The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, Chapter 8

The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety · Chapter 8

p. 162CHAP. VIII. A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Mistakes concerning Almighty God, and the methods of his Providence.

TO these Mistakes of our selves and interests, we have added others also concerning God, which are no less destructive to Christian Practice, for as the right knowledge of God is by our Saviour, Io. 17. 3. put as the Epitome and summe of all that leads to bliss, so our misprisions and misapprehensions of him, are no less remarkable for the contrary effects; nor can we suppose it otherwise, when we remember that this is the grand work and basis of all Religion, and therefore if this foundation be deceitfully laid, the superstructure must necessarily sink and perish: and in this sense 'tis possible for us at once to build on the Rock and the Sand too, we may fix p. 163our faith intentionally on God, and yet by absurd notions and unwarranted conceits of him, defeat in the particulars what we establisht in the gross: represent him so utterly distant from what he is, that under that disguise he will not much appear, either an Encourager or Rewarder of our Piety, and then we may guess how 'tis like to flourish, since the Apostle gives it as a Fundamental Axiome, Heb. 12. 6. That he who comes to God must believe that he is a rewarder of them which diligently seek him.

OF these Mistakes concerning God, there are divers; many more than the design'd brevity of this discourse will admit me to examine. I shall only mention three, those are, First, concerning his Decrees, Secondly, his Attributes, Thirdly, his Providence.

BY his Decrees, I mean not those standing rules which he has in his Word set forth as the measures by which he will distribute rewards and punishments; but those secret purposes of his Will, which he neither commands us to search after, nor will permit us to know. That there are many Mistakes concerning these, the numberless Disputes that have been rais'd about them will sufficiently attest, it being impossible for two Contradictory Opinions to be both true, though in things of this abstruse nature 'tis very possible both may be false. 'Tis not my purpose to wade into those bottomless controversies, which like a Gulph have swallowed up so much time and industry of learned men: I shall only in general p. 164commend it to the Readers consideration, whether it be probable or indeed possible for those Opinions to be true which infer falshood in God: And then let the second enquiry be, whether that be not too evidently the result of those discourses, which set an Opposition between his revealed and his secret Will, his Commands and his Decrees, making the one a blind for the better execution of the other, as if all the Transportation and Zeal he expresses for us, all the passionate enamoring invitations he makes to us, were only to sport himself with our credulity: like the divertisement of those Men, who court them for Wives, whom they would abhor to marry: nay, as if all the protestations and most solemn oaths of God, were design'd but to advance the delusion, and raise expectations meerly to defeat them. This is such a severe sort of Irony, as we would all think not only unkind but unjust in a man; and 'tis not possible that God, who appeals to us concerning the equality of his ways, should fall short of the strictest measures among us, or exemplifie to us an unsincerity he forbids us to follow.

HOW very inauspicious influence such doctrines are apt to have on practice is too visible, for since 'tis as well the instinct as duty of our nature to aspire to an assimulation with God, even that most laudable and generous ambition shall by this means become our snare; for when God shall be thus misrepresented to us, drawn out by the black Lines, not only of severity, but deceit, rendred a Falsifier of his Word, nay Oath; 'twill p. 165give not only temptation but warrant to the like Practices: we shall easily swallow up all the particular commands of God, in that fundamental one of being like him; as we are taught himself has done both his commands and promises in his hidden Decrees. This is so natural a piece of Logick, that 'tis very unsafe men should be trusted with those premises whence 'tis deriv'd. And though we are not over apt to transcribe that Copy God does really set us, yet this spurious one will not miss to be taken out: that pravity of our nature which hinders in the one, exciting and spurring us on in the other. This is a way to reconcile our Vices with our reputation, and sin cum Privilegio; and there is little doubt of mens aptness to use that advantage, we see it in lower instances. The Vices of a Prince draw shools of followers, when his vertue leaves him the more eminent, because single, and renders him rather revered than imitated: And certainly 'twas none of the Devils slightest stratagems on the Gentile world, to give them such Gods as might exemplifie to them all those odious crimes, wherein he desir'd to immerse them. Whether this may not be a branch of the same Illusion, I wish the Propugners of this doctrine would seriously consider.

AND as several ills are hereby countenanc'd and authoriz'd, so is all vertue in general discouraged and disheartned; this benumbs us in our Christian course, substracts that spirit and vigour, which should carry us through the weary stages of duty: indeed it cuts the very sinews of p. 166Industry, baffles and makes ridiculous all purposes of Labour; for what should invite a man to strive for that, from which he knows he is either irreversibly precluded, or else so infallibly ascertain'd, that his negligence cannot defeat him. These are such extremes as afford no middle, wherein the vertue of industry may exist, hope being equally out-dated by the desperateness or unnecessariness of an undertaking: and how necessary hope is to excite endeavour we may learn of St. Paul, 1 Cor. 15. 5. where he presses his Corinthians to the constancy of Christian Practice upon this ground, that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. But according to some mens doctrine, 'tis scarce possible for a man to know whether his labour be in vain or no; since the effect of it depends not upon the revealed promise but secret purpose of God, and who knows whether there may not lie some dormant Decrees against him, which when he thinks he has run his race shall yet defeat him of his Crown. Whether a reward thus stated will much animate mens diligence, I may leave every man to judge by the like circumstances in their secular concerns; and if they find they would there damp their courage, dispirit and dishearten them from attempting, there will be sure more reason to conclude it in these spiritual Affairs, wherein our industry is commonly much less indefatigable.

BUT I shall not farther insist on the ill consequences of particular mistakes; there is one fundamental error, which if it could be cured, would p. 167supersede all the rest, I mean our bold Folly in medling with Gods Decrees, which we call hidden, and yet ridiculously confute that Epithet by pretending to know them. This is so much an insolence as forfeits the comparison, which might belong to it as an error; we see secular States jealously reserve their private Councils, and shall we think God so scrutable, or our selves so penetrating, that none of his secrets can escape us: or if we think him, as indeed he is, unfathomable, why do we thus madly attempt what we confess impossible; especially since we shall not only lose the thing we so vainly pursue, but others which we might else enjoy. 'Tis as if a man should be so transported with a busie earnestness of knowing his Princes Secrets, as quite to forget his Laws, and incurr capital punishment. God has given us rules of life, which upon the severest penalties he requires us to study and practice; and we divert from these, and make it our business to trace his Counsels. We are gazing at the Stars to read our destiny, and look not to our feet; and by that negligence experiment the worst fate they could have portended: for I think we may say our wild Phancies about Gods Decrees, have in event reprobated more than those Decrees upon which they are so willing to charge their ruine, and have bid fair to the damning of many, whom those left salvable. And indeed 'tis to be expected from Divine Justice, that such bold Inquisitors should find nothing but their own Destruction. That Ark which devoutly reverenced brought blessings, p. 168when curiously pried into diffus'd Pestilence and Death, 1 Sam. 6. 19. Nay the very Poets will tell us, that if we will have Prometheus his Fire, we must take Pandora's Box also: and sure Industry cannot be worse laid out than thus to fetch home Plagues, and while so much of it runs waste to such unhappy purposes, 'tis no wonder if we want for better; forget our calling by contemplating our predestination; and let the Opinion of our fate be at once the Encouragement and Excuse of our sloth, than which nothing can more evacuate the purpose and design of our Christianity, which Divines have truly defin'd to be not a contemplative but active Science.

TO the same unhappy Effect concur our Mistakes of Gods Attributes, if I may call them Mistakes, which seem to be rather wilful Nescience, they being so delineated to us both in his Word and his Providences, that 'tis not want of light, but winking against it that must leave us ignorant. What the speculative errors are in this matter concerns not my present design to examine: but there seem to be some Misperswasions concerning the Divine Attributes, which do remarkably tend in their consequence and effect, to the corrupting mens manners; nay, look as if they were design'd, and affectedly chosen for that purpose; I mean especially those concerning his Iustice and Mercy, which being the Attributes in which we have the most immediate Concern, the Errors in them are the more noxious and destructive. Of this sort is that narrow scanty notion p. 169too many have of Gods Iustice, which we measure not by him but our selves, and therefore proportion it not according to his infinity, but our own concerns. That is an Attribute from which we promise to our selves no advantage, and therefore we are willing to contract and shrink it up, make it serve only as a Cypher to advance mercy, but are unwilling to understand it in its proper Extent; think it a word of form put in to compleat the greatness of Gods Stile, rather than any intrinsick part of his nature, which he must deny himself to put off.

THUS do we sacrilegiously steal from God a part of his being, and while other Sacrileges invade only his patrimony, this commits a riot upon his very nature, yet as if we meant the Proverb should indemnifie us, and Exchange extinguish the Robbery, we add to another attribute what we have defaulct from this, and amplifie and extend his Mercy, as much as we confine and limit his Iustice; that is the one infinite Ocean, wherein not only we, but himself must be swallowed up. We will think of him under no other notion, nor allow him to be any other thing, but what shall be in subserviency to this: we will have him Powerful to relieve our Distresses, but not to revenge our Crimes; Wise to defeat the machinations of our Enemies, but not to circumvent our own indirect or impious Policies; All-seeing to behold our Wants and Griefs, but not to discern our closer Guilts; True to perform his Promises, but not his Threats. In short, we p. 170model all that is in God to our own wishes; and instead of believing him what he is, phancy him what we would have him. Like Micha, Jud. 17. 5. making us a God for our own peculiar use, and forming the Deity we mean to worship. A strange bold Inversion, for Creatures thus to fashion their Creator, put their own stamp and impress upon him, and shape him to their Phancies. And indeed 'tis nothing but Phancy that has to do in this Attempt, and accordingly it must vanish as the operations of that illusive Faculty use to do. We may represent God to our selves as we please, but that has no more real influence on him, than a deforming Optick-glass has on the Object it disguises, he is still the same amidst all our wilde conceits of him, and will alwaies make good the title, by which he deliver'd himself to Moses, Ex. 3. 14. I am that I am. All that is in him is equally immense and infinite, his mercy need not invade his justice to gain its self a larger field of action, which is already (as the Psalmist speaks) over all his works; neither his justice encroach upon his mercy, that having also a Province wide enough; all impenitent sinners being within its Verge, and God knows how much soever we streighten it in our opinions, we do … indeed too much extend it in its real force, by rendring our selves the proper objects of it. In short, God who is the author of order and peace, cannot be suppos'd to be in confusion within himself; the divine Attributes are not in strife, but perfect harmony; 'tis we only that have rais'd this more p. 171than Gygantick war, not only against Heaven, but in it. The several Luminaries pursue the regular motions of the Spheres; but we confound at once the Laws of their Creation, and their Author too, strive to eclipse and darken the father of light. But if the removing of an earthly Land-mark be a crime punishable both by God and man, what Thunder-bolts belong to those who thus attempt to set new Boundaries in heaven, to limit and measure out even the divine Nature by the proportions of their own Phancies, and indeed such temerity as this, is too like to confute its self, and feel that Justice it will not believe: yet as great and daring a crime as it is, I fear there are few that can totally acquit themselves of it: for though all avow it, yet he that shall narrowly search his own heart, will scarce find it clear from all degrees of it: We are all apt to cherish a flattering hope, that God is not so severe as he is represented, or that if in respect of his Justice he be a consuming fire, yet that Mercy will be sure to snatch us out of the burning; like the Angels to Lot, assist our Escapes, and provide us a Zoar, that our souls may live: and this Hope though founded only in our wishes, is very apt to slide into our faith, and make us believe what we would have: by which means this becomes a kind of Epidemick Heresie, the most frequent and common misperswasion that occurs concerning the divine Attributes.

IT would be a work more long than useful to recite the several errors that have sprung from p. 172this one. That of Origen, that the Devils should finally be saved, is a noted and pregnant Instance, which could be deriv'd from nothing but this unequal apprehension of Gods Justice and Mercy: And besides all other ancient, we have many branches of a later growth, that spring from the same root, a set of plausible falsities, which would quench the unquenchable Fire, and kill the never dying Worm; I mean those allaying softning descriptions some of this age have made of Hell, some changing the kind, others abating the intensness, or at least the duration of those Torments, each substracting so much from this Tophet, that they have left Atheism an easie task to take away the rest: and may give suspicion they mean to visit that place, which they are so industrious to make easie.

