subtilty and rapaciousness, with which (after the example of men*,) they lay wait for, and prey upon one another; to cast a veil over the agonies of millions, that are daily stabbed, strangled, shot, and even flead, boilet, 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, decrepid, 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 embitters 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 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 ideot doomed to perpetual childhood: and yonder the paralytic shakes without intermission, or lie 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 gaols, 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 woe, in some of its most deplorable appearances, prevent you from visiting hospitals, infirmaries.

and bedlams:

* Eager Ambition's fiery chase I see;

I see the circling hunt of noisy men,

Burst Law's inclosure, leap the mounds of Right,
Pursuing and pursued, each others prey!

As wolves for rapine; as the fox for wiles;
Till Death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.

YOUNG.

+ Some for hard masters broken under arms,
In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valour sav'd.

YOUNG.

Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone, and ulcer, cholic pangs,
Dæmoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.
Dire is the tossing! Deep the groans! Despair
Attends the sick, busiest from couch to couch;
And over them, triumphant Death his dart
Shakes; but delays to strike, tho' oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good, and final hope.

23

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 battles: with all the crimes, devastations, and cruelties, that accompany revenge, contention, and war; and you will be obliged to conclude with Job, that corrupt 66 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 lilly 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 aimiable 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 "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 ev ry worldly joy, while all cartbly delights together cannot give us ease under it; so vastly superior is the bitterness of one bodily pain to the swe tness of all the pleasures of sense!

I. objectors still urge, that "sufferings are needful for our trial," I reply, that 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 jus and infinitely good.

However," calamities prove a blessing to some;"-and so does transportation. But who ever 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 mis ries 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.

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 atteudants 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, 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 revels, 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 gulph of eternity.

If this sight does not convince him, I shall open one of the noisome repositories, and shew 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 doated upon. But methinks he turns pale at the very proposal, and, rather than be confronted with such witnesses, acknowledges that be 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 all temporal evils) appointed by human and divine laws for the punishment of capital offenders, whether they are named felons and traitors, or more genteelly called men and sinners? Let matter of fact decide.

Whilst earthly judges condemn murderers and traitors to be hanged or beheaded, does not the Judge of all sentence mankind, either to pine away with old age, or be wasted with consumptions, burned with fevers, scalded with hot humours, eaten up with cancers, putrified with mortifications, suffocated by asthmas, strangled by quinseys, 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 jailor and the turnkey confine the one to his cell; the disorder and the physician 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 physician 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 the greedy undertaker and his party, with like emblems of authority, accompany the other; and if it is any advantage to have a numerous attendance, without comparison, the felon has the greater train.

When the pangs of death are over, does not the difference made between the corpses consist more in appearance than reality? The murderer is dissected in the surgeon's hall gratis, and the rich sinner is emboweled in his own apartment at great expense. The robber, exposed to open air, wastes away in hoops of iron; and the gentleman, confined to a damp vault, moulders away in sheets of lead; and while the fowls of the air greedily prey upon the one, the vermin of the earth eagerly devour the other.

And if you consider them launching into the world of spirits, is not the advantage, in one respect, on the malefactor's side? He is solemnly assured he must die; and when the death-warrant comes down, all about bid him prepare, and make the best of his short time; but the physician and chaplain, friends and attendants, generally flatter the honourable sinner to the last; and what is the consequence? He either sleeps on in carnal security, till death puts an end to all his delusive dreams; or if he has some notion that he must repent, for fear of discomposing his spirits, he still puts it off till to morrow; and in the midst of his delays, God says, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!" What wonder is it then, if, when the converted thief goes from the ignominious tree to paradise, the impenitent rich man passes from his purple bed into an awful eternity, and there lifts up his eyes in unexpected torments?

If these are truths too obvious to be denied, wilt thou, sinner, as the thoughtless vulgar, blunt their edge by saying, with amazing unconcern, "Death is a debt we must all pay to nature?" Alas! this is granting the point; for if all have contracted so dreadful a debt, all are in a corrupt and lost estate. Nor is this debt to be paid to nature, but to justice; otherwise dying would be as easy as sleeping, or any other natural action; but it is beyond expression terrible to thee, from whose soul the Redeemer has not extracted sin, the monster's sting; and if thou dost not see it now in the most alarming light, it is because either thou imaginest it at a great distance; or the double veil of rash presumption and brutish stupidity is yet upon thy hardened heart.

VOL. 1.

E

Or wilt thou, as the poor heathens, comfort thyself with the cruel thought, that "thou shalt not die alone!" Alas! dying companions may increase, but cannot take off the horror of dissolution. Besides, though we live in a crowd, we generally die alone; each must drink that bitter cup, as if he were the only mortal in the universe.

What must we do then, in such deplorable circumstances? What! but humble ourselves in the dust, and bow low to the sceptre of divine justice; confessing, that since the righteous God has condemned us to certain death, and in general to a far more lingering and painful death, than murderers and traitors are made to undergo, we are certainly degenerate creatures and capital offenders, who stand in absolute need of an ALMIGHTY REDEEMER.

Permit me now, candid reader, to make a solemn appeal to thy reason, assisted by the fear of God. From all that has been advanced, does it not appear that man is no more the favoured, happy, and innocent creature he was, when he came out of the hands of his infinitely gracious Creator? And is it not evident that, whether we consider him as born into this disordered world, or dying out of it, or passing from the womb to the grave, under a variety of calamitous circumstances, God's providential dealings with him prove, that he is by nature in a corrupt and lost estate?

A part, how small of this terraqueous globe

Is tenanted by man, the rest a waste,

Rocks, desarts, frozen seas, and burning sands,

Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings and death.
Such is earth's melancholy map; but far

More sad, this earth is a true map of man;
So bounded are its haughty lord's delights

To woe's wide empire, where deep troubles toss,
Loud sorrows howl, envenom'd passions bite,
Ravenous calamities our vitals seize,

And threatening Fate wide opens to devour.

YOUNG.

THIRD PART.

WE have hitherto considered man as a miserable inhabitant of a wretched world. We have seen him surrounded by multitudes of wants ; pursued by legions of distresses, maladies, and woes; arrested by the king of terrors; cast into the grave; and shut up there, the loathsome prey of corruption and worms. Let us now consider him as a moral agent; and, by examining his disposition, character, and conduct, let us see whether he is wisely punished, according to the sentence of impartial justice; or wantonly tormented, at the caprice of arbitrary power.

We cannot help acknowledging, it is highly reasonable, first, that all intelligent creatures should love, reverence, and obey their Creator, because he is most eminently their Father, their Master, and their King; secondly, that they should assist, support, and love each other, as fellowsubjects, fellow-servants, and children of the same universal Parent; and thirdly, that they should preserve their souls and bodies in peace and purity, by which means alone they can be happy in themselves, profitable to man, and acceptable to God. This is what we generally call natural religion, which is evidently founded upon eternal reason, the fitness of things, and the essential relation of persons.

The propriety of these sanctions is so self-evident, that "the Gentiles