Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

3. Sin has broke our Agreement with one another. Wh•• there was a regular Consent between the superior and lower Faculties in all Men, they were in Unity among themselves, for they were perfectly alike. But the tumultuous and tyrannical Passions have engaged them in mortal Enmity. 'Tis the account St. James gives, From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your Lusts, that war in your Members? Sin kindles and blows the fire of discord, in Families, Cities, Kingdoms: Sin is the fury that brings a smoking firebrand from Hell, and sets the World into combustion. Ambition, Avarice, the greedy desires of Rule and Revenge, have made the World a Stage of not feigned, but the most bloody Tragedies. In this Men are not like, but worse than the Beasts: for the fiercest Beasts of Africa or Hyrcania, have a respect for their own likeness: tho' they devour others, yet they spare those of their own kind: but Men are so degenerate as to be most cruel against their Brethren. These are some of the Evils, that proceed from sin as their natural Cause. And from hence 'tis evident, that sin makes Men miserable, were there no Hell of torment to receive them in the next State.

3. Sin has broke our Agreement with one another. Wh•• there was a regular Consent between the superior and lower Faculties in all Men, they were in Unity among themselves, for they were perfectly alike. But the tumultuous and tyrannical Passions have engaged them in mortal Enmity. 'Tis the account St. James gives, From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your Lusts, that war in your Members? Sin kindles and blows the fire of discord, in Families, Cities, Kingdoms: Sin is the fury that brings a smoking fireband from Hell, and sets the World into combustion. Ambition, Avarice, the greedy desires of Rule and Revenge, have made the World a Stage of not feigned, but the most bloody Tragedies. In this Men are not like, but worse than the Beasts: for the fiercest Beasts of Africa or Hyrcania, have a respect for their own likeness: tho' they devour others, yet they spare those of their own kind: but Men are so degenerate as to be most cruel against their Brethren. These are some of the Evils, that proceed from sin as their natural Cause. And from hence 'tis evident, that sin makes Men miserable, were there no Hell of torment to receive them in the next State.