ingenuous one: and this obfervation of the tempers of parents delivered down to their offfpring is moft commonly found to be true, when the fame good or evil turn of nature happens to meet alike in both the authors of their birth.

From hence it may be gathered, that fince difpofitions to particular evil habits are derived to fome men from their birth, difpofitions likewise to evil in general may run down in the fame natural channel: The thing is feen to be effected in fome inftances, and this fhews, that it is poffible in others: And from hence we may fee at the fame time, that the goodness of God is not to be impeached for his having given to us a power, which men have abused contrary to his intention, and without which power no virtues of theirs could poffibly have any worth

or value in them.

Thus came fin into the world, in a way very unhappy for us all, who feel the effects of it lurking like a poifon in our nature: but to fet it in a ferment, and make it operate, other causes have contributed, particularly our paffions, called lufts in the New Testament. These God gave us for good purposes; love, for VOL. I. N inftance,

instance, to be the support of society; hatred for the discouragement of vice and ill manners; hope for a comfortable cordial in calamities, and fear for the firm principle of self preservation. But it is our misfortune, I should say more truly, it is our fault, that we are apt to mifapply these means which were chiefly defigned for fpiritual ones, and to fteal, as it were, a part of the flock out of the pastures of religion, that we may make a profane facrifice of them to our irregular appetites.

Since ftates have been formed and kingdoms established in the world, the paffions of men, though generally restrained from open acts of violence, have worked very mifchievously in the more private way. Every man's property is fecured to him by laws: the ordinary way now to be rich, and even to get a bare subsistis labour and induftry; the regular means of attaining to honour and power is fuperior merit in promoting the public good. But the flothful are tempted to rob, and the ambitious to be falfe: both of them are carried to acts of injuftice, because they cannot obtain their ends, the one a fupply of his natural wants, the other a fupply of his vanity, without breaking through

ence,

the

179 the moral rules of fociety, which fecure to the owners their fubftance, and make virtue the only legal road to honour. If to the love of riches and honour we add another great source of moral evil, viz. pleasure, which under the pretence of befriending nature, often draws men afide from their duty, we shall have in our view the chief caufes, which fet our paffions to work in the way the most differviceable to religion. Sin, erected on one or more of these three arches, becomes a mighty fuperftructure, under the covert of which all thofe generally live, who have nothing for their guide but their own reason, and nothing for their strength but their own paffions.

When the feeds of fin were thus fown in men's nature, and their warm paffions, like a warm fun, had raised them up and ripened them into actual guilt, then came fashion and cuftom, the effects of numerous examples, to fettle and establish men, as it were, in habits of iniquity: habits fo ftrong, that men were brought to fin even in full fight of their duty. All fenfe of fhame was taken off, when there were few to find fault, and many, whose behaviour was equally bad, and therefore greatly

encouraging. The voice of reafon, telling them, that they were going wrong, was ftill left in men; but then that voice was but a feeble one, fcarcely more than a whisper; as if their reafon was afraid to fpeak out, and cared not to be loud, where it knew, that the vicious habits were much louder, and more clamorous to be heard.

We may now fee how a man left to nature only, may act against his knowledge, may, as St. Paul expreffes it a little before my text, have a law in his members warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into captivity to the law of fin; how it comes to pass, that fuch a man may find a law, that, when he would do good, evil is prefent with him: and we may now fee how miferable the condition of fuch an unregenerate man is.

St. Paul, perfonating one under thefe unhappy circumstances, might well cry out, O wretched man, that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? To have his mind or his reafon drawing him one way, and his appetites and fenfual inclinations another way, is a fad condition to a man, who has his confcience reproaching him at every step he takes.

To

To fee his duty, which he knows he should follow, and yet to leave it without any the least regard; to fee fin and guilt, which he knows he should avoid, and yet to run into the very arms of it; how bad muft this be to a man, who makes any reflection upon what God or himself is, upon what a vile flavery it is to be thus fubject to the irrational part of him, his infirmities and corruptions? But worst of all is his ftate, when he confiders, that fuch actions bring forth fruit unto death. If death, fpiritual death is to be the recompenfe of all unrighteousness, then he is wretched indeed. Guilty and felf-condemned he stands, preffed on all fides with the weight and force of finful habits, and having no expectation but that fearful one of being to give an account to a just and holy God, whom he has offended. If such a man, so fenfible of what he is doing amiss, and what he is preparing for himself against the day of vengeance, cries out and bemoans his condition, it is but justice to himfelf: Prayers and tears, remorfe and terrors of mind are his portion, and all that Nature can