command strangely increases their number, and transforms rich men into beggars presently. For, let the danger of their prince and country knock at their purses, and call upon them to contribute against a public enemy or calamity, then immediately they have nothing, and their riches upon such occasions—as Solomon expresses it-never fail to make themselves wings, and fly

away.

To descend to matters of daily and common occurrence; what is more usual in conversation than for men to express their unwillingness to do a thing by saying they cannot do it; and for a covetous man, being asked a little money in private charity, to answer that he has none? Which, as it is, if true, a sufficient answer to God and man; so, false, it is intolerable hypocrisy towards both.

But do men in good earnest think that God will be put off so? or can they imagine that the law of God will be baffled with a lie clothed in a scoff?

For such pretences are no better, as appears from that notable account given us by the apostle of this windy, insignificant charity of the will, and of the worthlessness of it, not enlivened by deeds (James, ii. 15, 16): 'If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?' Profit, does he say? Why, it profits just as much as fair words command the market, as good wishes buy food and raiment, and pass for current payment in the shops. Come to an old rich professing vulpony, and tell him that there is a church to be built, beautified, or endowed in such a place, and that he cannot lay out his money more to God's honour, the public good, and the comfort of his own conscience, than to bestow it liberally upon such an occasion; and, in answer to this, it is ten to one but you shall be told, 'how much God is for the inward, spiritual worship of the heart; and that the Almighty neither dwells nor delights in temples made with hands, but hears and accepts the prayers of his people in dens and caves, barns and stables; and in the homeliest and meanest cottages, as well as in the stateliest and most magnificent churches.' Thus, I say, you are like to be answered. In reply to which, I would have all such sly sanctified cheats-who are so often harping on this string-to know, once for all, that God, who accepts the prayers of his people in dens and caves, barns and stables, when, by his afflicting providence, he has driven them from the appointed places of his solemn worship, so that they cannot have the use of them, will not for all this endure to be served or prayed to by them in such places, nor accept of their barn-worship, nor their hog-sty worship; no, nor yet their parlour or their chamber worship, where he has given them both wealth and power to build churches. For he that commands us to worship him in the spirit, commands us also to honour him with our substance. And never pretend that thou hast a heart to pray while thou hast no heart to give, since he that serves Mammon with his estate cannot possibly serve God with his heart. For as in the heathen worship of God, a sacrifice without a heart was accounted ominous, so, in the Christian worship of him, a heart without a sacrifice is worthless and impertinent.

And thus much for men's pretences of the will when they are called upon to give upon a religious account; according to which, a man may be well enough said-as the common word is to be all heart, and yet the arrantest miser in the world.

But come we now to this rich old pretender to godliness in another case, and tell him that there is such a one, a man of good family, good education, and who has lost all his estate for the king, now ready to rot in prison for debt; come, what will you give towards his release? Why, then answers the will instead of the deed as much the readier speaker of the two: 'The truth is, I always had a respect for such men; I love them with all

my heart; and it is a thousand pities that any that had served the king so faithfully should be in such want.' So say I too, and the more shame is it for the whole nation that they should be so. But still, what will you give? Why, then, answers the man of mouth-charity again, and tells you that 'you could not come in a worse time; that nowadays money is very scarce with him, and that therefore he can give nothing; but he will be sure to pray for the poor gentleman.'

Ah, thou hypocrite! when thy brother has lost all that ever he had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think thus to lick him up again only with thy tongue? Just like that old formal hocus who denied a beggar a farthing, and put him off with his blessing.

Ill-natured and Good-natured Men.

A stanch resolved temper of mind, not suffering a man to sneak, fawn, cringe, and accommodate himself to all humours, though never so absurd and unreasonable, is commonly branded with, and exposed under the character of pride, morosity, and ill-nature: an ugly word, which you may from time to time observe many honest, worthy, inoffensive persons, and that of all sorts, ranks, and professions, strangely and unaccountably worried and run down by. And therefore I think I cannot do truth, justice, and common honesty better service, than by ripping up so malicious a cheat, to vindicate such as have suffered by it.

