LIX.
Bees sting seldome when they conflict with Insects, but when they contend with men or beasts they sting readily, their rage is as high as their supposed enemies power, so that it is evident (by an instinct of nature) they are not ignorant of their owne danger, and yet to satisfie their spight, out of a bad custome, though naturall, will undoe themselves. Such is the violence of custome in sinne, which is the Law of sinne, that by it, a man is over-ruled against his will, he cannot leave sinne if he would. For as an old disease hath not only afflicted the part of it's pro∣per residence, and by it's abode made continuall diminution of his strength, but made a path also, and a channell for the hu∣mours to runne thither, which by continuall defluxion have digg'd an open passage, and prevailed beyond all the naturall powers of resistance. So is an habituall vice, it hath debauched the understanding, and made it to beleeve foolish things, it hath abused the will, and made it like a diseased appetite, in love with filthy things. It is like an evill stomack, that makes a man eate unwholsome meate against his reason. That's a sad calamitie when a man sees what is good, and yet cannot follow it, nay that he should desire it, and yet cannot lay hold upon it, for his faculties are bound in fetters, the habit hath taken away all those strengths of reason and religion, by which it was hindered, and all the objections by which it was disturbed, and all that tendernesse, by which it was uneasie; and now the sinne is cho∣sen, and beleeved, and lov'd, it is pleasant and easie, usuall and necessary; Scibam ut esse me diceret, facere non quibam miser, I knew it well enough, how I should comport my selfe, but I was so wretched, that I could not doe it.