SERM, against him on all occafions. To this the XXIX. Apostle afterwards opposes love, which difpofes

men to friendliness and an amicable correfpondence with all men, even with their greatest enemies, as far as may be with fafety to themfelves.

"Eges, Variance. By which is meant all words and expreffions that are the refult of anger and fury; all opprobrious language, railing and reviling; all contentious disputes, perverfe reafonings, and obftinate debates which proceed from a spirit of contradiction, and a defigned industrious oppofition to the fentiments of other men.

Znλo, Emulations. Eager contentions about place and dignity; ftrivings about fuperiority, and reftlefs purfuit of preferment; together with those unjust and uncharitable criminations, malicious infinuations to blacken competitors, and leffen their character; grieving at their fuccefs; together with all the other indirect practices, fo notorious in all fuch competitions; which proceed from a great opinion we have of our own merits and qualifications, and the contempt we have for others, perhaps more deferving men than ourfelves.

Ovuo, Wrath. This is fpoke of perfons who are apt to refent, and take fire on all occafions that offer, who are fubject to fudden and violent paffions upon every furmife or colour of provocation given them; who are of a wafpifh temper, of a peevish and fretful difpofition, made uneafy to themselves and others by

every trifle; ever ruffled and discompofed by SER M. things of no moment or confideration; dif- XXIX. pleased with every perfon and every thing, that doth not hit their humour, and exactly fuit their fancy. That which discovers the great impotence and prevarication of men of this temper is, that they always make the fairest fhew of gayety and an agreeable converfation to ftrangers, and fuch as do not value their refentments; and turn their dark and gloomy fide to their own family, and fuch as have a neceffary dependance upon them; they vent all their good-humour abroad, and wreck all their spleen at home, upon fuch as are under a neceffity of bearing it; upon fuch whom, of all people, they are bound to love and cherish moft, and who have the best title to their tendereft affections, by the laws of God and na

ture.

'Egilea, Strife. This imports a mind troublefome and turbulent; bent upon promoting debate and contention among men; fowing the feeds of difcord, and fetting them at variance with one another; and taking a delight and pleafure in the diffentions and quarrels of other men.

Aixosaría, Seditions. The fame with fchifms in other places of the New teftament; dividing from the reft of our Chriftian brethren, and fetting up diftinct and feparate communions without a plain and abfolute neceffity. The confequences of feparate communions in the church are so numerous; namely, by weakening and destroying the power of the church

SER M. to restrain vice and wickedness, and fo giving XXIX, a loose to all irreligion and prophaneness; by a

bolishing all Chriftian charity; by bringing a disesteem on the moral duties of religion, which are the life and fubftance of it, turning them into zeal for a party, refining of it into airy and fantastical opinions; and, in fhort, by defeating all the ends of God in conftituting a church: The confequences, I fay, of separate communions, are fo many and dreadful, that wherever that load of guilt will lie, it will be infupportable. There is not any thing in this world that ought to be more clear or undoubted, than the caufe for which a man separates, and it must be of weight enough to out-balance all these, and the many more evils that enfue. A man had need of a full conviction of his judgment, fo as to leave no room for doubt, fince the Apostle fays here, that they who are guilty of this fin fhall not inherit the kingdom of God.

The next, aigious, Herefies, do differ from Feditions or fchifms in this, that a fchifm is a fe"paration from the communion of the church without a fufficient caufe; a herefy is when men do not only feparate, but do likewife, in oppofition to the church, maintain doctrines openly and directly deftructive of the faith of Chrift, and purity of the Gofpel; fuch as if they perfifted in, though they were of the communion of the church, they fhould be cut off from it.

lóvos, Envyings; by which is fignified the

bafeft

bafeft paffion of the foul, grieving at the fuc- SE R M. ceffes and profperities of others; the having XXIX. evil because God is good.

our eye

Þóvo, Murders; i. e. not only the taking away the life of another unlawfully, but being any way acceffary to it, wishing it, or being pleased with it when it is done; and therefore instanced here, because the preceding paffions dispose men for the committal of it.

Médaι, nãμo, Drunkennefs, Revellings; all exceffes in drinking and eating, and thofe extravagances that are confequent to them.

It follows, and fuch like, to fhew, that he hath named here only the most common and principal lufts and affections, and fuppofes the other finful lufts and affections as well known by the light of nature as thefe. I am now to confider,

IIdly, The most effectual means and method of getting a conqueft over all our lufts and affections; and I shall at prefent instance only in three.

1. And ift, whofoever will gain a conqueft over all his paffions and appetites, must begin with a conftant and regular temperance; the first appetite which must be effectually overcome, is that we have to eating and drinking; till a man hath gained a conqueft over himfelf in this point, all other endeavours for the fuppreffing and restraining his affections and lufts, will prove fruitless and vain; it is in truth no other than heaping on fuel to make our lufts burn more violently, and then labour- ·

U 3

ing

SER M. ing to extinguish them. There is nothing we XXIX. eat and drink beyond the juft proportions, but is poifon to our nature, and directly deftructive of all inclinations to goodness both in body and mind. Intemperance is the fure and immediate cause of unchastity, which of all manner of fin hath the most fatal tendency to the defacing and abolishing all sense of virtue and holiness; infomuch that a man may have other virtues and vices, both of them in no small degree, but this is utterly inconfiftent with all kinds and degrees of virtue; it is infection to our whole nature; it spreads confufion over the whole man like a leprofy; the very mind and confcience is defiled by it; and for the time it remains unreftrained and unmortified, it fufpends all exercise of virtue and goodness; of piety and holiness; and, if it continues to be indulged and gratified, it quite extinguishes the grace of God, and leaves the man void of all religion: There are but too many living instances of perfons thus dead to all sense of virtue and holiness.

Then, as to the effect of intemperance in the mind; the extremes of gluttony and drunkenness have fuch immediate vifible effects, that they put a man intirely out of his own power, past any conteft with his lufts and affections. But I am now speaking of leffer de grees of intemperance, which, though they do not commonly go by the names of gluttony and drunkenness, do however diforder and impair the mind, render its operations dull and inactive;