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sence, that we cannot spy out your footsteps upon earth. You may thereby understand, Christians, that the Son of God is at hand; for iniquity abounds, charity grows cold, and there is no more faith upon earth.

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

But we are so far from grieving at the universal inundation of vice in the world, that we ourselves are carried away with the impetuous torrent of corruption. Sin gets upon us insensibly, and overcomes us; so that the world is not unlike to the house mentioned by God in the xivth of Leviticus; for it is not only infected with an incommodious leprosy, but it infects all such as dwell therein. The men of the world have an easier task to teach us their vice, than we have to teach and persuade them to virtue; as a pestiferous body may spread the infection, and give it to a thousand who are sound; whereas a thousand in perfect health cannot heal one infected with the plague: so that, as under the ceremonial law the clean vessel sanctified not the defiled; but the defiled infected, by

its approaches, such as were clean; evil companies corrupt good manners, and the flames of the most burning zeal are extinguished by the coldness of the age. As lambs cannot feed among briars and thorns, without leaving behind them some of their wool; likewise the harmless and meek souls cannot live among so much cozenage and malice, without losing something of their innocence, and Christian simplicity.

Who is it amongst us that can say, with a safe conscience, as the apostle Paul, "That the world is crucified to him, and that he is crucified to the world?" Gal. vi. Or, who is it that lives in the world without being guilty of its sins, as the fish drinks of the sea-water, and receives nothing of its bitterness? Ps. xxvi. Who can converse in the courts of princes as Joseph in Egypt, as Daniel in Babylon, or as the Queen Esther in the court of Ahasuerus? Is there any that can justly say, "That he hath washed his hands in innocence, and purified his conscience from all dead works to serve the living God?" Heb. ix. Who can speak in this manner, "I have purified my heart, I am clean from my sin ?" Prov. xx. In truth, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," 1 John i. We have good reason to break out into the prophet Isaiah's exclamation, when he saw God sitting upon his throne, "Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips," Isa. vi. Or, we may say with the same prophet, "From the sole of the foot unto the crown of the head, there is no whole part.” Not only souls that are fixed on the earth, but also such as mount up to heaven by fervent prayers, and devout meditations, have good cause to acknowledge their imperfections, and to ask forgiveness. If any fancy himself to be perfectly whole, and free from all infection, let him look into his conscience, and seriously examine it, and it will happen to him as to Moses; when he put his hand into his bosom, he took

it out again as white as snow, all covered with leprosy, Exod. iv. Where is there a Christian, that feels no law commanding in his members, and struggling against the law of his mind? Who is there, that finds not by experience the truth of St. Paul's saying, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would?" Rom. xii. Gal. v. Without doubt, such as know not, nor ever have felt, the bitter and vehement strugglings of their carnal lusts that war against the soul, 2 Pet. i. cannot conceive what it is to deny themselves, "to put off the old man with his deeds, to crucify the flesh with its affections and filthy lusts," Eph. iv. Such know not what it is to mortify our members, to cut off our right feet and right hands, and to pluck out our right eyes, Matt. x. that is to say, to destroy, and by an holy violence to give a deadly wound to, all our brutal passions, and vicious affections, when they should seem to us as dear and as useful as our hands and feet, and as tender as our right eyes, Col. iii. Matt. v.

If these cursed affections could but declare their names, they would say, as the evil spirits in the Gospel, "Our name is Legion; for we are many." As that devil that possessed the lunatic, mentioned by St. Matthew, "cast him sometimes into the fire, at other times into the water;" thus these carnal lusts labour to cast us, sometimes into the flames of ambition, or into the burning heat of covetousness, or to hurry us headlong into the gulph of unlawful delights, or into the mud of filthy and carnal pleasures. Furthermore, they break the chains and ties with which we imagine to stop their fury; they war and fight against us by day and by night, and at every moment they return to charge us home, and renew the combat. Every where they assault us, and have no more respect for temples and houses of prayer, than for common and public places. As Satan had once the boldness.

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to encounter with Jehoshua the high-priest before the angel of God; likewise these cursed lusts are so impudent as to at tempt us in the most religious assemblies, and the devoutest congregations, as well as where we are engaged in the most hellish and debauched companies of the world.

But these lusts, that war against the soul, are as subtle and malicious, as they are cruel and obstinate: when they per ceive us upon our guard, and see that there is nothing to be got, they conceal their weapons and their fire, but it is with a design to surprise and burn us when we are least aware. As there are certain creatures that counterfeit the dead, that men might spare themselves the labour to kill them; likewise this treacherous flesh appears of its own accord as dead, that we might spare it, and not totally deprive it of life. If then we leave it in peace and quiet, it recovers its strength and vigour, and assaults us afresh with its poisonous darts. When we imagine that we have cut up this wretched plant by the root, it grows and breaks forth into bitterness. When we think that we have put out this fire with the tears of our repentance, it kindles again, and bursts forth into fierce flames. As soon as we have cut the cunning serpent to pieces with the: sharp knife of true repentance, it gets together; and when it seems to have lost all strength and heat, it recovers again in our breasts, and wounds us to the very heart, In short, as the evil spirit mentioned by our Saviour in the Gospel, when he was driven out of one house, waited for a good opportu nity to return; which as soon as he perceived, he took unto. himself seven other spirits worse than himself, so that the last condition of that man was worse than the first, Mark xii. Thus, after an afflicting fast, and fervent prayers; after a torrent of contrite tears; when we imagine that we have cast out of our hearts the most dangerous lusts; if we begin to relent, and to open them the door, they burst in again upon us with more fury, and render the sequel of our life far more bitter and unpleasant.

But

But if you had not so many sins, and your lusts were not so violent, when the old man should not have so much strength in our members, and the temptations should not overcome us so often; tell me, I pray, Christian souls, in what virtue do you excel? Have you all the beauty, the glory, and perfection, that God requires? Is your holiness without the least spot or blemish? Is your innocence as white as snow, and as bright as the light? Is your zeal as hot and burning as that of the seraphims? Is your charity sincere, without paint or disguise, as that of Christ, who gave his life for you? Do you love God for his name's sake, or because of his excellent perfections? Do you love him with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your thoughts? Do you love him more than you love yourselves, or any thing in the world? Do you hate all things that he hates? And do you carefully abstain from every thing that displeaseth him? Do' you love your neighbour in God, and for the sake of that good God whose image he bears? Do you love him as you love yourselves, without hypocrisy or disguise? Do you never deal otherwise with others, than you would have them deal' with you? And do you perform to them the same good offices that you would have them perform to you, if they were in the same condition as you are at present? Do you shine in the midst of the dark night of this age, as so many tapers lighted with the beams of the Sun of Righteousness? Phil ii. Do you live as citizens of heaven, and as fellow-citizens of the saints, and as the children of God? Phil. i. 5. Or, as such as expect the blessed hope and appearing of the glory' of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ? Tit. ii. Is your heart in heaven, where your treasure should be, and your glory and happiness? And do you walk as persons that ascend up by the steps and degrees of piety to the heavenly Jerusalem? Do you go from faith to faith, from hope to hope? And do you make every day some new progress in holiness? Do you never grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom

you