Twenty-Fifth Argument.

not the same bitter zeal that made the Pharisees and Sadducees among the Jews, and now makes the sects of Ali and Omar among the

Mohammedans, those of the Jansenists and Molinists among the Papists, and those of the Calvinists and Arminians among the Protestants, oppose each other with such acrimony and virulence?

But let us look around us at home. When persecuting Popery had almost expired in the fires in which it burned our first Churchmen, how soon did those who survived them commence persecutors of the Presbyterians? When these, forced to fly to New-England for rest, got there the staff of power in their hand, did they not, in their turn, fall upon and even hang the Quakers? And now that an act of toleration binds the monster, and the lash of pens, consecrated to the defence of our civil and religious liberties, makes him either afraid or ashamed of roaring aloud for his prey; does he not show, by his supercilious looks, malicious sneers, and settled contempt of vital piety, what he would do should an opportunity offer? And does he not still, under artful pretences, go to the utmost length of his chain, to wound the reputation of those whom he cannot devour, and inflict at least academic death f39 upon those whose persons are happily secured from his rage?

O ye unconverted among mankind, if all these abominations every where break out upon you, what cages of unclean birds, what nests swarming with cruel, vipers, are your “deceitful and desperately wicked hearts!” TWENTY-FIFTH ARGUMENT.

How dreadfully fallen is man, if he has not only a propensity to commit the above-mentioned sins, but to transgress the Divine commands with a variety of shocking aggravations! Yes, mankind are prone to sin:— I. Immediately, by a kind of evil instinct: as children, who peevishly strike the very breast they suck, and betray the rage of their little hearts by sobbing and swelling, sometimes till, by forcing their bowels out of their place, they bring a rupture upon themselves; and frequently till they are black in the faces, and almost suffocated.

II. Deliberately, as those who, having life and death clearly set before them, wilfully and obstinately choose the way that leads to certain destruction.

III. Repeatedly: witness liars, who, because their crime costs them but a breath, frequently commit it at every breath.

IV. Continually, as rakes, who would make their whole life one uninterrupted scene of debauchery, if their exhausted strength, or purse, did not force them to intermit their lewd practices; though not without a promise to renew them again at the first convenient opportunity. V. Treacherously, as those Christians who forget Divine mercies and their own repeated resolutions, break through the solemn vows and promises made in their sacraments, and, sinning with a high hand against their profession, perfidiously fly in the face of their conscience, the Church, and their Saviour.

VI. Daringly, as those who steal under the gallows, openly insult their parents or their king, laugh at all laws, human and Divine, and put to defiance all that are invested with power to see them executed. VII. Triumphantly, as the vast number of those who glory in their shame, sound aloud the trumpet of their own wickedness, and boast of their horrid, repeated debaucheries, as admirable and praiseworthy deeds. VIII. Progressively, till they have filled up the measure of their iniquities, as individuals: witness Judas, who, from covetousness proceeded to hypocrisy, theft, treason, despair, and self murder: or, as a nation, witness the Jews, who, after despising and killing their prophets, rejected the Son of God; affirmed he was mad; stigmatized him with the name of deceiver; said he was Beelzebub himself; offered him all manner of indignities; bought his blood; prayed it might be on them and their children; rested not till they had put the Prince of Life to the most ignominious death; and, horrible to say! made sport with the groans which rent the rocks around them, and threw the earth into convulsions under their feet. IX. Unnaturally:

(1.) By astonishing barbarities: as the women who murder their own children; the Greeks and Romans, who exposed them to be the living prey of wild beasts: the savages, who knock their aged parents on the head; the cannibals, who roast and eat their prisoners of war; and some revengeful people, who, to taste all the sweetness