enormity the devil himself could practise, were he in their places. What are their fortunes, their studies, their time, applied to, but to excess and pleasure? Consider a little, what is the grand end of that prodigious commerce which extends itself to all the corners of the world. Is it not to supply the wealthy with articles of luxury? The beasts of burden by land, and the ships by sea, have little else to do, than to furnish materials for their houses, their tables, their apparel. View them in their palaces, splendidly furnished; in their clothes, gorgeously laced and brocaded; and at their tables, loaded with pampering food, and inflaming wines: see them carried sometimes by beasts, sometimes by men, from one wanton entertainment to another, courted to vice, and flattered to folly, and you will quickly perceive, that pride, lust, and impotence of will, must reign absolutely over their hearts. And you know, where these have taken up their abode, deceit and inhumanity can hardly be wanting.

Now let us follow these men to the stage of action and business, that we may see what effects passions, so disposed, may have upon their lives and conversations. Extravagance, like that just now described, requires an infinite expense to support it. All arts, such as gaming, fraud, perjury, are set at work to raise money. The fox is called in, to cater for the wolf; and, if he fails of a supply, the wolf himself goes out, and with unrelenting oppression, grinding the face of the poor, and plundering the widow and the orphan, sweeps all before him. In the mean time, the fire already kindled among his passions, by luxury and riot, must have vent; at first it smokes in libertine discourse and oaths, and immediately after blazes out in adultery and murder.

To clear the way for passions and practices like these, conscience must be priestcraft, and Christianity a lie. There is nothing more certain, than that the kitchen and cellar, are the true fountains of libertinism and deism. The divines, who have laboured to refute those destructive novelties, by reason, have mistaken the root of the controversy, for want of looking carefully into those two places; which had they done, they might have seen heresy turning on a spit, and libertinism ripening in a hogshead. The bad principles of the high fed are but the excrement of gluttony and

drunkenness. The reason of the luxurious, is placed over the boiling furnace of their passions, and so heated and clouded in the steam arising from thence, that all applications to their understandings must be vain and fruitless.

Let us leave them to live and perish like the beasts; and address ourselves to those, who, finding in their hearts the same outrageous appetites and passions, do nevertheless, as yet retain some sense of religion, and some desire to provide for the safety of their souls. These men, although sorely pressed and overpowered, are yet in the field against the flesh; and we may ask them, whether, if they were to lay siege to an enemy's fortress, they would supply it with provisions? Or, if they were to defend a garrison of their own against a powerful assailant, whether they would not bind and imprison such partisans of the enemy as should happen to be within the walls? Their answer is ready; they certainly would. Is it possible then, they should not know, that their passions are enemies and traitors to them, or that luxurious living is the very food and fuel of their passions? If they are convinced of these things, nothing can be more plain, than that recourse must be had to great temperance at all times, and often to fasting and other acts of mortification. If a man is really a Christian, let him examine himself by his former experience, whether luxurious, or low living, contributes most to the government of his passions; and if he concludes in favour of the latter, then let him ask himself, whether he can be so mad, as to lay a greater stress on riot or abstinence, than on heaven or hell; so as to lose the company of angels, and take up for ever with that of devils, for the sake of such company as meat and drink can draw together, who for the most part have little to distinguish them from dogs and ravens, assembled by the scent of carrion.

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But if he is not convinced, that high living is so great a provocative to his passions, nor abstinence so powerful a bridle, it is perhaps because having never tried any but the former, he thinks the violence of his passions is owing to nature, not intemperance. That it is, in some measure, owing to nature, is very certain; but he will never know how great a share of the blame is to be laid on intemperance, till he tries what moderation and abstinence will do. If he

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consults the word of God for satisfaction in this point, he will there see the effect of intemperance on the passions. Lot gets drunk, and commits incest with his daughters. Esau sells his birthright for a morsel of meat, and becomes a fornicator and profane person. David, after a full meal, falls immediately into temptation, and commits adultery. St. Paul advises us, not to walk in rioting and drunkenness;' nor in, what are the almost necessary consequences, 'chambering and wantonness, strife and envying. Those who live in pleasure on the earth, who are wanton, who nourish themselves as in the day of slaughter,' are noted by St. James, as 'grievous oppressors.'

If he is not convinced of the expediency and duty of mortification, let him hear the words of our Saviour: Enter in at the strait gate. He that will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross.' Let him also hear St. Paul: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world. I chasten my body, and I bring it into subjection, lest, after I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. They that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts. If ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live; make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.'

