fellow-creatures with airs of vanity and contempt, and build up a swelling idea of themselves, as though their outward clothing and appearance added real excellency to their character. Would innocent and rational creatures have made this a matter of their boast and pleasure, my coat is gayer than yours, and I have more shining things round about me than you have?

Others, again, in the midst of the common calamities of life, divert themselves with gaming and with childish sports. Whether cards and dice be the utensils of their childish play, to divert their troubles and pass away time, or whether these implements be the engines of covetousness, to deprive their neighbour of what he possesses; yet under both these aspects they are but a sorry relief for a race of holy and innocent beings, should they fall under some unhappy accidents. How trifling are these sports where mere delight and diversion are sought? But if the design be lucre, how is the game mingled with covetous hopes and wishes, with uneasy fears, with the working of wretched inward passions, which sometimes break out into wrath and fury, and vexations under losses and disappointments?

Again, what multitudes are there that drench themselves in gross sensualities as their chief delight? They make a god of their belly, they indulge their appetite in every nicer dish, till they have overloaded nature, and make haste to disease and death. They drink and swill till they have lost their reason, and lay themselves lower than the brutes that perish. They drown their cares in wine or in coarser liquors, or they bury them in all manner of sensual impurities. Are these the delights that would have been chosen and sought by mankind, had they continued a race of holy and innocent beings, as their God at first made them? Others there are that release themselves from the toils and sorrows of life, by gadding abroad and mixing with trifling and impertinent company. Some delight in low and wanton jests, and their satisfaction lies in foolish merriment, in mean and trifling conversation, a little above the chattering of monkeys in a wood, or the chirping of crickets upon a hearth, but not always so innocent. And there is another set of the sons and daughters of Adam, who are never so well satisfied as when they are railing at their neighbours, and tossing scandal abroad; they take every one's character to pieces, and set it in a hateful light. From principles of mingled pride and envy they are hurried on with pleasure to murder the reputation of their fellows: They cast abroad firebrands and arrows tipped with slauder and poison; and say, am I not in sport? They delight to tear their neighbour's good name without mercy. This is their mirth and recreation, this their satisfac

tion and joy; these are their reliefs against the common miseries of human nature, and their chosen methods to pass away the tiresome hours of life..

But would a race of innocent beings, if they ever happened to meet with any accident of pain and sorrow, fly to such sort of mean and foolish, or criminal refuges as these are? Would they pursue such gluttonous and drunken pleasures, such vain or vile delights? Would they become rivals for happiness with the four-footed beasts of the earth, and aim at no higher felicities ? Or would they sport themselves as devils do, in accusing their fellow-creatures? Surely if we take a due survey of the very pleasures of the bulk of mankind, as well as of their sorrows, we may learn from thence, that we are by no means such creatures as our primitive creation made us, but there is some great and universal degeneracy spread over all the generations of men.

XIII. If I were to add one more proof of the general ruin and degenerate state of human nature, I would observe, how we are all posting to death and the grave, and every one of us are succeeding our neighbours, in our proper turns into some unknown state, some invisible and future world, and we profess to believe this too; and yet how exceeding few are there amongst mankind who are solicitous about this great and awful futurity? Though we are exposed to so many miseries, sins, and follies in the present life, and are hastening visibly and hourly to the end of it, yet how few are there that make any careful preparation for a better state than this, or that seek to acquire a temper fit for the superior pleasures of a world of spirits even though they believe this better world? What multitudes are running down daily and directly to death and darkness, and speeding to an endless duration in some unknown country, without any earnest enquiries and solicitudes of soul about their manner of existence there, and their final fate and doom when this life is at an end? They walk over the busy stage of life, their souls are filled with the concerns of mortality, they toil and labour, or they play and trifle a while here, so far as the burdens and calamities of life will permit them, and then they plunge with reluctance into an unseen and strange world, where they will meet with a just and holy God, whose wisdom will assign them a place and portion suited to their own character: But we have reason to fear by their sinful behaviour among men, that that portion and that place, to which the bulk of mankind are hastening, is far distant from the favour of the God that made them, and from other holy and happy creatures whom he has framed for the inhabitants of those regions. Thus far our fears of their future misery are but too justly awakened.

Now is it possible, if we were a race of pure and innocent beings made for immortality, in some other world, that God should suffer the bulk of mankind to remain so ignorant and thoughtless of that future state into which we are all hastening? Would a good and gracious God leave a race of such creatures as he made them, in such a stupid insensibility of their eternal interests, so unsuited to the felicities of an immortal spirit, and so negligent of all preparations for them? Should some blessed angel of heaven, who had never known any thing of our earth, come down amongst us, or some inhabitant of an innocent globe, some stranger to our world, descend from one of God's holy dominions on high, and spend a month or two in a survey of all the iniquities and miseries of the tribes of mankind, can we imagine he would pronounce us holy or happy? Could he ever believe the holy and wise, the righteous and the gracious God ever put such workmanship as we are out of his hands for new-made creatures? Would he not immediately conclude, there are so many signs of guilt and wretchedness among us, as constrain him to confess some universal degeneracy and desolation fallen upon us, which is utterly unknown to the holy and happy provinces of the empire of the blessed God?

