theft, treason, despair, and self-murder: Or, as a nation, witness the Jews, who, after despising and killing their prophets, rejected the Son of God; affirmed he was mad; stigmatized him with the name of Deceiver; said he was Beelzebub himself; offered him all manner of indignities; bought his blood; prayed it might be on them and their children; rested not, till they had put the Prince of Life to the most ignominious death; and, horrible to say !, made sport with the groans, which rent the rocks around them, and threw the earth into convulsions under their feet.-IX. Unnaturally: (1.) By astonishing barbarities: As the women, who murder their own children; the Greeks and Romaus, who exposed them to be the living prey of wild beasts: The savages, who knock their aged parents on the head; the cannibals, who roast and eat their prisoners of war; and some revengeful people, who, to taste all the sweetness of their devilish passion, have murdered their enemy, and eaten up his liver and heart. (2.) By the most diabolical superstitions: As the Israelites, who, when they had learned the works of the Heathens, sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils; and by the horrible practices of witchcraft, endeavoured to raise and deal with infernal spirits: And (3.) by the most preposterous gratifications of sense: Witness the incests || and rapes committed in this land; the infamous fires, which drew fire and brimstone down from heaven upon accursed cities; and the horrid lusts of the Canaanites, though, alas! not confined to Canaan, which gave birth to the laws recorded Lev. xviii. 7, 23, and xx. 16;

The reason which engaged the Publisher of these sheets to preach to some of the colliers in his neighbourhood, was the horrid length they went in immorality. One of them, whose father was hanged upon returning himself from transportation, in cool blood, attempted to ravish his own daughter in the presence of his own wife, and was just prevented from completing his crime, by the utmost exertion of the united strength of the mother and the child. When brutish ignorance and Heathenish wickedness break out into such unnatural enormities, who would not break through the hedge of canonical regularity?

In the last century, an Irish Bishop was clearly convicted of the crime forbidden in those laws, and suffered death for it.

laws that are at once the disgrace of mankind, and the proof of my assertion.-X. What is most astonishing of all, by apostacy: As those who, having 'begun in the Spirit,' and tasted' the bitterness of repentance, 'the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, make shipwreck of the faith, deny the Lord that bought them, account the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing;' and so scandalously 'end in the flesh,' that they are justly compared to trees withered, plucked up by the roots, twice dead,' and to raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.'

Good God what line can fathom an abyss of corruption, the overflowings of which are more or less attended with these multiplied and shocking aggravations?

TWENTY-SIXTH ARGUMENT.

IF the force of a torrent may be known by the height and number of the banks which it overflows, the strength of this corruption will be rightly estimated from the high and numerous dikes raised to stem it, which nevertheless it continually breaks through.

Ignorance and debauchery, injustice and impiety, in all their shapes, still overspread the whole earth; notwithstanding innumerable means used, in all ages, to suppress and prevent them.

The almost total extirpation of mankind by the deluge, the fiery showers that consumed Sodom, the ten Egyptian plagues, the entire excision of whole nations who were once famous for their wickedness, the captivities of the Jews, the destruction of thousands of cities and kingdoms, and millions of more private judgments, never fully stopped immorality in any one country.

The striking miracles wrought by prophets, the alarming sermons preached by divines, the infinite namber of good books published in almost all languages, and the founding of myriads of churches, religious houses, schools, colleges, and universities, have not yet

caused impiety to hide its brazen face any where. The making of all sorts of excellent laws, the appointing of magistrates and judges to put them in force, the forming of associations for the reformation of manners, the filling of thousands of prisons, and erecting of millions of racks and gallows, have not yet suppressed one vice. And what is most amazing of all, the life, miracles, sufferings, death, and heavenly doctrine of the Son of God; the labours, writings, and martyrdom of his disciples; the example and entreaties of millions that have lived and died in the faith; the inexpressible horrors and frightful warnings of thousands of wicked men, who have testified in their last moments, that they had worked out their damnation, and were just going to their own place: The blood of myriads of martyrs, the strivings of the Holy Spirit, the dreadful curses of the law, and the glorious promises of the gospel.-All these means together have not extirpated immorality and profaneness out of one single town or village in all the world; no, nor out of one single family for any length of time. And this will probably continue to be the desperate case of mankind, till the Lord lays to his powerful hand; seconds these means by the continued strokes of the sword of his Spirit; pleads by fire and sword with all flesh;' and, according to his promise, causes righteousness to cover the earth as the water covers the sea.'

