want of those virtues scarce ever appeared in the ruin of families, and a bankrupt was almost an unknown name amongst them: such a man would have borne a long and heavy load of infamy, and have been excommunicated at once, and cast out of the church with abhorrence, in our fathers days, unless he could with the greatest evidence have made it appear, that some sudden overwhelming distress, some ruinous providence, or some surprizing loss had been the occasion of it."

But how stands the case now? Is not bankruptcy reckoned too small a crime amongst the dissenters as well as amongst their neighbours? And that where there can be found no other reason for it, but that they have lived too fast, they have affected the luxuries of life in their dress and furniture, food, equipage and attendance, and would vie with their neighbours in splendor, grandeur and expence, where the circumstances of their estate or trade have not been able to afford it? Or perhaps they have frequented taverns early and late, they have habituated themselves to a morning whet, to prepare for some luxurious dish at noon; they have indulged their pleasures and neglected their shop, they have trifled away their time in idle company, and left the business of the proper hour undone; or it may be they have sought to grow rich at once by plunging themselves into trade and debt beyond all proportion of their own estate, or possibility of pay-. meut, if they should meet with any disappointing accident; and they have too often assumed the character of the wicked, who borrows when he knows not how to pay again, and run on borrowing without end, and without measure, so long as they could find any artifice to support credit; they have supplied their shops with goods, their table with costly provisions, their houses with rich furniture, and their family with shining apparel out of the purse of their credulous neighbour, and perhaps made him pay their heavy scores in the tavern also. A man who should have been found in the practice of half these vices, would never have been called a dissenter in the days of our fathers; and it is a heavy shame, and an insupportable disgrace, that there should be any such characters in our day that should wear the name of a nonconformist: But it is well there is purity of discipline enough in our churches to refuse them at the table of the Lord.

I proceed now to the sixth and last thing wherein the protestant dissenters were wont eminently to distinguish themselves, and that is in their abstaining from those gayer vanities and dangerous diversions of their age, which border so near upon vice and irreligion, that sometimes it is pretty hard to separate them; such are many of our midnight assemblies, midnight balls, lewd and profane comedies, musquerades, public gaming tables and deep play, and such like places and methods of modern diversion, where temptations abound and surprize the unwary, where virtue

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and religion are in extremest hazard, and sometimes receive a sore and lasting wound. In this respect shall I put the question, what do you more than others? It is granted there are some persons of the established church that have avoided these things as well as our fathers the puritans, and in some few families, even of figure and condition, these perilous amusements may be disallowed or seldom frequented: but it was a constant and known mark of a protestant dissenter in former days, to refuse attendance upon any of these kind of diversions, and boldly to deny his company when he was never so much importuned. I hope we have not utterly lost those pieces of puritanism amongst us.

I grant that our present age having run so much greater lengths in liberty than the age of our ancestors, there may be some degrees of allowance, or at least some excuses drawn from the too general custom of others in those things which cannot be certainly proved to be sinful, though they may possibly have a dangerous. appearance and tendency: when a whole age takes large liberties, even persons of sobriety and virtue are under great temptations to extend the limits of their rules of practice? It was a known saying of one of the ancients, that those things might be done by men of virtue among the rabble of Romulus, which ought never to have been done in the republic of Plato. It is granted further that it is hard to prove every one of these diversions I have mentioned to be absolutely and universally unlawful and it is possible that persons of piety and seriousness may give themselves leave, upon just reasons, to attend once or twice in the course of life upon such diversions; perhaps it may be done in order to know what they are, that they may not utterly condemn things which they know nothing of, and that they may pass a judgment concerning them; or upon some other very uncommon occasion and occurrence, where the real service or advantage does plainly overbalance the danger of hurting our own spirits, or of giving a bad example to others.

But upon the whole, it must be confessed, that to make this sort of entertainments a frequent practice, tends greatly to corrupt the savour of piety, and flatten our relish for divine things; it is ready to thrust out the religion of the closet and the family, to weaken the springs of virtue, to take off the guard of the conscience, to sensualize the mind and fill it with vain images, which too often pollute the imagination, and oppress the young seeds of virtue and godliness, that were beginning to spring in the heart. And I am bold to say, that if our fathers were in any degree too rigid and austere in pronouncing these things absolutely criminal and sinful, and in their utter prohibition of themselves and their household from ever once attending upon them; it is certain that we their children are much more criminal in

giving too great a loose to many of these diversions. Can you not name the dissenters who waste that time at a play-house, or a vain assembly of merriment, at a public gaming table, or a dancing room, that time, I say, which belongs to God or their families? Who spend those seasons in late visits and private balls or at cards, whereby evening devotion is excluded utterly? Who can wear out whole hours in these foolish and perilous recreations, and complain they have no time for prayer? Can you point to no persons who are members of dissenting churches, who entice their acquaintance to these vanities? Do you know no mothers who lead their little daughters thither, nor fathers who permit their sons to go without controul? And do they know, or will they not believe, that the road to lewdness and impiety, to ruin and beggary, lies through these scenes of dangerous diversion? The loss of religion, the loss of time, the loss of virtue, the loss of reputation, the loss of estate in many families of the nation, bear a loud and lasting testimony to the dismal influences of these practices, aud, methinks, a protestant dissenter, who professes to maintain greater degrees of purity in public worship, should also be solicitous to keep himself pure from these appearances of evil in public life, and to abstain from those stages of vanity wherein there is so much danger of defilement and mischief.