BUT whatever they do themselves, 'tis sure this is the way to send others thither, to take off their fears of it, to make them think it not so dreadful a place as they once suppos'd, and consequently less careful to decline the ways that lead to it. 'Tis indeed too obvious that such perswasions do mightily impugn Christian practice, and embolden men in sin: and God knows we need no such encouragement; the more general fallacious hopes of Mercy being too sufficient for that purpose without these supernumerary deceits: but between the one and the other, Libertinism is like to outgrow all restraints, and the Opinion of Gods goodness instead of leading men to repentance, will slacken those reigns wherewith p. 173our bruitish Nature should be bridled and restrain'd, and we thus left unto the sway of lust and passion, must run headlong upon ruine, as the Horse rusheth into the Battel. For alass, we are not so generous as to do well for Vertues sake, nay nor so provident as to do it for Reward, 'tis our fear that is the most prevalent incentive, and accordingly we find religion generally makes her first impressions there. They are the terrors of the Lord that do most usually, and most effectually perswade men, 2 Cor. 5. 11. our Hearts must be pricked, and at those Orifices piety enters. Now when all these terrors shall be superseded by the opinion of an overwhelming mercy, when Hell shall either be annihilated, or suppos'd so to annihilate us, that we shall lose our passiveness with our being, and be as uncapable of suffering, as even Heaven its self can make us, what will be left to engage us to vertue, or deter us from vice: Alas, do we not often see a daring Lust bid battel to all the artillery of Heaven, meet God in his loudest Thunder, and venture on damnation in its dreadfullest form? and can we think it will be more modest, when it shall be told that they are only edgeless weapons it hath to encounter? that Gods Thunder amidst all its noise carries no bolt? and that the Flames of the bottomless pit, are but a painted fire, that at a distance may fright but not hurt us, or at least so hurt us, that we shall not feel it? When those rubs which fear interpos'd are thus removed, there is nothing to stay the course of headlong riot, but p. 174precipiciously it will on, where ever strong desire shall drive, or flattering lust allure: he that loved his sin, even when it threatned him ruine, serv'd it assiduously, when it promised no other wages than death, Rom. 6. 23. how will he hug this viper when he thinks 'tis stingless, and give up his ear to be bored by that Master, which affords him present pleasures without future stripes: we see even in Civil matters the presumption of Impunity is the great nurse of Disorders, and if it were not for the coercive power of Laws we should soon see how little the directive would signifie; and doubtless 'tis the same in spiritual or rather worse, by how much we are more bent upon the breaking of Gods Laws than mens, and consequently will be the more apprehensive of any Encouragement.

OF the truth hereof our experience gives too sad proof, none rushing so boldly upon Gods justice, as those who have most fortified themselves against the dread of it, as if they meant their practice should experiment the truth of their speculation, and make the utmost trial whether God can be provoked or no. Indeed men use mercy as amaz'd Passengers sometimes do a plank in a shipwrack, lay so much weight upon it, as sinks both it and themselves; so perishing by too great a confidence of their rescue, and finding a Gulph where they expected an Ark: not that I suppose Mercy unable to support the weight of all the Persons, nay, and of all the sins in the world, which have not the one ponderous adherent of Impenitence superadded; but p. 175that is a burthen which even the divine Clemency sinks under, refuses to plead such a cause, and refers it to Iustice as its proper Court: And therefore to sin on, in hope of mercy, is to undermine our selves, and commit a folly as absurd as ruinous, I wish I could say 'twere not also as frequent: but God knows 'tis every where too apparent; men openly avow it, so that 'tis become the vulgar Answer to every convicting Reproof, that God is merciful: And surely they that observe the growth of vice, since our new descriptions of Hell came abroad, will have cause to think the one has had no small influence on the other, and that while some have made it borrow the uneasiness of our humane state to make up its torments; they have taken care it should be just, and lend us back sins of a greater magnitude: This miserable traffique have these Factors setled, between the present world and the infernal region, that Hell should have Earths pains, and Earth Hells wickedness; the later alas we are too fully possest of, which is like to send too many souls to discover the deceit of the other. In fine, our groundless confidences of mercy, and those other Chimera's we forge out of that, are certainly the most frequent and dangerous underminers of Christian practice: these like the Sun give heat and vigor to those inordinate lusts, which a just fear of vengeance would as a winters frost nip, and destroy: And till we lay by these easie slight thoughts of God, and consider him in those more awful attributes which exact our reverence, his mercy will p. 176only serve to ripen us for his judgment, that smooth and gentle property in God, which to all who abuse it not is indeed the oil of gladness, will thus perverted acquire the more fatal quality of Oil, serve only to intend our flames, and remove us as far from the rewards of Piety, as our bold phancies have done from the practice.

A third sort of mistakes there are by which Piety is obstructed, and those are such as concern Gods providence, about which the world has long since had many disputes; some entirely denying it, as presuming God so wholly taken up with the contemplation and enjoyment of his own felicity, that he was utterly inconsiderate of that of his creatures, and an unconcern'd spectator of humane affairs; others limiting and restraining it to those things only which themselves were pleas'd to think worthy of the divine inspection and conduct: But these questions have been more bandied among Philosophers than Christians, and therefore are beyond our present enquiry. Yet give me leave by the way to express my fears, that these errors have yet some secret rooting in too many hearts; that there are many who rather formally say, then cordially believe, that God governs the World, and disposes as well of humane as divine things; a suspicion that is rendred too probable by those indirect arts men use, to possess themselves of secular advantages; for did they seriously think that all those things are in Gods hands, from whence they are neither strong nor cunning enough, either to wrest or pilfer p. 177them, 'tis scarce imaginable they should attempt such painful impossibilities, disquiet themselves in vain as the Psalmist speaks, and which is worse, forfeit all title to them as Gods gifts, by thus assuming to make them their own. But this is a disquisition I must leave every man to make in his own heart; only let me say, that he that has there any doubt of Gods universal or particular providence, has also in it the root of all unchristian Sins, of Distrust, Solicitude, and Fraud: there being nothing that can effectually supersede our own carkings and contrivances for our selves, but the assurance that God cares for us. Men being still apt to scramble, where there is none from whom they expect an orderly and sufficient distribution, and therefore this error where ever it is found, may well be reckon'd among the impeders of Christian duty.

BUT besides those who thus doubt of Providence, there are others liable to great mistakes, I mean those who to their just belief of Gods Providence, superadd a groundless confidence of their own skill in fathoming it, that are not content to know it in its product and event, but pretend to discern it in its most secret designments and purposes; and do not so much revers▪ Gods dispensations, as interpret them: I do not here mean to condemn all particular applications of providential Events, which are sometimes so extraordinary and remarkable, that they are their own expositors, and point out the construction we are to make: and an humble advertence unto p. 178such, is not only innocent but necessary: but when men shall attempt to read every line in Gods hand, to make their own inference from every efflux of Providence; these pretenders to divine Palmistry, seem to differ only thus much from those who make a trade of the natural, that they Cheat themselves as well as others.

YET there want not some who have gone yet farther, and think not only to understand Providence, but assist it: not only trace it in all its intricate windings, and concealed intendments, but help it in the execution, and give birth to its conceptions: Of this sort especially are those, who having possest their brains with some conjectural expositions of obscure prophecies, will administer to providence, and call out those events they expect: and as if they were conscious that God would not make good their dreams, endeavour to do it themselves. This Age has afforded too many instances of this, when the fulfilling of Prophecies has by some been made the solemn summons to rebellion and bloud: and in order to the hating and destroying the whore, Rev. 17. 1. Men have been animated to hate and destroy all who were not infected with their own Phrensie. This we know has been call'd the helping of the Lord against the mighty, and something more than votive Curses awarded to those who refus'd to assist. Thus have they first wildly mistaken, and then no less wildly out-run Gods designs: as if like Baal, Iud. 6. he were unable to plead for himself, to p. 179vindicate his own cause, or effect his purposes without their help: and having resolved what he shall do, obtrude themselves upon him as his instruments; how repugnant such anticipations of Providence are to the interests of Christianity is too apparent from the many detestable effects they have produc'd.

BUT setting aside these, let us return to those we spake of before; who presuming to expound providential Events, make them the Criterion by which to judge both of persons and of causes, concluding the one loved or hated, the other approved or disallowed by God, according to their prosperous or adverse Success. The first of these was by our Saviour exploded, as an undue way of process in the Iews, in the case of the Galileans, and before him Solomon had given it as a Maxim, that no man could know love or hatred by all that is before him: Eccl. 9. 2. And if under the Iewish Oeconomy, where temporal Blessings made up so great a part of their Promises, it was so; much more is it under the Gospel, whose frame and composure is quite distant; which instead of proposing secular prosperities to its proselytes, assures them the contrary; sets up the Cross as the Standard under which they are to fight, and affords no temporal Hopes but with an allaying proviso of Persecutions and Afflictions; nay, the Apostle to the Hebrews goes farther, makes them not only incident but necessary to Christians, the badge and cognizance of Sonship, whilest the no chastening is the fatallest Sign, a token of bastardy p. 180and abdication, Heb. 12. 7, 8. And doubtless the experience of every Christian asserts the doctrine; we are all apt with the Prodigal to forsake our fathers house, and as long as we can have the riot and not the wants, shall never think of returning; we must be famisht into consideration, and our husks alone will send us home to the fatted Calf. And can there be a greater indulgence in God, than thus to make our Iniquity our Punishment, that it may not be our Ruine; to embitter those sensualities whose lusciousness serves to intoxicate us, and to clip those wings which he sees carry us from him. Stories tell us that the Trojan Wives after the destruction of their Countrey, being wearied with their restless vagrant life, necessitated their Husbands to a settlement by burning their Ships. And the same kind stratagem God has upon us: he sees that our worldly accessions do rather enlarge than fill our appetites, and carry us on to farther pursuits, and by drawing us still more from him the Center of rest, exposes us to endless wandrings, and then what can be kinder than to rescue us from such a condition, that Curse of Cain, to be a fugitive, and a vagabond in the earth, to deprive us of our treacherous prosperities, and fire those Ships wherein we are preparing like Ionah, to fly from the presence of the Lord: so by a happy necessity forcing us to fix our selves on him. And this is the worst God designs us in every adversity: and did we mean but as well to our selves, we should not miss of receiving the happiest Effects, even p. 181that peaceable fruit of righteousness the Apostle speaks of, Heb. 12. This holy men so well understood, that we find them dread nothing so much as an uninterrupted prosperity; they like the Muscovite Women, grew jealous of Gods love when he forbare to strike, upon which score it is, that in the Ancient Fathers, there are so many solemn petitions for stripes; such importunate solicitations for those medicinal corrections, wherein they judg'd both Gods kindness and their own safety to consist.

AND then how perverse, how preposterous are our measures, when we conclude quite the other way, estimate Gods love only from outward successes, and think he is never angry but when he smites: a Perswasion, which as it is very false in its grounds, so very pernicious in its effects, and creates hopes and fears, as fallacious as its self. For first, if we apply it to our selves, it produces mischiefs proportionable to the divers states under which we are. If a man be full and prosperous, it makes him proud and secure, for when he has not only the possession of those things the World values, but takes them as an attestation of Gods peculiar kindness and approbation, what should make him either consider or reform his guilts? If he have sanctity enough to possess him of Gods favour, and all these profitable effects of it, he will not easily be perswaded he needs more: and any man that shall tell him he does, shall be heard with the same indignation wherewith Craesus entertain'd Solon, when he found him question that p. 182happiness, which he expected he should have admir'd. Prosperity is in its self an emboldening thing, but when backt by this Opinion of it, grows into all insolence, till at last it even recoil in the face of the Donor, and dare God by all those enormous riots, to which it enables Men.

ON the other side, this Opinion presents a less merry, but not less dangerous Temptation to those in adversity; for when they shall look on themselves only as the Anvil for Gods strokes, they will be too apt to complete the parallel by answering it in hardness and inflexibility; have the foreign as the Father calls it, which reverberates the blow on him that gave it. Persevering wickedness is so naturally the issue of Desperation, that we find the Iews take up the one meerly to countenance the other, pretend hopelesness to avoid reformation: Thus we find it, Ezek. 33. 10. Our iniquities are upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we live? And again more plainly, Ier. 18. 12. There is no hope, and then the Inference is ready, let us walk every one in his own ways. Endeavour is the child of hope, and we attempt not to attone one whom we conclude implacable, so that Wrath may consume, but will never melt us, 'tis Love only that has that softning, dissolving Power, and unless we discern a mixture of that in Gods inflictions, they will never render us malleable to his impressions. We kiss a Fathers hand and rod, when an Executioners stroke we suffer rather than bear. St. Iohn tells us we love God because he loved us, 1 Iohn 4. p. 18319. I wish all men would make good the Inference; but 'tis sure they are too apt to do it in the reverse, and will hate if they apprehend themselves hated; a state which at once exemplifies, and anticipates the worst part of Hell to us, yet very incident to those who interpret every stroke of Gods, as the effect of enmity and utter aversion. This is to do that to our selves which the Devils so deprecated from Christ, to torment us before our Time, it being peculiar to the vengeance of the other World to be meerly punitive, that here being rather discipline than vengeance design'd to reduce, not destroy us: and indeed besides the pain of sense which this Error creates, it does (to perfect the Hell) give that of loss also; deprives us of one of the great Evangelical felicities, that of rejoycing in Tribulations, which our Saviour thought so considerable, as to insert amongst his Beatitudes; and his Apostles frequently mention triumphantly as the great priviledge and prerogative of a Christian. For if all adverse successes be a note of Gods disfavour, there will be no place for joy even in the most pious sufferings. St. Stephens ravishing prospect will be intercepted, and a Martyrs death be as uncomfortable as a Malefactors. But if these were the only sufferings to which joy were annext, there would be but too few concern'd in the deprivation; those wherein we are more universally interessed, are those Chastisements of God which our Guilts provoke; which though in respect of their cause they are Matters of the greatest p. 184sadness, yet in regard of their significancy and effect, they are Grounds of comfort, they signifie that God (however displeas'd) yet has not abandoned the care of us; thinks us worth his correction, and designs our reducement: and the Effect will (if not obstructed by us) be answerable to that design: our Chastening here rescues us from the sins, and consequently the condemnation of the world, 1 Cor. 11. 32. and this is sure no slight motive of rejoycing; and we are very unjust to God and our selves, if we will exchange it for the sullen murmurs of a desperate incorrigibleness.

