Spiritual perfection, unfolded and enforced from 2 Cor. VII, 1 having therefore these promises,…

4. Sensual Lusts stupefy Conscience; they kill the Soul in the Eye, and extinguish the directive, and reflexing ⟨p. 17⟩Powers. Wine and Women take away the Heart; that 'tis neither vigilant nor tender. Chastity and Temperance, joined with Prayer to the Father of Lights, clarify and brighten the Mind, and make it receptive of sanctifying Truths; but carnal predominant Passions sully and stain the Understanding by a natural Efficiency, and by a moral and meritorious Efficiency. When the Spirits that are requisite for intellectual operations, are wasted for the use of the Body, the Mind is indisposed for the severe exercise of Reason. Although the dispositions of the Body are not directly operative upon the Spirit, yet in their present state of union, there is a strange sympathy between the Constitution of the one, and the Conceptions and Inclinations of the other. Luxury and Lust fasten a rust and foulness on the Mind, that it cannot see Sin in its odious Deformity, nor Virtue in its unattaintable Beauty. They raise a thick mist that darkens Reason, that it cannot discern approaching dangers. The Judicative Faculty is by the righteous Judgment of God, impaired and corrupted, that it does not seriously consider the descent and worth of the Soul, its duty and accounts for all things done in the Body; but as if ⟨p. 18⟩the Spirit in Man were for no other use, but to animate the organs of Intemperance and Lust, they follow their Pleasures with greediness. 'Tis said of the young Man, enticed by the flatteries of the Harlot, that he goes after her like an Ox crowned with Garlands, that insensibly goes to be sacrificed. He looks to the present Pleasure, without considering the Infamy, the Poverty, the Diseases, the Death and Damnation, that are the¹ just consequents of his Sin. The sensual are secure: The effects of Carnal Lusts were visible in the darkness of Heathenism.

4. Sensual Lusts stupify Conscience; they kill the Soul in the Eye, and extinguish the directive, and reflexing ⟨p. 17⟩Powers. Wine and Women take away the Heart; that 'tis neither vigilant nor tender. Chastity and Temperance, joined with Prayer to the Father of Lights, clarifie and brighten the Mind, and make it receptive of sanctifying Truths; but carnal predominant Passions sully and stain the Understanding by a natural Efficiency, and by a moral and meritorious Efficiency. When the Spirits that are requisite for intellectual operations, are wasted for the use of the Body, the Mind is indisposed for the severe exercise of Reason. Although the dispositions of the Body are not directly operative upon the Spirit, yet in their present state of union, there is a strange simpathy between the Constitution of the one, and the Conceptions and Inclinations of the other. Luxury and Lust fasten a rust and foulness on the Mind, that it cannot see Sin in its odious Deformity, nor Vertue in its unattaintable Beauty. They raise a thick mist that darkens Reason, that it cannot discern approaching dangers. The Judicative Faculty is by the righteous Judgment of God, impaired and corrupted, that it does not seriously consider the descent and worth of the Soul, its duty and accounts for all things done in the Body; but as if