Upon this whole survey, I think our own reason must needs join in the same mournful confession, that some universal apostacy from the laws of our creation, some criminal disorder and wretchedness has some way or other come upon the whole race of mankind, since they first came out of the hands of their Maker: There must be some spreading poison which has tainted our nature, which renders us so prone to sin, and so lamentably guilty, so miserable in the present state, so thoughtless of the future, and so unprepared for it. There must be some general revolt of the race of man from their Creator, whereby they have disturbed, disordered, and broken their original natures and powers, whereby they have ruined their innocence and their peace, and raised a most unhappy empire of tyrannical and vexing passions upon the ruin of them; whereby they have provoked the anger of their kind, wise and holy Maker, and their righteous Governer, and whereby they become exposed to such wretched circumstances even in their infancy and childhood, as well as when they grow to years of greater understanding: I think it is evident that a righteous and wise Governor, even though we should not consider his infinite goodness, would not suffer creatures to come into such deplorable circumstances, if they were not regarded by him in some sort as criminals: He would not inflict so much natural evil, that is, pain and misery, and spread it through such a vast province of his dominion, so universally without exception, nor suffer it to be inflicted in the course of his

providence, if it were not with a regard to some general moral evil, that is, sin.

Will some persons again complain, that in representing the sorrows and miseries of mankind, I have here acted the part of a satyrist rather than of a philosopher, and have summed together all the pains, mischiefs and distresses of human life without giving a due place to the pleasures and delights of it, or bringing them into the account? I confess that the great God hath furnished this world, which is the habitation of man, with multitudes of grateful and pleasing objects, to regale his senses, to feast his appetites, and to excite his most agreeable passions, which might have been part of his happiness in a state of innocence. But now the unreasonable strength and violent efforts of these appetites, the sinful bent and bias of his will, together with the weak resistance against vicious excesses which is made by his reason and conscience, turn every one of these pleasures into real dangers and snares. There are but few who indulge these delights without dishonouring their nature, defiling their souls with sin, and breaking the laws of God; and in the midst of so degenerate a state, their most tempting satisfactions and delights do in a great measure lose the nature of good or benefit, because of their constant danger of plunging men into guilt and misery.

Shall I be told again, that there are multitudes of men, whose easy and peaceful circumstances are much superior to their troubles and sorrows, and these would upon the whole be pronounced happy, even if there were no future state? Though I have answered this already, by shewing that the happiness of the major part does not vindicate that constitution which leaves any individuals under misery without some original demerit, yet I will answer here more directly, That if the greatest part of men could see things in their true light, as God and angels regard them, surely the bulk of the world would be found on the miserable side, whatever particular exceptions might be found among individuals: And this in general would teach us that the inhabitants of this world are not a race of happy beings, such as they would have been, if they had been innocent, or such as they were when they came first out of the hands of their Maker? But the inference of our wretchedness or ruin, may be pronounced with much more strength and universality concerning this world, if we join the sins and the miseries of mankind together. If we unite in one view all the criminal as well as the painful circumstances which I have represented ia these foregoing propositions, I think it must be granted, that there is some universal ruin and degeneracy spread all over human nature, and every individual helps to complete this mournful sentence, and confirm the truth of it, that man is a sinful and unhappy being.

VOL. IV.

And methinks, when I take my justest survey of this lower world, with all the inhabitants of it, I can look upon it no otherwise than as a huge and magnificent structure in ruins, and turned into a prison and a lazar-house or hospital, wherein lie millions of criminals and rebels against their Creator, under condemnation to misery and death; who are at the same time sick of a mortal distemper, and disordered in their minds, even to distraction: Hence proceed those infinite follies and vices which are continually practised here, and the righteous anger of an offended God is visible in ten thousand instances. Yet there are proclamations of divine grace, health, and life sounding amongst them, either with a louder voice or in gentler whispers, though very few of them take any notice thereof. But out of this great prison, this infirmary, there is, here and there, one who is called powerfully by divine grace, and attends to the offers of reconciliation, and complies with the proposals of peace: His sins are pardoned, he is healed of his worst distemper; and though his body is appointed to go down to the dust for a season, yet his soul is taken upwards to a region of blessedness, while the bulk of these miserable and guilty inhabitants perish in their own wilful madness, and by the just executions of divine anger. Before I finish this general head I would ask leave to make one remark, and that is,

What an unreasonable thing is it to deny this doctrine of the universal depravity and corruption of mankind, and renounce it in every degree, when it appears so evident to our eyes, and to our ears, and to our daily and constant observation and experience in so many thousand instances? Is it not almost like winking against the light, since the premises are so strong and glaring, and the inference so powerfully demands our assent? I must profess, that with all the diligence and impartiality with which I am capable of reviewing what I have written on this universal degeneracy of mankind, I am not conscious that I have made a false representation of this matter, or aggravated it beyond truth. The innumerable miseries, follies and madness of mankind, which in various forms strike our eyes, our ears, and our thoughts from day to day, confirm my sentiments of the doctrine of some original and universal fall of man from the purity and glory of his creation.

And what is the chief temptation that leads some men to deny this doctrine? Is it not because they cannot give a satisfactory account how to solve some of the difficulties that attend it? Many of the heathen philosophers believed it from their own experience, and their daily survey of mankind, though they were utterly at a loss how to account for it: And what if we could never assign any sufficient and satisfactory reason and cause for it, or shew how this spreading degeneracy begun, or