AND as this perswasion is thus pernicious in reflection on our selves, so neither is it more innocent when applied to others; for first, if we look on the men that prosper in the world, as the Psalmist speaks, Psal. 73. 12. we shall too often find them answer the character he gives them in the former part of the Psalm, and when from their temporal affluence, we shall conclude Gods favour to them, 'twill be hard resisting the temptation, which (without that Argument) the Psalmist was under, of thinking it vain to cleanse our hearts, or wash our hands in innocency. Nay, we shall be apt to joyn our suffrage to those in Malachy 3. 15. and call the proud, happy: and if we esteem them so, 'tis natural to desire to be like them; so we shall quickly grow to despise a poor or afflicted Innocence, and embrance all thriving prosperous sins.

ON the other side, if we look on others in an adverse calamitous state, this Opinion suggests hard and severe sentences concerning them, inclines p. 185us to judge where we should succour, and how great an accumulation of Misery that is, we may learn from Iob, whom we find not so often nor so passionately complaining of any of his pressures, as of the unkind censures of his Friends, who weighing in this deceitful balance of temporal successes, made very false judgements of him, and as if they were to Glean after Satan, endeavoured to despoil him of that only comfort his malice had left, the Conscience of his Innocency. This is as the Psalmist speaks, to persecute him whom God has smitten, and to talk to the grief of those whom he hath wounded; a thing repugnant to the common temper of humanity, and much more to that tenderness, those affections and bowels Christianity requires; and therefore in this respect also, we may reckon this perswasion very injurious to Christian duty.

NOR is it less so when applied to Causes, in which it is full as deceitful a Rule as it is in Persons: God has design'd us another measure of our undertakings; his word and law, by the general proportions whereof, we are to square and accommodate our particular actions: he sends us not to his providence, and the various distributions of that, or allows us to judge of the Iustice, by the Success of our Attempts. If that were the trial, 'twere impossible for any enterprize to be lawful, since that which should legitimate it, is subsequent to it, and can have no influence on it, to the making it good or bad: and as it does not make, so neither does it infallibly signifie it to be p. 186either: and of those who presume it does, I should ask whence it came to do so? If by any assignation of God let them produce it; and if not thence, I'me sure it can make no pretence to certainty, God having no where oblig'd his Providence to make good our phansies and conjectures. Nay, if we look into Scripture examples, we shall find this irrefragably confuted; the same Cause having at several times differing success. Thus the Israelites were discomfited at their first assault upon Ai, and yet succesful after; 'twas something extrinsick to the cause that made the variation, that still continuing the same. The like we find in the case of the Benjamites, who though in as ill an engagement as can well be imagin'd, had yet two victories over the other Tribes, Iudg. 20. But there is one instance that may serve for all, and that is the taking of the Ark by the Philistines, he that shall contemplate that, will sure never think fit to measure causes by success, unless he will give the difference also to Dagon, who then triumpht in the spoils of the God of Israel. In short, 'tis evident victories are not so entail'd upon the justest causes, but that they may be, and often are cut off, either by the guilts of the undertakers, or by some other secret disposal of the Divine wisdom; but the former is so frequently the obvious cause of it, that we are not often put to resort to the later. 'Tis no strange thing to see all Israel troubled by an Achan, or have the Ark taken captive from off the shoulders of a Hophni and Phineas, nor will it ever be p. 187possible for the best cause to secure its self from the blasting influence of its Abettors crimes.

THIS is so clear and evident a Truth, that 'tis matter of some wonder, how the contrary perswasion should ever insinuate its self; and indeed it is not probable it ever had, if Interest, that grand Sophister, had not introduced it. Men engage in designs not on intuition of their lawfulness, but profit, and when they are such as nothing can warrant à priore, their only reserve is to make them good à posteriore; to bring a licence after the fact, and justifie their beginning by their end; which how ridiculous soever it may seem to sober reason, yet such is the natural shame, or secular inconvenience of owning an unjust Act, that men will wrap themselves, though in the thinnest and most diaphanous veils, make use of the absurdest pretences, and faintest colours to shadow their Guilt, and whilest consciousness bids them say somewhat for themselves, and the case affords no solid plea, they are driven to these deplorable sleights and subterfuges. Indeed this is an argument that stands single, and is seldom us'd but in those causes that admit of no better; which we may reasonably conclude to be the reason, why it was so much insisted on by our late disturbers, who in such abundance of light, as they own'd, could not be suppos'd ignorant enough to believe themselves: 'twas certainly the destitution of better arguments that cast them upon this, forc't them to ransack the Alcoran, and rifle a piece of Turkish Divinity to make good their Saintship. p. 188They now discern the unskilfulness of that plea, which a little time has converted to an accusation. The great change it has pleas'd God to make among us, retorting their conquering Syllogismes, and making them need a new success to justifie their vaunts of the old. God grant we may not here relieve them again, and by our personal sins, help them to that which the justice of their Cause never did, nor is like to acquire them.

BUT though this plea of success be frequently urg'd in policy, yet it prevails with many who know not that it is so; indeed the vulgar are so much subjected to their senses, that generally the conclusions drawn thence are easily embrac'd, when those from Reason and Conscience have a double difficulty, first to be understood, and next to be admitted, and the most elaborate discourse shall not convince them of the right of that cause, which in the last appeal to Gods Tribunal by War, has been openly condemn'd; whilest the spoils of victory as much satisfie the Understanding of the justice of the Prize, as the Desire with the wealth or glory of it. And this is it which renders such kind of arguings very pernicious, they being so fitted to the common temper, that they seldom miss to be effectual; and engage the heady multitude in the Prosecution of the worst designs, that are recommended to them by the one Catholick vertue of Success. This is indeed as the Prophet speaks, Ez. 13. 22. to strengthen the Hands of evil doers, that they turn not from their wickedness; to dazzle their Eyes so with the splendor of p. 189prosperous iniquity, that they can never come to take an exact view, and discern it in its true form: And doubtless this was none of the less-prevailing arts of seducement among us, and drew in many to abet those seditious practices, which all Laws of God and Man prohibited, and whereby Christian Religion has at once been violated and defam'd; has not only her precepts broken, but her self asperst with the foul consequences of that disobedience, and so buys one injury with another; the contempt of her Authority with the loss of her Reputation.

WE have now seen the ill consequences issuing from these mistakes of Gods Providence, but we must take notice that there remains yet as great or greater danger on the other side; and that a total neglect is worse than an erroneous construction of it. For though God have secluded us from that more exact minute discerning of his purposes, yet he means not his dispensations should be lookt on as wholly insignificant, and therefore has given us the general scope and meaning of them, according to which we are to limit and restrain our wandring guesses, and also judge of particular events. Now as Gods original and primary design in the creation of Man, was to render him a subject capable of eternal happiness; so also have all his subsequent Acts toward him aim'd at the same end: and because there is nothing removes man so far from that grand purpose of his being as Sin; therefore God has made the suppressing of that, the universal intendment of his disposals concerning p. 190us: so that the most different dispensations do severally pursue that one end; prosperity and adversity in their successive changes are sent to reclaim us from the error of our ways, with this only difference, that the one leads, the other drives. This is asserted by St. Paul, who tells us, that the goodness and long-suffering of God is to lead us to Repentance, Rom. 2. 5. And also that when we are judg'd, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the World, 1 Cor. 11. 32. And indeed the whole Scripture runs in the same strain; and both from prosperous and adverse successes urges the obligation to obedience. This is the notice God expects we should take of all his dealings towards us. And the want thereof we find often sharply upbraided by God to the Iews: how often does he recount his redeeming them from Aegypt, his enstating them in Canaan, and all his wonderful works for them, with an accusing reflection upon their ingratitude; and that we may know his Iudgements are no less to be accounted for than his Mercies, we find him, Amos 4. making a Catalogue of them, and closing every period with this Pathetick reproof of their obstinacy, Yet have ye not returned to me saith the Lord. In short, God requires that we should observe every turn of his hand, in order to the reforming our own lives, and by the several mediums of Gratitude or fear, infer that necessary Conclusion of a sincere universal Obedience; and the neglect of this is the crime the Psalmist mentions, Psalm 28. 5. with so severe a menace. They regard p. 191not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands.

AND as this is requir'd from single persons, so also from societies and communities, which as they are in their publick capacities the most eminent subjects of Judgements or Mercies, so are they the most eminently accountable for both. And though the Neglect and Abuse of Gods methods be a very provoking guilt when 'tis only personal, yet is it much more so, when it becomes national: And therefore as it is every mans concern for his own peculiar to examine how he has answered Gods methods towards him, so is it an enquiry very pertinent in relation to the Publick also; especially where the dispensations have been remarkable and extraordinary; in which respect the Inquisition cannot appear more necessary for any than this Nation; upon which consideration I hope the Reader will think it no unpardonable digression, if we awhile turn aside after it.

IT is the affirmation of our Blessed Saviour, that where much is given, there shall be much requir'd; a thing so consonant with natural Equity, that we all give our suffrage to it, by making it the measure of our expectations in secular things, wherein every man looks for returns proportionable to his expence or Industry. The Husbandman expects a Crop answerable to his Seed and Labour: and in the nobler cultures of the Mind, we justly exact of our Pupils to let their manners attest the discipline they have been under: According to which estimate we must resolve▪ that Gods expectations p. 192from us of this Nation cannot but be very high, there being no people under the Sun, whom he has more signaliz'd as his own immediate care, on whom the Divine Oeconomy has more constantly and even solicitously attended in all the variety of seasonable and powerful applications.

I SHALL not assume the work of a Chronicle, by giving a series of all those mercies, we receiv'd in the loins of our Ancestors; and of which we have provided one unhappy memorial, I mean our nauseating and despising them; it having been the business of our days, to disentail those two most inestimable Blessings, of a pure Religion and outward Peace, which our immediate Progenitors left us; and to derive to our posterity the contrary mischiefs of impiety and confusion.

BUT not to ravel so far back, I shall confine my reflections to so late a date, that I shall not need to bespeak the faith afforded to Historians; scarce any that can be my Reader, but is qualified to be my witness too; and must acknowledge that there has on Gods part been no Method wanting, that might purifie us to himself a Peculiar people zealous of Good works. To that end of refining and cleansing us it was, that he kept us so long in the furnace, permitted us to those many Fiery trials of our late calamitous days. 'Twere impertinent here to give a Description of those sufferings, which every mans Memory can so readily represent to him; or to paint that Flame whose scorchings we have felt; 'tis enough to say, that God appear'd p. 193in them, earnestly industrious to have reduced us; like a skilful Captain besieg'd us closely, straitned us so in all our interests, that it was scarce possible for us to fly any where but to himself. Indeed he that would make up an exact Catalogue of our Calamities must calculate in how many instances humane nature may be passive; there being scarce any of our suffering capacities, to which they were not liberally apportioned, our Estates, our Persons, our Friends, and which is more than all our Consciences, all groaning under the weight of that Yoke, which our own Sins prepar'd, and other mens sins put on. Which way soever we lookt, we saw nothing but that which might consume our Eyes and grieve our Heart: If on the Church, we saw that torn by Schism, spoil'd by Sacriledge; the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy place, and the house of Prayer made in the most literal sense a den of Thieves. If on the State, we saw the breath of our Nostrils, the Anointed of the Lord taken in their Pits, Imprison'd, and Arraign'd, and barbarously Murder'd, by those who slew him like the Heir in the Gospel, that they might seize on his Inheritance. We saw this and all other Mischiefs establisht by a Law, and made as irreversible as powerful malice could render them. And now in such a distress, who would not think that such a necessity should have become our vertue? And so perfect a destitution compell'd our resort to the Divine aid. And as little opprest States us'd to make themselves homagers to the Romans, p. 194to engage their protection; so we should have made an entire surrendry of our selves to God, that we might have gain'd a title to his rescues and deliverances.

