The rexation of-the Spirit. Í 41 dignitie mingled with mine other preferments, could but leave fuch and fuch portions behinde mee, I fhould then ref fatisfied, and defire no more. This is a moil: notorious cheat of the fleíhly heart of man ; firf, there- by to beget a fecret conceit, that fince this being got- ten, I fhould fit quietly downe, I may therefore fit my felfe with might and maine to procure it, and in the meant time negle& the fate of my foule, and perad- venture fhipwrack my confcience upon indira and un- warrantable meanes for fulfilling fo warrantable and .juif a defire. And fecondly, thereby likewife to inure and habituate the affeEioms to the love of the world, to plunge the foule in earthly delights, and to diffll a fecret poyfon of greedineffe into the heart. For it is with worldly love, as with the Sea, let it have at the firf never fo little a gappe, at which to creepe in , and it will eat out a wider way, till at Iafl it grow too Prong for allthe bulwarkes, and over -runne the foule. Om- ne peccaturn habet in fe mendacium : there is fomething ofthe lyein every finne, but very much in this of world - linefle, which gets upon a man with (lender andmo- def pretences , till at laf it gather impudence and vio- lence by degrees; even as a man that runnes downe a feepe hill, is at laU carried, not barely by the impulfi- on of his ow= will, but becaufe at fi rf he engaged him- felfe upon fuch a motion, as in the which it fhould prove impof able for him to Hoppe at his pleafure. Wee reade in Saint e/tugultines Confeffìonsof efllipius his Com- panion, who being by much importunitie overcome to accompany a friend of his to thofe bloudic Romane Games, wherein men killed one another to make fport forthe people; and yet refolving, though heewent with his body, to leave his heart behinde him, and for that purpofe to kecpe his eyes Phut, that he might not faine them with fo ungodly a fpe acic , yet at laf upon a mightie fhout at the fall of a man, he could not forbeare F to Aregu(f. de Civ. loci, 40. 14 .c.4. confer. 1.5.e.8.
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