Pursuant to these divine authorities, all those holy men, who have ever been distinguished among Christians for the exalted goodness of their lives, have been as remarkable for ruling over their appetites and passions with a severe and heavy hand. When wars or other public calamities threaten us, we see the nation flies to fasting, as the most powerful enforcer of prayer, as that which, according to St. Basil, furnishes it with wings. To fast and humble ourselves before God, is the surest means to turn away national judgments, as may appear by the cases of Ahab, Esther, and the Ninevites.

Whosoever is sincerely concerned at the violence of his passions, and willing to restrain them, will see sufficient reason, in what hath been said, to persuade him, that selfdenial may possibly answer his intention herein; and this persuasion ought at least so far to prevail on him, as to make him resolve on a trial, which, if he is not made of other

materials, and cast in a different mould, from the rest of mankind, must be attended with success.

Without the assistance of God, use what means we will, it is presumption to hope for a victory over ourselves. But before we can hope for the Divine grace, we must shew a willingness to do that which is in our own power. Besides, we cannot expect that God's Holy Spirit should take up his abode with us, while his enemy the flesh is countenanced and supported by all the tenderness for it we can possibly indulge it with.

If, however, the sincere Christian shall once begin thus to 'prepare the way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight and smooth,' he will have all the reason in the world to depend upon the assistance of God, in finishing so good and gracious a work; for there is nothing a man can do so acceptable in the sight of that most compassionate Being, as subduing his unruly passions to the divine will. Such a sacrifice of self-love to God, such a denying of ourselves to please him, is the most agreeable and glorious offering we can make him. All afflictions contribute to a good life, but that most, which we voluntarily lay on ourselves, through a hatred to sin, and a sincere desire of approving ourselves dutiful servants in the eyes of so good a Master. Our heavenly Father is better pleased to see his children afflict themselves for their faults, than to be obliged to lay his rod on them; and what he approves of, he will bless and assist.

We are however to consider, that God is far from approving of mortification, merely for its own sake. He delights not in the afflictions of his creatures. He hath filled the world with objects fitted to entertain our senses and passions; and while we enjoy them innocently, and with a due sense of gratitude to him, he is as well pleased with our enjoyments, as he was with those of our first parents, before they fell. Nor does he accept of them as the punishment or atonement of our sins, having appointed the blood of Christ for the one, and eternal misery for the other. He only approves of them, when they are applied to the curbing and reforming the irregularities of the passions. For this reason, till our fasts reach the mind, they are no fasts in respect of religion, or in the sight of God. If in the

day of our fast we find pleasure,' or if, what is worse, like the Pharisee in the parable, we think ourselves, on account of our mortifications, better men than others, or even presume, as he did, to boast of them in our prayers to God, we have his own word for it, that they are an abomination in his sight.' We are therefore, according to the admonition by Joel, to sanctify our fast; that is, to make it the instrument of reformation in ourselves, and of charity towards others.

A man cannot call fasting an act of self-denial, till he can say, his belly is himself. If the belly only,' says St. Bernard, has offended, let the belly only fast; but if all our members, and affections, and the soul itself, have sinned, let them all share in the austerity. Let the ear fast from its itch of impertinent news and vain conversation; the tongue, from detraction and idle words; and, above all, let the soul fast from its love of vice, and its fleshly will.' 'The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' 'We ought so to chasten our bodies,' says Maximus Taurinensis, ' as, at the same time, to feed our souls with all the virtues. Let therefore destructive luxury, and odious contention, and cruel oppression, fast. Let the poor be fed, provided it is not with the spoils of the poor. To what purpose is it to abstain from meat, when that which is more filthy than the vilest kind of meat, reproach, detraction, lies, and oaths, are all the time issuing from our mouths? Are we not sensible, 'that not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man, but that which cometh out of the mouth?'

Upon the whole, fasting, with other acts of mortification, rightly managed, and properly applied, help to purify the heart, to raise it above the world, and open it to the motions of the Holy Spirit. They add surprising vigour to the resolution of a Christian, in his war with the flesh; or at least, which answers the same end, they greatly enfeeble the enemy. They dry up the sink of our vices,' says St. Cyprian, 'and so extinguish the Etna of our passions, that the neighbouring mountains are no longer scorched by that furnace of infernal fire. They cast out devils, and, as St. Chrysostom observes, raise us, for the time, above a dependence on earthly food, to the life of angels.' We are, by nature, half angel, half brute. We must rise towards the one, or sink