THIS genuine and kindly effect I doubt not but it had in some, I would fain think in many; but we are not now considering particulars, but the community; and therefore how sincere soever such personal reformations were, they must not come under the account of publick and general, unless for their Number and Eminency they had been sufficient to have overwhelmed the contrary perversness: Many there might be whose hearts (as 'tis said of Iosiahs, 2 Chron. 34. 27.) did melt, and yet the far greater number of the obdurate, still justly denominate us a stiff neck'd people; an Epithet wherewith God often reproaches the Iews, and sure we have no less evidenced our title to it; for alas, as if we had meant to revenge the inexorableness of our oppressors towards us, in our obstinacy to God; as if when we could keep nothing else, we had yet reserv'd this sullen comfort, of having our hearts impregnable, we made a shift to hold out against all these batteries; there was little appearance, and less reality of Repentance; and if some of our lusts were at all less raging, 'twas only because they were starved into a little tameness, the supplies cut off which should maintain our Riot: but when any recruits could be had, they were devoted that way, and even in the worst of times we mist not to be as luxurious as we were able: and as though we resolv'd p. 195that vice like the Sea, should gain in one part what it lost in another; we took order that what was thus inevitably defalkt from those expensive Sins, should be made up in the cheaper: we could curse, and swear, & blaspheme in spight of Sequestration, and this wretched Immunity we made abundant use of, till we even became Proverbial for it; and gave our enemies pretence, to fasten it on us as our distinctive Character. Yet to shew our selves generous sinners, there was one vice we bought at a dear rate, I mean our as imprudent, as unchristian animosities, and picques among our selves; a sin that helpt to revenge all the rest: and was as well upon a humane, as divine account a grand instrument of our ruine. To these we may add our impatient murmurs at our sufferings, which did in some work so preposterously, as to reconcile them to the inflicters, made them unworthily desert that cause, they found chargeable to maintain, and contrary to the advice of Solomon, Chuse the ways of those oppressors whose prosperity they envied, Prov. 3. But of these real Apostates the number I hope was not great, I wish I could say so also of those seeming desertors, whose knees bowed to Baal, though their hearts did not: who belied their own loyalty, and in a shew of compliance prostituted conscience in several Engagements as inconsistent with each other, as they all were with duty; and such as they pretended no excuse for their taking, but their resolutions of breaking. I was indeed a sad spectacle to see what shouls every menacing p. 196Edict brought in; while men ran in as much haste to take the opportunity of Perjury, as the primitive Christians were wont to do of Martyrdom: Indeed herein we seem'd to invade our enemies peculiar, would not suffer them to enjoy those marks of distinction, they had framed to themselves; so that as far as Oaths could signifie we were all one Party. And yet while we thus disclaim'd Gods reliefs by these indirect attempts of our own, we took it very ill that he left us to the success of them: That he prosper'd not those methods he had interdicted, and made us Triumphant, not only over our Enemies but himself too: and upon this score many mutinous blasphemies were utter'd and perhaps some more thought, though I confess, generally we were not so modest, as to stick at saying the worst we could think, and indeed they that heard the frequent doubts men own'd of Gods justice, providence, nay his very being, would not think they supprest any thing as too ill to be spoken: we laid boundless expectations upon the justice of our cause, and as if we had extremely oblig'd God by not being Traytors, or Schismaticks, thought he wrong'd us extremely that he made us not Victors. Samuel tells Saul that Rebellion was like Witchcraft, but we seem'd to think Loyalty was so; that like a spell it was to keep us invulnerable, not only against our enemies but our Selves: and so countercharm all our crimes, that they should only be active to please, not hurt us. But if in the last place we reflect on our p. 197selves even in relation to that cause in which we so much confided, 'tis to be fear'd all men will not be able to evince they suffer'd for God and the King, though they did it in their quarrel: 'tis the Intent must denominate whose Martyrs they were, it being too frequent for private passions and interests, to march under the banner of conscience; and we call that sometimes taking up the Cross, which is only the taking up an animosity or humor. Indeed 'tis not possible for any to be Gods Martyr, who is not first his Servant: none of us will suffer the greatest things for a person for whom we will not do the least; and 'tis absurd Hypocrisie for a man to pretend he has left all for God, who we see cannot be woed to leave the most despicable lust for him. He that will not part with the noise of a loud Oath, the pleasure of an intemperate Cup, the applause of a profane Iest for God, will surely much less expose his liberty, his estate, his life for him: and therefore what hazards soever any man ran in any of those, he can with no justice set it upon Gods account, unless he can produce such other acts of obedience, as may witness this to be true and genuine. And upon this trial, I fear God's party will appear to have been but small among us, and perhaps the King's not much greater, it being not very probable that those should have any great sense of duty to him, that had none to God: or that those should religiously revere one Commandment, who despised the other nine. But we need not the help of inference and probability in p. 198this matter, the mutinous and insolent behaviour of many who profest loyalty, did too clearly evince it: And as it is said of Ioab, that he turn'd after Adonijah, though he turn'd not after Absalom, 1 King. 2 28. and some of ours had little private rebellions of their own even while they oppos'd the more publick. I love not to pass censures on mens thoughts, yet I doubt some would be too conscious to confute me, if I should say there wanted not those, who owed their zeal to their Spleen, and did not so much love those they fought for, as hated those they fought against. And it may perhaps deserve enquiry, whether that demure pretence of holiness their Adversaries had put on, did not more avert some of our Libertines from them, than all their real crimes: They perhaps so far mistook them, as to suspect they might be in earnest, when they profest to advance the power of Godliness, and at that took an Alarm, and such Men (if such there were) contended not for the Liberty of their Countrey, but their Lusts; and could with no justice, expect either a reputation, or success from that cause which they at once helpt to defame and defeat. I am loth to go farther, and suspect that even some of the devouter sort were inspir'd more by the Spirit of opposition than Piety; yet I confess 'tis hard to resist that surmise, when 'tis consider'd that our Liturgy never had its due veneration, but when the Directory was set up against it. Indeed he that shall remember how our private Oratories were then throng'd and p. 199crouded; and shall now compare it with our empty Churches, will be tempted to think our devotion was of that sort, which is excited by interdict, and deadned by invitations; a perverse kind of Zeal kindled only by Antiperistasis or collision; none of that pure flame which descends from heaven. And then as our Saviour in another case saies, if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness, Mat. 6. If this fairer and more specious part of us were thus reprovable, how obnoxious were the other? and if our Earnestness in a righteous cause, by its Sinister motives or adherencies be unable to justifie its self, how shall it bear that heavier task we laid on it, and plead for our other Guilts.

THIS is the true though not full account of our behaviour under Gods Discipline, thus did we fructifie upon his pruning us; brought forth indeed, nothing but degenerous fruit. The holy Writ leaves it as a brand of most inveterate Impiety upon Ahaz, that in the time of his distress he sinn'd yet more against the Lord, 2 Chron. 28. 22. and sure we have too just title to the same Character of infamy; those sufferings which were sent to chastise our sins, serv'd but to encrease them, and like the Israelites in the Brick-kilns, they multiplied the more for their oppression; we debaucht even our Executicners, and made every new calamity supply us with some new vice. And now when Gods rod was thus despis'd, we were in all reason to expect he should draw his sword, revenge our resistance p. 200of his methods, by somewhat we could not resist, make our Plagues as obstinate as our selves, and involve us in hopeless inevitable ruine. This certain fearful looking for of Iudgment, Heb. 10. 27. was all we had left our selves, of all the rich patrimony we were once possest of; and our present misery seem'd impossible to expire any way but by dying into greater.

BUT as great artificers are us'd to magnifie their Art, by choosing the most unlikely materials; so did it please God in this total indisposedness of ours, when we were so unapt subjects to illustrate his mercy, and as if he design'd this national deliverance should (in its proportion) be the Transcript of our more universal redemption, he visited us not only in this state of misery, but enmity; when we had set our selves in defiance of his judgments, he laid as it were an Ambush of mercy for us, and surpriz'd us with safety: by such undiscernible ways return'd the captivity of our Sion, that we were indeed delivered like them that dream, Psal. 126. 1. gave us a victory without a war: without the intervention of garments rolled in bloud, Esa. 9. 5. invested us in our Triumphant robes, and in a word, made us insensibly to glide into our long forgotten prosperity.

AND now who can imagine, but this miraculous Mutation without us, must also work a Change within us. Indeed they must have a very ill opinion of humane nature, that can think it possible it should have perverseness enough to resist such endearments; such kindly Heat must p. 201needs be suppos'd to melt us; and if before our Pride disdain'd to be compell'd, yet even that stubbornest part of us can not object against the being courted into amendment. So that when God has thus yielded to our terms, left us not so much as a Punctilio in our way to Piety, 'tis but a reasonable expectation we should embrace it with as great an Earnestness, as it was formerly rejected by us.

AND would God we could say we did so; but alas, we still affect prodigies, take a kind of wanton Joy in defeating Gods designs, and as if we aspired to vye Miracles with him, have made our returns as unparallel'd as his mercies; so that the sum of our account is this. No Nation was ever more signaliz'd by Gods goodness, or its own perverseness, it being hard to determine in which of those respects it is most eminent. That this is in the general perfectly true, there are too many particulars ready to testifie, indeed a whole cloud of Witnesses do concurr to the proving the charge, I shall not undertake to examine all, yet some of the principal it will not be amiss to take notice of.

BEFORE we enquire into the use we have made of Gods Mercies, let us a little consider what our sense of them is; and sure of all the interrogatories we can put to our selves, this appears the easiest, the most gentle favourable Test, that even our own partialities could elect for us; it being so natural to men in misery to value a rescue, and celebrate their deliverers, that the p. 202contrary would be the only wonder: we see even the Iews, who were none of the most malleable people, yet deliverances made impressions on them, set them to their devout processions and solemn hymns in praise of God: nay such a piece of native Religion is this, that the Heathens exemplifie it to us. The Philistins when they had taken Samson, magnified their Dagon, as having delivered their enemy and the destroyer of their countrey into their hands, Judg. 16. 24. So upon the victory over Saul, 1 Sam. 31. 9. they sent round about to publish it in the house of their Idols. And in all stories we find, the Heathen Altars were never so loaden with Sacrifices, as upon such occasions: and the Gospel tells us that those on whom Christ bestowed miraculous cures, were so transported with them, that their gratitude supplanted their obedience, and made them notwithstanding his prohibition proclaim the wonders he had done for them: But I fear if we reflect upon our selves, we shall not be able to match any of these instances. 'Tis true our late change was entertain'd with a Joy profuse enough, but not enough religious. We saw that great things were done for us, and thereof we rejoyced, but we did not so much consider that the Lord had done them, Ps. 114. and so were rather affected with the rarity and profitableness, than the mercy and kindness of the Dispensation: and though the care of our Governours have provided for the religious part also, assign'd days of Purim for the perpetual commemoration of our deliverance, p. 203yet our slight observance of them does too fully evince our Joy was meerly secular; and surely he that observ'd the numerous and loud acclamations in the streets, and the few faint Hallelujahs in the Temple, must needs say they were very disproportionate, and that how much soever the most of us rejoyc't, it was not in the Lord: and then we are not to wonder that it was so transient; since it was meerly earthly it must needs partake of the fadingness of its original: whereas had we deriv'd it higher,, it would have been lasting and durable; it could not so suddenly have expir'd, had we fetcht it from him, in whose presence is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore. But alas, our transports were such as exhausted themselves in their own noise, we exprest our Joy in Bonfires, and it vapour'd away in the smoke; there wanted that mixture of Piety which should have fix'd that volatile passion, and we who at first were much more glad than thankful, within a very short time ceased to be either.

