eyes without light: For the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned; 1 Cor. ii. 14. And in that person it is, that Agur, the son of Jakeh, speaks, I am more brutish than man: I have not the understanding of a man; Prov. xxx. 2. Why this? I have not the knowledge of the holy; verse 3. The word is remarkable; no other than y; whence is ya Jumentum, a beast:" the same, that Ezekiel uses, when he says, I will give thee over into the hands of brutish men; Ezek. xxi. 31: and the Psalmist, when he says, ye foolish, or brutish, among the people, when will ye understand? So as, notwithstanding this muddy and imperfect reason, God sees a kind of brutality in the natural man.

Whereto it may please you to add, that in a man debauched reason is so much worse than brutishness, by how much wickedness is worse heinous than simplicity: and, if want of reason make a beast, abuse of reason makes a devil. It is a miserable advantage, that makes us only apt to evil, and capable of a hell: small cause have we to brag of those powers, which so distinguish us from beasts, that they make us worse than beasts.

In short, therefore, notwithstanding Shape, Speech, Reason, a natural (and thereby a vicious) man may well pass for a beast.

2. And now, that we see it apparent that he is so, let us a little enquire HOW He became so.

Certainly, God made man upright; as in shape, so in disposition. What wrought this miserable metamorphosis? What could do it but sorcery? and what witch could this be, but the old Circe of the world, Sensuality? Man is led and informed by reason; beasts, by sense: now when man abandons reason and gives himself up to sense, he casts off the man and puts on the beast.

Neither is this sensuality in the affection only, but it goes through the whole soul: there is a sensual understanding, as well as a sensual appetite: the one makes a beast in opinion; the other, in practice: gross error doth the one; vice, the other. Whosoever therefore is transported with either, is turned beast. Give me a man, that is given up to his filthy lusts; give me a man, whose reason is drawn through his maw, or his spleen: let him be otherwise what he will, I dare say he is no other than a beast.

3. And now, what VARIETY think you is there of several kinds? no wilderness affords so many. Nero is a Lion; 2 Tim. iv. 17: Herod, a Fox; Luke xiii. 32: the Jewish false-teachers, Dogs; Phil. iii. 2: David's persecutors, Bulls of Basan, and Unicorns, Psalm xxii. 12, 21: the Egyptian enemies, Dragons; Psalm lxxiv. 13: the Scribes and Pharisees, Serpents, Vipers; Matt. xxiii. 33: the Babylonian Monarch, an Eagle-winged Lion; the Persian, a Bear; the Macedonian, a Leopard; Dan. vii. 4, 5, 6: the enemies of the Church, Wild Boars; Psalm 1xxx. 13: greedy judges, Evening Wolves; Zeph. iii. 3: schismatics, Foxes' Cubs; Cant. ii. 15. The time and my breath would fail me, if I should reckon up all the se veral kinds of beasts in the skins of men. Surely, as there is thought to be no beast upon earth, which hath not his fellow in the sea,

and which hath not his semblance in plants; so I may truly say, there is no beast in the vast desert of the world, which is not parallelled in man. Yea, as effects and qualities are in a higher degree found in causes and subjects equivocal than in their own; as heat is more excellently in the sun than in the fire: so certainly is brutishness more eminent and notorious in man than in beast,

(1) Look into all herds and droves, and see if you can find so very a beast as the Drunkard. It was St, Austin's reason of old, Those beasts will drink no more than they think enough: and if the panther, which they say is the drunkennest beast, or the swine, be overtaken with unaccustomed liquor, it is upon ignorance of the power of it: so a Noah himself may be at first mistaken. But man's reason foretels him, that those intoxicating draughts will bereave him of reason: yet he swills them down wilfully; as if it were a pleasure to forego that, whereby he is a man. The beast, when he hath his load, may frisk a little, and move inordinately; and then lie down in an ordinary posture of harmless rest: but, for the drunkard, his tongue reels straight, either into railing or ribaldry; his hands, into swaggering and bloodshed; all his motions are made of disorder and mischief; and his rest is no less odious, than his moving. See how he lies wallowing in his own filthy excretions; in so loathsome a fashion, as were enough to make the beholder hate to be a man. And now, when we have all done, after all the shame and scorn, here is sus ad volutabrum. All the world cannot reclaim a habituated drunkard, That, which the beasts know not how to do, his wit projects when he is sober, how he may be drunk; and, which St, Chrysostom well observes, as more transcending all humours of beasts, how he may force others to his own shameful excess, Far, far be this abominable vice from any of you, Courtiers. That, which the Lacedæmonians scorned in their very slaves; that, which our former times had wont to disdain in beggars; let not that, stain the honour of a Christian Court, Or, if any such should hear me this day, Awake, ye drunkards; and weep, and howl, ye drinkers of wine; Joel i. 5. Return back your superfluous liquor into tears: or, if ye will not weep, ye shall howl; if ye will not weep with penitents, ye shall howl with hell-hounds; and ye, that now pour down vessels more to make than quench thirst, shall one day in vain wish to give all the world, for but one drop of water to cool that flaming tongue, which a whole ocean cannot so much as

moisten.

