ture, of the preacher, but of thee. When it is performed thou wouldst be loth that God should impute all to Himself, crown His own graces, ordinances, instruments, and leave thee as a cypher unrewarded. And therefore, whilst it is a performing, be content to believe that somewhat belongs to thee, that thou hast some hardship to undergo, some diligence to maintain, some evidences of thy good husbandry, thy wise managing of the talent; and in a word, of faithful service to shew here, or else when the euge bone serve is pronounced, thou wilt not be able confidently to answer to thy name. Οὐ τὰ ὅπλα ἴσχυς ἄνδρων, ἀλλὰ τῶν ὅπλων οἱ ἄνδρες, said the Milesians to Brutuse; "All the weapons in the world will not defend the man, unless the man actuate, and fortify, and defend his weapons." Thy strength consists all in the strength of Christ, but you will never walk, or be invulnerable in the strength of that, till you be resolved that the good use-and so the strength of that strength to thee-is a work that remains for thee. If it were not, that exhortation of the Apostle's would never have been given in form of exhortation to the Christian, but of prayer only to Christ, "Stand fast, quit yourselves like 1 Cor. xvi. men, be strong."

Lastly, or indeed that which must be both first and last, commensurate to all our diligence, the viaticum that you must carry with you, is the prayers of humble gasping souls. Humble, in respect of what grace is received; be sure not to be exalted with that consideration. Gasping for what supply may be obtained from that eternal unexhausted fountain; and these prayers not only that God will give, but, as Josephus makes mention of the Jews' liturgy, és déxeo@ai dívaolai, "that they may receive." And as Porphyryf, of one kind of sacrifice, dia xpeíav ảyalŵv, “that they may use;" and every of us fructify in some proportion answerable to our irrigation.

Now the God of all grace, who hath called us into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after that you have obeyed awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him, be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen. [Porphyrius, De Abstinentia, lib. ii. § 24.]

• Επιστ. ν.

f

13.

SERMON XV.

PROV. i. 22.

How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?

THAT Christ is the best, and Satan the worst chosen master, is one of the weightiest and yet least considered aphorisms of the gospel. Were we but so just and kind to ourselves as actually to pursue what upon judgment should appear to be most for our interests, even in relation to this present life; and—without making heaven the principle of our motionbut only think never the worse of a worldly temporary bliss, not quarrel against it for being attended with an eternal; were we but patient of so much sobriety and consideration, as calmly to weigh and ponder what course, in all probability, were most likely to befriend and oblige us here, to make good its promise of helping us to the richest acquisitions, the vastest possessions and treasures of this life, I am confident our Christ might carry it from all the world besides, our Saviour from all the tempters and destroyers; and-besides so many other considerable advantages-this superlative transcendent one of giving us the only right to the reputation and title of wisdom here in these books, be acknowledged the Christian's, i. e. the disciple's monopoly and inclosure; and folly the due brand and reproach and portion of the ungodly.

The wisest man, beside Christ, that was ever in the world, you may see by the text had this notion of it, brings in wisdom by a prosopopæia,―i. e. either Christ Himself, or the saving doctrine of heaven, in order to the regulating of our lives, or again, wisdom in the ordinary notion of it,-libelling and reproaching the folly of all the sorts of sinners in the world,

posting from the "without in the streets" to the assemblies of [ver. 20.] the greatest renown, "the chief place of concourse," i. e. clearly [ver.21.] their sanhedrim, or great council, from thence to the places of judicature; for that is, "the openings of the gates," nay, to "the city," Kar' çoxnv, the metropolis and glory of the nation; and crying out most passionately, most bitterly against all in the loudest language of contumely and satire that ever Pasquin or Marforius were taught to speak. And the short of it is, that the pious Christian is the only tolerable wise; and the world of unchristian sinners are a company of the most wretched, simple, atheistical fools, which cannot be thought on without a passion and inculcation, "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and ye scorners," &c.

The first part of this verse, though it be the cleanest of three expressions, hath yet in it abundantly enough of rudeness, for an address to any civil auditory. I shall therefore contain my discourse within those staunchest limits, "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?" And in them observe only these three particulars.

1. The character of the ungodly man's condition, contained in these two expressions, simple ones, and simplicity; "How long, ye simple," &c.

2. The aggravation of the simplicity, and so heightening of the character, and that by two further considerations.

First, from their loving of that which was so unlovely, that they should be so simple as to love simplicity.

Secondly, from their continuance in it, that they should not at length discern their error, that they should love simplicity so long.