AND then as violent Heats when once expir'd, are succeeded by the extremest Cold, so has it fared with us; we fell from our Extasies not to the mean, but the contrary extreme; our vast complacencies at their parting, carried with them, even ordinary contentation, and left us not only joyless, but impatient. It was indeed matter of Equal shame and wonder, to see a scene so suddenly chang'd, wherein as in many other instances, we seem'd to have transcrib'd the copy p. 204of the mutinous Israelites, who we find in the very same Chapter, Ex. 15. triumphing and repining; and no sooner were the Timbrels out of their hands, but Complaints were in their mouths, vers. 24. What shall we drink? and in the beginning of the next, with the same querulous importunity they require meat. But not to wrong them in the comparison, their Murmurs had some extenuating circumstances which ours have not; they lookt indeed with some appetite upon Aegypt, and made some proposals of Return, but it was while they suffered the hardships of the wilderness; they preferr'd a repleted slavery, before a hungry freedom; but even they were not so frantick in their mutinies, as to make any such offer in Canaan, or have any Emulation to the Garlick and Onions, amidst the affluence of Milk and Honey: No 'tis we Alone that have the unhappy skill of reconciling the sins of Canaan, and the Wilderness; murmur as much under our Vines and Fig-trees, as at Rephidim, or Marah, and make all the outcries of want and slavery, whilest we wallow in the utmost luxury of plenty and freedom. I need not hear specifie the particulars of our Murmurings, this discourse being not likely to find many whose innocence will need that information, this malignant humor having spread so, that 'tis now become almost a scandalous (because a singular) thing to be contented. And certainly a considering Foreiner, that should come among us, could not but be astonisht to see a Nation so full of all those things which use to create p. 205temporal satisfactions, and yet to find no body in it satisfied; to see so many parties among us, and none prosperous. This is such a riddle as would tempt a man to suspect his senses, and think we had all this while but dreamt of a restoration: been under the delusion the Prophet describes of the hungry and thirsty man, that at his waking, finds he is empty and his soul hath appetite, Esay 29. 8. 'Tis a sad, but visible truth, that all that God has done for us, hath been so far from filling our desires, that it has only serv'd to enlarge them: for I appeal to any of our loudest mutineers, whether if some years since the present state of affairs had been represented to them, drest in the worst circumstances they now complain of, they would not then have thought it extremely amiable, worth Rachels prize of seven years more hardship; nay whether they would not willingly have made some abatements, relinquisht part of what they now enjoy, to have had the rest secur'd? And when God has granted us all we then askt, shall we murmer because we could now perhaps ask something more; and like ingrate Debtors, pick a quarrel to evade payment? Was it not enough that he engag'd his Omnipotence for us, but must his Omniscience also be prest upon the same service? and provide all he could foresee we would wish? Alas, do we think we have the same hank upon God that some Gallants have on their trusting Merchants, that upon Peril of losing all former scores, he must still go on to supply us? shall we think nothing p. 206fit for oblivion but our obligations, and in this perverse sense transcribe S. Paul, Phil. 3. 13. forgetting those things which are behind, reach forward to the things that are before: this indeed too fully speaks us the off-spring of our first Parents, we can find no gust in all the fruits of Paradise, if any one be denied us; and still look not on what we have, but what we want; and as it is observ'd of the greedier sort of creatures that they relish not one bit for the vehement expectation of another: So is it with us, we devour, but do not enjoy our Blessings; and to require him to satisfie us, is to assign him the Poets Hell, set him with Belus daughters to the task of filling a sieve with water, or rolling Sysiphus's stone; our growing appetites still keeping us empty and restless amidst all endeavours to make us otherwise; so that whereas God uses to commit his favours to Men, as seed to the Earth, in expectation of an harvest, some fruits of gratitude and obedience; they seem with us rather to be flung into a Gulph, whose property is only to swallow never to fructifie.

I KNOW mens Minds are so possest with their discontents, our daily mutinous blasts have puft up and swelled our grievances to such a vastness, that he must expect to be very impatiently heard, that shall attempt to represent them in a lesser size; yet sure 'twere not impossible even upon a direct view, to demonstrate them very light and moderate: but upon a comparative, perfectly trivial and inconsiderable; and 'tis a p. 207little strange, that we who bare our late suffering estate with so much Impatience, should not have impressions enough left in our memory, to confront to all our present regrets. Do we not quietly now possess the fruits of our own, or our Progenitors industry, without danger of any Sequestration, but what our own Luxuries inflict? Are not our Persons at freedom; deliver'd from that kind word, and unkind thing, SECURING? So that when we rise in the Morning, we need not fear our next lodging shall be in the Goal or dungeon; nor when we sit down to our Meal, suspect the intrusion of arm'd uninvited Guests, who, ere whiles we know, were wont to surprise us, as the Plague did the Israelites, even while the meat was yet in our mouths; are not our Lives under the custody of known Laws, so that no man is in danger that will but keep himself within those Boundaries; nor need fear to be mockt into his grave by shews and Pageantries of Justice? And besides these real escapes from slavery, are we not rescued from the most imbittering circumstance of it, the having servants rule over us, a thing which rendred our subjection as mean and servile, as it was sharp and pressing, and which we were then so sensible of, that it never mist to bring up the rear of our Complaints. Lastly, if we reflect upon our higher spiritual concerns, are we not freed from those boistrous robust temptations, which with the violence of Famine and Sword, Beggary and Death assaulted our constancy, and left no mean between p. 208Martyrdom and Apostasie? Are we not also restor'd to all those spiritual advantages which we once profest so much to value? That well of life now lies open before us, after which we once panted like the Hart after the water-springs; our ancient worship is revived, and wants only our attendance to make it solemn; whereas the abomination of Desolation stood in the holy place, our prayers were turned to sin; needed, but were denied the Liturgy to pray against them, or atone their guilts. We have no longer stones given us for bread, nor experiment that sad riddle of being at once cloyed and starved amidst excess of preaching, suffering a Famine of the Word. And now are all these worth no regard, if they are not, why did we exclaim so loudly when we wanted them? if they are, why are we still as querulous now we have them? 'Tis sure, these include all our great and substantial interests as men, and Christians, and those being provided for, 'tis not easily imaginable what others we should have important enough to make us querulous, unless it be those of Passion and Humour. One mans ambition perhaps wants a satisfaction, another mans avarice, a thirds spleen; and this discord makes up the very unmusical Harmony of our murmurs. If we see but a Mordecai in the Kings gate whom we wish removed, we can like Haman find no gust in any thing we enjoy. If we see some, who we think have born less of the burden and heat of the day, rewarded equally or perhaps above our selves, we are sure to make out the Parable, p. 209by murmuring at the good man of the house: Or if Nineveh be spar'd, if all be not executed to whom we have denounc'd destruction, we like Ionah sit down in a sullen discontent, and grow weary of our lives, because others are permitted to enjoy theirs. To these and other heads of the like nature, 'tis apparent our grievances may be reduced; and then if the balance be put into any dispassionate hand, 'tis sure they can never become a counterpoize to the other real benefits we enjoy, but will in the Prophets phrase, appear lighter than vanity and nothing.

BUT I suppose some will say, 'tis not only present uneasinesses of which they are impatient, but the possibility of future, a fear of relapsing into our former estate by the ill managery of our present: To these I shall answer, That admit it were so, yet sure 'twill be no wisdom to anticipate our miseries, to forestall discontents, and make foresight as painful as actual suffering. In other forbidden instances we chuse to enjoy the present, and with an Epicurean Indifferency cry, Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye, 1 Cor. 15. 32. How is it that we here become so unluckily sagacious, unless it be that murmuring is a Sensuality we count equivalent, nay superior to all rational satisfactions; and therefore that we may have no intermission of that delight, suborn our phancies to find occasions, and fetch in from the future those supplies which the present affords not: But besides this, I should in the second place ask these great Diviners, why they do not p. 210also foresee, that this very mutinous temper of theirs is the most direct and infallible means of bringing those mischiefs they pretend to fear; that it is so, is most evident, and so well observ'd by our Adversaries, that there is little doubt, they have not only pleasure, but designs upon it; and to that purpose have their Engins on work to blow up the hot Spirits among us, in expectation from thence to raise a flame. So blind a thing is Passion, that it hurries on to the things which in their issue we most abhor; makes us our Enemies drudges, and the forgers of our own shackles; and whilest we cry out of petty Indulgences, we our selves give them in the lump, what we grudge them in parcels: This is a miserable infatuation, and while we act thus unreasonably, we are sure no competent declamers against ill managery. But besides this natural effect of our murmurs, we are also to remember that there is a Divine vengeance attending it: when bounties and largesses are quarrell'd at, we necessitate God to another Method, nay indeed, not only his vengeance, but even his kindness seems to suggest it, when he sees our constitutions such, that his gentle applications work contrary effects: 'tis very apposite for him to try whether the Antiperistasis will operate on the other side; if we smart thus under lenitives, 'tis but fit to essay, if corrosives will ease us; and the only remaining experiment for the making us happy, is to make us miserable.

BUT would God we might yet prevent the need of such unkindly expedients, and by a sober p. 211estimate, and thankful sense of what we have, provide to conserve it: not fastidiously despise great and eminent blessings, because perhaps they come not home to every part of our wishes. Alas, those plenary satisfactions agree not with the nature of Earthly things: 'tis an observation long since rais'd from the Globular and Triangular form of the World and our Hearts, that 'tis impossible the one should be fill'd with the other, there will still be some angles, some vacuities left; our very accessions create new wants, and like an unsound limb, the healing of one Sore is the breaking out of another. Every thing under the Moon partakes of her vicissitudes, augments and decreases only with this Difference, that though their wains be to as low a degree as hers, they never are perfectly at the full. There never was, nor never will be a State here completely happy: And as the Philosopher handsomly reproacht the impatience of the Persian King for the death of his Wife, by undertaking to revive her, if he could help him but to the names of three men that had never griev'd to write upon her Tomb; so surely we may make the like offer to our malecontents, and engage to redeem all their uneasinesses, if they can point us out (I say not three, but) one age wherein there were no complaints. What then are our clamorous Repinings, but so many loud invectives against Gods decree; a Desire to subvert his fundamental Law, and confound the distinction he has irreversibly set between our Earthly and our Heavenly state: and p. 212alas, What mad insolence is this, to expect that the whole Oeconomy of the world must be chang'd only to humour us? that God must replant us a Paradise, pluck up every one of the Briers and Thorns which were our native curse? nay, bring down Heaven to us, and enstate us in undisturb'd unmix'd felicities? This is indeed simply considered a very wild expectation, but yet more so when 'tis considered how we qualifie our selves for such a priviledge: for let me ask, are we as eager to anticipate the holiness, as the happiness of Heaven? Do we as passionately desire to do Gods will, as that God should do ours? And aemulate the Angelical obedience and purity, as much as bliss? These are Interrogatories which need no verbal Answer, our lives do too fully resolve them in the negative, and then how shameless a partiality is it, thus to carve to our selves, and chuse out of either state what we best like, reserve all the sensualities of this world, and yet cry out for the impassibleness of the next; but alas, these are pretensions as inconsistent as they are bold, our vices having such a native inseparable adherency of pain and vexation, that 'tis not the most dexterous managery of a sin that can ever sever them, but if we will retain the one, we must the other also: A Truth which might be exemplified to us throughout the whole Catalogue even of sensual sins; but it is most eminently visible in this of murmuring, which stays not as others do to take Pain at the rebound, and by way of result, but has it as its first Element and principle; it being its p. 213self almost as great a pain, as any it can betray us to: and yet to secure an advance and perpetuity of Torment, every Event serves to foment and heighten it, and the most desperate things are equally combustible to that flame. Indeed he that is possest with that humour, has a kind of fury within him, that will never let him rest: And alas, what Legions of such evil Spirits are now among us? How are we as it were inspir'd with Mutiny, it being the universal dialect of the Nation; and of many in it, who cannot be suppos'd to found it in any observation of their own, but are led by the common genius, and bellow rather by consent with the rest of the herd, than for any uneasiness, at least of injustice and oppression (for such only give pretence for Mutiny) that themselves feel. And since 'tis become a Plebeian vice, would God our Gentry would use it as they do their fashions, and leave it off (if for no better reason) for its being vulgar: And indeed 'twere but aequitable, that those who have taken up so many sins upon punctilio, should for once lay down one upon the same score. The Athenian State put down their Ostracisme (which otherwise they were fond enough of) because it was debased, by happening to fall on Hyperbolus, a despicable and abject person: and there seems not much difference in the cases, save only that we are more tenacious of Sins, than they of Punishments; and I fear we shall so long retain this, till we find it its own Lictor, not only in the present uneasiness, but in that more fruitful harvest of Mischiefs, whereof p. 214it has now sown the seeds. We see here what our thankfulness is, for those eminent miraculous mercies we have receiv'd, and the account of that is an unhappy specimen, what we are like to find, when we survey the uses we have made of them, which God knows have been so unnatural and perverse, as does too fully parallel the former instance.

