If I should reckon up unto you, how many direct lies every wicked man tells to God Almighty, as often as he says Amen to this "form of godliness," which our church hath prescribed; if I should present unto you all our acting of piety, and playing of humiliation, and personating of devotion, in the psalms, the litanies, the collects, and generally in the whole service, I should be infinite; and, therefore, I have thought good to draw a veil over a great part of our hypocrisy, and to restrain the remainder of our discourse to the contrariety between our profession and performance, only in two things; I mean, faith and repentance.

And, First, For faith: we profess, and indeed generally, because it is not safe to do otherwise, that we believe the Scripture to be true, and that it contains, the plain and only way to infinite and eternal happiness; but if we did generally believe what we do profess, if this were the language of our hearts, as well as our tongues, how comes it to pass, that the study of it is so generally neglected?

Let a book, that treats of the philosopher's stone, promise never so many mountains of gold, and even the restoring of the golden age again, yet were it no marvel, if few should study it; and the reason is, because few would believe it. But if there were a book extant, and ordinary to be had, as the Bible is, which men did generally believe to contain a plain and easy way for all men to become rich, and to live in health and pleasure, and this world's happiness; can any man imagine, that this book would be unstudied by any man? And why then should I not believe,

that, if the Scripture were firmly and heartily believed the certain and only way to happiness, which is perfect and eternal, it would be studied by all men with all diligence? Seeing, therefore, most Christians are so cold and negligent in the study of it, prefer all other business, all other pleasures, before it; is there not great reason to fear, that many, who pretend to believe firmly, believe it not at all, or very weakly and faintly? If the general of an army, or an ambassador to some prince or state, were assured by the king his master, that the transgressing any point of his commission should cost him his life; and the exact performance of it be recompensed with as high a reward as were in the king's power to bestow upon him; can it be imagined, that any man, who believes this, and is in his right mind, can be so supinely and stupidly negligent of this charge, which so much imports him, as to oversee, through want of care, any one necessary article, or part of his commission; especially, if it be delivered to him in writing, and at his pleasure to peruse it every day? Certainly this absurd negligence is a thing without example, and such as peradventure will never happen to any sober man to the world's end; and, by the same reason, if we were firmly persuaded, that this book doth indeed contain that charge and commission, which infinitely more concerns us, it were not in reason possible, but that to such a persuasion, our care and diligence about it should be in some measure answerable. Seeing, therefore, most of us are so strangely careless, so grossly negligent of it, is there not great reason to fear, that though we have professors and protestors, in abundance, yet the faithful, the truly and

sincerely faithful, are, in a manner, failed from the children of men? What but this can be the cause, that men are so commonly ignorant of so many articles, and particular mandates of it, which yet are as manifest in it, as if they were written with the beams of the sun? For example, how few of our ladies and gentlewomen do or will understand, that a voluptuous life is damnable and prohibited to them? Yet St. Paul saith so very plainly, "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth."* I believe this case directly regards not the sex: he would say, he, as well as she, if there had been occasion. How few of the gallants of our time do or will understand, that it is not lawful for them to be as expensive and costly in apparel, as their means, or perhaps their credit, will extend unto? Which is to sacrifice unto vanity, that which by the law of Christ is due unto charity; and yet, the same St. Paul forbids plainly this excess even to women- -" Also let women (he would have said it much rather to the men) array themselves in comely apparel, with shamefacedness and modesty, not with embroidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly apparel." And, to make our ignorance the more inexcusable, the very same rule is delivered by St. Paul also, 1 Epist. iii. 3.

How few rich men are or will be persuaded, that the law of Christ permits them not to heap up riches for ever, nor perpetually to add house to house, and land to land, though by lawful means; but requires of them thus much charity at least, that ever, while they are providing for their wives and children, they should, out of the

* 1 Tim. v. 6.

+ 1 Tim. ii. 9.

increase wherewith God hath blessed their industry, allot the poor a just and free proportion? And when they have provided for them in a convenient manner (such as they themselves shall judge sufficient and convenient in others), that then they should give over making purchase after purchase; but with the surplusage of their revenue beyond their expense, procure, as much as lies in them, that no Christian remain miserably poor; few rich men, I fear, are or will be thus persuaded, and their daily actions shew as much: yet undoubtedly, either our Saviour's general command, of loving our neighbours as ourselves, which can hardly consist with our keeping vainly, or spending vainly, what he wants for his ordinary subsistence, lays upon us a necessity of this high liberality or his special command concerning this matter; Quod superest date pauperibus, "That which remains give to the poor:" or that which St. John saith, 1 Epist. iii. 17. reacheth home unto it: "Whosoever hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" Which is, in effect, as if he had said, He that keepeth from any brother in Christ, that which his brother wants, and he wants not, doth but vainly think, that he loves God; and therefore vainly hopes, that God loves him.

Where almost are the men that are or will be persuaded, the gospel of Christ requires of men humility, like to that of little children, and that under the highest pain of damnation? That is, that we should no more overvalue ourselves, or desire to be highly esteemed by others; no more undervalue, scorn, or despise others; no more af

fect pre-eminence over others, than little children do, before we have put that pride into them, which afterwards we charge wholly upon their natural corruption: and yet our blessed Saviour requires nothing more rigidly, nor more plainly, than this high degree of humility: "Verily (saith he), I say unto you, (he speaks to his disciples affecting high places, and demanding which of them should be greatest) except you be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Would it not be strange news to a great many, that not only adultery and fornication, but even uncleanness and lasciviousness; not only idolatry and witchcraft, but hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, and contentions; not only murders, but envyings; not drunkenness only, but revelling, are things prohibited to Christians, and such as, if we forsake them not, we cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven? And yet these things, as strange as they may seem, are plainly written; some of them by St. Peter; (1 Epist. ch. iv.) but all of them by St. Paul: (Gal. v. 19.) "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, &c. of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in times past, that they who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

If I should tell you, that all bitterness and evilspeaking, (nay, such is the modesty and gravity which Christianity requires of us) foolish talk and jesting, are things not allowed to Christians, would not many cry out. These are hard and strange sayings, who can hear them? And yet, as strange as they may seem, they have been written