their lot much preferable? A sultry air, and clouds of smoke and dust, are the element in which they labour. The confused noise of water falling, steam hissing, fire engines working, wheels turning, files creak. ing, hammers beating, ore bursting, and bellows roaring, form the dismal concert that strikes the ears; while a continual eruption of flames ascending from the mouth of their artificial volcanoes, dazzle their eyes with a horrible glare. Massy bars of hot iron are the heavy tools they handle; cylinders of the first magnitude the enormous weights they heave; vessels full of melted metal the dangerous loads they carry; streams of the same burning fluid the fiery rivers which they conduct into the deep cavities of the subterraneous moulds; and millions of flying sparks, with a thousand drops of liquid, hissing iron, the horrible showers to which they are exposed. See them cast; you would think them in a bath, and not in a furnace; they bedew the burning sand with their streaming sweat. Nor are their wet garments dried up, either by the fierce fires that they attend, or the fiery streams which they manage. Certainly, of all men, these have reason to remember the just sentence of an offended God: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life." All indeed do not go through the same toil; but all have their share of it, either in body or in mind. Behold the studious son of learning; his intense application hath wasted his flesh, exhausted his spirits, and almost dried up his radical moisture. Consider the man of fortune; can his thousands a year exempt him from the curse of Adam? No: he toils perhaps harder, in his sports and debaucheries, than the poor ploughman that cultivates his estate. View that corpulent epicure who idles away the whole day between the festal board and the dozing couch. You may think that he, at least, is free from the curse which I describe: but you are mistaken. While he is living, as he thinks, a life of luxurious ease and gentle inactivity, he fills himself with crude humours, and makes way for the gnawing gout and racking gravel. See, even now, how strongly he perspires, and with what uneasiness he draws his short breath and wipes his dewy shining face: surely he toils under the load of an undigested meal. A porter carries a burden upon his brawny shoulders, but this wretch has conveyed one into his sick stomach. He will not work; let him alone, and ere long acute pains will bathe him in as profuse a sweat as that of the furnace man; and strong medicines will exercise him to such a degree that he will envy even the collier's lot. It is evident, therefore, that mankind are under a curse of toil and sweat,* according to the Divine sentence recorded by Moses; and that they are frequently condemned by Providence to as hard labour for life as wretched felons rowing in the galleys or digging in the mines. But * It has been asserted that the short pleasure of eating and drinking makes amends for the severest toil. The best way to bring such idle sensual objectors to reason would be to make them earn every meal by two or three hours' thrashing. Beside, what great pleasure can those have in eating, who actually starve, or, to just stay gnawing hunger, buy food coarser than that which their rich neighbours give to their dogs? + God's image disinherited of day, Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made; 1 as it is absolutely incredible that a good God, who by a word can supply the wants of all his creatures, should have sentenced innocent mankind to these inconceivable hardships to procure or enjoy the necessaries of life, it is evident they are guilty, miserable offenders. TENTH ARGUMENT. Hard labour and sweat make up but one of the innumerable calamities incident to the wretched inhabitants of this world. Turn your eyes which way you please, and you will see some flying from others groaning under the rod of God; and the greatest number busily making a scourge for the backs of their fellow creatures or their own. To pass over the misery of the brute creation: to say nothing of the subtlety and rapaciousness with which (after the example of men*) they lie in wait for and prey upon one another; to cast a veil over the agonies of millions that are daily stabbed, strangled, shot, and even flayed, boiled, or swallowed up alive for the support of man's life, or the indulgence of his luxury: and not to mention again the almost uninterrupted cries of feeble infancy, only take notice of the tedious confinement of childhood, the blasted schemes of youth, the anxious cares of riper years, and the deep groans of wrinkled, decrepit, tottering old age. Fix your attention on family trials; here a prodigal father ruins his children, or undutiful children break the hearts of their fond = parents! There an unkind husband imbitters the life of his wife, or an imprudent wife stains the honour of her husband: a servant disobeys, a relation misbehaves, a son lies ill, a tenant breaks, a neighbour provokes, a rival supplants, a friend betrays, or