True gain, opened in a sermon preached at Pauls, Nov. 9. 1656

First, worldly love is inconsistent with true Christian gain upon many accounts. 1. It is vast and insatiable, like the horseleech which cries, G•ve give ▪ like fire, and the grave, which never says it is enough, Prov 30.15.16. Lust is infinite, there is no end of its labour, Eccles. 4.8. ⟨p. 16⟩It reacheth at all, therefore the Apostle calleth it not only love of the things of the world, but love of the world; Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, 1 John. 2:15. A covetous heart grasps at the whole world;¹ would fain be master of all, and dwell alone, like a Wen in the body, which draws all to it self; let it have never so much, it will still reach after more, adds house to house, and field to field, Isai. 5.8. keeps not at home, cannot be satisfied, enlargeth, gathereth, heapeth, increaseth, loadeth it self with thick clay, Habac. 2.5, 6. The very Heathen have complained of this endless, and unbounded reach of corrupt desires [Greek or Hebrew],² ex libidine orta sine termino sunt. Lust hath no bound, no measure; like a bladder it swells wider and wider, the more of this empty world is put into it. Like a breach of the sea, which hath no internal bounds to contain it self in, sternit agros, sternit sata laeta boumque labores. The Countryman in the Fable would needs stay till the River was run all away,³ and then go over dry, but the River did run on still. Such are inordinate worldly desires, the deceitful heart promiseth to see them run over and gone, when they are attained unto such a measure; and then they are stronger and wider, more impotent and unruly then before, modus & modus non habet modum; for as natural, so sinful motions, the further they proceed, are usually the stronger. Now God, having so ordered the world, as that no man can have it all to him self, it is divided and bounded to several men and