1.  They  are  lusts,  and  therefore  lusts  should  be  checked,  because  it
is  lust.  That  we  may  see  what  victory  we  have  over  ourselves,  it  is  a
fit  occasion  to  express  our  self-denial,  and  to  show  what  we  can  do  for
God.  There  can  be  no  considerable  self-denial  there  but  where  the
lust  is  great,  and  there  we  show  how  we  can  renounce  our  bosom  desires
for  God's  sake.  Mat.  vii.  13,  it  is  said, '  Strait  is  the  gate  and  narrow
the  way  that  leads  to  life.'  If  we  desire  to  go  to  heaven,  we  must  look
to  cross  ourselves  in  those  things  we  most  affect  and  desire,  and  pass
through  a  strait  gate  ;  and  therefore  if  you  let  lust  have  its  scope,  you
mistake  the  way.  Without  self-denial  there  can  be  no  good  done  in
religion.  Again,  lust  is  the  disease  of  the  soul.  Natural  desire  is  like  the
calor  vitalis,  the  vital  heat  which  preserves  nature  ;  but  lust  is  like  the


106  SERMONS  UPON  TITUS  II.  11-14.  [SER.  71.
feverish  heat  that  oppresseth  nature.  We  should  get  rid  of  our  immo
derate  desire  as  we  would  of  a  disease.  Nature's  desires  are  temperate
and  soon  satisfied,  but  lust's  are  immoderate  and  ravenous.  Content-
tation  is  the  soul's  health,  as  lust  is  her  sickness.  If  after  much  eating
and  drinking  a  man  is  unsatisfied,  it  is  a  sign  he  is  sick,  and  hath
more  need  of  physic  than  of  meat  and  drink,  and  to  be  purged  rather
than  filled ;  so  when  we  are  not  contented  with  God's  allowance  in  a
moderate  supply  of  nature,  we  need  to  be  cured  rather  than  satisfied.
