Envy.

Mr. Badman’s envy was so rank and strong, that if it at any time turned its head against a man, it would hardly ever be pulled in again.  He would watch over that man to do him mischief, as the cat watches over the mouse to destroy it; yea, he would wait seven years but he would have an opportunity to hurt him, and when he had it, he would make him feel the weight of his envy.  This envy is the very father and mother of a great many hid eous and prodigious wickednesses.  It both begets them, and also nourishes them up till they come to their cursed maturity in the bosom of him that entertains them.

Drunkenness.

Drunkenness is so beastly a sin, a sin so much against nature, that I wonder that any who have but the appearance of men can give up themselves to so beastly, yea, worse than beastly a thing.

Many that have begun the world with plenty, have gone out of it in rags, through drunkenness.  Yea, many children that have been born to good estates, have yet been brought to a flail and a rake through this beastly sin of their parents.

Yea, it so stupefies and besots the soul, that a man who is far gone in drunkenness is hardly ever recovered to God.  Tell me, when did you see an old drunkard converted?  No, no; such a one will sleep till he dies, though he sleep on the top of a mast; so that if a man have any respect either to credit, health, life, or salvation, he will not be a drunken man.

“And Noah was uncovered.”  Behold ye now, that a little of the fruit of the vine lays gravity, grey hairs, and a man that for hundreds of years was a lover of faith, holiness, goodness, sobriety, and all righteousness, shamelessly as the object to the eye of the wicked.

“And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.”  He lived, therefore, to see Abraham fifty-and-eight years old; he lived also to see the foundation of Babel laid, nay, the top-stone thereof; and also the confusion of tongues; he lived to see of the fruit of his loins, mighty kings and princes.  But in all this time he lived not to do one, work that the Holy Ghost thought worthy to record, for the savor of his name or the edification and benefit of his church, save only, that he died at “nine hundred and fifty years:”  so great a breach did this drunkenness make upon his spirit.

Sinners.

Usually in wicked families, some one or two are more arch for wickedness than are any other that are there.  Now such are Satan’s conduit-pipes; for by them he conveys of the spawn of hell, through their being crafty in wickedness, into the ears and souls of their companions.

“And she bare Cain:”  the first sprout of a disobedient couple, a man in shape, but a devil in disposition.

The sinner, when his conscience is fallen asleep and grown hard, will lie like the smith’s dog at the foot of the anvil, though the fire-sparks fly in his face.