(2) Look, if in all the mountains or stalls, there be any such goat or stallion as the Voluptuous man. Those silly beasts are carried, with the sway of their natural desires, into those actions of lust, which are uncapable both of shame and sin; but, in their own seasons, and within their own line: these high-fed steeds are ever neighing after strange flesh; and, as was said of beastly Messalina, may be wearied, cannot be satisfied. Those beasts affect not to go in any other, than the ordinary road of nature: but these prodigies of Sodomitical lewdness, as St. Paul speaks to his Romans, even then infamous for this not-to-be-named villainy, burn in lust one w

wards another, and man with man work that which is unseemly. In that impure city, beasts might have been saints to the men; even out of that reason, which the wanton Roman Dame gave of old for their silly innocence, because they are beasts.

(3) Look into all the cribs and troughs of brutish diet, and see whether you can find such a beast as a Glutton. Those irrational creatures take that simple provision which nature yields them, but to a sufficiency; not affecting curiosity of dressings, varieties of mixtures, surcharges of measures: whereas, the liquorous palate of the glutton ranges through seas and lands, for uncouth delicacies; kills thousands of creatures, for but their tongues or giblets; makes but one dish of the quintessence of a hundred fowls or fishes; praises that, for the best flesh, that is no flesh; cares only to solicit that, which others would be glad to satisfy, appetite. What shall I say more? this gourmand sacrifices whole hecatombs to his paunch; and whiffs himself away, in Necotian Incense, to the idol of his vain intemperance; and tears his own bowels, yea his soul, with his teeth.

(4) Look into all the caves and dens of the wildest desert; see if there be any such tiger or wolf, as an Enemy, as an Usurping Oppressor. Even the savagest beasts agree with themselves: else the wilderness would soon be unpeopled of her four-footed inhabitants. Cruel man falls upon his own kind; and spills that blood, which, when both are shed, he cannot distinguish from his own. The fiercest beast, if he seize upon a weaker prey, is incited by a necessity of hunger, and led by a natural law of self-preservation, which, once satisfied, puts an end to his cruelty: man is carried with a furious desire of revenge, which is as unsatiable as hell itself. Hence are murders of men, rapes of virgins, braining and broaching of infants, mangling of carcases, carousing of blood, refossion of graves, torturing of the surviving worse than many deaths; firing of cities, demolishing of temples, whole countries buried in rubbish and ashes, and even the Christian World turned to a shambles or slaughter-house.

It were too easy for me to prosecute the rest; and, in every vicious man, to find more beasts, than hides, or horns, or hoofs, or paws can discover.

Brag of thyself therefore, O Man, that thou art a noble creature; and vaunt of thine own perfections: look big, and speak high: but, if thou be no other than thou hast made, yea marred, thyself, the very brute beasts, if they could speak as thou dost, would in pity call thee, as the philosopher did in Laertius, 7gioάvIgWTE, "thrice man," instead of thrice miserable. God and his angels and good men look upon thee, with no less scorn, than thou lookest upon that, which thou art, and thinkest not, a beast; yea, it were well if no worse. Let me say, there is not the most loathly and despicable creature that crawls upon the earth, which thou shalt not once envy; and wish to have been, rather than what thou art. Raise up thyself therefore from this woeful condition of depraved Humanity: naturam vincat institutio, as Ambrose: and let it be thy holy ambi

tion, to be advanced to the blessed participation of the divine nature; and, thereby, to be more above thyself, than the beast is below thee. Fight with thyself, till thou hast beaten away the beast; and wrestle with God, tili his blessing have sent the angel away with thee.

4. But, from the Common view of these beasts, may it please you to cast down your eyes to the SPECIALS.

There are beasts of Game; there are beasts of Service: neither of these are for this place. They are Harmful beasts, with which this fight is maintained; and yet not every harmful beast neither.

Ye know the philosopher, when he was asked which was the harmfullest of all beasts, answered, “Of tame, the Flatterer; of wild, the Detractor."

We have nothing to do with the Former; and never may that pestilent beast have ought to do with this Presence. Those serpents, that swell up the soul with a plausible poison, that kill a man laughing and sleeping; those dogs, that worry their masters; those vultures, that feed on the eyes, on the hearts of the great: Hell is a fitter place for them, than Christian Courts.

