sensuality with the transcript and history of his former life, recognised, and read over by him, in the vicious rants of the vigorous youthful debauches of the present time, whom, with an odd kind of passion, mixed of pleasure and envy too, he sees flourishing in all the bravery and prime of their age and vice. An old wrestler loves to look on, and to be near the lists, though feebleness will not let him offer at the prize. An old huntsman finds a music in the noise of hounds, though he cannot follow the chace. An old drunkard loves a tavern, though he cannot go to it, but as he is supported, and led by another, just as some are observed to come from thence. And an old wanton will be doating upon women, when he can scarce see them without spectacles. And to shew the true love and faithful allegiance that the old servants and subjects of vice ever after bear to it, nothing is more usual and frequent, than to hear that such as have been strumpets in their youth, turn procurers in their age. Their great concern is, that the vice may still go on.

4thly, A fourth cause of men's taking pleasure in the sins of others, is from that meanness and poor spiritedness that naturally and inseparably accompanies all guilt. Whosoever is conscious to himself of sin, feels in himself, whether he will own it or no, a proportionable shame, and a secret depression of spirit thereupon. And this is so irksome, and uneasy to man's mind, that he is restless to relieve and rid himself from it: for which, he finds no way so effectual, as to get company in the same sin. For company, in any action, gives both credit to that, and countenance to the agent; and so much as the sinner gets of this, so much he casts off of shame. Singularity in sin puts it out of fashion; since to be alone in any practice, seems to make the judgment of the world against it; but the concurrence of others is a tacit approbation of that, in which they concur. Solitude is a kind of nakedness, and the result of that, we know, is shame. It is company only that can bear a man out in an ill thing; and he who is to encounter and fight the law, will be sure to need a second. No wonder therefore if some take

delight in the immoralities and baseness of others; for nothing can support their minds, drooping, and sneaking, and inwardly reproaching them, from a sense of their own guilt, but to see others as bad as themselves.

To be vicious amongst the virtuous, is a double disgrace and misery; but where the whole company is vicious and debauched, they presently like, or at least easily pardon one another. And as it is observed by some, that there is none so homely, but loves a lookingglass; so it is certain, that there is no man so vicious, but delights to see the image of his vice reflected upon him, from one who exceeds, or at least equals him in the same.

Sin in itself is not only shameful, but also weak ; and it seeks a remedy for both in society: for it is this that must give it both colour and support. But on the

contrary, how great and, as I may so speak, how selfsufficient a thing is virtue! It needs no credit from abroad, no countenance from the multitude. Were there but one virtuous man in the world, he would hold up his head with confidence and honour; he would shame the world, and not the world him. For, according to that excellent and great saying, "A good man shall be satisfied from himself." He needs look no further. But if he desires to see the same virtue propagated and diffused to those about him, it is for their sakes, not his own. It is his charity that wishes, and not his necessity that requires it. For solitude and singularity can neither daunt nor disgrace him; unless we should suppose it a disgrace for a man to be singularly good.

But a vicious person, like the basest sort of beasts, never enjoys himself but in the herd. Company, he thinks, lessens the shame of vice, by sharing it; and abates the torrent of a common odium, by deriving it into many channels; and therefore, if he cannot wholly avoid the eye of the observer, he hopes to distract it at least by a multiplicity of the object. These, I confess, are poor shifts, and miserable shelters, for a sick and a self-upbraiding conscience to fly to; and yet

they are some of the best that the debauchee has to cheer up his spirits with in this world. For if, after all, he must needs be seen, and took notice of, with all his filth and noisomeness about him, he promises himself however, that it will be some allay to his reproach, to be but one of many, to march in a troop, and by a preposterous kind of ambition, to be seen in bad company.

I proceed now to the second, which is, To shew the reasons why a man's being disposed to do so, comes to be attended with such an extraordinary guilt. And the first shall be taken from this, that naturally there is no motive to induce or tempt a man to this way of sinning. And this is a most certain truth, that the lesser the temptation is, the greater is the sin. For in every sin, by how much the more free the will is in its choice, by so much is the act the more sinful. And where there is nothing to importune, urge, or provoke it to any act, there is so much an higher and perfecter degree of freedom about that act. For albeit the will is not capable of being compelled to any of its actings, yet it is capable of being made to act with more or less difficulty, according to the different impressions it receives from motives or objects. If the object be extremely pleasing, and apt to gratify it; there, though the will has still a power of refusing it, yet it is not without some difficulty: upon which account it is, that men are so strongly carried out to, and so hardly took off from, the practice of vice; namely, because the sensual pleasure arising from it is still importuning and drawing them to it.

