new man!" You are the true circumcifion which worship GOD in fpirit, and rejoice in CHRIST JESUS, and have no confidence in the flesh."

What wonder then, chriftians? To you I fpeak, all ye lovers and strugglers after the perfect righteousness of your: divine Mafter CHRIST; what wonder is it, that you should: be charged with enthufiafm, with folly, with fanaticism and: madness? Were not the apoftles fo before you, when they: preached CHRIST JESUS? Nay were they not reputed drunk with wine? Can you be amazed at it in an age," when all ❤ manner of vice abounds to a degree almost unheard of," when the land is full of adulterers, and becaufe of fwearing the land mourneth. O how is the faithful city become an harlot! my heart within me is broken, because of the clergy, all my bones shake? I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome; because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness, perverted by this deluded clergyman.

When the clergy, whom CHRIST has appointed to teach his people to walk before him and be perfect," become teachers of worldly maxims, what can be expected from the laity? It is notorious, that for the moralizing iniquity of the prieft, the land mourns. They have preached and lived manyfincere perfons out of the church of England. They endea-vour to make you vain: (as the prophets did in the days of Jeremiah) they speak a vifion out of their own mouth, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. In a word, "both "prophet and prieft are prophane, and do wickedness in the

very houfe of the LORD." Nay, they fay ftill to them who defpife the LORD, The LORD hath faid, ye fhall have peace; and they fay to every one who walketh after the imagination; of his own heart, No evil fhall come upon you.

Such is the language, my beloved lovers of chriftian per-. fection, which the indolent, earthly-minded, pleasure-taking clergy of the church of England, ufe to ftrengthen the hands. of evil-doers, that none may return from his wickedness. Such is the doctrine of the letter-learned divine, who has dipped his pen in gall, to decry perfect righteoufnefs, and to delude you from it, with a falfe application of that text fo grofly misunderstood by him: "Be not righteous over-much,

neither

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neither be thou over-wife: why shouldft thou deftroy thyfelf?" But fuffer not yourselves, my fellow-chriftians, to be deluded by him. For as I have already fhewn to you, he is grofly (LORD grant he was not maliciously) miftaken in his manner of explaining this text; and fo far from making a right application of it according to the wife, the experienced Solomon's intention, he acts the character of a vain libertine, full of felf-love, and earthly defires, whom Solomon but perfonated, to ridicule. But the doctor by realizing that character in himself, becomes the teacher and approver of worldly maxims, which he applies to you, on purpose to deftroy in you the yearnings after perfect righteousness in CHRIST. May I not then, nay, muft I not warn you, my beloved, that this man is an enemy to perfect righteous in men through CHRIST JESUS, and, therefore, no friend to CHRIST? O that my head was an ocean, and my eyes fountains of tears, to weep night and day for this poor creature, this hood-winked member of the clergy.

Pray you, O true chriftians, pray and figh mightily to the LORD; importune him in the behalf of this erring paftor; pray that he would vouchsafe to open the eyes, and touch the ftubborn heart of this fcribe, that he may become better in ftructed. Otherwife, as the LORD faid by the mouth of his true prophet Jeremiah, "Behold, I will feed him with wormwood, and make him drink the water of gall; for from him is prophaneness gone forth into all the land."

This good, however, hath he done by attempting to fhew the folly, fin, and danger of that which he mifcalls being righteous over-much, that is, being fuperlatively righteous, in defire and habitual ftruggles; he has thereby given me the occafion to fhew you, brethren, in the course of this fermon, the great and real folly, fin, and danger of not being righteous enough; which, perhaps, I fhould never have thought of doing, had not his false doctrine pointed out to me the neceffity of doing it. Thus does the all-wife providence of GOD, make use of the very vices of men to draw good out of evil; and chufe their very errors to confound falfehood and make way for truth. Though this fhould bet more than our angry adverfary intended, yet, LORD, re ward him according to his works: and fuffer him no longer.

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to be hafty in his words, that we may have room to entertain better hopes of him for the future.

Bleffed be GOD for fending you better guides! I am convinced it was his divine will: our dear fellow-creature, Doctor Trapp, falling into fuch errors, has given so great a shock to the found religion of christian perfection, that unless I had oppofed him, I verily believe the whole flock who liftened to his doctrine, would have been scattered abroad like fheep having no fhepherd. "But woe to ye fcribes and pharifees! Woe be unto the paftors that deftroy and scatter the sheep of my pafture, faith the LORD."

Full well I know that this fermon will not be pleafing to my poor peevish adversary; but correction is not to pleasure but to profit: few children can be brought willingly to kifs the rod which rebuketh them; though, when they become of riper understanding, they will bless the hand that guided it. Thus fhall this angry man, I truft, thank me one day for reproving him, when his reafon fhall be reftored to him. by the light of the holy fpirit. O LORD, grant thou this light unto him, and fuffer him to fee with what bowels of pity and tenderness I love him in thee, even while I chaften him.

Neither am I infenfible, brethren, how offenfive my words will be to worldlings in general, who loving falsehood better than truth, and the flesh before the fpirit, will still prefer the doctor's fin-foothing doctrines to the plain gospel verities preached by me. O how my foul pities them. But I have done my duty, I wash my hands, and am innocent of the blood of all. I have not fought to please my hearers, but have spoken plain truth though it should offend. For what things were gain to me, those I counted lofs for CHRIST and hope I shall ever do fo. Not that I prefume to think myself already perfect. But I prefs forward towards the mark, for the prize of the high-calling of GOD in CHRIST JESUS."

None of us, as I before told you, can boast of having attained the fummit of perfection; though, he is the nearest to it, who is wideft from the appetites of the flesh, and he stands the highest, who is the lowlieft in his own efteem: where fore, as many of us as have made any advances towards

CHRIST and his kingdom, "whereto we have already at"tained, let us walk by the fame rule, let us mind the fame "thing."

Walk not then, brethren, according to the ways of the world but be followers of CHRIST together with me. And if any, even an angel of light, should presume to teach you any other gospel than that which I have here taught you, let him be accurfed. "For you will find many walking, like fuch of whom I have told you already, and now tell you weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of CHRIST: whofe end is destruction, whose GOD is their belly: and whose glory is in their fhame, for they mind worldly things. But your conversation is in heaven, from whence alfo you look for the Saviour, the LORD JESUS CHRIST: who fhall change your vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to fubdue even all things unto himself," even the ftubborn heart of our perverfe adverfary.

Which God of his infinite mercy grant, &c.

SERMON

SERM O N XI.

The Benefits of an Early Piety.

Preached at Bow Church, London, before the Religious Societies.

ECCLES. xii. 1..

Remember now thy Creator in the Days of thy Touth.

TH

THE amiableness of religion in itself, and the innumerable advantages that flow from it to fociety in general, as well as to each fincere profeffor in particular, cannot but recommend it to the choice of every confiderate person, and make, even wicked men, as they wish to die the death, so in their more fober intervals, to envy the life of the righteous. And, indeed, we must do the world fo much justice, as to confefs, that the question about religion does not usually arise from a dispute whether it be neceffary or not (for moft men see the neceffity of doing fomething for the falvation of their fouls ;) but when is the best time to set about it. Perfons are convinced by univerfal experience, that the first effays or endeavours towards the attainment of religion, are attended with fome difficulty and trouble, and therefore they would willingly defer the beginning of fuch a feemingly ungrateful work, as long as they can. The wanton prodigal, who is fpending his fubftance in riotous living, cries, a little more pleafure, a little more fenfuality, and then I will be fober in earneft. The covetous worldling, that employs all his care and pains in "heaping up riches, though he cannot tell who fhall gather them," does not fatter

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