FOR first, if we reflect upon our spiritual blessings, what has the enjoyment of those advantages produced, but the contempt of them; we have an easie free access to God in his Sanctuary, our Churches are no longer Garrisons to keep out the worship, to which they were devoted, but like hospitable doors, are open to the regular piety of any that will enter. And now we have this liberty, now the flaming sword is removed, we have lost all appetite to the Tree of life, can willingly let those Everlasting gates (as the Psalmist styles them) Psal. 21. stand as everlastingly open ere we enter them: And though the Fabricks are by Gods providence rescued from their dust and ruines, yet many of us endeavour to reduce them to a yet worse desolation, strive to depopulate those sacred Mansions, and execute against them that prophetick threat concerning Nineveh, Nahum. 1. Leave them empty, void and waste. And indeed so they are, if not in an absolute, yet in a Comparative sense; for could we at any time of Divine Service make an estimate of all the persons that are absent, 'twould scarce be discern'd that any are there; were all corners ransackt, what a p. 215multitude of Recusants should we find upon a far differing account from that of Conscience? Some we should see stretching themselves upon their beds, keeping a Sabbath indeed, but to their floth, not their God; others perhaps we may find rous'd from their Couches, upon the summons not of Religion but Vanity; some new garment is to be fitted, some exotick dress essayed, and they who grudge one hour to the Preachers glass, can spend many at their own; where they are so taken up with their Idolatries to themselves, that they think of no other worship; nay, as the world goes, 'twere well this were the worst diversion, that some did not keep from Church, that they might in the interim, defile those lesser Temples of God they carry about them, and cut themselves off from the Communion of Christs body, to make themselves members of an Harlot: or that others were not Bacchus his Votaries when they should be Gods, spend that time in their frantick revels, and sing a Dithyrambick instead of Te Deum. As for the Mammonist, if he keep any holy day, 'tis like the Israelites to his Gods of Gold, Exod. 32. 31. He is looking with veneration on his Idoliz'd treasure, numbring those bags he dares not use, or perhaps with a more active Zeal pursuing the means of encreasing them. Thus alas, may we go from one to another, and as it was in Ezekiels vision, see still greater abominations, Ezek. 8. And certainly that All-seeing Eye, which discerns what multitudes do thus busie themselves, at the times even of his solemnest p. 216worship, cannot but adjudge us most profane despisers of his mercy in restoring it: Yet would to God 'twere only the absent upon whom that sentence would fall; but alas, the behaviour of many in the Church does too loudly testifie how little of devotion brings them thither, and at how mean a rate they value all that is done there: Those Eyes which there should wait on God, as those of a Servant on the hands of his Master, Psal. 123. 2. are rolling about to fetch in all the vanities and temptations which can occurr to them, and look every way, but towards Heaven. Our Tongues which should be toucht with a Coal from the Altar, devoted wholly to Hymns and Prayers, are busied in private Colloquies with those about us: Business, News, nay, all the impertinent chat of our most vacant hours, is then taken up to entertain us; so that he who would know the talk of the Town or neighbourhood, need go neither to Exchange nor Market, the Church will as certainly supply him: And this ill employment of our Tongues, engages the like of our Ears, which when they should be hearkening what the Lord God will say concerning us, are listening to those vain discourses we hold with one another, from all which outward indecencies we may too surely collect the inward irreverence of our heart. And is it possible that this should now be the Temper of those, who not long since seem'd to bewail their exclusion from those sacred Assemblies: Did we long for them as David for the waters of Bethlehem, when they appear'd unattainable, p. 217and when they are brought to us, refuse to taste them, poure them out not as he did in devotion, but in contempt? 'Tis true indeed, in temporal Delights possession usually proves a nauseating thing, and takes off our appetite; but it uses not to be so in spiritual, whose peculiar property it is not to satiate, but excite by fruition: But alas, though the Things we converse with are spiritual, our Hearts are carnal, and that is the cause why instead of crying out with the Psalmist, When shall I come to appear in the presence of God, Psal. 42. We, like those in Malachy, Chap. 1. 13. Snuff at his service, and say, What a weariness is it? A weariness indeed it appears in the literal sense with many, who sleep at it as men over-labour'd, and scarce take so sound repose in their own houses as in Gods; indeed such is the variety of rude behaviour that is there us'd, that should an unbeliever come into their Assemblies, he must surely (as St. Paul supposes in another case, 1 Cor. 14. 23.) say we are mad; to see some gazing, some whispering, some laughing, others sleeping, and perhaps the far fewer number praying; is such a medly, as the most brutish Idolaters never admitted in their worships; and the way of worshipping Mercury, by throwing stones, or Hercules by cursing, is a sober and decent kind of service compar'd with this. And now alas, when will the Church recover its ancient Title, and become the house of prayer; 'tis sure according to the present appearance it may have many more proper names, that being the least part of the business p. 218done in it: 'Tis true, there are some that make it a Sanctuary, but 'tis only against the penalties of the Law, or reproach of errant Atheism; they come to save their money or their credit; others perhaps shun the solitariness of being at home, and come not as to a place of Devotion, but Concourse; and 'tis to be doubted, some visit that place as they do many others, because they have nothing else to do: They want their weekdays diversion, and so are driven thither upon meer destitution of more grateful entertainments; make it a kind of Sunday play-house, sit there as Spectators or Judges, to see the company, or censure the Preacher, but never remember that themselves have any other part to act; or are beheld by Him, who will not always be patient of such profanation; but will, as the Scripture speaks, Repay them to their face, who thus contemn him to his. We know among men, every one counts his House his fortress; and an Affront offered him there, doubles the Injury, and is not only a contempt, but an invasion: and shall it not be a proportionable enhansement with God also, thus to defie him within his own doors, and approach his presence in an impious bravery, the more fully to shew him, how little we regard him. At this rate while we address our selves, we may as ill manner'd Guests be forbid his house: Interrogated by God as the Iews were, Is. 1. Why doest thou tread my Courts? A total abandoning of Worship being more fair and ingenuous than such Devotion: wherein like the barbarous souldiers, p. 219we bring Christ a Scepter only to smite him on the head with it; and make a preface of homage to give our selves the sport of the mockery: nay, 'tis sadly to be fear'd, that God may thrust us out of his House, shut his Doors against us, rescue his Service and himself from our profanation, and put us again under the same, (or a worse interdict than that) which lately lay upon us.

HAVING now seen our scandalous Irreverence towards Gods worship in general, 'tis too easie to make Application to the several parts of it; every one of which must necessarily partake of the contempt which falls upon the whole; for while we bring no thoughts but secular with us; those are equally disagreeing to all the Divine offices: 'twill be needless therefore to trace our wandrings in each of those, since our whole behaviour in the Church is one great deviation from the business we should come about: yet that supersedes not to every guilty person himself the necessity of a more distinct and particular reflection. 'Tis sure at the last dreadful Audit, we must account for every of those spiritual advantages we have abus'd; and alas, what a dismal reckoning will many of us have then to give up, when our prayers which we now turn into Sin, shall be turn'd into perdition: and We who would not supplicate our God, shall in vain invoke the mountains and hills to hide us from the face of the lamb, when that Word which we now so fastidiously despise, that it must be drest up in the colours of humane Rhetorick, to make us at all patient p. 220of it, and becomes then only tolerable to us when it is farthest removed from being Gods: when that word, as our Saviour speaks, shall judge us, and that gracious invitation to life end in that fatal sentence, Go ye Cursed. Nay, when our very Propitiation shall plead against us, and the crucified Body of our Saviour, which we have in Effigie so often recrucified, in our unworthy approaches, or impious neglect of the holy Eucharist, shall witness against us as its murderers, when we shall be found not sprinkled as with the blood of a sacrifice, but imbrued as with that of slaughter: when all these means of our salvation, shall thus miserably convert, and from the savour of life, become that unto death, 2 Cor. 2. 16. then we shall to our amazement find, how differing our estimates of them were from Gods; and in his vengeance read the value he put upon them. What then have we now to do, but to anticipate our dooms-day, and judge our selves that we may not be judg'd of the Lord: To make an impartial account of all these our profanations, and accuse our selves before his mercy seat, that so we may prevent the arraignment at his bar of Iudgement. And as Offenders are usually enjoyn'd to acknowledge their guilts in the very places where they committed them; so let us make the Church the Scene of our penitence, as we have of our faults: By our strong crying and tears, deprecate our former indevotion, and by an exemplary Reverence, redress the scandal of our Profaneness. This, and only this is the way to secure us against p. 221the final Vengeance of these sins; nay, and against the intermedial also: for we are not to expect that so unkind abuse of mercy shall be wholly respited to another world, it being so exasperating a crime, as must in all probability awake Gods fury, and pull down present Judgments, I wish the Event do not too soon attest the reasonableness of this supposal.

IF from our spiritual Blessings, we now descend to our temporal, we shall not appear much better managers of those; they being generally employed to purposes the most distant from those, for which they were given. And first for our peace, that great comprehensive enjoyment, upon which all others are dependent, and which is to our civil Capacities, the same that health is to our natural; the thing by which we relish and taste the rest of our comforts, we may from the Song of Zachary, Luk. 1. learn for what intent God bestows it: Deliverance from enemies is to no other end, but that we may serve God in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our life: But alas, he that observes how we employ our quiet, must surely say it serves little to the advancement either of Holiness or Righteousness: For the first of these we have already seen, how little of holiness we shew even in that place where nothing else should be admitted; and we are not so preposterously religious, to shew more in others. That Piety which is so cold and benumn'd under the warm breath of the publick Ordinances; we may well presume stark frozen, in p. 222our more retir'd offices: and if it thus faint and sink in consort, 'tis sure more liable to the Wise mans Vae soli, and utterly dies when we are alone. 'Tis true indeed, these Closet transactions are immediately visible to none but the searcher of hearts, yet in true Devotion there is such a Symmetry and proportion, that the Inferences we make by analogy may be very irrefragable; nay, 'tis to be fear'd many lye open to a yet clearer conviction, and may be proved to have few or none of those private intercourses with heaven; for though a negative be not simply evincible, yet as in civil cases we prove a man not to have been at this time in such a place, by his having actually been in another; so were the whole Week, MonethMonth, perhaps Year: of some men exactly traced, we should find them so engrossed with other diversions, that there will scarce be found any Minute for devotion to interpose: Mens worldly or fleshly Concerns so divide their time, that God from whom 'tis all deriv'd can be afforded no tribute out of it. Yet alas, 'twere well if this privative sort of impiety were all we had to answer for: but 'tis too apparent we do not only neglect God, but reproach and violate him: what else are those bold and insolent blasphemies wherewith we daily assault him, making him the mark at which all our wild Passions are shot. Do we want any thing either for our use or delight, presently God is accused, his providence or his goodness questioned; and he declaim'd against either as impotent or illiberal. Does any p. 223body vex or disquiet us, God must have his share of our displeasure, his sacred name must be profaned, and we count our fiercest Revilings of men, faint and insignificant, if not inspired with the most dreadful and horrid Oaths; Nay, he stands obnoxious to all the displacencies we receive even from inanimate creatures, if a Die or a Card run amiss, our resentments are presently vented upon him; he is profaned and vilified, as if he were the Cheat that rookt us of our money, because he does not secure us from those losses, to which we wantonly expose our selves; nor is it only our eager and warmer passions that thus invade him: Our pleasanter moods do the very same, and we blaspheme by way of divertisement; every impertinent story or insipid Iest, must have the haut-goust of an Oath to recommend it, as every incredible Narration has to attest it: to say nothing of those more solemn and deliberate perjuries, wherein we impiously suborn Gods venerable and dreadful name, to be the Engin of our fraud and malice: and as if we thought he would forswear as well as we, bring him to countenance those Crimes he has vowed to punish. Thus do we with a prodigious impiety contaminate even divinity its self, make it the sink for all our puddles to run into; and prostitute that name which as the Psalmist speaks, is great, wonderful and holy, to all the unholy purposes, our Passions, our Interest, or our Phancies can suggest to us.

p. 224THIS profaneness is so proper a foundation for Atheism, that we are not to wonder to see so many advance from the one to the other, they pay so little of the reverence due to God, that at last they turn their impiety into argument, and infer him not to be God, whom they treat so unlike one. And truly this seems to be the grand piece of Logick, which has disputed many, not only out of Christian, but all native Religion. How unhappily successful it has proved among us is too apparent in those impious discourses which are every where heard, wherein men are arriv'd to such a licenciousness, that Davids Atheist was a modest Puny, who only said in his Heart there is no God, and perhaps upon that account shall by some be adjudged to deserve the Epithet the Psalmist gives him, and be indeed thought a fool that would not own what would now a-daies so certainly denominate him a Wit, or in the solemn stile a Master of Reason. And indeed they will attest the propriety of the stile, they rather governing Reason, than being govern'd by it; otherwise 'twould be hard to discern, how from different premises the same conclusion should be induced: and those who in the late adverse times denied God in revenge of their sufferings, should now pay their gratitude also in the same manner, and renounce him as (or more) loudly since his signal attestation of that righteous cause; his not owning whereof was then their principal plea. The truth is, 'tis a little strange how Atheism could admit such enhansing accessions as we find it has; p. 225for it being the completion and highest step of Ill, and that to which all others do but subordinately tend, one would think it should from its first appearance in the world, have been so mature and full grown a sin, as could be capable of no improvement; but so subtilly wicked are these later daies, that we can never be brought to a non ultra, but still find something to add to the compleatest sin: therefore though of those that are really Atheists, one cannot be said to be more so than another, yet some may be more daringly, and mischievously so; and sure in that respect our modern, surmount all former: They were generally on the defensive part, took up the tenet as a buckler against the unwelcome invasions and Checks of conscience, and design'd nothing but the more peaceable enjoyment of their lusts; but now men do not only use, but love it; make themselves its avowed Champions, seek to win it Proselytes; and in short, appear so zealous for it, as if they made it their religion to have none. And God knows, too many such reversed kinds of Evangelists we now have, who with as great design unteach Divinity, as the first Propugners taught it, and their number and boldness have so encreas'd since the return of our peace, that sure the next Age will have little cause to think Religion had any share in the Restoration. Thus have we done our parts to supersede that obligation of serving God in holiness, by leaving no God to serve; and after the most signal attestation of his Deity in our rescue, we do like those ingrate p. 226persons, who seek to subvert those by whom themselves were establisht, and deny him because he has own'd us.