an enemy triumphs. Peace seldom =continues one day. Listen to the sighs of the afflicted, the moans of the disconsolate, the complaints of the oppressed, and shrieks of the tortured. Consider the deformity of the faces of some, and distortion or mutilation of the limbs of others. To awaken your compassion,† here a beggar holds out the stump of a thigh or an arm: there a ragged wretch hops after you upon one leg and two crutches; and a little farther you meet with a poor creature using his hands instead of feet, and dragging through the mire the cumbrous weight of a body without lower parts. Imagine, if possible, the hardships of those who are destitute of one of their senses: here the blind is guided by a dog, or gropes for his way in the blaze of noon; there the deaf lies on the brink of danger, inattentive to the loudest calls: here sits the dumb, sentenced to eternal silence; there dribbles the idiot, doomed to perpetual childhood; and yonder the paralytic shakes without intermission, or lies senseless, the frightful image of a living corpse. Leaving these wretched creatures, consider the tears of the disappointed, the sorrows of the captives, the anxieties of the accused, the fears of the guilty, and terrors of the condemned. Take a turn through jails, inquisitions, houses of correction, and places of execution. Proceed to the mournful rooms of the languishing and wearisome beds of the sick and let not the fear of seeing human wo, in some of its most deplorable appearances, prevent you from visiting hospitals, infirmaries, and bedlams : A place Before our eyes appears, sad, noisome, dark, MILTON. To close the horrible prospect, view the ruins of cities and kingdoms, the calamities of wrecks and sieges, the horrors of sea fights and fields of battle; with all the crimes, devastations, and cruelties that accompany revenge, contention, and war; and you will be obliged to conclude with Job, that corrupt "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;" with David, that "the earth is full of darkness and cruel habitations;" and with every impartial inquirer, that our depravity and God's justice concur to make this world a "vale of tears" as well as a field of toil and sweat. A vast prison for rebels already "tied with the chains of their sins," a boundless scaffold for their execution, a Golgotha, an Aceldama, an immense field of torture and blood. Some will probably say, "This picture of the world is drawn with black lines, but kinder Providence blends light and shade together, and tempers our calamities with numberless blessings." I answer: it cannot be too thankfully acknowledged, that while patience suspends the stroke of justice, God, for Christ's sake, restores us a thousand forfeited blessings, that his goodness may lead us to repentance. But, alas! what is the consequence where Divine grace does not prove victorious over corrupt nature? To all our sins do we not add the crime of either enjoying the favours of Providence with the greatest ingratitude, or of abusing them with the most provoking insolence? Our actions are far more expressive of our real sentiments than our words. "Why this variety of exquisite food?" says the voluptuary, whose life loudly speaks what his lips dare not utter: "why this abundance of delicious wines, but to tempt my unbridled appetite and please my luxurious palate ?" "Would God have given softness to silks, brightness to colours, and lustre to diamonds?" says the self. applauding smile of a foolish virgin who worships herself in a glass: "would he have commanded the white of the lily thus to meet the blush of the rose, and heighten so elegant a proportion of features, if he had not designed that the united powers of art, dress, and beauty, should make me share his Divine honours ?" "Why are we blessed with dear children and amiable friends," says the ridiculous behaviour of fond parents and raptured lovers, "but that we should suspend our happiness on their ravishing smiles, and place them as favourite idols in the shrine of our hearts?" "And why has Heaven favoured me both with a strong constitution and an affluent fortune," says the rich slave of brutish lusts, "but that I may drink deeper of earthly joys and sensual delights?" Thus blessings, abused or unimproved, become curses in our hands. God's indulgence encourages us to offend him: we have the fatal skill of extracting poison from the sweetest flowers, and madly turn the gifts of Providence into weapons to attack our benefactor and destroy ourselves. That there are then such perverted gifts does not prove that mankind are innocent; but that God's patience " endureth yet daily," and that a Saviour "ever liveth to make intercession for us." Should it be farther objected, that "our pleasures counterbalance our calamities;" I answer, The greatest part of mankind are so oppressed with want and cares, toil and sickness, that their intervals of ease may rather be termed "an alleviation of misery" than "an enjoyment of happiness." Our pains are real and lasting, our