When Vicious Inclinations are brought once, by Custom, and Practice,
to be Habitual, the Evil is Desperate, for Nature will be still True
to her self, though all Forms and Disguises. And _Custom_ is a _Second
Nature_. By the Poetical Fictions of Men turn’d into the Shape of Beasts,
and Insects, we are given to Understand that they do effectually Make
themselves so, when they Degenerate from the Dignity of their Kind: So
that the _Metamorphosis_ is in their Manners, not in their Figure. When
a Reasonable Soul descends to keep Company in the Dirt with _Ants_, and
_Beetles_, and to Abandon the Whole Man to the Sensuality of Brutal
Satisfactions he forfeits his Peerage, and the very Privilege of his
Character and Creation; for he’s no longer a _Man_, that gives himself
wholly up to the Works of a _Beast_. Only one Word more now, upon the
Judgment that Befel the _Husband man_, which bids us have a Care of
Avarice, Rapine and Oppression; for the Curse of Heaven Attends them.