THE POWERS AND. CONTESTS OF FLESH. AND SPIRIT. :115 alone. How often have eyes and cars been the unhappy torches to kindle either unlawful love, or malice and re- venge, according as a man bath been casually led within sight or hearing of the person that has allured him tó pleasure, or put him. to pain ? Pictures and stories have many a time become fatal instruments of the same mis- chief; When we sit at a well-spread-table, Both not our palate often tempt us to improper food, and to riot upon a beloved dish ? We venture to taste of the luscious compound, even though we suspect, or are almost cer- tain, it has sickness or disease lurking in it ; and some- times : we indulge the freedom of appetite in the most wholesome provisions, to a vicious excess and surfeit, Howmany a wretch is enticed to become a glutton, or a. drunkard, or to rush on to the pursuit of adultery and polluted pleasure, by his passing through some ensnaring occurrences of life, and having the soul united to this sinful flesh? The wanton eye, and the greedy palate art tempting engines, that draw the mind away to forbidden objects. It is upon this account that our blessed Lord gives advice in his excellent sermon : " If thy right -eye offend thee, pluck it out ;; or, if thy right -hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast them both away from thee ; for it is pro* fitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell ;» Mat. v. E9, 30. And though our Lord may be sup* posed here to speak metaphorically, and to bid us part with those beloved sins that are dear to us as an hand or an eye, yet he designs to teach us that the eye, and the hand, and the fleshlypowers, may become wretched occa- sions ofsin to us ; and if therewere no other way to avoid the danger, it is better to bear the pain of parting with those mischievous and offensive members, than yield to their temptations, and rushon to guilt and eternal misery. I might here also take notice, that the very presence of all sorts of corporeal objects, even the most necessary; and the most innocent, may become occasions of sin, at special seasons ; as when we are engaged in any part of divine worship, the common and obvious appearances round about us, the walls, the doors, the windows, the furniture of the place, or the persons present, impress our senses and often turn away the thoughts from the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=