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cause Christianity was the religion of their choice. They took it up, while it was persecuted, and they could have no other inducement to receive it, but a conviction of its excellence, which they attained by impartial and diligent inquiries; the effect of which was, that the holy precepts and precious promises of the Gospel made a lively and durable impression on them. Whereas Christianity with us is generally not a matter of choice, but of fashion and good luck. We are born, where it is professed, and we fall into it, as we do into other prevailing opinions and customs, of course; and no wonder, therefore, if it floats only on the surface of our minds, if it take not root downwards, and consequently doth not bear fruit upwards, in our life and practice, Isai. xxxvii. 31. For the Gospel, though it be the great instrument of holiness, yet can make those alone holy, who consider and weigh it, and fasten its holy rules upon their hearts and consciences by meditation and study.

2. Another account of the great degeneracy of Christians may be drawn from men's erecting new schemes of Christianity, which interfere with the true and genuine account of it. Some men rely on the mere externals of religion, on masses, and pilgrimages, indulgencies, and bodily austerities: and if all these fail, they have a reserve still, in the merits and intercessions of saints and angels. Others, who call themselves Christians, have no regard for the dead letter of Scripture, but regulate themselves by a certain light within, by unaccountable impulses and inspirations. There are yet others, who hope to be saved by a bare act of recumbency on the merits of Christ, and by the free grace of the Gospel, without observing the law of works, without being tied to the elements of bondage, and carnal ordinances.

Now these schemes (and the same we might say of some others) subvert the true Gospel scheme of salvation, by repentance from dead works, and becoming a new creature; and as far as they do so, must needs undermine the interest of virtue and goodness, and smooth the way towards the commission of wickedness. If all

the world embraced the doctrine of Christ in its simplicity and purity, without adulterating it by false mixtures, it would be far more operative and effectual than now it is, towards reforming men's lives, and sanctifying their natures. But when they frame to themselves a gospel, which Christ and his apostles never preached, and expect to be saved on any other terms and conditions than those God hath proposed; it is no wonder if from such an evil root, as evil fruit arises; and they grow as corrupt in their practice, as they are in their opinions.

The same may be said of some over-easy and loose, or over-strict and rigorous decisions in matters of conscience. Many modern casuists have bent their thoughts, and strained their wits, in order to soften the severity of the Gospel morals, and to bring them down, as near as they can, not only to the infirmities, but even the vices of human nature. They have invented an art of lying without sinning: they have allowed a man to act on that side of an opinion, which he is satisfied is false, so it carry but any shew of probability with it; and they have determined it to be probable, if two or three grave writers of note have espoused it. They have made good ends capable of sanctifying the worst and most forbidden means; have declared it not necessary for a man to exercise more than one act of love towards God in his whole life-time, or to be contrite for his sins, but on his death-bed. And these are the positions, not only of a few obscure, but of very many, and very cele brated authors; and cannot, therefore, but go on a great way towards debauching the minds of all such as have any reverence for those casuists.

On the other side, good, but mistaken men have sometimes carried the doctrine of the Gospel to a very severe and astonishing height; and framed from thence such rules of life, and determinations in morality, as directly opposed the first and most innocent inclinations of human nature. And in this they thought, they had done God and men good service; but the event has disproved them. For some persons finding religion repre

sented as so melancholy and sour a thing, have concluded, that God, the author of our nature, could never be the author of so unnatural and extravagant a scheme; and have thereupon rejected it at once, and set themselves loose from all the ties of morality. Others, still adhering to the truth of the doctrine, have yet been so far discouraged by the uncomfortable and forbidden look of it, as to lay aside all hopes either of duly practising or relishing it; and have therefore resolved rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, Heb. xi. 25; and run the venture of their future happiness, than be certainly miserable here, for fear of being so hereafter. And a third sort there are, who have endeavoured to raise their practice up to these speculations; but failing (as how could they but fail?) have sunk into religious despair, concluded themselves reprobates, out of the favour of God, and a state of salvation.

