SERMON XIII.

EZEK. xvi. 30.

The work of an imperious whorish woman.

Nor to chill your ears by keeping you long at the doors; not to detain you one minute with a cold unprofitable preface; this chapter is the exactest history of the spiritual estate of the Jews, i. e. "the elect of God," and the powerfulest exprobration of their sins, that all the writings under heaven can present to our eyes. From the first time I could think I understood any part of it, I have been confident that never any thing was set down more rhetorically, never more τáðos and os, more "affection" and "sublimity of speech," ever concurred in any one writing of this quantity, either sacred or profane. It were a work for the solidest artist to observe distinctly every part of logic and rhetoric that lies concealed in this one chapter, and yet there is enough in the surface and outward dress of it, to affect the meanest understanding that will but read it. For our present purpose it will suffice to have observed, 1. That the natural sinful estate of the Jews, being premised in the five first verses; 2. The calling of them in this condition, in their pollutions, in their blood, and bestowing all manner of spiritual ornaments upon them, following in the next ten verses; the remainder is mostwhat spent in the upbraiding and aggravating their sins to them in a most elevated strain of reproof; and the axμn or “highest pitch" of it, is in the words of my text, "the work of an imperious whorish woman."

For the handling of which words, I first beg two postulata to be granted and supposed, before my discourse, because I would not trouble you to hear them proved.

I. That the elect chosen people of God, the Jews, were degenerate into heathen, desperate, devilish sinners.

II. That what is literally spoken in aggravation of the Jews' sin, is as fully applicable to any other sinful people, with whom God hath entered covenant as He did with the Jews.

And then the subject of my present discourse shall be this; that indulgence to sin in a Christian is the "work of an imperious whorish woman." And that, 1. Of "a woman," noting a great deal of weakness; and that not simple natural weakness, through a privation of all strength, but an acquired, sluggish weakness, by effeminate neglecting to make use of it. 2. Of "a whore," noting unfaithfulness and falseness to the husband. 3. Of "an imperious whore," noting insolency and an high pitch of contempt.

And of these briefly and plainly; not to increase your knowledge, but to enliven and inflame the practical part of your souls; not to enrich your brains with new store, but to sink that which you have already down into your hearts.

And first of the first, that indulgence to sin in a Christian is the work of " a woman ;" an effect and argument of an infinite deal of weakness, together with the nature and grounds of that weakness: "the work," &c.

And this very thing, that it may be the more heeded, is emphatically noted three several times in this one verse. 1. "The work of a woman," in my text, a poor, cowardly, pusillanimous part that any body else, any one that had but the least spark of valour or manhood in him, would scorn to be guilty of, an argument of one that hath suffered all his parts and gifts to lie sluggish and unprofitable, and at last even quite perished by disusing. As the weakness of women, below men, proceeds not only from their constitution and temper, but from their course of life; not from want of natural strength, but of civil manlike exercise, which might stir up and discipline, and ripen that strength they have for if their education were as warlike, and their strength by valiant undertaking so set out, viragos and amazons would be wellnigh as ordinary as soldiers. And so will the comparison hold of those womanish, sluggish, abusers of God's graces. Then in the first words of this verse, "How weak is thy heart!" noting it to be a degree of weakness below ordinary,

as we call one a weak man that hath done any thing rashly or unadvisedly, which, if he had but thought on, he could never have been so sottish, his ordinary reason would have prompted him to safer counsels. In brief; any frequent, indiscreet actions, argue a weak fellow: not that he wants strength of discretion to do better, but that he makes no use of it in his actions. Thirdly, "How weak is thy heart!" thy heart, i. e. the principal part of the man,-as the brain is the speculative, the fountain of good and evil actions, and performances. Now the word as in the original, signifying "the heart," being naturally of the masculine gender, is here set in the feminine, out of order, perhaps emphatically, to note an unmanlike, impotent, effeminate heart; all its actions are mixed with so much passion and weakness, they are so raw and womanish, that it would grieve one to behold a fair, comely, manlike Christian in show, betraying so much impotency in his behaviour,-even like the emperor a spinning, -one who had undertaken to be a champion for Christ, led away and abused and baffled by every pelting paltry lust. It is lamentable to observe what a poor, cowardly, degenerous spirit is in most Christians; with how slender assaults and petty stratagems they are either taken captive or put to flight; how easily in their most resolute undertakings of piety or virtue they are either vanquished or caught. The ordinariest, coarsest, hard-favouredst temptation that they can see, affects and smites them suddenly; they are entangled before they are wooed, and the least appearance of any difficulty, the vizard or picture of the easiest danger, is enough to fright them for ever from any thought of religion or hope of heaven.

For a mere natural man that hath nothing but original sin, or worse in him, that hath received nothing from God and his parents but a talent in a broken vessel, a soul infected by a crazy body, diseased as soon as born; for a heathen that hath nothing to subsist on but a poor pittance of natural reason, but one eye to see by, and that a dim one; for a mere barbarian or gentile to be thus triumphed over by every devil, as an owl by the smallest bird in the air,-might be matter of pity rather than wonder. And yet few of them were such cowards; those very weapons that nature had furnished them with, being rightly put on and fitted to them,

stood many of them in very good stead. There were few passions, few sins of an ordinary size, but a philosopher and mere stoic would be able to meet and vanquish. And therefore it is not so much natural, as affected weakness; not so much want of strength, as sluggishness and want of care; not so much impotency, as numbness and stupidity of our parts, which hath so extremely disabled those that take themselves to be the weakest of us.

The truth is, we are willing to conceive that our natural abilities are quite perished and annihilate, and that God hath no ways repaired them by Christ, because we will not be put to the trouble of making use of them. We would spare our pains, and therefore would fain count ourselves impotent, as sluggards that personate and act diseases because they would not work; or the old tragedians which could call a god down upon the stage at any time, to consummate the impossiblest plot, and therefore would not put their brains to the toil of concluding it fairly.

Certainly the decrepitest man under heaven, if he be but a degree above a carcase, is able to defend himself from an ordinary fly. It is one of the devil's titles to be Beelzebub, the prince of flies; and such are many of his temptations; he that hath but life in him may keep himself from any harm of one of them; but the matter is, they come in flocks, and being driven once away they return again. Musca est animal insolens, and the devil is frequent in these temptations, and though you could repel them as fast as they come, yet it would be a troublesome piece of work; it will be more for your ease to lie still under them, to let them work their will. So in time fly-blows beget noisomeness and vermin in the soul; and then the life and death of that man becomes like that of the Egyp[Exod.viii. tians, or Herod, and no plague more finally desperate than 24; Acts xii. 23.] those two of flies and lice. I am resolved there be many temptations which foil many jolly Christians, which yet a mere natural man that never dreamt of Scripture, or God's Spirit, might, if he did but bethink himself, resist, and many times overcome. Many acts of uncleanness, of intemperance, of contempt of superiors, of murder, of false dealing, of swear

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[Beds and unxavns. Prov. cf. Plat. Cratylus, p. 425, D. Erasm. Adag. 591. Cic. de Nat. D. i. 20.]