14. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

15. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

16. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

17. Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,— Thee and no other! Stand or fall by them! That is the part for thee.

18. Enter the path! There is no grief like hate! No pains like passion, no deceit like sense! Enter the path!

RETURN NOT INTO THE EVIL WAY

1. Thou art declining,-when thou growest bolder with sin, or with the occasions of it, and temptations to it, than thou wert in thy more watchful state;

THE BEGINNINGS

OF BACK

SLIDING

2. When thou makest a small matter of those inward corruptions and infirmities, which once seemed grievous to thee, and almost intolerable;

3. When thou growest neglectful of thy heart, and a stranger to it, and findest little work about it from day to day, either in trying it or watching it;

4. When spiritual helps and advantages are less relished and valued, when thou growest more impatient of reproof for sin, and lovest not to be told of anything in thee that is amiss; but lovest those best that most highly applaud thee;

5. When thou growest more uncharitable and censorious to brethren that differ from thee in tolerable points; and less tender of the names or welfare of others;

6. When sense and appetite and fleshly pleasure are grown more powerful with thee, and thou makest a great matter of them, and canst not deny them without a great deal of striving and regret, as if thou hadst done some great exploit if thou live not like a beast;

7. When thou art more proud and impatient, and art less able to bear disesteem, and slighting, and injuries from men, or poverty, or sufferings;

8. Then the life of the duty doth decay, and it dwindleth towards a dead formality; like a body in a consumption, when the vivid complexion and strength and activity become corrupted.

9. In man's backsliding into positive sin, the judgment doth reason more remissly than it

TASTING THE BAIT

did before, and the will doth oppose it with less resolution, and with greater faintness and indifferency. 10. Then the sinner tasteth of the bait, and first draweth as near to sin as he dare, and embraceth the occasions and opportunities of sinning, while yet he thinketh to yield no further.

11. And in this case he is so long disputing with the tempter, and hearkening to him, and gazing on the bait, till at last he yieldeth; and having long been playing on the pit's brink, his violent lust or appetite doth thrust him in.

THE COMPLETE RETURN

12. When he hath once sinned, against knowledge, he is troubled awhile, and this he taketh for true repentance; and when he is grown into some hope that the first sin is forgiven him, he is the bolder to venture on the like again; and thinketh that the second may as well be forgiven as the first.

13. In the same order he falleth into it again and again, till it come to a custom.

14. And by this time he loveth it more, and wisheth it were lawful, and there were no danger by it.

15. And then he thinketh himself concerned to prove it lawful; so as to quiet conscience, that it may not torment him; and therefore he gladly heareth what the justifiers of his sin can say for it, and he maketh himself believe that the reasons are of weight.

16. And then he sinneth without remorse.

CHAPTER XIX

HE IS FREE WHO CAN WILL WHAT HE

OUGHT

1. Thou oughtest with all diligence to endeavour, that in every place, and in every external action or occupation, thou mayest be inwardly free and thoroughly master of thyself, and that all things be under thee, and not thou under them.

BE MASTER
OF
THYSELF

2. Thou must be lord and master of thine own actions, and not be a slave or a hireling.

3. It is the business of a perfect man never to relax his mind from attentive thought of spiritual things, and thus to pass amidst many cares, as it were without care: not as one destitute of all feeling, but by the privilege of a free mind.

4. If thou rest thy peace on any person, because thou hast formed a high opinion of him, and because you are in daily familiar intercourse with each other, thou wilt become entangled and unstable.

5. That which little or nothing profiteth is minded, and that which is especially necessary is negligently passed over, because the whole man doth slide off to external things, and unless he speedily recover himself, he settleth down in them, and that willingly.