The Detractor is a spiteful beast: his teeth are spears and arrows; his tongue, a sharp sword; Psalm lvii. 4: it was a great vaunt, that the witty captain made of his sword, that it was sharper than slander. And, which is most dangerous, this beast is a close oče, mordet in silentio, bites without noise; Eccl. x. 11. He carries the poison of asps under his tongue, as David speaks; and in lingua diabolum, as Bernard. Deliver my soul, O God, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.

St. Paul was vexed with two kinds of them: 1. The Sophisters; 2. The Idolaters: 1. The wrangling adversaries of the Gospel; 2. The superstitious abettors of Diana; Acts xix. Both of them had fænum in cornu.

The first, after three months' confutation, not only remained refractory, but blasphemous, xazoλoyouvres, railing on Christianity; and that openly, before the multitude. What beasts were these every way! Beasts, in that they would not be convinced by the clear and irrefragable demonstrations of truth; by the undeniable miracles of the apostles: in that, as they had no reason, so they would hear none. Beasts, in that they bellowed out blasphemies against the Sacred Name of Christ. In analogy whereto, let me safely and not uncharitably say, that whosoever he is, that wilfully stands out against a plain evidence of truth, and sharpens his tongue against the way of God, is no other than a beast. There is a faction of men, ogεQoμévwv (Tit. i. 14.) that do not only turn their backs upon that bright-shining truth, whose clear beams have, these hundred years, glared upon their faces; but also spend their clamorous mouths, in barking against this glorious light. What marts of invectives, what Bulls of censure, what thunderbolts of anathemas, do we still receive from these spiteful enemies of peace! What doth this argue, but the litter of the Beast? Rev. xiii.

The latter were the superstitious Demetrians, the doating Idola

ters of Diana: beasts indeed; as for their Sottishness, so for their Violence and Impetuosity.

Their Sottishness is notable, even in their ring-leader Demetrius. Do you hear his exception against St. Paul? verse 26. No other than this; "He says, that they are not gods, that are made with hands." Did ever any Ephesian beast bray out such another challenge? Is it possible, that human reason should be so brutified, as to think a man may make his own god; as to seek a deity in lifeless metals; as to bow his knees to what had fallen from his fingers? O Idolatry, the true sorceress of the world, what beasts do thine enchantments make of men! Even the fine Athenian (not the gross Theban) wits were fain to be taught, that the Godhead is not like to gold, or silver, or stone. And would to God the modern superstition were less foppish! Hear this, ye Seduced Souls, that are taught to worship a pastry-god. Ergo adeo stolidi opifices ab se fabrefieri Deos credunt? saith our Jesuit Lorinus of these Ephesians; "These so foolish workmen think they can make their gods.' And why not of gold, as well as of grain? why not the smith, as well as the baker? Change but the name, the absurdity is but one. To hold, that a man can make his own fingers, or that those fingers can make that wheat whereof the wafer is made, were a strange folly: but, that a man can make the God that made him, and eat the god that he hath made, is such a monster of paradoxes, as puts down all the fancies of Paganism; and were enough to make a wavering soul say with Averroes, Sit anima mea cum Philosophis. I remember their learned Montanus, upon Luke xxii. 19, construes that Hoc est corpus meum, thus, Verum corpus meum in hoc Sacramento panis continetur sacramentaliter, et etiam corpus meum mystiсит; "My true body is sacramentally contained in this Sacrament of bread, as also my body mystical:" and, withal, as willing to say something if he durst speak out, adds, cujus arcanam et mysteriis refertissimam rationem, ut explicatiorem habeant homines Christiani, dabit aliquando Dominus; "whose secret and most deeply-mystical meaning, God will one day more clearly unfold to his Christian people." Now the God of Heaven make good this honest prophecy; and open the eyes of poor mis-led souls, that they may see to distinguish, betwixt a slight corruptible wafer, and an incomprehensible immortal God. And if from this aproλargeía, "bread-worship," I should lead you to their saugoλáτgeíα, "cross-worship,' and from thence to their eixovoλaтgeía, "image-worship," εἰκονολατρεία, would find reason enough why that Man of Sin, the author of these superstitions, should be called the Beast.

you

The Violence, and Impetuosity, of these Ephesians was answerable: for here was Tagax Trouble, verse 23; then use Concourse, verse 40; then uyguç Confusion, and that in the whole city, verse 29; and, more than that, ogun a furious rushing into the theatre; and then ruvaayua a boisterous snatching of those that were conceived opposites; besides all their shouting, and outcries, and savage uproar. What should I need to tell you, that this fu rious prosecution is no other than an ordinary symptom of idolatry?