Is not this a demonstration founded on matter of fact, that human corruption is not only deep as the ocean, but impetuous as an overflowing river, which breaks down all its banks, and leaves marks of devastation in every place? This will still appear in a clearer light, if we consider the strong opposition, which our natural depravity makes to divine grace in the unconverted.

TWENTY-SEVENTH ARGUMENT.

WHEN the Lord, by the rod of affliction, the sword of the Spirit,' and the power of his grace, attacks the hard heart of a sinner; how obstinately does he resist the sharp, though gracious, operation! To make an honour

able and vigorous defence, he puts on the shining robes of his formality; he stands firm in the boasted armour of his moral powers; he 'daubs with untempered mortar' the ruinous wall' of his conduct; with selfrighteous resolutions, and Pharisaic professions of virtue, he builds, as he thinks, an impregnable tower; he musters and draws up in battle-array his poor works, artfully putting in the front those that make the finest appearance, and carefully concealing the vices, which he can neither disguise, nor dress up in the regimentals of virtue.

In the mean time, he prepares the carnal weapons of his 'warfare,' and raises the battery of a multitude of objections to silence the truth that begins to gall him. He affirms, "The preachers of it are deceivers and madmen," till he sees the Jews and Heathens fixed, even upon Christ and St. Paul, the very same opprobrious names: He calls it "a new doctrine," till he is obliged to acknowledge that it is as old as the Reformers, the apostles, and the prophets : He says, “ It is fancy, delusion, enthusiasm," till the blessed effects of it, on true believers, constrain him to drop the trite and slanderous assertion: He declares, that it "drives people out of their senses, or makes them melancholy," till he is compelled to confess, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,' and that none are so happy and joyful, as those who truly love, and zealously serve, God: He urges, that "it destroys good works," till a sight of the readiness of believers, and of his own backwardness, to perform them, makes him ashamed of the groundless accusation: He will tell you twenty times over, "There is no need of so much ado," till he discovers the folly of being careless on the brink of eternal ruin, and observes, that the nearness of temporal danger puts him upon the utmost exertion of his powers: Perhaps, to get himself a name among his profane " casts out companions, he lampoons the scriptures, or firebrands and arrows' against the despised disciples of Jesus: "They are all poor and illiterate," says he, "fools or knaves, cheats and hypocrites," &c., &c., till

the word of God stops his mouth, and he sees himself the greatest hypocrite with whom he is acquainted.

When by such heavy charges he has long kept off the truth from his heart, and the servants of God from his company, this kind of ammunition begins to fail; and he barricades himself with the fear of being undone in his circumstances, till experience convinces him, that no good thing shall God withhold from them that live a godly life,' and that all things shall be added to them, who seek first the kingdom of God.' He then hides himself in the crowd of the ungodly, and says, "If he perishes, many will share the same fate," till he sees the glaring absurdity of going to hell for the sake of company. He shelters at last under the protection of the rich, the great, the learned despisers of Christ and the cross, till the mines of their wickedness, springing on all sides around him, make him fly' to the sanctuary of the Lord;' and there he sees the ways, and understands the ends, of these men.'

When all his batteries are silenced, and a breach is made in his conscience, he looks out for some secret way to leave Sodom, without being taken notice of and derided by those who fight under Satan's banner; and the fear of being taken for one of them that fly from the wrath to come,' and openly take the part of a holy God against a sinful world,' pierces him through with many sorrows.'

Are the outworks taken?, has he been forced to part with his gross immoralities?, he has generally recourse to a variety of stratagems: Sometimes he publicly dismisses Satan's garrison, 'fleshly lusts which war against the' godly, and keep under the ungodly'soul;' but it is only to let them in again secretly, either one by one, or with forces seven times greater, 6 so that his last state is worse than the first.' At other times he hoists up the white flag of truth, apparently yields to conviction, favours the ministers of the gospel, admits the language of Canaan, and warmly contends for evangelical doctrines; but, alas! the place has not surren