: happy if they will, he must leave it in their choice to be otherwife and what he doth for them, is not the lefs worthy of him, because they are fo unworthy, as to difpife or-turn it against themselves. For never fure was it made an argument against the value of a medicine, that they who neglect to take it, or who mix poifon with it, are not the better for it. Whoever will give religion leave to do him good, will always be an evidence of its usefulness. And it is extremely hard, to have those alledge against us that there are but few fuch, who' are continually endeavouring that there may be none; and impute that wickedness of the world to the want of efficacy in christianity, which is fo very much owing to their own profane difcourfe and licentious examples. But farther the gospel-fcheme is not completed yet; and the good it hath not done, it may do ftill. It hath fubfifted indeed a number of years, that feems a large one, and fufficient to fhew whatever is to be expected from it. But large and fmall are comparative terms: and what proportion its duration hitherto may bear to that which it hath to come, or how differently the power of God may be exerted in its favour hereafter from what it is now, we none of us know. But this we know certainly, that the original books in which it is contained, published at its firft appearance, foretold both its past and prefent corruptions, and its future purity and univerfal happy fruits. The former of these predictions, that chriftianity should be made an inftrument of tyranny and fuperftition, bloodshed and diffolutenefs, was a very amazing one: a thing which neither any fagacity could have forcieen, nor any enthufiaft have believed; nor any impoftor would have declared, if he had believed it. And therefore the fact, joined with the prophecy of it, far from an objection, is a proof of our religi on; and fhews us to be in the midst of an event; the melancholy part of which having been fo remarkably fignified to us before-hand, we ought by no means to judge of what will follow as we should in a common cafe; but firmly believe, that as the mystery of iniquity* hath been revealed, the myflery of Godt fhall be accomplished likewife, and truth and virtue reign on this earth. But then let us remember, that full enough hath been done • 2 Theff. ii. 7. Rev. x. 7. to to verify the first fet of predictions; and it is high time we fhould begin to make good the latter. That Chrift hath fent a fword on earth, no one doubts: let it now be our care to fhew him in a more amiable light, as the Prince of peace. We have fufficiently made the gospel minifter to fin: let us at last bring forth fruit by it unto holiness. Then we shall bear in cur own breafts the fureft, the happieft, the only beneficial proof of its efficacy; and have our converfation such amongst unbelievers, that whereas they now speak against us as evil-doers, and against our religion itself for our fakes, they may by our good works, which they shall behold, glorify God*: thus bringing forward that bleffed time, when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid; when they fhall not burt nor deftroy in all his holy mountain: for the earth fhall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the feat. Yet even this joyful feene will be only a faint fhadow of that eternal ftate of blifs, to which is referved the complete vindication of the benefits of chriftianity and in which, however the prefent world were to go on, they must appear with irresistible evidence, when the righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of their Father‡, when God fball wipe away all the tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither forrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pains. 2 Pet. ii. 12. + Ifaiah xl. 6, 9. SER SERMON LXIII. THE DANGER AND MISERY OF LOOSE MORALS, AND OF LICENTIOUS ASSOCIATES. EPH. V. II. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness: but rather reprove them. IF the practice of their duty were general amongst men, it would appear to all of us as we come forward into life, notwithstanding our prefent proneness to finful indulgences, extremely natural and eafy. For as its reasonableness always recommends it to our understandings, and its amiableness to our affections, when unbiaffed: fo, in these circumstances, the public example of goodness would engage our imitation, the univerfal esteem of it excite our ambition, and its beneficial confequences plainly fhew it to be our true prefent interest. Allurements to unlawful pleasures would then be comparatively few; provocations to mutual injuries none consciousness of right behaviour would make men pleafed with themselves; reciprocal acts of juftice and kindness would make them happy in each other; and experience, that there being was a bleffing to them, would produce in their fouls affectionate fentiments of reverential gratitude to the bountiful Author of it. Such we fhould have found the world, if fin had not entered into it and fuch we might ftill in a good measure bring it to be, if we would; if