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as it oft doth, make us uncharitable. When a whole generation is taxed for untowardness, think not that none are free. No, not one; saith the Psalmist, by way of fervent aggravation. All seek their own, saith the Apostle; all, in comparison. But, never times were so overgrown with iniquity, as that God hath not left himself some gracious remainders: when the thievish Chaldæans and Sabaæans have done their worst, there shall be a messenger, to say, I am escaped. Never was harvest or vintage so curiously inned, that some gleanings were not left in the field; some clusters among the leaves. But these few, if they may give a blessing to the times, yet they cannot give a style: the denomination still follows the greater, though the worse, part: let these be never so good, the Generation is, and is noted for evil.

Let me, therefore, here commend to your better thoughts these three emergent considerations. (1.) The irreparable Wrong and Reproach, that lewd men bring upon the very ages and nations where they live. (2.) The Difference of Times and Ages, in respect of the degrees of evil. (3.) The Warrant of the Free Censure of ill-deserving times or nations.

(1.) It were happy, if the injury of a wicked man could be confined to his own bosom; that he only should fare the worse for his sins: si de ráda, &c. as the Greek rule runs; if it were but "selfdo, self-have," as the old word is. But, as his lewdness is, like some odious scent, diffused through the whole room where he is: so it reacheth to earth and heaven; yea, to the very times and generations, upon which he is unhappily fallen.

Doubtless, there were many worthy saints in these very times of St. Peter. There was the Blessed Mother of Christ, the paragon of Sanctity: there was a bevy of those devout and holy dames, that attended the doctrine, bewailed the death, and would have embalmed the corpse of our Blessed Saviour: there were the twelve Apostles; the seventy Disciples; the hundred and twenty names, that were met in one room at Jerusalem, Acts i. 15; the five hundred brethren, that saw Christ after his glorious and victorious Resurrection; besides those many thousands, that believed through their word in all the parts of Judea and Galilee: yet, for all that, the Apostle brands this with axolà yeveà, an untoward generation.

It is not in the virtue of a few, to drown the wickedness of the more. If we come into a field, that hath some good plenty of corn, and some store of weeds, though it be red with poppy, or yellow with carlock, or blue with wild-bottles or scabious; we still call it a corn-field: but, if we come into a barn-floor, and see some few grains scattered amongst a heap of chaff; we do not call it a corn-heap; the quantity of the offal devours the mention of those insensible grains. Thus it is with times and nations: A little good is not seen amongst much ill: a righteous Lot cannot make his city to be no Sodom. Wickedness, as it helps to corrupt, so to shame a very age.

The orator Tertullus, when he would plead against Paul, says. We have found this man λoyuòv, a pestilence; Acts xxiv. 5. Foolish

Tertullus! that mistook the antidote for the poison, the remedy for the disease. But, had St. Paul been such as thy misprision supposed him, he had been such as thy unjust crimination now makes thyself, nouuds, the plague of thy people.

A wicked man is a perfect contagion: he infects the world with sin, the very age with infamy. Malus vir, malum publicum, is not a more old than true word. Are there then, in any nation under heaven, lewd miscreants, whose hearts are atheists, whose tongues are blasphemers, whose bodies are stews, whose lips are nothing but a factory of close villiany? let them please themselves, and let others, if ye will, applaud them for their beneficial contributions to the public affairs, in the style of bonus civis, "a good patriot," as men whose parts may be useful to the weal-public; yet, I say, such men are no better than the bane of their country, the stain of their age. Turpis est pars, quæ suo toti non convenit, as Gerson well: it is an ill member, for which all the body fares the worse.

Hear this then, ye Glorious Sinners, that brag of your good affections and faithful services to your dear country: your hearts, your heads, your purses, your hands, ye say, are pressed for the public good; yea, but are your hearts godless? are your lives filthy? let me tell you, your sins do more disservice to your nation, than yourselves are worth. All your valour, wisdom, subsidiary helps cannot counterpoise one dram of your wickedness. Talk what ye will : Sin is a shame to any people, saith wise Solomon: ye bring both a curse and a dishonour upon your nation. It may thank you, for the hateful style of anona yeyeà, a froward genera

tion. This for our First observation.

(2.) Never generation was so straight, as not to be distorted with some powerful sins: but there are differences and degrees in

this distortion.