But now, from whence springs this pleasure? Is it not from the gratification of some desire founded in nature? An irregular gratification it is indeed very often; yet still the foundation of it is, and must be, something natural: so that the sum of all is this, that the naturalness of a desire is the cause that the satisfaction of it is pleasure, and pleasure importunes the will; and that which importunes the will, puts a difficulty in the will's refusing or forbearing it. Thus

drunkenness is an irregular satisfaction of the appetite of thirst; uncleanness an unlawful gratification of the appetite of procreation; and covetousness a boundless, unreasonable pursuit of the principle of self-preservation. So that all these are founded in some natural desire, and are therefore pleasurable, and upon that account tempt, solicit, and entice the will. In a word, there is hardly any one vice or sin of direct and personal commission, but what is the irregularity and abuse of one of those two grand natural principles; namely, either that which inclines a man to preserve himself, or that which inclines him to please himself.

But now, what principle, faculty, or desire, by which nature projects either its own pleasure or preservation, is or can be gratified by another man's personal pursuit of his own vice? It is evident, that all the pleasure that naturally can be received from a vicious action, can immediately and personally affect none but him who does it; for it is an application of the pleasing object only to his own sense; and no man feels by another man's senses. And therefore the delight that a man takes from another's sin, can be nothing else but a fantastical, preternatural complacency arising from that which he has really no sense or feeling of. It is properly a love of vice, as such; a delighting in sin for its own sake; and is a direct imitation, or rather an exemplification of the malice of the devil; who delights in seeing those sins committed, which the very condition of his nature renders him uncapable of committing himself. For the devil can neither drink, nor whore, nor play the epicure, though he enjoys the pleasures of all these at a second hand, and by malicious approbation. If a man plays the thief, says Solomon," and steals to satisfy his hunger," though it cannot wholly excuse the fact, yet it sometimes extenuates the guilt. And we

know there are some corrupt affections in the soul of man, that urge and push him on to their satisfaction, with such an impetuous fury, that when we see a man overborne and run down by them, considering the frailty of human nature, we cannot but pity the person, while

we abhor the crime.

It being like one ready to drink poison, rather than to die with thirst.

But when a man shall, with a sober, sedate, diabolical rancour, look upon and enjoy himself in the sight of his neighbour's sin and shame, and secretly hug himself upon the ruins of his brother's virtue, and the dishonours of his reason, can he plead the instigation of any appetite in nature inclining him to this; and that would otherwise render him uneasy to himself, should he not thus triumph in another's folly and confusion? No, certainly; this cannot be so much as pretended. For he may as well carry his eyes in another man's head, and run races with another man's feet, as directly and naturally to taste the pleasures that spring from the gratification of another man's appetites.

Nor can that person, whosoever he is, who accounts it his recreation and diversion to see one man wallowing in his filthy revels, and another made infamous and noisome by his sensuality, be so impudent as to allege for a reason of his so doing, that either all the enormous draughts of the one, do or can leave the least relish upon the tip of his tongue; or that all the fornications and whoredoms of the other, do or can quench or cool the boilings of his own lust. No, this is impossible. And if so, what can we then assign for the cause of this monstrous disposition? Why, all that can be said in this case is, that nature proceeds by quite another method; having given men such and such appetites, and allotted to each of them their respective pleasures; the appetite and the pleasure still cohabiting in the same subject: but the devil and long custom of sinning have superinduced upon the soul new, unnatural, and absurd desires; desires that have no real object; desires that relish things not at all desirable; but, like the sickness and distemper of the soul, feeding only upon filth and corruption, fire and brimstone, and giving a man the devil's nature and the devil's delight; who has no other joy or happiness, but to dishonour his Maker, and to destroy his fellow-creature; to corrupt him here, and to torment him hereafter. In fine,