most of us did not, befides filling our own lives with guilt and mifery, contribute, by a variety of wrong behaviour, to render our fellow-creatures alfo wicked and wretched. This we all fee and feel to be the real ftate of things but how do we act upon it? We complain grievously of each other, for the faults which we each of us go on to commit; commit: we complain even of providence, because the world is-only what we have made it; and alledge the misconduct of our neighbours for a defence of our own, inftead of trying to mend ourfelves or them: whereas, evidently our concern is, to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them; to preferve our own fouls from the epidemic diftemper, and warn thofe around us of the danger of being infected. But it is with the fecurity of our perfonal innocence, that we are to begin without which we shall seldom in earnest attempt, scarce ever fuccefsfully profecute the reformation of any one else: nor will the greatest fuccefs in fuch endeavours avail us, if, as our apoftle expreffes it, when we have preached to others, we ourselves are caft away*. The first and principal confideration then is, how to avoid any fellowship with the unfruitful, a gentle term, which means pernicious, works of darkness. Now a main point of caution against all forts of peril is to know, from whence chiefly we are to apprehend it. But who can fay, from what quarter our virtue runs the greatest rifque, in a world fo thick fet round with various temptations: where all vices are fo common, that it seems a matter of course, and almoft of neceffity, to indulge one or another; and the majority of the guilty is fo large, that each confiders himself, in fome degree, as safe in the crowd even from divine displeasure, numbering himself amongst the multitude of finners, and not remembring that wrath will not tarry longt: where our eyes and our ears continually prefent to our imaginations crimes, of which else we should never have thought, and fuggeft eafy methods of attaining what we believed to be as impracticable, as we know it to be unlawful where the profperity of ill men fo ftrongly prompts us to envy their condition, imitate their prefumptuousness, and doubt of a fuperintending power: where every natural inclination that we have meets with fomething to inflame it beyond bounds, or turn it afide from its proper object: where fear of inconveniencies threatening upright conduct, and hope of gaining advantages by deviations from it, work within us continually where injuries, real or fancied, are daily provoking us to injure or hate in return; and even friendship and kind affection, meeting too often with undeferving objects, make us partial and * 1 Cor. ix. 27. † Ecclus. vii. 16. and unfair, fubfervient to the purposes of the bad or injudicious, and criminally negligent of the merits of the worthy? Here is already an alarming lift of dangers: and yet one fource of them remains unmentioned, so very fruitful, that probably it brings more of us to ruin than all the rest: I mean, our strong tendency to follow whatever precedents are set us; which being the great feducer of mankind to have fellowship with one another in the unfruitful works of darkness, I shall confine myself to the confideration of it in the fequel of this discourse. A difpofition to fall in with what we fee others do is one of the earliest natural principles that we exert and in itself a very beneficial one. For by means of it we learn, with ease and pleasure, a multitude of things neceflary or ferviceable in life: conform readily to the inclinations of those about us in a thousand matters of indifference, and from mutual likeness become mutually agreeable. By the fame means alfo, were patterns of piety and virtue more frequent, or we more attentive to them, we might be excited, as undoubtedly it was defigned we should, to copy, and even rival, each other's laudable qualities. But where things are capable of contrary uses, we generally make the worst of them: and in no case more than this. The example of evil, in a corrupted world, is by much the oftenest in our view: which the weak and indolent imitate without reflexion; the good-humoured and pliable are drawn after them by the defire of pleafing, though in wrong ways; the vain and ambitious by fondness of excelling, though in culpable attainments; and almost all by the fhame of fingularity and dread of ridicule: till the numbers of the faulty being thus become abundantly fufficient to keep one another in countenance, cuftom refufes to let its authority be any longer examined, and fets up itself as the fole rule of conduct. For, even when we feem to act the most entirely from opinions and difpofitions of our own, thefe, upon inquiry, will be frequently found to derive, if not their original, at least a great part of their ftrength, from the deference that we pay to the notions and practice of the world. Thus men speak and think flightly of religion, often without imagining they know any objection of weight against it: and yet how they can have VOL. II. Kk the |