Even in the very first world were giants, as Moses tells us; Gen. vi. 4: which, as our mythologists add, did seoμaxeiv, "bid battle to heaven." In the next, there were mighty hunters, proud Babelbuilders: after them, followed beastly Sodomites. It were easy to draw down the pedigree of evils through all times, till we come to these last, which the Holy Ghost marks out for perilous.

Yet some generation is more eminently sinful than other: as the sea is in perpetual agitation, yet the spring-tides rise higher than their fellows.

Hence St. Peter notes this his generation with an emphasis of mischief, Tns yves Turns : here is a transcendency of evil. What age may compare with that, which hath embrued their cruel hands ́ in the blood of the Son of God?

That Roaring Lion is never still; but there are times, wherein he rageth more: as he did and doth, in the first, in the last days of the Gospel. The first, that he might block up the way of saving truth; the last, for that he knows his time is short. There are times, that are poisoned with more contagious heresies, with more remarkable villainies.

It is not my meaning to spend time in abridging the sacred

Chronologies of the Church; and to deduce along the cursed successions of damnable errors from their hellish original: only let me touch at the notable difference, betwixt the first and the last world. In the first, as Epiphanius observes, όπω ἑτεροδοξία, ὅπω ὄνομα αἱρέσεως, εδὲ εἰδωλολατρεία; there was “ neither diversity of opinion, nor mention of heresy, nor act of idolatry:" μóvov dœébaa nai évrέßaz; "only piety and impiety" divided the world: whereas now, in the last, which is the wrangling and techy dotage of the decrepit world, here is nothing, but unquiet clashings of opinion; nothing, but foul heresy, either maintained by the guilty, or imputed to the innocent; nothing, but gross idolatry, in paganism, in misbelieving Christianity; and, woe is me that I must say it! a coloured impiety shares too much of the rest.

(3.) My speech is glided, ere I was aware, into the Third head of our discourse; and is suddenly fallen upon the practice of that, which St. Peter's example here, warrants, the censure of ill-deserv ing times which I must crave leave of your Honourable and Christian patience, with a holy and just freedom to prosecute.

It is the peevish humour of a factious eloquence, to aggravate the evils of the times: which, were they better than they are, would be therefore cried down in the ordinary language of male contented spirits, because present. But, it is the warrantable and necessary duty of St. Peter and all his true Evangelical successors, when they meet with a froward generation, to call it so.

How commonly do we cry out of those querulous Micaiahs, that are still prophesying evil to us, and not good! No theme, but sins; no sauce, but vinegar.

Might not one of these galled Jews of St. Peter's auditory have started up, and have thus challenged him for this tartness; "What means this hard censure? why do you slander the time? Solomon was a wise man, and he says, Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this: this is but a needless rigour: this is but an envious calumny: the generation were not untoward, if your tongue were not uncharitable."

The Apostle fear none of these currish oblatrations; but, contemning all impotent misacceptions, calls them what he finds them, A froward generation.

And well might he do so: his Great Master did it before him, an evil and adulterous generation; and the Harbinger of that Great Master fore-ran him in that censure, O generation of vipers; Matt. iii. 7: and the prophets led the same way to him, in every page.

And why do not we follow Peter in the same steps, wherein Peter followed Christ, and Christ his fore-runner, and his forerunner the prophets? Who should tell the times of their sins, if we be silent? Pardon me, I beseech you, most Noble, Reverend, and Beloved Hearers: necessity is laid upon me. In this day of our public mourning, I may not be as a man in whose mouth are no reproofs. Oh, let us be thankful for our blessings, wherein

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through the mercy of God, we outstrip all the nations under heaven; but, withal, let us bewail our sins, which are so much more grievous, because ours. Would to God, it were no less unjust than unpleasing, to complain of this as an untoward generation. There be four things, that are wont both to make up and evince the pravity of any generation: woe is me that they are too apparently met in this! Multitude of sins, Magnitude of sin, Boldness of sin, Impunity of sinning. Take a short view of them all. You shall see, that the Multitude is such, as that it hath covered the earth; the Magnitude such, as hath reached to heaven; the Boldness such, as out-faceth the Gospel; the Impunity such, as frustrates the wholesome laws under which we live.