3. The passion that it produceth in the speaker-be it wisdom, or be it Christ, or be it Solomon-to consider it; and that passion, whether of pity, that men should be such fools; or of indignation, that they should love and delight in it so long. "How long," &c.

I begin first with the first; the character of sin and sinners, i. e. of the ungodly man's condition, contained in these two expressions: simple ones, and simplicity. "How," &c.

Four notions we may have of these words, which will all be appliable to this purpose: you shall see them as they rise.

First, as the calling one simple is a word of reproach or con[Mat. v. tumely, the very same with the calling one páka, i.e. "empty, 22.] brainless person," the next degree to the pope, or "thou fool," in the end of that and this verse. And then the thing that we are to observe from thence is, what a reproachful thing an unchristian life is; what a contumelious, scandalous quality.

[Rom. i. árias.

26. πάθη

A reproach to nature first, to our human kind, which was an honourable reverend thing in paradise, before sin came in to humble and defame it; a solemn, severe law-giver, σúστnμa λογικῶν νοημάτων, in Clemens; the system or pandect of all rational notions, σύμψηφος τῷ Θεῷ, that either likes or commends all that now Christ requires of us, bears witness to the word of God that all His commandments are righteous; and so is by our unnatural sins, those arμа пáoη, ignoble dishonourable affections of ours,-which have coupled [Rev. xxii. together sins and kennels, adulterers and dogs,-put to shame 15.] and rebuke, dishonoured and degraded, as it were. Not all the ugliness and poison of the toad hath so deformed that kind of creatures, brought it so low in genere entium, as the deformed malignant condition of sin hath brought down the [Eph. ii. very nature and kind of men, making them тéкva opуns, the 3.] children, i. e. the objects of all the wrath and hatred in the world.

2. A reproach to our souls, those immortal vital creatures inspired into us by heaven, and now raised higher, superinspired by the grace of Christ; which are then, as Mezentius's invention of punishment, bound up close with a carcase of sin, tormented and poisoned with its stench, buried in that noisomest vault or charnel-house. It was an admirable golden saying of the Pythagoreans, the aioxúveo σavtòv, what a restraint of sin it would be if a man would remember the reverence he ought unto himself, and ǹ чʊxń σv3 was their own explication of it; the soul within thee is that self to whom all that dread and awe and reverence is due. And O what an impudent affront, what an irreverential profaning of that sacred celestial beam within thee,-that araúyaoμa Оeoû, as

a [Pythag. Carm. Aur., ver. 12.] ver. 25.]

b [Hierocl. in Carm. Aur. Pythag. ad

the philosophers call it,—is every paltry oath, or rage, or lust, that the secure sinner is so minutely guilty of! Every sin, say the schools, being in this respect a kind of idolatry, an incurvation and prostitution of that heavenly creature-ordained to have nothing but divinity in its prospect-to the meanest, vilest heathen worship, the crocodile, the cat, the scarabee, the dii stercorii, the most noisome abominations under heaven.

3. A reproach to God, who hath owned such scandalous creatures, hath placed us in a degree of divinity next unto angels, nay, to Christ, that by assuming that nature and dying for it hath made it emulate the angelical eminence, and been in a manner liable to the censure of partiality in so doing; in advancing us so unworthy, dignifying us so beyond the merit of our behaviours, honouring us so unproportionably above what our actions can own, "whilst those that are in scarlet embrace the dunghill," as it is in the Lam. iv.5. Lamentations, those that are honoured by God, act so dishonourably. It was Plato's affirmation of God in respect of men, that He was a Father, when of all other creatures He was but a maker; and it is Arrian's superstruction on that, that remembering that we are the sons of God, we should never admit any base degenerous thought, any thing reproachful to that stock, unworthy of the grandeur of the family from whence we are extracted. If we do, it will be more possible for us to profane and embase heaven, than for the reputation of that parentage of ours to ennoble us: the scandal that such a degenerous, disingenuous progeny will bring on the house from whence we came, is a kind of sacrilege to heaven, a violation to those sacred mansions, a proclaiming to the world what colonies of polluted creatures came down from thence, though there be a nulla retrorsum, no liberty for any such to return thither.

Lastly, it is a reproach to the very beasts, and the rest of the creation which are designed by God the servants and slaves of sinful man; which may justly take up the language of the slave to his vicious master in the satirist', Tune mihi

d

c. 3.]

[See Plat. Sophist. i. p. 234.]

e [Horat. Epist. i. 1. 75.]

[Horat. Sat. ii. 7. 75.]

f Arrian. Dissert. Epictet., lib. i.