SERMON XXVII.

EPH. V. 11.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

If the practice of their duty were general amongst men, it would appear to all of us as we come forward into life, notwithstanding our present proneness to sinful indulgences, extremely natural and easy. For as its reasonableness always recommends it to our understandings, and its amiableness to our affections, when unbiassed: so, in these circumstances, the public example of goodness would engage our imitation, the universal esteem of it excite our ambition, and its beneficial consequences plainly shew it to be our true present interest. Allurements to unlawful pleasures would then be comparatively few; provocations to mutual injuries none; consciousness of right behaviour would make men pleased with themselves; reciprocal acts of justice and kindness would make them happy in each other; and experience, that their being was a blessing to them, would produce in their souls affectionate sentiments of reverential gratitude to the bountiful Author of it. Such we should have found the world, if sin had not entered into it: and such we might still in a good measure bring it to be, if we would; if most of us did not, besides filling our own lives with guilt and misery, contribute, by a variety of wrong behaviour, to render our fellowcreatures also wicked and wretched. This we all see VOL. I.

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and feel to be the real state of things: but how do we act upon it? We complain grievously of each other, for the faults which we each of us go on to commit; we complain even of providence because the world is-only what we have made it; and alledge the misconduct of our neighbours for a defence of our own, instead of trying to mend ourselves or them: whereas, evidently our concern is, to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them; to preserve our own souls from the epidemic distemper, and warn those around us of the danger of being infected. But it is with the security of our personal innocence, that we are to begin: without which we shall seldom in earnest attempt, and scarce ever successfully prosecute, the reformation of any one else; nor will the greatest success in such endeavours avail us, if, as our Apostle expresses it, when we have preached to others, we ourselves are cast-aways*.

The first and principal consideration then is, how to avoid any fellowship with the unfruitful, a gentle term, which means pernicious, works of darkness. Now a main point of caution against all sorts of peril is to know, from whence chiefly we are to apprehend it. But who can say, from what quarter our virtue runs the greatest risque, in a world so thick set round with various temptations: where all vices are so common, that it seems a matter of course, and almost a necessity, to indulge one or another; and the majority of the guilty is so large, that each considers himself, in some degree, as safe in the crowd even from divine displeasure, numbering himself amongst the multitude of sinners, and not remembering that wrath will not tarry long, where our eyes, and + Ecclus. vii. 16:

* 1 Cor. ix. 27.

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our ears continually present to our imaginations crimes, of which we should never have thought, and suggest easy methods of attaining what we believed to be as impracticable, as we know it to be unlawful: where the prosperity of ill men so strongly prompts us to envy their condition, imitate their presumptuousness, and doubt of a superintending power: where every natural inclination that we have meets with something to inflame it beyond bounds, or turn it aside from its proper object: where fear of inconveniencies threatening upright conduct, and hope of gaining advantages by deviations from it, work within us continually: where injuries real or fancied, are daily provoking us to injure or hate in return; and even friendship and kind affection, meeting too often with undeserving objects, make us partial and unfair, subservient to the purposes of the bad or injudicious, and criminally negligent of the merits of the worthy?

Here is already an alarming list of dangers: and yet one source of them remains unmentioned, so very fruitful, that probably it brings more of us to ruin than all the rest: I mean, our strong tendency to follow whatever precedents are set us: which being the great seducer of mankind to have fellowship with one another in the unfruitful works of darkness, I shall confine myself to the consideration of it in the sequel of this discourse.

A disposition to fall in with what we see others do is one of the earliest natural principles that we exert: and in itself a very beneficial one. For by means of it we learn, with ease and pleasure, a multitude of things necessary or serviceable in life: conform readily to the inclinations of those about us in a thousand matters of indifference, and from mutual likeness become mutually agreeable. By the same means also

were patterns of piety and virtue more frequent, or we more attentive to them, we might be excited, as undoubtedly it was designed we should, to copy, and even rival, each other's laudable qualities. But where things are capable of contrary uses, we generally make the worst of them: and in no case more than this. The example of evil, in a corrupted world, is by much the oftenest in our view: which the weak and indolent imitate without reflection: the goodhumoured and pliable are drawn after them by the desire of pleasing, though in wrong ways; the vain and ambitious by fondness of excelling though in culpable attainments; and almost all by the shame of singularity and dread of ridicule: till the numbers of the faulty being thus become abundantly sufficient to keep one another in countenance, custom refuses to let its authority be any longer examined, and sets up itself as the sole rule of conduct.

For, even when we seem to act the most entirely from opinions and dispositions of our own, these, upon inquiry, will be frequently found to derive, if not their original, at least a great part of their strength, from the deference that we pay to the notions and practice of the world. Thus men speak and think slightly of religion, often without imagining they know any objection of weight against it: and yet how they can have the very lowest degree of belief in it, and not believe it to be an affair of the utmost importance, is quit inconceivable: but notwithstanding they treat it, without scruple, as a slight matter, because they see it commonly treated so. But this degree of depravity is not universal. We perhaps, may blame those who do so, and with marks of great seriousness profess ourselves Christians: yet, it may be, are easy in transgressing, in a higher de

gree or a lower, as occasion offers, almost every precept of Christianity, because others, who call themselves Christians also, do the same thing. We acknowledge that we are soon to leave this earth, and give an account to God of the part which we have acted upon it: yet perceiving, that most people about us overlook these awful truths, we can do so too, as absolutely, as if we had no concern in them. And, to be a little more particular: what is it that makes us in our common discourse so regardless of equity and humanity, so eager to speak evil and propagate scandal? Surely not always malignity of heart: and certainly very seldom any peculiar knowledge of the case, or interest in it. But such is the reigning turn of conversation, which we are wicked and weak enough to adopt and promote, at the very time that we inveigh bitterly against it, and suffer grievously by it. Again: how many are there who trifle away their days, in thinking of and doing nothing that tends to any one good purpose, only because such trifling is fashionable! How many affect follies and vices, to which, at the bottom, they have little or no liking, which are highly prejudicial, and will probably be fatal to them, merely because they are in vogue: and for no wiser a reason will persevere in them, when nature cries aloud to have them left off! How many distress and undo themselves and their families, by imprudently vying with the luxury and expensiveness of those about them, nay, of those above them! And, in general, from what is it else, than taking it on trust from common persuasion, that possessing the things of this world is happiness; though we not only may observe the contrary in all whom we know, but feel it in ourselves; that we pursue them through sins and through sufferings of all kinds, and