Certain it is that, amongst all the contrivances of malice, there is not a surer engine to pull men down in the good opinion of the world, and that in spite of the greatest worth and innocence, than this imputation of ill-nature; an engine which serves the ends and does the work of pique and envy both effectually and safely. Forasmuch as it is a loose and general charge upon a man, without alleging any particular reason for it from his life or actions; and consequently does the more mischief, because, as a word of course, it passes currently, and is seldom looked into or examined. And, therefore, as there is no way to prove a paradox or false proposition but to take it for granted, so, such as would stab any man's good name with the accusation of ill-nature, do very rarely descend to proofs or particulars. It is sufficient for their purpose that the word sounds odiously, and is believed easily; and that is enough to do any one's business with the generality of men, who seldom have so much judgment or charity as to hear the cause before they pronounce sentence.

But that we may proceed with greater truth, equity, and candour in this case, we will endeavour to find out the right sense and meaning of this terrible confounding word, ill-nature, by coming to particulars.

And here, first, is the person charged with it false or cruel, ungrateful or revengeful? is he shrewd and unjust in his dealings with others? does he regard no promises, and pay no debts? does he profess love, kindness, and respect to those whom, underhand, he does all the mischief to that possibly he can? is he unkind, rude, or niggardly to his friends? Has he shut up his heart and his hand towards the poor, and has no bowels of compassion for such as are in want and misery? is he insensible of kindnesses done him, and withal careless and backward to acknowledge or requite them? or, lastly, is he bitter and implacable in the prosecution of such as have wronged or abused him?

No; generally none of these ill things-which one would wonder at-are ever meant, or so much as thought of, in the charge of ill-nature; but, for the most part, the clean contrary qualities are readily acknowledged. Ay, but where and what kind of thing, then, is this strange occult quality, called ill-nature, which makes such a thundering noise against such as have the ill-luck to be taxed with it?

Why, the best account that I, or any one else, can give of it, is this: that there are many men in the

world who, without the least arrogance or self-conceit, have yet so just a value both for themselves and others, as to scorn to flatter, and gloze, to fall down and worship, to lick the spittle and kiss the feet of any proud, swelling, overgrown, domineering huff whatsoever. And such persons generally think it enough for them to shew their superiors respect without adoration, and civility without servitude.

Again, there are some who have a certain ill-natured stiffness (forsooth) in their tongue, so as not to be able to applaud and keep pace with this or that self-admiring vainglorious Thraso, while he is pluming and praising himself, and telling fulsome stories in his own commendation for three or four hours by the clock, and at the same time reviling and throwing dirt upon all mankind besides.

There is also a sort of odd ill-natured men, whom neither hopes nor fears, frowns nor favours, can prevail upon to have any of the cast, beggarly, forlorn nieces or kinswomen of any lord or grandee, spiritual or temporal, trumped upon them.

To which we may add another sort of obstinate illnatured persons, who are not to be brought by any one's guilt or greatness to speak or write, or to swear or lie, as they are bidden, or to give up their own consciences in a compliment to those who have none them

could befall him; he would fly to the mines and galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted pleasure. But, on the contrary, the providence of God has so ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness of which has made it the matter of duty and of a profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it without loathing and satiety. The same shop and trade that employs a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every morning he rises fresh to his hammer and anvil; he passes the day singing; custom has naturalised his labour to him; his shop is his element, and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself live out of it.

Religion not Hostile to Pleasure.

selves.

And first, when great ones vouchsafe this endearing eulogy to those below them, a good-natured man generally denotes some slavish, glavering, flattering parasite, or hanger-on; one who is a mere tool or instrument; a fellow fit to be sent upon any malicious errand; a setter, or informer, made to creep into all companies; a wretch employed under a pretence of friendship or acquaintance, to fetch and carry, and to come to men's tables to play the Judas there; and, in a word, to do all those mean, vile, and degenerous offices which men of greatness and malice use to engage men of baseness and treachery in.

But then, on the other hand, when this word passes between equals, commonly by a good-natured man is meant either some easy, soft-headed piece of simplicity, who suffers himself to be led by the nose, and wiped of his conveniences by a company of sharping, worthless sycophants, who will be sure to despise, laugh, and droll at him, as a weak empty fellow, for all his ill-placed cost and kindness. And the truth is, if such vermin do not find him empty, it is odds but in a little time they will make him so. And this is one branch of that which some call good-nature-and good-nature let it be -indeed so good, that according to the wise Italian proverb, it is even good for nothing.