THIS is the holiness wherewith we have serv'd him, since our being deliver'd from the hands of our Enemies, and our righteousness has been very proportionable, for if we look into the dealings of all ranks of men; we shall find the same vein of deceit run through all transactions. A few years since Sequestration and plunderings, those whole-sale robberies had so over-topt the rest, that like an Epidemick disease they had overwhelm'd, if not the kind, yet at least the notice of all other Injustices: but since those Leviathans are withdrawn, the lesser Devourers supply their place; Fraud succeeds to Violence; and in all places, all occasions of commerce, we still meet with Sequestrators. The adulterated wares, and false measures in Shops; the dilatory proceedings, and evasive tricks in Law; the various and unworthy Cheats of Creditors, and the mean and dishonest advantages which are watcht in all sorts of Contracts, are too irrefragable proofs hereof. Nay, not only our Business, but our very recreations expose us to these deceits, as some of our bankrupted Gamesters can too sadly witness, what troops of Harpyes attend those sports is every mans observation: 'Tis strange so many should yet be to learn the prudence to avoid so known a danger, wherein a man is at once made active and passive in the same Robbery, and does himself defraud his family of that, p. 227whereof he is defrauded by another. But amongst these many injustices, there is none wherein Men seem generally to find such a gust and sensuality, as those wherein God is concern'd; twenty Laybooties humor them not so much as one from the Clergy; and if the Quakers should be mustered according to that one Tenet of not paying Tythes, we should indeed find their numbers formidable. How subtle even the rudest persons are in defaulking those dues, we see by every daies experiment, the over-reaching their Minister being the grand Triumph of a Rusticks wit; so that not only their covetousness but their vanity is concern'd in it: I know 'tis the usual apology for this kind of Sacriledge, that either the maintenance of the Clergy is too much, or their merit too little; for the first, I think it may be demonstrated, That there is no liberal Science, and but few Mechanick trades, from which a man may not hope as plentiful a subsistence, as this affords to the generality of its professors: However I shall leave those that make this objection to dispute it with that authority, which has allotted them this proportion; desiring them to consider, that whatever the support of the Clergy is, it costs them nothing; no man having Purchast more, than what remains of the Estate, after his Tyth is paid. As to the second, I confess 'tis extremely to be wisht, that the negligence and vice of Some did not give too much pretence to the Allegation; and to such I cannot but apply the words of our Saviour, Mat. 18. 7. woe be to the p. 228man by whom the offence cometh; yet certainly 'tis very incompetent, to justifie the detention of their legal rights: for till the Law which has assign'd them, delegate the Forfeiture to me, the greatest enormities of my Pastor, cannot entitle me to any thing that is his: And indeed what blame soever is really due to some, we must expect it should extend to all, if the Accusers were to have the benefit of the Mulct; and (as in the late confusions) all Ministers should be made scandalous, in order to the making them poor.

'TWERE easie to draw up a far larger Catalogue of those injustices we daily commit; for as a man has divers other concerns besides his goods, so he may be injur'd in all those: and truly the iniquity of these daies, seems fully commensurate to all the suffering capacities of mankind: we weigh our own and others Concerns, in very differing balances, and offer those Injuries without any regret, which we can with no patience suffer: How nicely Jealous is every one of us of his own Repute, and yet how maliciously Prodigal of other mens? so that Defamation is become one of our main Topicks of discourse, furnishes entertainment to all companies; the present owe their Divertisement to the absent, and many would be drein'd quite dry, were it not for this reserve, which like an unexhaustible spring, still supplies fresh matter of talk. In like manner how carefully do we avert any hurt or mutilation of our own bodies, and yet how barbarously inconsiderate are we of others, to whom we do the p. 229greatest outrages rather than use any violence to our Passion, or restrain an angry Humor: only I confess there is one Instance, wherein though we are unjust, we are not so partial; but expose our selves also, and that is in the case of Duells, a barbarous custom wherein 'tis hard to define, whether the Wickedness or Folly be greater; yet it maintains its way in spight of all the methods God has us'd to make us better or wiser: Of this there are too many, and too noted instances since our restoration, as if we were so enamour'd of destruction, that when we are prevented of it from our Enemies, we seek it from one another, or thought publick Peace so intolerable, that when 'tis cast upon us (as sure ours, if ever any may be said to be) we are fain to take in private quarrels, as our rescue from that dull quiet, and court the utmost mischiefs, to avoid the oppression of the greatest happiness. Thus perversly do we countermine Gods purposes of kindness, and when he has secur'd us, solicitously seek to be deliver'd from our safety; project new dangers, and dare his power with a yet harder Task, the delivering us from our selves: And whilst we thus avert our quiet, 'tis no wonder that we produce no better effects of it; nor fructifie under that, which we will not permit our selves to enjoy.

AND as upon this general view, we appear very ill managers of our Peace, so shall we much more, if we reflect on those many particular blessings which are wrapt up in that, of which we make so perverse use, that we therein no less p. 230violate Sobriety, than we have already appear'd to do piety and righteousness; so filling up the measure of our iniquity by transgressing all the fudamental rules of Christianity, living neither soberly, righteously, nor Godly in this present world, Tit. 2. 12. And of those advantages which are the appendages to Peace, there are two most eminent; Plenty and Liberty, both of which are the more remarkable in our present quiet, by how much the deprivation of each was the greater. For the first, we know the late times of rapine, had torn from many among us their whole subsistence, so entirely despoil'd them that they were reduc'd to Iobs condition, and connected the two extreme points of Birth and Death, by a middle state of the like nakedness and destitution: and to such, our late restoration was a kind of Civil resurrection; rais'd them like Elisha's dry bones, from the most hopeless state, and by a successive posseson of their own Inheritances, made them heirs to themselves. And though all were not so wholly divested, yet like those Canaanites whom the Iews did not extirpate, they were put under Tribute: and while persons who knew so well how to exact were Lords Paramount, a bare being was all could be expected, they seem'd rather Stewards than Owners of their fortunes, and had rather the trouble than advantage of their Managery: And who would not think that this so long want of plenty, should have taught us sobriety in the using it; that desuetude should have worn out the skill of luxury, and we should not have p. 231known how to be riotous: but alas, our memories have been too faithful to us in this particular, no one of our vanities is fall'n into oblivion, but on the contrary the art of Voluptuousness so improved, as if all the time that was lost from the Practick, had been spent in the Theory, and we had for so many years been contriving new kinds and degrees of excess. Indeed it is too sure we retain'd the affection when we had lost the power of rioting; and 'tis not our prosperity seduces us, but we it. For as the Sun though it lends its rayes to the begetting of the vilest Insects, yet makes no such production but upon apt matter, slime and putrefaction: so neither would the most opulent fortune make us sensual, did it not find us dispos'd and prepar'd for it. How forcible those propensions are, appears by the multitude of objects on which they work; For they had need be strong Inclinations that take in all Opportunities, nay possibilities of actuating themselves, and such 'tis evident ours are, there being nothing capable of ministring to luxury, which we use not to that purpose. Our Meat is no longer apportioned to our Hunger, but our Tasts: so that the Stomach is made meerly passive in the matter of Eating; serves only to receive those loads we charge it with, whilest its Elections and Choices are forestall'd by the palate or phancy; nay, 'tis not permitted so much as a negative voice, not allowed to refuse what is either for kind or quantity destructive to it: We do with studied mixtures force our relucting p. 232appetites, and with all the Spells of Epicurism, conjure them up that we may have the pleasure of laying them again. Thus unworthily treacherous are we to Nature, which while we pretend to relieve, we oppress, by giving her not only beyond her need, but sufferance: And to shew we are no less dextrous in mixing sins than meats; our very Pride (though in its self an intellectual vice) mingles with our Gluttony, every thing is insipid that is not costly; and it is thought an ignoble Peasant-like thing to eat a plain meal: Nor is he now to be lookt on as a Gentleman, whose single Ordinary costs not as much as would be (and himself would perhaps some years since have thought) a fair exhibition for some whole families. And that we may not be charg'd with partial intemperance, we go not less in that of drink, wherein we are so nice and critical, that 'tis become a special skill and faculty to judge of liquors: But how great soever our curiosity be, 'tis sure our excess is greater, and does not only over-match but supplant it; there being no drink so unpleasant which the love of a debauch will not reconcile us to. So great a malice do we bear to our reason, that to oppress it, we are content to expose our darling, and do violence to our very sense. How unhappily predominant this brutish Vice is, need not here be told, since it too evidently attests its self, to every mans observation, it no longer seeking the shelter of night and darkness, but impatient of such delay, appears in the broadest light; and he is now a p. 233slow-paced drunkard, that has not finisht his course, perhaps begun another, before the Sun has ended his: nay, so is the Scene chang'd, that sobriety is become the reproachful thing, such as even those who value it dare not own, and are either driven to preserve it by shifts and artifices, or else chuse to abandon it rather than hazard the scandal. And certainly this is the great advantage this sin has for the propagating its self, for 'tis impossible Bestiality should be so universally agreeable to mankind, that all should pursue it out of appetite and liking: 'tis this Fear that engages many in it; and though it have too many voluntiers, yet sure 'tis this press that helps to make up its numbers, which as it speaks the great baseness of those who are thus asham'd both of Piety and Humanity, and had rather cease to be men, than appear to be Christians; so is it a sad indication of National impiety, a fatal Symptome that we have neer fill'd up the measure of our iniquities, and are ripened for the woes denounced against those who call evil good, and good evil, Esa. 5. 20. which sure was never more palpably done than in this instance, wherein temperance is branded for ill nature, and dulness of humor; whilest the most swinish Excess must pass for sociableness, friendship, and hospitality; names which have been so long prostituted that they have lost their native use, and men have forgot those very distant things to which they originally belong'd, yet sure such once there were: God made us sociable creatures, and we might still continue so p. 234upon the strength of that first principle, and need not owe our intercourse to our debaucheries; no, nor our friendships neither, which have been so far from being preserv'd that way, that there is nothing more obviously, and frequently violates them; nay, indeed the whole species of real Friendships seems to be extinct, since this fictitious sort took place. Men think it enough (as indeed 'tis too much) to damn themselves with their friends, and all other communications are transmuted into that of Sin, for we daily see those, who cleave the most inseparably in this kind to each other, will yet neither do nor suffer any thing else: And sure if this be friendship, 'tis such a reverst kind of it as must have as preposterous a Definition; for none that have yet been given by Divines or Philosophers will fit it. The like may be said of hospitality, which sure is in its proper nature of a very distant make from this; design'd to relieve Strangers, not burthen them; to cure their wants indeed, but not by the worse exchange of a Surfet: So that the ancient and the modern Hospitality, differ as much as that of Melchizedeck from that of Circe; the one refreshes, the other transforms: And how great a shew soever of liberality this later may have, yet he is not to be thought to have drunk gratis, that has paid his reason for his shot.

