that he is eternal, as his Father is; that, with the Father, he is the Creator of the world; that, like the Father, he is almighty; that he hath all the essential attributes of the Deity, as the Father hath. You have more reason for these doctrines, and for this worship than the most refined sophists have for all their most specious objections, even for those which to you are the most unanswerable. Hold that fast which ye have, let no man take your crown, Rev. iii. 11.

II. We have seen the darts which Satan shoots at us to subdue us to the dominion of error: let us now examine those with which he aims to make us submit to the empire of vice: But lest we should overcharge your memories with too many precepts, we will take a method different from that which we have followed in the former part of this discourse; and in order to give you a more lively idea of that steadiness with which the apostle intended to animate us, we will shew it you reduced to practice; we will represent such a christian as St. Paul himself describes in the text, wrestling against flesh and blood, against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. We will shew you the christian resisting four sorts of the fiery darts of the wicked. The false maxims of the world. The pernicious examples of the multitude. Threatenings and persecutions; and the snares of sensual pleasures.

1. Satan attacks the christian with false maxims of the world. These are some of them. Christians are not obliged to practise a rigid morality. In times of persecution, it is allowable to palliate our sentiments, and if the heart be right with God, there is no harm in a conformity to the world. The God of religion is the God of nature, and it is not

conceivable that religion should condemn the feelings of nature; or that the ideas of fire and brimstone, with which the scriptures are filled, should have any other aim, than to prevent men from carrying vice to extremes: they cannot mean to restrain every act of sin. The time of youth is a season of pleasure. We ought not to aspire at saintship. We must do as other people do. It is beneath a man of honor to put up an affront, a gentleman ought to require satisfaction. No reproof is due to him who hurts nobody but himself. Time must be killed. Detraction is the salt of conversation. Impurity, indeed, is intolerable in a woman; but it is very pardonable in men. frailty excuseth the greatest excesses. To pretend to be perfect in virtue is to subvert the order of things, and to metamorphose man into a pure disembodied intelligence. My brethren, how easy is it to make proselytes to a religion so exactly fitted to the depraved propensities of the human heart!

Human

These maxims have a singular character, they seem to unite that which is most irregular with that which is most regular in the heart; and they are the more likely to subvert our faith, because they seem to be consistent with it. However, all that they aim at is to unite heaven and hell, and, by a monstrous assemblage of heterogeneous objects, they propose to make us enjoy the pleasures of sin and the joys of heaven. If Satan were openly to declare to us, that we must proclaim war with God; that we must make an alliance with him against the divine power; that we must oppose his majesty; reason and conscience would reject propositions so detestable and gross. But, when he attacks us by such motives, as we have related; when he tells us, not that we must renounce the hopes of heaven, but that a few steps in an easy path will

conduct us thither: When he invites us, not to deny religion, but content ourselves with observing a few articles of it: When he doth not strive to render us insensible to the necessities of a poor neighbor, but to convince us that we should first take care of ourselves, for charity, as they say, begins at home: Do you not conceive, my brethren, that there is in this morality a secret poison, which slides insensibly into the heart, and corrodes all the powers of the soul.

The Christian is not vulnerable by any of these maxims. He derives help from the religion which he professeth, against all the efforts, that are employed, to divert him from it; and he conquers by resisting Satan as Jesus Christ resisted him, and, like him, opposeth maxim against maxim, the maxims of Christ against the maxims of the world. Would Satan persuade us that we follow a morality too rigid? It is written, we must enter in at a strait gate, Matt. vii. 13. pluck out the right eye, cut off the right hand, chap. v. 29, 30. deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ, chap. xvi. 24. Does Satan say it is allowable to conceal our religion in a time of persecution? It is written, we must confess Jesus Christ, whosoever shall deny him before men, him will he also deny before his father who is in heaven; he who loveth father or mother more than him, is not worthy of him, chap. x. 32, 33, 37. Would Satan inspire us with revenge? It is written, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, Rom. xii. 19. Doth Satan require us to deyote our youthful days in sin? It is written, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, Eccles. xii. 1. Does Satan tell us that we must not aspire to be saints? It is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy, 1 Pet. i. 16. Would Satan teach us to dissipate time? It is written, we must redeem time,

Eph. v. 16. we must number our days, in order to apply our hearts unto wisdom, Psal. xc. 12. Would Satan encourage us to slander our neighbor? It is written, revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God, I Cor. vi. 10. Doth Satan tell us we deserve no reproof when we do no harm? It is written, we are to practise whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever constitute virtue, whatsoever things are worthy of praise, Phil. iv. 8. Would Satan tempt us to indulge impurity? It is written, our bodies are the members of Christ, and it is a crime to make them the members of a harlot, 1 Cor. vi. 15. Would Satan unite heaven and earth? It is written, there is no concord between Christ and Belial, no communion between light and darkness, 2 Cor, vi. 14, 15. no man can serve two masters, Matt. vi. 24. Doth Satan urge the impossibility of perfection? It is written, Be ye perfect as your father, who is in heaven, is perfect, chap. v. 48.

2. There is a difference between those who preach the maxims of Jesus Christ, and those who preach the maxims of the world. The former, alas! are as frail as the rest of mankind, and they themselves are apt to violate the laws which they prescribe to others; so that it must be sometimes said of them, What they bid you observe, observe and do; but do not ye after their works, Matt. xxiii. 3. They, who preach the maxims of the world, on the contrary, never fail to confirm the pernicious maxims, which they advance, by their own examples and hence a second quiver of those darts, with which Satan attempts to destroy the virtues of christianity, I mean, the examples of bad men.

Each order of men, each condition of life, each society, hath some peculiar vice, and each of these is so established by custom, that we cannot resist it, without being accounted, according to the usual

phrase, men of another world. Vicious men are sometimes respectable persons. They are parents, they are ministers, they are magistrates. We bring into the world with us a turn to imitation. Our brain is so formed as to receive impressions from all exterior objects, and, if I may be allowed to speak so, to take the form of every thing that affecteth it. How difficult is it, my brethren, to avoid contagion, when we breathe an air so infected! The desire of pleasing often prompts us to that which our inclinations abhor, and very few people can bear this reproach you are unfashionable, and unpolite ! How much harder is it to resist a torrent, when it falls in with the dispositions of our own hearts! The christian, however, resolutely resisteth this attack, and opposeth model to model, the patterns of Jesus Christ, and of his associates, to the examples of an apostate world.

The first, the great model, the exemplar of all others, is Jesus Christ. Faith, which always fixeth the eyes of a christian on his Saviour, incessantly contemplates his virtues, and also inclines him to holiness by stirring up his natural propensity to imitation. Jesus Christ reduced every virtue, which he preached, to practice. Did he preach a detachment from the world? And could it be carried further than the divine Saviour carried it? He was exposed to hunger, and to thirst, to the inclemency of the seasons, and to the contempt of mankind; he had no fortune to recommend him to the world, no great office to render him conspicuous there. Did he preach zeal? He passed the day in the instructing of men, and, as the saving of souls filled up the day, the night he spent in praying to God. Did he preach patience? When he was reviled, he reviled not again, 1 Pet. ii. 23. Did he preach love? Greater love than he, had no man, for