joys imaginary and momentary. Could we exercise all our senses upon the most pleasing objects, the tooth ache would render all insipid and burthensome: a fit of the gout alone damps every worldly joy, while all earthly delights =together cannot give us ease under it so vastly superior is the bitterness of one bodily pain to the sweetness of all the pleasures of sense! If objectors still urge that " sufferings are needful for our trial;" I reply, They are necessary for our punishment and correction, but not for our trial. A good king can try the loyalty of his subjects without putting them to the rack. Let Nero and Bonner try the innocent by all sorts of tortures, but let not their barbarity be charged upon a God strictly just and infinitely good. : However," calamities prove a blessing to some;" and so does transportation but whoever inferred from thence that reformed felons were transported for the trial of their virtue, and not for the punishment of their crimes? I conclude, therefore, that our calamities and miseries demonstrate our corruption as strongly as the punishments of the bastinado and pillory, appointed by an equitable judge, prove the guilt of those on whom they are frequently and severely inflicted. ELEVENTH ARGUMENT. Would to God the multiplied calamities of life were a sufficient punishment for our desperate wickedness! But, alas! they only make way for the pangs of death. Like traitors, or rather like wolves and vipers, to which the Son of God compares natural men, we are all devoted to destruction. Yes, as we kill those mischievous creatures, so God destroys the sinful sons of men. VOL. III. 18 If the reader is offended, and denies the mortifying assertion, let him visit with me the mournful spot where thousands are daily executed, and where hundreds make this moment their dying speech. I do not mean what some call "the bed of honour," a field of battle, but a common death bed. Observing, as we go along, those black trophies of the king of terrors, those escutcheons which preposterous vanity fixes up in honour of the deceased, when kind charity should hang them out as a warning to the living let us repair to those mournful apartments where weeping attendants support the dying, where swooning friends embrace the dead, or whence distracted relatives carry out the pale remains of all their joy. Guided by their groans and funeral lights let us proceed to the dreary charnel houses and calvaries, which we decently call vaults and church yards; and without stopping to look at the monuments of some, whom my objector remembers as vigorous as himself; and of others who were perhaps his partners in nightly revel; let us hasten to see the dust of his mouldered ancestors, and to read upon yonder coffins the dear name of a parent, a child, perhaps a wife, turned off from his bosom into the gulf of eternity. If this sight does not convince him, I shall open one of the noisome repositories, and show him the deep hollow of those eyes that darted tender sensation into his soul; and odious reptiles fastening upon the once charming, now ghastly face, he doted upon. But methinks he turns pale at the very proposal, and rather than be confronted with such witnesses, acknowledges that he is condemned to die, with all his dear relatives, and the whole human race. And is this the case? Are we then under sentence of death? How awful is the consideration! Of all the things that nature dreads, is not death the most terrible? And is it not (as being the greatest of temporal evils) appointed by human and Divine laws for the punishment of capi tal offenders; whether they are named felons and traitors, or more genteelly called men and sinners? Let matter of fact decide. While earthly judges condemn murderers and traitors to be hanged or beheaded, does not "the Judge of all" sentence sinful mankind either to pine away with old age, or be wasted with consumptions, burned with fevers, scalded with hot humours, eaten up with cancers, putrefied by mortifications, suffocated by asthmas, strangled by quinsies, poisoned by the cup of excess, stabbed with the knife of luxury, or racked to death by disorders as loathsome and accidents as various as their sins? If you consider the circumstances of their execution, where is the material difference between the malefactor and the sinner? The jailer and the turnkey confine the one to his cell: the disorder and the physi cian confine the other to his bed. The one lives upon bread and water: the other upon draughts and boluses. The one can walk with his fetters: the other loaded with blisters can scarcely turn himself. The one enjoys freedom from pain, and has the perfect use of his senses: the other complains he is racked all over, and is frequently delirious. The executioner does his office upon the one in a few minutes: but the physi cian and his medicines make the other linger for days before he can die out of his misery. An honest sheriff and constables, armed with staves, wait upon one; while a greedy undertaker and his party, with like |