in this miserable world, it also defaces the beauty of the church, and makes dreadful havock among those that bear the glorious name of Christians. They were anciently to be discerned from the rest of the world by their speech, conversation, and behaviour; but the devil hath blotted out this divine character, defaced this heavenly image, taken away this noble distinction, and removed this precious land mark. We can say to few Christians of our age, as was said to the apostle St. Peter, Thy speech bewrayeth thee, Matth. xxvi. 73; nor what the patriarch Isaac said to one of his sons, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau, Gen. xxvii. 22. For they have both the voice and hands of profane Esau; they speak and live like him; they publish their crimes with a front of brass, and seek their glory in their shame. The air is infected with their profane and unclean language, their impudent lies, fearful oaths, and grievous blasphemies; and the earth is defiled with their horrid sins, and detestable iniquities. Covetousness, ambition, lust and all manner of vices, have ascended to the throne, and tyrannize with an uncontrouled dominion. They who have in their mouths the holy name of the Lord Jesus, and make profession of treading in his sacred footsteps, give us cause to renew St. Paul's lamentation, and to cry out with him, Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things, Phil. iii. 18, 19.

If we would seek in these days for the christian virtues, where shall we find faith, hope and charity? Where shall we meet with righteousness, fidelity, holiness, inno

cence, goodness, meekness, humility, patience, piety, and devotion? You daughters of heaven, what is become of you? We cannot see any more your angelical countenances. We are so far from beholding the delightful beams of your divine presence, that we cannot spy out your footsteps upon earth. earth. You may thereby understand, Christians, that the Son of God is at hand; for iniquity abounds, charity grows cold, and there is no more fait upon earth.

In the midst of such a woeful corruption, who of us afflicts his soul, as righteous Lot? Who weeps day and night, as David, a man after God's own heart? Where can we spy out the fountains of tears of the prophet Jeremiah? Or, the confusion of the face of Daniel? Or, the zeal of Moses and Phineas, and of St. Paul? If the angel of God, that went through the midst of Jerusalem, did take a review in our days of the inhabitants of this land, I am afraid he would not find many marked with the letter tau; nor any weeping and sighing for the abominations that are amongst us. For evil and wickedness are become familiar to us, by the means of an universal infection. Our continual conversation with the vicious, accustoms us to their heinous crimes, and to their impious discourses: as we are accustomed by degrees, to breathe in an unwholesome air without aversion, and to hear the fearful downfall of the cataracts of the river Nile without repugnancy.

But we are so far from grieving at the universal inundation of vice in the world, that we ourselves are carried away with the impetuous torrent of corruption. Sin gets upon us insensibly, and overcomes us; so that the world is not unlike to the house mentioned by God in the xivth of Leviticus; for it is not only infected

with an incommodious leprosy, but it infects all such as dwell therein. The men of the world have an easier task to teach us their vice, than we have to teach and persuade them to virtue; as a pestiferous body may spread the infection, and give it to a thousand who are sound; whereas, a thousand in perfect health cannot heal one infected with the plague: So that, as under the ceremonial law the clean vessels sanctified not the defiled; but the defiled infected, by its approaches, such as were clean; evil companies corrupt good manners, and the flames of the most burning zeal are extinguished by the coldness of the age. As lambs cannot feed among briers and thorns, without leaving behind them some of their wool; likewise the harmless and meek souls cannot live amongst so much cozenage and malice, without losing something of their innocence, and christian simplicity.

Who is it amongst us that can say, with a safe conscience, that the world is crucified to him, and that he is crucified to the world? Gal. vi, or, who is it that lives in the world without being guilty of its sins, as the fish drinks of the sea-water, and receives nothing of its bitterness? Psal. xxvi. Who can converse in the courts of princes, as Joseph in Egypt, as Daniel in Babylon, or as Queen Esther in the court of Ahasuerus? Is there any that can justly say, that he hath washed his hands in innocence, and purified his conscience from all dead works to serve the living God? Heb. ix. Who can speak in this manner, I have purified my heart, I am clean from my sin? Prov. xx. In truth, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, 1 John i. We have good reason to break out in the prophet Isaiah's exclamation, when he saw God sitting upon his

throne, Wois me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, Isa. vi. Or we may say with the same prophet, From the sole of the foot, unto the crown of the head, there is no whole part. Not only the souls that are fixed on the earth, but such as mount up to heaven by fervent prayers, and devout meditations, have good cause to acknowledge their imperfections, and to ask forgiveness. If any fancy himself to be perfectly whole, and free from all infection, let him look into his conscience, and seriously examine it, and it will happen to him as to Moses; when he put his hand into his bosom, he took it out again as white as snow, all covered with leprosy, Exod. iv. Where is there a christian, that feels no law commanding in his members, and struggling against the law of his mind? Who is there, that finds not by experience the truth of St. Paul's saying, The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would? Rom. vii. Gal. v. Without doubt, such as know not, nor ever have felt, the bitter and vehement strugglings of their carnal lusts that war against the soul, 2 Pet. i. cannot conceive what it is to deny themselves, to put off the old man with his deeds, to crucify the flesh with its affections and filthy lusts, Eph. iv. Such know not what it is to mortify our members, to cut off our right feet and right hands, and to pluck out our right eyes, Matth. v, that is to say, to destroy, and by an holy violence, to give a dreadful wound to all our brutish passions, and vicious affections, when they should seem to us as dear and useful as our hands and feet, and as tender as our right eyes, Col. iii. Matth. v.

If these cursed affections could but declare their

names, they would say as the evil spirits of the gospel, Our name is legion; for we are many. As that devil that possessed the lunatic, mentioned by St. Matthew; cast him sometimes into the fire, at other times into the water; thus these carnal lusts labour to cast us, sometimes into the flames of ambition, or into the burning heat of covetousness, or to hurry us headlong into the gulf of unlawful delights, or into the mud of filthy and carnal pleasures. Furthermore, they break the chains and ties with which we imagine to stop their fury; they war and fight against us by day and by night, and at every moment they return to charge us home, and renew the combat. Every where they assault us, and have no more respect for temples and houses of prayer, than for common and public places. As Satan had once the boldness to encounter with Joshua the High-priest, before the angel of God; likewise these cursed lusts are so impudent as to attempt us in the most religious assemblies, and the devoutest congregations, as well as where we are engaged in the most hellish and debauch ed companies of the world.

But these lusts, that war against the soul, are as subtle and malicious, as they are cruel and obstinate: When they perceive us upon our guard, and see that there is nothing to be got, they conceal their weapons and their fire, but it is with a design to surprise and burn us wher we are least aware. As there are certain creatures that counterfeit the dead, that men might spare their labour to kill them: likewise this treacherous flesh appears of its own accord as dead, that we might spare it, and not totally deprive it of life. If then we leave it in peace and quiet, it recovers its strength and vigour, and assaults us afresh with its poisonous darts. When we ima