Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

The world is like the tide, when a man hath the tide with him, he hath great advantage of him that rows against the tide.

But here is the Devil too. The world is as a swift current, and besides this comes the Devil and fills the heart, the Prince of the Power of the Air. While thou wert carried with the world, thou wentest with the Stream, and hadst the tide with thee; but now the Devil being come, thou hast both wind and tide; and how can he choose but run, whom the Devil drives?

But here is the Devil too. The world is as a swift current, and besides this comes the Devil and fills the heart, the Prince of the Power of the Air. While thou wert carried with the world, thou went'st with the Stream, and hadst the tide with thee; but now the Devil being come, thou hast both wind and tide; and how can he chuse but run, whom the Devil drives?

But this is not all: There must be something in thine own disposition too, that it may be completely filled: Though there be wind and tide, yet if the Ship be a slug, it will not make that hast that another light ship will: Therefore here is the flesh too, and the fulfilling the desires thereof, which is a quick and nimble vessel, and this makes up the matter. So that if we consider the wind and tide, and lightness of the Ship, it will appear how the room is filled: And how woeful must the state of that man be? It is a fearful thing to be delivered up unto Satan, but not so fearful as to be delivered up to ones own lusts. But by the way observe this for a ground: God never gives us up, God never forsakes us till we first forsake him. He is still before hand with us in doing us good; but in point of hurt we our selves are first, in the point of forsaking we are always before hand with God. If it should be proposed to thee, whether thou wilt forsake God or the Devil, and thou dost forsake God and choosest the Devil, thou deservest that he should take possession of thee. When a man shall obstinately renew his gross sins, doth he not deserve to be given up? Observe the case in our first Parents. God told the woman one thing, the Devil persuades her another; she hearkens to the Devil, and believes him rather than God; and when we shall desire to serve the Devil rather than God, the God that made us, and that made heaven for us, do we not deserve to be given up to him? For his Servants we are whom we obey,