and cozenage, a fourth makes an oath of revenge and malice ; like Ananias and Sapphira, they agree together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord, Acts v. 9. Like Samson's foxes, they join together with firebrands to set the souls of one another on fire, as if they had not title enough to hell except they bargained for it anew, and bound them-
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