For the Multitude, where is the man, that makes true conscience of any the laws of his God? And, if every man violate all the laws of God, what do all put together? Our forefathers' sins were but as drops: ours, are as torrents. Instance in some few. Cannot we ourselves remember, since a debauched drunkard was an owl among birds, a beast of men, a monster of beasts, abhorred of men, shouted at by children? Is this sight now any news to us? Is not every tavern a sty of such swine? Is not every street indented with their shameful staggerings? Is there not now as much spent in wanton smoke, as our honest forefathers spent in substantial hospitality? Cannot we remember, since oaths were so geason and uncouth, that their sound startled the hearer; as amazed at the strange language of treason against the God of Heaven? Now, they fill every mouth; and beat every ear, in a neglected familiarity. What should I tell you of the overgrown frequence of oppressions, extortions, injurious and fraudulent transactions, malicious suits? The neighbour walls of this famous adjoining palace can too amply witness this truth; whose roof, if, as they say, it will admit of no spiders, I am sure the floor of it yields venom enough to poison a kingdom. What should I tell you of the sensible declination to our once-loathed superstitions; of the common trade of contemptuous disobediences to lawful authority; the scornful undervaluing of God's messengers; the ordinary neglect of his sacred ordinances? What speak I of these and thousands more? There are arithmeticians, that have taken upon them to count how many corns of sand would make up the bulk of heaven and earth; but no art can reckon up the multitude of our provoking sins.

Neither do they more exceed in number than Magnitude. Can there be a greater sin than idolatry? Is not this, besides all the rest, the sin of the present Romish generation? One of their own confesses, as he well may, that were not the bread transubstantiate, their idolatry were more gross than the heathenish. Lo, nothing excuses them, but an impossible figment. Know, O ye poor ignorant seduced Souls, that the bread can be no more turned into God, than God can be turned into bread, into nothing. The very Omnipotent Power of God bars these impious contradictions. My heart trembles, therefore, and bleeds to think of your highest,

your holiest devotions. Can there be a greater sin, than robbing of God? This is done by our sacrilegious patrons. Can there be a greater sin, than tearing God out of heaven, with our bloody and blasphemous oaths; than the famishing of souls, by a wilful or lazy silence; than rending in pieces the bowels of our dear Mother the Church, by our headstrong and frivolous dissensions; than furious murders; than affronts of authority? These, these are those huge mountains, which our giant-like presumption rolls upon each other, to war against heaven.

Neither are the sins of men more great than Audacious: yea, it is their impudency, that makes them heinous: bashful offences rise not to extremity of evil. The sins of excess, as they are opera tenebrarum, so they had wont to be night-works: They, that are drunken, are drunk in the night, saith the Apostle: now they. dare, with Absalom's beastliness, call the sun to record. St. Ber nard tells us of a demon meridianus, a “noon-devil," out of the Vulgate mistranslation of the xcth Psalm. Surely, that ill spirit walks about busily, and haunts the licentious conversation of inor dinate men. Unjust exactions of griping officers had wont to creep in under the modest cloak of voluntary courtesy, or fair considerations of a befriended expedition: now they come, like Eli's sons, Nay, but thou shalt give it me now; and, if not, I will take it by force; 1 Sam. ii. 16. The legal thefts of professed usurers and the crafty compacts of sly oppressors dare throw down the gauntlet to justice: and insolent disobediences do so to authority. And, when we denounce the fearful judgments of God against all these abominable wickednesses, the obdured sinner dares jeer us in the face; and, in a worse sense, ask the disciples' question, Domine, quando fient hæc? Master, when shall these things be? Yea, their selfflattering incredulity dares say to their soul, as Peter did to his Master, Favour thyself, for these things shall not happen to thee. Neither, lastly, would sin dare to be so impudent, if it were not for Impunity. It cannot be but cowardly, where it sees cause of fear. Every hand is not to be laid upon evil. If an error should arise in the Church, it is not for every unlearned tradesman, to cast away his yard-wand, and take up his pen. Wherefore serve Universities, if every blue apron may, at his pleasure, turn Licenciate of Divinity: and talk of theological questions, which he understands not, as if they were to be measured by the ell? O times! Lord, whither will this presumption grow? Deus omen, &c. If folly, if villainy be committed in our Israel, it is not for every man to be an officer. Who made thee a Judge? was a good question, though ill asked. But I would to God we had more cause to complain, of the presumption of them who meddle with what they should not, than the neglect of them who meddle not with what they should. Woe is me! the flood-gates of evil are, as it were, lift open, and the full stream gusheth upon us. Not that I would cast any aspersion upon Sacred Sovereignty: no; blessed be God: for his dear Anointed; of whom we may truly and joyfully say, that, in imitation of him whom he represents, he loves justice and

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