To sum up all in general, your fathers had an honourable character, and a very great reputation, even among the looser parts of the nation, for strict virtue, for exemplary and sincere godliness beyond the common bulk and multitude of those who called themselves the established church; for if any person appeared to be strictly religious and fearful of indulging any sin or compliance with evil company, if he were scrupulous of any doubtful practice, or attempted to give an admonition to the sons of vice, he was presently called a puritan, or a fanatic, or presbyterian by way of reproach. This honour was a frequent tribute paid by the ungodly world to the superior virtue and merit of your ancestors and their profession of nonconformity. What is become of this your reputation, this honourable character! Have you lost your good name? Have you sold your glory for the indulgence of the follies and vanities of life? Have you fallen into such a neglect of strict religion as leaves no other distinction between you and your neighbours, besides your worship once a week in a different place and manner? It is time, my friends, when religion is sunk into such an universal decay in the nation, it is time to enquire whether we have not suffered it to decay amongst us also, whether we are not sharers in the common degeneracy. It is high time to awaken our souls, and enquire, what do we more than others? If the bulk of the nation be gone far in the neglect of virtue and godliness let us not dare

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to follow the multitude, and make our profession of separation an empty name, and our pretence to purer worship a mere badge of hypocrisy. Let us remember, if God should take up his rod into his hand, to punish a sinful nation with an overflowing scourge, we who follow any of the vicious customs of the age, who conform to the iniquity of the times, and never separate ourselves from the growing ungodliness of the land, shall be mingled with our neighbours in the common calamity and desolation: our profession of a separate and purer communion will but aggravate our guilt. If we do no more than others in the practice of sincere piety, why should we expect to be distinguished from others by any peculiar instances of sparing mercy. SECT. VI. Of the Special Advantages for Piety which

some Persons of all Parties enjoy above Others.

Having ended my survey of the special advantages for improvenient in piety which are found in the separate assemblies of protestant dissenters, above those who generally attend on the worship of the established church, and the special obligations that we lie under to do more than others, I proceed one step further, which shall be the last; aud that is to survey any other peculiar advantages, or peculiar obligations which belong to some persons of all parties among us above their fellows, and to enquire into their behaviour and improvement in practical godliness, whether it has been answerable to the special circumstances of obligation and advantage with which the providence of God has favoured them. And here let it be observed, that though these two general heads of obligation and advantage are often found together, and belong to the same persons; for every advantage lays a special obligation on him that enjoys it; yet for method's sake it may be more proper to treat of them distinctly.

First, What are the advantages which some of every party enjoy above others?

I. I will address myself then to you who have been blest with a more strictly religious parentage, and pious education, among any party of christians whatsoever; and borrowing the words from the lips of our Saviour I would enquire, what do you more than others? You who have been trained up in the forms of godliness from your youngest years, and the nursery has been made as it were a Bethel or a house of God; you have been early taught to read the holy scriptures in which Timothy was instructed from his youth, to the great honour of his mother and grandmother, whose names have an everlasting memorial in the book of God; 2 Tim. i. 5. and iii. 15. You have been nursed up in the constant attendance on the worship of God in the family, and in the public assembly; you have been taught from your infancy to pay honour and respect to every thing that

relates to God and religion; how stands the case with you now? Do you pay more honour to God in the world than is practised by your neighbours ? Do you maintain a greater reverence to things sacred, and do you walk more closely with God? The examples as well as the advices of your parents have been continually set before you; you have been instructed in all the rules of honesty and virtue, of sobriety and kindness, one would expect that you should have been a considerable blessing to the world, and honourable instances of all that is pious towards men under such happy advantages; enquire therefore, what is the frame of your heart, and what has been the conduct of your life? Have you forgot the labours and cares of your parents, and the religious practices which they introduced into your youngest years of life? Are you grown weary of them already? Do you despise all these serious things in the wanton gaiety of your youth, as the follies of childhood, and the errors of the nursery, and the weaknesses of your infant state? This is the reproach, this the scandal which some wild young rebels have insolently cast on all the pious cares of their parents, and the forms of a religious education: but we hope better things of you, and that you have grown up from the lower class of instruction to some of the more manly and advanced lessons of godliness and virtue? Surely you can shew a fair and honourable super-structure, since you had so happy a foundation? Are you not arrived at higher degrees of religion and goodness than your neighbours, since your early blessings did so far exceed theirs? This ought to have been your character, and we hope this has been indeed your practice.

Methinks some of you should say thus to yourselves, " Am I not a branch of an ancient pious family? Am I not a young descendant of the people of God through many generations? What care ought I to take to support the honour of my ancestors, and the dignity of my family in the sight of God and man? It is not enough for me to compare myself with others, and content myself to be as pious and as sober as they are who never enjoyed such early blessings; but I am bound to maintain a visible superiority in the several instances of piety and virtue, if possible, above my neighbours, that the ancient reputation and credit of my name and family among the churches of Christ may not sink into disgrace, or lie buried in forgetfulness, lest the world and the church should join in the deserved reproach and infamy of so degenerate a plant as I am."

Can you not remember the wise counsels and compassionate advices which came daily dropping from a father's lips, and from the fondness of his pious heart? Can you not remember the tender admonitions that a mother has given you rising and going to rest, while she softened every word with a tear of love? Ilave