ON HOSEA XIV. -- VERSES 2, 3. 73 selves, as it were, by solemn obligations not to part with it again. O that every presumptuous sinner who thus sells himself to do wickedly, would seriously consider those sad incumbrances that go along with this his purchase. Those who would have estates to continue in such or such a succession as themselves had preintended, have sometimes charged curses and execrations upon those who should alienate, or go about to alter the property and condition of them. These, many times, are taus- - less curses, and do not come ; but if any man will needs make bargains with Satan, and be buying of the pleasures of sin, he must needs know that there goes a curse from Heaven along with such a purchase, which will make it at the last but a sweet bitter, like John's roll, which was sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly ; like Claudius's mushroom, pleasant but poison ; that will blast all the pleasures of sin ; into such gold as ever brought destruction to the owners of it. It is said of Cn. Seius, that he had a goodly horse which had all the perfections that could be named for stature, feature, colour, strength, limbs, comeliness, belong- ing to a horse ; but withal this misery ever went along with him, that whosoever became owner of him was sure to die an unhappy death. This is the misery that always accompanies the bargain of sin. How pleasant, how profitable, how advantageous soever it may seem to be unto flesh and blood, it hath always calamity in the end, it ever expires in a miserable death. Honey is very sweet, but it turns into the bitterest choler. The valley of Sodom was one of the most delightful places in the world, but is now become a dead and a standing lake. Let the life of a wicke.P man run on ever so fluently, it hath a Dead Sea at the dead end of it. O then, when thou art making a a
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=