AND to both these parts of Intemperance, our Uncleanness bears full proportion, the one makes provision for the flesh, and the other fulfils the lusts thereof. To how brutish an impudence p. 235this sin is grown is too visible: we need not trace men into their privacies and recesses, themselves willingly proclaim their guilts; nay, dread nothing so much as the opinion of being innocent: yea so out-dated a vertue is Modesty now become, that even that Sex to which it was once accounted the greatest ornament, have put it off, look on it as a piece of Rusticity, and countrey breeding: whether this pulling down the fence be an Indication they are willing to lie common, I shall not determine: but sure that very free, and confident behaviour now in use, is too apt to invite assaults, and takes off all that Extenuation of crime, which was wont to be allowed that Sex upon the supposition of their being seduced? Thus do we publish our sin as Sodom, and if we consider how much boldness it has gain'd since the return of our prosperity; twill be probable that ours also has been fomented by fulness of bread, and abundance of Idleness, Ez. 1. 6. That our Plenty is very subservient to it, appears by the vast expence wherewith many men manage this vice: And that our Idleness is so too, is no less evident by the large portions of time that are spent in those pursuits, it being as the great design, so the especial business of too many mens lives. As for the remedy which God has assign'd, it serves now only to exasperate the disease. Marriage with too many only advances simple-fornication to adultery, and superadds perjury to uncleanness; those sacred bands are like Samsons withs, broken upon every assault of p. 236the Philistins, and the very thought of being confin'd makes men more apt to range; For alas, 'tis not their needs but their Phancies they are to provide for, and that is so endless, that the greatest liberty of Polygamy would never satisfie it: the same quarrel would lie then to multiplied wives, which does now to single; I mean, that they were their own: And how numerous soever their flock were, 'twould not secure their poor neighbours only Lamb, especially when 'tis consider'd, that in this they gratifie two sins at once, their vanity as well as their lust; their complacence in undermining the Husband, being generally as great, as that in enjoying the Wife. And if Pride abstractedly and in its own nature be, as Solomon says, an abomination to the Lord, certainly when 'tis thus complicated, it must be infinitely more so, and ascertain a concurrence of those Iudgments, which are singly threatned to each of those Sins; what those are, I wish guilty persons would seriously ponder, and then they would surely think their momentary pleasures much overbought. But alas, such a fascinating sin this is, as allows men no liberty of consideration, they go on as the wise-man says, Prov. 7. 22. with the same stupidity that an Ox goeth to the slaughter: or, a fool to the correction of the stocks; and while every body else observes the Effects of their Vice in their wasted bodies, and ruin'd estates; themselves are the last that discern it, pursue the course till the very last remains of strength and wealth are exhausted, and nothing left them but p. 237disease and beggery. Of the truth of this, there have been too many sad examples, though it seems not yet enough, to give caution to others.

And to these lusts of the flesh, we spare not to add those of the Eye also, for so surely we may properly call all those Luxuries which adapt themselves peculiarly to that Faculty, such are the gaity of Apparel, richness of Furniture, and all the splendor of Equipage, which has no propriety to any other sense, but that of seeing, and is lost if it be not lookt on: And though these seem to differ much from that Covetousness which St. Iohn is supposed to comprehend in that Phrase, the one being the tenacity, the other the profusion of Money; yet they are but several branches of the same Sin, and are diversified only by a various application to the Object: for in strict speaking, he that covets Gold and Silver to lay on his back, is as properly covetous, as he that designs it only to fill his coffers. But besides the propriety these excesses have to that title, they have no less claim to that ensuing, The Pride of Life; it being evident that they are both Effects and Fomenters of Pride: and sure this sets but an ill Character upon them, that when the Apostle has divided all the lusts of the world into three sorts, these bid so fair to two of them. I would not here be understood to condemn that Decency and moderate Expence, which agree to the several ranks and qualities of Persons, there being not only a lawfulness, but some kind of civil necessity for such Distinctions: nor is the levelling principle fitter to be admitted p. 238in Habit, than in Title or Estate: That which I accuse is quite another thing, it being that inordinate profusion which does not only exceed the ability and fortune of the Person, but the proportion of his rank and condition; and so confounds that distinction it should preserve, and levels us the wrong way: it being more tolerable that all should be Peasants, than all Lords. And this is the irregularity that many seem to affect, there being not only an emulation of pomp and bravery among equals, but those of the most distant qualities, there seeming now no other measure than the utmost extent of their money or credit; the later whereof is often so stretcht, that it not only cracks its self, but by an unhappy contagion, breaks those it deals with, and like a Granado tears Towns in pieces: The many ruin'd Families of Tradesmen do too sadly attest this; would God our Gallants would consider how unequal it is, that many should want necessary cloathing, only to maintain the superfluity of theirs; an Injustice which not only upon a religious, but politick account deserves the severest Reproof, and since Divine Laws will not restrain it, 'twere well if Humane were provided: though I confess, 'twere not easie to find out penalties to deter those whom the wants so usually attending these excesses will not discourage. This sort of vanity was once thought peculiar to women, and though I cannot say that the sexes have exchang'd faults, (because each still keeps its own, together with those of the other) yet 'tis evident they have communicated p. 239them, and as the women of this Age have transcrib'd masculine Vices, so the men have feminine; this particularly, wherein they seem fully to answer the Copy, they being as Critically knowing in all the mysteries of vanity, and as diligent in reducing their speculations to practice, as any the most extravagant female. Indeed both the one and the other pursue this folly with so great an expence of Care, Time, and Money, as if to be fine and happy were the same thing, and their bodies had been design'd for their Cloaths, rather than their cloaths for their Bodies.

AND now when all these luxuries are to be serv'd, it had need be an exorbitant plenty that shall supply them; and that will unfold the riddle so frequent among us, of so many being poorer since they recovered their estates, than when they wanted them: Our revenue how large soever, is so clogg'd and encumber'd with our vices, that they moulder away, and only serve to carry other mens with them, by giving credit to run in debt. There are indeed no such unmerciful exactors as our own Lusts, the one gleans after the other, till they induce such a scarcity as the Prophet Ioel describes 1. 4. That which the Palmer-worm hath left, hath the Locust eaten, and that which the Locust hath left, hath the Canker-worm eaten, and that which the Canker-worm hath left, hath the Caterpillar eaten: So that in effect we have only changed our oppressors, and are as much or more exhausted by our sins, as we were before by other mens; with this woful circumstance that now p. 240we have the guilts as well as the sufferings: Thus do we rob our selves, and create want in the midst of all that abundance God has given us, using our plenty as the Benjamites did the Levites Concubine, Iudg. 19. force and prostitute it till we destroy it; and the similitude holds in this also, that what we thus violate is not our own; for let us phancy what we will, certainly our superfluities are more the poors Right than ours, assign'd to them by God the grand Proprietor. So that our Excesses have besides their proper guilt, that of injustice superadded; and when the cry of the poor shall be joyn'd to those of our riots, they will certainly be too clamorous to let vengeance any longer sleep.

THIS is the account we can give of our plenty, and that of our liberty is not much better; 'tis not long since that arbitrary tyranny expir'd, which gave us no other measures of our duties or punishments, than the will or avarice of the Imposers: And then how did we gasp to be under the conduct and Protection of known determinate Laws? Yet now we have them, who considers them, or is regulated by them? Between the licenciousness of Inferiors, and the remisness of Superiors, they are rendred things only of form, not use; for while the one violates, and the other connives, what can they signifie, and though there be never so many new Laws made to assert the old, yet we see they serve for little but to partake of the same contempt with the others, and are but like the Chimeras of an Utopian State, sagely p. 241contriv'd, but to no purpose. 'Tis the Execution of Laws that gives them a real and effective being, and without that, amidst our great volumes we are yet destitute, and may too probably experiment the truth of that Axiome, that 'tis better to live where nothing is lawful, than where all things are. Indeed if we remember how the Statutes of Omri were kept, with what a tameness the severest Impositions of the late Usurpers were submitted to, we have reason to think coercion is the surest Principle of vulgar obedience; though withal it sets but an ill mark upon us, who know so much better how to be slaves than subjects. And as we are restor'd to our civil Liberty, so as a branch or consequent of that, we are to our personal also: We were lately in the condition Christ foretold to St. Peter, carried by others whither we would not, Io. 21. 18. but now we gird our selves and go whither we will; and alass, what use do many of us make of this freedom? Is it not visible, that neither our publick or private affairs are the better attended: But on the contrary we are in a restless pursuit of impertinent or vicious pastimes, go pilgrimages to our pleasures, wander about from this sport, that meeting to another, till many of us forget we have any other concerns in the world, and are as much strangers to our own homes, as when we were forcibly detain'd thence: And for such I know not whether the former restraint be not eligible, to be a prisoner being a kind of rescue to him, that would otherwise be a vagrant.

p. 242THESE are the uses we make of those advantages whereof God has repossest us. I know 'tis too envious a task to distribute these accusations to every Rank and Order of men among us; I have here given them in the lump, and wish that not only such degrees, but each person would adapt to himself his peculiar share, wherein contrary to other dividends, I fear the only Immodesty and Injustice too will generally be, for every one not to carve liberally for himself. However, 'tis sure in the gross they make up the Character of a most barbarously ungrateful Nation. God was pleased to return our peace, before we had forsaken our sins, as if he meant to try our ingenuity; that we who had been so much worse than beasts under the former method, that no stripes would discipline us, might have this advantage to redeem our credit, and be drawn with these cords of a man: but we have put off not only piety but humanity, and are equally untractable to all methods. And now who can refrain from Moses's passionate Apostrophe, Do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise, Deut. 32. 6. Unwise indeed, that from the most benigne purposes of God, extract nothing but our own mischief: are the poorer for his Liberalities, and the worse for his Goodness; by a preposterous use so wear out our Blessings, that they cease to be, at least to be Blessings: And if they once fall from that, there is no middle form for them to assume, they convert into the direct contrary, and become the fatallest Curses, more heavy than those which p. 243were originally design'd as such; that degeneration adding malignity, and no Fury being so extreme, as that which bottoms upon repell'd and irritated Love. Gods mercies are like those pictures, which according to the different position of the beholder, carry different Representations, if we will still stand on the wrong side, and not take them in their more amiable appearance, we shall find they can put on a dreadful: his Goodness will not be finally unoperative, if we will not permit it to lead us to repentance, 'twill drive us to destruction. I am sure we have all reason to expect he should exert his power as eminently against us, as he has done for us, unless perhaps he sees that is not necessary to our ruine, for indeed let him but stand by and not interpose his omnipotence for us, he may trust us to be his Executioners, our Vices having a natural as well as moral Efficacy to destroy us. And who knows whether that be not the reason of his seeming connivance, that he forbears to strike us, to give us up to those more fatal wounds we inflict on our selves; this alas we have too much cause to fear, for 'tis sure 'tis not our innocence that gives us Impunity, but 'tis more than probable 'tis our incorrigibleness; that God gives us over with a why should ye be smitten any more? Will not prostitute his Judgments, but as the basest of Malefactors leave us to the basest of Executioners, and let our iniquities become our ruine. This as it is the severest purpose God can entertain towards us, so 'tis our most important concern to avert. And p. 244O that we, who have so perversly resisted all the designs of his love, would now try to defeat that of his anger, rob him of those intestine avengers within our own breasts, those fleshly lusts which fight against the Soul, 1 Pet. 2. 10. which do not only provoke, but execute his Wrath, and make us more miserable than Hell its self could do without them; and God knows 'tis more than time for us, to seek an escape from so formidable mischiefs: O let us not contract one minutes delay, let us cast our selves at the feet of our offended God, and as those who are condemn'd to disgraceful Executions, use to petition for some death of less Infamy, as a boon and favour, so let us beg, that he will please to think us worth his own correction; that whatsoever we suffer from his hand, yet that we may not (like to Herod) be deliver'd up to the loathsome fortune of being devour'd by our own putrefaction. In a word, let us form Davids choice into an importunate prayer, and earnestly beg that we may fall into the hands of God, and not into the hands of men, at least not of our selves, who are more to be dreaded than all our other Enemies.

INDEED till we do thus, our prosperities are far from real, and do in this justifie our most mutinous repinings, that we are never the better for them, nay, much the worse, yet since 'tis only we that have enervated them, they will stand upon our account in their proper weight and value: When our receipts are summed up, God will charge us with them, not as those empty useless p. 245things we have made them, but as those great and solid blessings he intended them. And certainly this is most deplorable ill managery, to reserve nothing to our selves but the burthen and account of our good things; to enjoy nothing, and yet be answerable for all. In secular things men usually pay with some regret, for those things of which they have only anticipated the use: But with what dismal reluctancies shall we come to pay for these, of which we have made no advantage, and must therefore pay the dearer because we have not; it being not so much the things, as our employing of them to our benefit, whereof God will exact account. His anger is then only incens'd, when we resist his love; and his only quarrel to us is, for frustrating his design of making us happy. And sure those well deserve his wrath, that will provoke it on such terms; yet so perverse is the choice, as of all sinners in general, so especially of this Nation at this time, who have all before us which might make us happy in both worlds, if we did not Madly affect to be so in neither, God grant we may recover the Sobriety to make wiser elections, before it be out of our power to make any, and we be found to stand to the mischiefs of our own wild Option.

THE Reader will perhaps think, I have gone beyond the limits of a moderate digression, but the too great copiousness of the Theme, must be my excuse: such overgrown Vices cannot well be drawn in little, and where there is such a multitude, the most superficial view of Each, is rather p. 246proportional to a distinct Tract, than to the few Pages it has borrowed in this. My greater fear is, that the event may prove it impertinent, there being not much hope that a private whisper shall be heard by those, who are deaf to the loudest calls of Heaven, and have made no other use of those various and signal Providences we have been under, than to defeat the design of them.