Not one; for she shall be judged. No plea shall excuse, or rescue her from the wrath of the judge; for strong is the Lord who will perform it. If yet these reasonable pleas will not prevail, however I shall caution such, in the repetition of part of Babylon's miserable doom : Mind, my friends, more heavenly things; hasten to obey that Righteous Principle, which would exercise and delight you in that which is eternal; or else with Babylon, the mother of lust and vanity, the fruits which your souls lust after shall depart from you, and all things which are dainty and goodly shall depart from you, and you shall find them no more!" O Dives! no more! Lay your treasures therefore up in heaven, O ye inhabitants of the earth, where nothing can break through to harm them; but where time shall shortly be swallowed up of eternity !

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Sect. 8. But my arguments against these things end not here; for the contrary most of all conduces to good, namely, temperance in food, plainness in apparel; with a meek, shame-faced, and quiet spirit, and that conversation which doth only express the same in all godly honesty :" as the apostle saith, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may administer grace to the hearers; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, but rather giving of thanks: for let no man deceive you with vain words, because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." And if men and women were but thus adorned, after this truly Christian manner, impudence would soon receive a check, and lust, pride, vanity, and wantonness, find a rebuke. They would not be able to attempt such universal chastity, or encounter such godly austerity: virtue would be in credit, and vice afraid and ashamed, and excess not dare to shew its face. There

would be an end of gluttony, and gaudiness of apparel, flattering titles, and a luxurious life; and then primitive innocency and plainness would come back again, and that plain-hearted downright harmless life would be restored, of not much caring what we should eat, drink, or put on, as Christ tells us the Gentiles did, and as we know this age daily does, under all its talk of religion : but as the ancients, who with moderate care for neces. saries and conveniences of life, devoted themselves to the concernments of a celestial kingdom, more minded their improvement in righteousness, than their increase in riches; for they laid their treasure up in heaven, and endured tribulation for an inheritance that cannot be taken away.

Sect. 9. But the temperance I plead for, is not only religiously, but politically good: it is the interest of good government to curb and rebuke excesses: it prevents many mischiefs ; luxury brings effeminacy, laziness, poverty, and misery; but temperance preserves the land. It keeps out foreign vanities, and improves our own commodities : now we are their debtors, then they would be debtors to us for our native manufactures. By this means, such persons, who by their excess, not charity, have deeply engaged their estates, may in a short space be enabled to clear them from those incumbrances, which otherwise, like moths, soon eat out plentiful revenues. It helps persons of mean substance to improve their small stocks, that they may not expend their dear earnings and hard-got wages upon superfluous apparel, foolish may-games, plays, dancing, shews, taverns, ale-houses, and the like folly and intemperance; with which this land is more infested, and by which it is rendered more ridiculous, than any kingdom in the world: for none I know of is so infested with cheating mountebanks, savage morrice-dancers, pickpockets, and profane players, and stagers; to the slight of religion, the shame of government, and the great idle

ness, expense, and debauchery of the people: for which the spirit of the Lord is grieved, and the judgments of the Almighty are at the door, and the sentence ready to be pronounced, " Let him that is unjust, be unjust still." Wherefore it is, that we cannot but loudly call upon the generality of the times, and testify both by our life and doctrine, against the like vanities and abuses, if possible any may be weaned from their folly, and choose the good old path of temperance, wisdom, gravity, and holiness, the only way to inherit the blessings of peace and plenty here, and eternal happiness

hereafter."

Sect. 10. Lastly, supposing we had none of these foregoing reasons justly to reprove the practice of the land in these particulars; however, let it be sufficient for us to say, that when people have first learned to fear, worship, and obey their Creator, to pay their numerous vitious debts, to alleviate and abate their oppressed tenants; but above all outward regards, when the pale faces are more commiserated, the pinched bellies relieved, and naked backs clothed; when the famished poor, the distressed widow, and helpless orphan, God's works, and your fellow creatures, are provided for! then I say, if then, it will be time enough for you to plead the indifferency of your pleasures. But that the sweat and tedious labour of the husbandmen, early and late, cold and hot, wet and dry, should be converted into the pleasure, ease, and pastime of a small number of men; that the cart, the plough, the thresh, should be in that continual severity laid upon nineteen parts of the land to feed the inordinate lusts and delicious appetites of the twentieth, is so far from the appointment of the great Governor of the world, and God of the spirits of all flesh, that to imagine such horrible injustice as the effects of his determinations, and not the intemperance of men, were wretched and blasphemous. As on the other side, it would be to deserve no pity, no help, no relief from

God Almighty, for people to continue that expense in vanity and pleasure, whilst the great necessities of such objects go unanswered : especially since God hath made the sons of men but stewards to each other's exigencies and relief. Yea, so strict is it enjoined, that on the omission of these things, we find this dreadful sentence partly to be grounded, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," &c. As on the contrary, to visit the sick, see the imprisoned, relieve the needy, &c. are such excellent properties in Christ's account, that thereupon he will pronounce such blessed, saying, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you", &c. So that the great are not, with the Leviathan in the deep, to prey upon the small, much less to make a sport of the lives and labours of the lesser ones, to gratify their inordinate senses."

Sect. 11. I therefore humbly offer an address to the serious consideration of the civil magistrate. That if the money which is expended in every parish in such vain fashions, as wearing of laces, jewels, embroideries, unnecessary ribands, trimming, costly furniture, and attendance, together with what is commonly consumed in taverns, feasts, gaming, &c. could be collected into a public stock, or something in lieu of this extravagant and fruitless expense, there might be reparation to the broken tenants, work-houses for the able, and almshouses for the aged and impotent. Then should we have no beggars in the land, the cry of the widow and the orphan would cease, and charitable reliefs might easily be afforded towards the redemption of poor captives, and refreshment of such distressed Protestants as labour under the miseries of persecution in other countries: nay, the exchequer's needs, on just emergencies, might be supplied by such a bank: this sacrifice and

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service would please the just and merciful God: it would be a noble example of gravity and temperance to foreign states, and an unspeakable benefit to ourselves at home.

Alas! why should men need persuasions to what their own felicity so necessarily leads them to? had those vitiosos of the times but a sense of heathen Cato's generosity, they would rather deny their carnal appetites, than leave such noble enterprises unattempted. But that they should eat, drink, play, game, and sport away their health, estates, and above all, their irrevocable precious time, which should be dedicated to the Lord, as a necessary introduction to a blessed eternity, and than which, did they but know it, no worldly solace could come in competition; I say, that they should be continually employed about these poor, low things, is to have the Heathens judge them in God's day, as well as Christian precepts and examples condemn them. And their final doom will prove the more astonishing, in that this vanity and excess are acted under a profession of the self-denying religion of Jesus, whose life and doctrine are a perpetual reproach to the most of Christians. Forhe (blessed man) was humble, but they are proud; he forgiving, they revengeful; he meek, they fierce, he plain, they gaudy; he abstemious, they luxurious; he chaste, they lascivious; he a pilgrim on earth, they citizens of the world: in fine, he was meanly born, poorly attended, and obscurely brought up: he lived despised, and died hated of the men of his own nation. O you pretended followers of this crucified Jesus! "examine yourselves; try yourselves; know you not your own selves, if he dwell not (if he rule not) in you, that you are reprobates?", be ye not deceived, for God will not be mocked (at last with forced repentances); such as you sow, (such you must) reap in God's day." I beseech you hear me, and remember you were invited and intreated to the salvation of God. I say, as you sow you reap: if you are enemies to the cross of Christ, and you are so,

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