A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

3. We are Captives to Sin. Every natural Man is a Slave to his own Lusts; Tit. 3.3. Serving divers Lusts and Pleasures. Man in his natural State is a Slave to his own Affections. For the explaining of which let me tell you, while Man was in his Original State and Condition, his Actions were to be thus governed, the Understanding and Conscience were to prescribe to the Will, and the Will according to right Reason and Conscience was to stir up the Affections; and the Affections according to the Counsel and Command of the Will were to move the Spirits and the Members of the Body: This was the Order settled in Man's Nature before the Fall. But now by Corruption there is a woeful Change and Disorder, and the Head is where the Feet should be; the bodily Spirits move the Affections, the Law in the Members prescribes many times to the Law of the Mind; carnal Pleasures move the Affections, and the Affections carry away the Will by Violence; and the corrupt Bent of the Will blinds the Understanding, and so Man is led headlong to his own Destruction; and therefore the Apostle saith, that carnal Men are sold under Sin; Rom. 7.14. I am carnal, sold under Sin. As Captives in War were sold to be Drudges to those that bought them; so Man by Nature is sold to be a Drudge to his own Lusts, and to be at the Beck of every carnal and unclean Suggestion. Here is the Captivity of Man by Nature, there is the Judg, and that is God, to whose Wrath we are subject; there is the Prison, that is Hell; there is the Keeper of the Prison, that's Satan; and there are the Ropes and Chains by which we are bound, ⟨p. 165⟩and they are partly our Sins; Prov. 5.22. His own Iniquities shall take the Wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the Cords of his Sins: And partly the Terrors of Conscience, for the Devils are said to be reserved in everlasting Chains under Darkness, unto the Judgment of the great Day, Jude 6. which signifies the Horror that is upon the damned Spirits, expecting more Judgment from the Wrath of the Lord, and at the Judgment of the Great Day. The Devils that are most sensible of their Estate, as being actually in Torment, are said to be held in those Chains of Darkness; and we as their Fellow-Prisoners are held in the same Chains, though in the time of God's Patience we do not feel it.