pay for it, even publicly to be courted, carreffed, and flattered.-If this will not overthrow the credit of our virtue,-take a fhort view of the general decay of it, from the fafhionable exceffes of the age,-in favour of which there feems to be formed so strong a party, that a man of fobriety, temperance, and regularity, fcarce knows how to accommodate himfelf to the fociety he lives in,--and is oft as much at a lofs how and where to difpofe of himself;-and unless you fuppofe a mixture of conftancy in his temper, it is great odds but fuch a one would be ridiculed, and laughed out of his fcruples and his virtue at the fame time; to fay nothing of occafional rioting, chambering and wantonnefs.- Confider how many public markets are established merely for the fale of virtue,-where the manner of going, too fadly indicates the intention;-and the disguise each is under, not only gives power fafely to drive on the bargain, but too often tempts to carry it into execution too.—

This finning under difguife, I own, feems to carry fome appearance of a fecret homage to virtue and decorum, and might be acknow

F

leged as fuch, was it not the only public instance the world seems to give of it.—In other cafes, a just sense of shame seems a matter of fo little concern, that instead of any regularity of behaviour, you fee thousands who are tired with the very form of it, and who at length have even thrown the mask of it aside, as a useless piece of incumbrance.-This I believe will need no evidence, it is too evidently feen in the open liberties taken every day, in defiance (not to fay of religion) but of decency and common good manners;—so that it is no uncommon thing to behold vices, which heretofore were committed only in dark corners, now openly fhew their face in broad day, and oft times with fuch an air of triumph, as if the party thought he was doing himself honour,or that he thought the deluding an unhappy creature, and the keeping her in a state of guilt, was as neceffary a piece of grandeur as the keeping an equipage,-and did him as much credit as any other appendage of his fortune.

If we pafs on from the vices to the indecorums of the age (which is a fofter name for

vices) you will scarce fee any thing, in what is called higher life, but what bespeaks a general relaxation of all order and discipline, in which our opinions as well as manners feem to be fet loose from all restraints;-and, in truth, from all ferious reflections too :-and one may venture to say, that gaming and extravagance, to the utter ruin of the greatest estates,-minds diffipated with diverfions, and heads giddy with a perpetual rotation of them, are the most general characters to be met with; and though one would expect, that at least the more folemn seasons of the year, fet apart for the contemplation of Christ's sufferings, should give fuch a check and interruption to them, yet what appearance is there ever amongst us, that it is fo;-what one alteration does it make in the course of things? Is not the doctrine of mortification infulted by the fame luxury of entertainments at our tables?-is not the fame order of diverfions perpetually returning, and scarce any thing else thought of?-does not the fame levity in drefs, as well as difcourse, fhew itself in persons of all ages, for it is no

fmall agravation of the corruption of our morals, that age, which by its authority was once able to frown youth into fobriety and better manners, and keep them within bounds, feems but too often to lead the way,—and by their unfeasonable example give a countenance to follies and weakness, which youth is but too apt to run into without fuch a recommendation. Surely age,--which is but one remove from death, fhould have nothing about it, but what looks like a decent preparation for it. -In purer times it was the cafe,—but now, grey hairs themfelves fcarce ever appear, but in the high mode and flanting garb of youth,

with heads as full of pleasure, and cloaths as ridiculoufly, and as much in the fashion, as the perfon who wears them is ufually grown out of it :-upon which article give me leave to make a short reflection; which is this, that whenever the eldeft equal the youngest in the vanity of their drefs, there is no reason to be given for it, but that they equal them, if not furpafs them, in the vanity of their defires.

But this by the by.

Though in truth the obfervation falls in with the main intention of this discourse,— which is not framed to flatter our follies, or touch them with a light hand, but plainly to point them out; that by recalling to your mind, what manner of persons we really are, I might better lead you to the apostle's inference, of what manner of perfons ye ought to be, in all holy converfation and godliness? looking for, and haftening unto the coming of the day of God.

The apostle, in the concluding verse of this argument, exhorts, that they who look for fuch things be diligent, that they be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless ;— and one may conclude with him, that if the hopes or fears, either the reafon or the paffions of men are to be wrought upon at all, it must be from the force and influence of this awakening confideration in the text:-" That all these things fhall be diffolved,-that this vain and perishable fcene muft change, that we who now tread the stage, must shortly be summoned away ;—that we are creatures but