Or, in the next place, by a good-natured man is usually meant neither more nor less than a good-fellow, a painful, able, and laborious soaker. But he who owes all his good-nature to the pot and pipe, to the jollity and compliances of merry company, may possibly go to bed with a wonderful stock of good-nature overnight, but then he will sleep it all away again before the morning.

The Pleasures of Amusement and Industry Compared. Nor is that man less deceived that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of pleasure by a continual pursuit of sports and recreations. The most voluptuous and loose person breathing, were he but tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment and calamity that

Now, amongst those many arguments used to press upon men the exercise of religion, I know none that are like to be so successful as those that answer and remove the prejudices that generally possess and bar up the hearts of men against it: amongst which there is none so prevalent in truth, though so little owned in pretence, as that it is an enemy to men's pleasures, that it bereaves them of all the sweets of converse, dooms them to an absurd and perpetual melancholy, designing to make the world nothing else but a great monastery; with which notion of religion, nature and reason seem to have great cause to be dissatisfied. For since God never created any faculty, either in soul or body, but withal prepared for it a suitable object, and that in order to its gratification, can we think that religion was designed only for a contradiction to nature, and with the greatest and most irrational tyranny in the world, to tantalise and tie men up from enjoyment, in the midst of all the opportunities of enjoyment? to place men with the furious affections of hunger and thirst in the very bosom of plenty, and then to tell them that the envy of Providence has sealed up everything that is suitable under the character of unlawful? For certainly, first to frame appetites fit to receive pleasure, and then to interdict them with a 'touch not, taste not,' can be nothing else than only to give them occasion to devour and prey upon themselves, and so to keep men under the perpetual torment of an unsatisfied desire; a thing hugely contrary to the natural felicity of the creature, and consequently to the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator.

He, therefore, that would persuade men to religion both with art and efficacy, must found the persuasion of it upon this, that it interferes not with any rational pleasure, that it bids nobody quit the enjoyment of any one thing that his reason can prove to him ought to be enjoyed. 'Tis confessed, when, through the cross circumstances of a man's temper or condition, the enjoyment of a pleasure would certainly expose him to a greater inconvenience, then religion bids him quit it; that is, it bids him prefer the endurance of a lesser evil before a greater, and nature itself does no less. Religion, therefore, intrenches upon none of our privileges, invades none of our pleasures; it may, indeed, sometimes command us to change, but never totally to abjure them.

dare undertake to convince those men who are most apt to complain of the shortness of life, that it would not be for the general happiness of mankind to have it much longer: for, 1st, The world is at present very unequally divided; some have a large share and portion of it, others have nothing but what they can earn by very hard labour, or extort from other men's charity by their restless importunities, or gain by more ungodly arts. Now, though the rich and prosperous, who have the world at command, and live in ease and pleasure, would be very well contented to spend some hundred years in this world, yet should think fifty or threescore years abundantly enough for slaves and beggars; enough to spend in hunger and want, in a jail and a prison. And those who are so foolish as not to think this enough, owe a great deal to the wisdom and goodness of God that he does. So that the greatest part of mankind have great reason to be contented with the shortness of life, because they have no temptation to wish it longer.

2dly, The present state of this world requires a more quick succession. The world is pretty well peopled, and is divided amongst its present inhabitants; and but very few, in comparison, as I observed before, have any considerable share in the division. Now, let us but suppose that all our ancestors, who lived a hundred or two hundred years ago, were alive still, and possessed their old estates and honours, what had become of this present generation of men, who have now taken their places, and make as great a show and bustle in the world as they did? And if you look back three, or four, or five hundred years, the case is still so much the worse; the world would be over-peopled; and where there is one poor miserable man now, there must have been five hundred; or the world must have been common, and all men reduced to the same level; which, I believe, the rich and happy people, who are so fond of long life, would not like very well. This would utterly undo our young prodigal heirs, were their hopes of succession three or four hundred years off, who, as short as life is now, think their fathers make very little haste to their graves. This would spoil their trade of spending their estates before they have them, and make them live a dull sober life, whether they would or no; and such a life, I know, they don't think worth having. And, therefore, I hope at least they will not make the shortness of their fathers' lives an argument against providence; and yet such kind of sparks as these are commonly the wits that set up for atheism, and, when it is put into their heads, quarrel with everything which they fondly conceive will weaken the belief of a God and a providence, and, among other things, with the shortness of life; which they have little reason to do, when they so often outlive their estates.