So that too easy and too severe decisions have alike done disservice to religion. These, perhaps, have frightened nearly as many from the prosecution of virtue, as those have allured to the commission of vice; but the true doctrine of the Gospel, which steers between these extremes, is not answerable for the excesses on either side, and ought not, therefore, to be blasphemed on the account of them. We may add, in the

Third place, that it is not to be expected, but that, where Christians are wicked, they should be rather worse than other men; for this very reason, because they have more helps towards becoming better, and yet live in the contempt or neglect of them. Those excellent rules of life, which they will not suffer to do them good, must for that very reason do them harm, if they set their faces against so plain a revelation of their duty, and resolve to sin in defiance of it. For, if the light that is in them be darkness, how great is that darkness? Matt. vi. 23.

How great, even according to the natural course and tendency of things, whereby what is good when corrupted, grows bad in proportion to its former goodness: how much greater, in respect to the just judgments of

God, who punishes such persons with the total dereliction of his spirit, and a penal blindness; giving those up to a reprobate mind, who thus hold the truth in unrighteousness, Rom. i. 28.

Lastly, the faith of Christ suffers much from the ill lives of those who have nothing of Christianity but the name; and are, whilst they reproach it for the ill conduct of its professors, themselves the greatest reproach to it. Set aside the disorders of the almost Christians, and of such as whatever they may outwardly profess, do not sincerely and heartily love our Lord Jesus; and one great occasion of blaspheming the doctrine of Christ will be removed. It is very hard, therefore, to make -our faith answerable for the ill manners of those, who do not in good earnest receive it; but much harder still, that those very men should press the objection most eagerly, without whose loose and immoral lives, there would not be near so much ground and colour for it.

This is as if Catiline should have declaimed against the debaucheries of Rome, whilst he and his accomplices were in the midst of it, and had contributed to bring it to that pitch of wickedness which they had complained of.

Many other instructive reflections might be suggested on these heads: but thus much may suffice to shew, how far there is any real occasion for a complaint of the exceeding wickedness of men, now under the christian dispensation; and then, supposing the complaint just, how little reason there would be, to turn it to the disadvantage of Christianity itself. It remains that I should point out to you on my

III. Third general head, some more proper and natural inferences that may be drawn from it. They are many and weighty. But I will not detain you further than by the mention of a few of them.

And, 1. This should be so far from shocking our faith, that it ought on the contrary to confirm and strengthen

it. For the universal degeneracy of Christians in these latter days was plainly and punctually foretold by Christ and his apostles. When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? said our Saviour, Luke xviii. 8. Now the Spirit speaketh, (says St. Paul in his First Epistle to Timothy, ch. iv. 1. 2.) that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron, ch. iv. 12. And in his Second Epistle, ch. iii. 1, 2, This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers: to which he adds a large catalogue of the blackest and worst of sins which should then abound. And parallel passages to these are also to be found in St. Peter's and St. Jude's Epistles. Now the testimony of Jesus is that spirit of prophecy, Rev. xix. 10; and if he therefore and his apostles, by that spirit of prophecy, forewarned us of this event, it should not, methinks, lessen our esteem of their doctrine, to see that prediction fulfilled.

Nay, the vicious lives of the generality of Christians is an argument for the truth of Christianity on another account. For the professed design of God in revealing it, being to reform the world, and the design being so remarkably defeated; were not our religion founded on a rock, on the most apparent reason, and most incontestable miracles, it must, a long time ago, have sunk under the weight of this single prejudice. Had this counsel, or this work been of men, it would under such a disadvantage, have certainly come to nought; but it being of God, nothing can overthrow it, Acts v. 38, 39. We may from hence, in the

Second place, take occasion to consider the monstrous degree of pravity and perverseness, that is hid in the heart of man, and to account for the rise of it. It is plainly such, and so great, we see, as to be proof against the brightest discoveries of God's will, and our duty;

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