3dly, The world is very bad as it is; so bad, that good men scarce know how to spend fifty or threescore years in it; but consider how bad it would probably be, were the life of man extended to six, seven, or eight hundred years. If so near a prospect of the other world as forty or fifty years cannot restrain men from the greatest villainies, what would they do if they could as reasonably suppose death to be three or four hundred years off? If men make such improvements in wickedness in twenty or thirty years, what would they do in hundreds? And what a blessed place then would this world be to live in! We see in the old world, when the life of men was drawn out to so great a length, the wickedness of mankind grew so insufferable, that it repented God he had made man; and he resolved to destroy that whole generation, excepting Noah and his family. And the most probable account that can be given how they came to grow so universally wicked, is the long and prosperous lives of such wicked men, who by degrees corrupted others, and they others, till there was but one righteous family left, and no other remedy left but to destroy them all; leaving only that righteous family as the seed and future hopes of the new world.

And when God had determined in himself, and promised to Noah never to destroy the world again by such a universal destruction, till the last and final judgment, it was necessary by degrees to shorten the lives of men, which was the most effectual means to make them more governable, and to remove bad examples out of the world, which would hinder the spreading of the infection, and people and reform the world again by new examples of piety and virtue. For when there are such quick successions of men, there are few ages but have some great and brave examples, which give a new and better spirit to the world.

Advantages of our Ignorance of the Time of Death.

For a conclusion of this argument, I shall briefly vindicate the wisdom and goodness of God in concealing from us the time of our death. This we are very apt to complain of, that our lives are so very uncertain, that we know not to-day but that we may die to-morrow; and we would be mighty glad to meet with any one who would certainly inform us in this matter how long we are to live. But if we think a little better of it, we shall be of another mind.

For, 1st, Though I presume many of you would be glad to know that you shall certainly live twenty, or thirty, or forty years longer, yet would it be any comfort to know that you must die to-morrow, or some few months, or a year or two hence? which may be your case for aught you know; and this, I believe, you are not very desirous to know; for how would this chill your blood and spirits! How would it overcast all the pleasures and comforts of life! You would spend your days like men under the sentence of death, while the execution is suspended.

Did all men who must die young certainly know it, it would destroy the industry and improvements of half mankind, which would half destroy the world, or be an insupportable mischief to human societies; for what man who knows that he must die at twenty, or five-andtwenty, a little sooner or later, would trouble himself with ingenious or gainful arts, or concern himself any more with this world than just to live so long in it? And yet, how necessary is the service of such men in the world! What great things do they many times do! and what great improvements do they make! How pleasant and diverting is their conversation, while it is innocent! How do they enjoy themselves, and give life and spirit to the graver age! How thin would our schools, our shops, our universities, and all places of education be, did they know how little time many of them were to live in the world! For would such men concern themselves to learn the arts of living, who must die as soon as they have learnt them? Would any father be at a great expense in educating his child, only that he might die with a little Latin and Greek, logic and philosophy? No; half the world must be divided into cloisters and nunneries, and nurseries for the grave.

Well, you'll say, suppose that; and is not this an advantage above all the inconveniences you can think of, to secure the salvation of so many thousands who are now eternally ruined by youthful lusts and vanities, but would spend their days in piety and devotion, and make the next world their only care, if they knew how little while they were to live here?

Right: I grant this might be a good way to correct the heat and extravagances of youth, and so it would be to shew them heaven and hell; but God does not think fit to do either, because it offers too much force and violence to men's minds; it is no trial of their virtue, of their reverence for God, of their conquests and victory over this world by the power of faith, but makes religion a matter of necessity, not of choice: now, God will force and drive no man to heaven; the gospel dispensation is the trial and discipline of ingenuous spirits; and if the certain hopes and fears of