edifying and gracious; Eph. iv. 29: and such as may become those tongues, which shall once sing Hallelujahs in the heavens. Fashion not your Tongues to the Obscenity of the World.

6. From the Tongue we pass to the PALATE; which, (together with the gulph, whereto it serves, the throat and the paunch) is taken up with the beastly fashion of gluttony and excess, whether wet or dry, of meats or liquor; surfeits in the one, drunkenness

in the other: insomuch as that the vice hath taken the name of the part, Gula; as if this piece were for no other service. The Psalmist describes some wicked ones in his time by Sepulcrum patens guttur corum, Their throat is an open Sepulchre; Psalm v. 9. How many have buried all their grace in this tomb! how many their reputation! how many their wit! how many their humanity! how many their houses, lands, livings, wives, children, posterity, health, life, body, and soul! St. Paul tells his Philippians, that their false teachers made their belly their God. O God, what a deity is here! what a nasty idol! and yet how adored every where! The kitchens and taverns are his temples; the tables his altars. What fat sacrifices are here, of all the beasts, fowls, fishes, of all three elements! what pouring out, yea what pouring in of drink-offerings! what incense of Indian smoke! what curiously-perfumed cates, wherewith the nose is first feasted; then, the maw! More than one of the ancients, as they have made Nebuzaradan principem coquorum, Jer. lii. 12. the chief cook of Nebuchadnezzar; so they have found a mystical allusion in the story: That the chief cook should burn the temple and palace, both God's house and the King's, and should destroy the walls of Jerusalem. Surely gluttonous excess destroys that, which should be the Temple of the Holy Ghost; and is enough to bring a fearful vastation, both upon Church and State. I could even sink down with shame, to see Christianity every where so discountenanced with beastly Epicurism. What street shall a man walk in, and not meet with a drunkard? what road shall he pass, and not meet some or other hanging upon the stirrup, waving over the pummel? St. Peter's argument from the third hour of the day, and St. Paul's from the night, would be now a non sequitur. Day is night; night is day: no hour is privileged. I cannot speak a more fearful word than that of St. Paul, Whose belly is their God, whose end is damnation. O woeful, woeful condition of that damned glutton in the Gospel! O the flames of that delicious tongue, which begged for a drop, but should in vain have been quenched with rivers, with oceans! As ye desire to be freed from those everlasting burnings, awake ye drunkards, and howl ye drinkers of wine; Joel i. 5. Return your superfluous liquors into tears of repentance, which only can quench that fire; and, for the sequel, put your knife to your throats: Take heed lest at any time your hearts be overtaken with surfeiting and drunkenness; Luke xxi. 34. Thus fashion not yourselves to the Excess of the World.

7. From the pampered Belly we pass to the proud BACK of the World: whereon he is blind that sees not a world of fashions; in all

which, the price of the stuff strives with the vanity of the form. There is a luxury in very clothes, which it is hard to look besides. O God, how is the world changed with us, since our breeches of fig-leaves and coats of skin! The earth yields gold, silver, rich stones; the sea, pearls; the air, feathers; the field, his stalks; the sheep, her fleece; the worm, her web: and all too little for one back. After necessity, clothes were once for distinction; as of Sexes, so of Degrees. How curious was God in these differences! the violation whereof was no less than deadly; Deut. xxii. 5. What shall we say to the dames, yea to the hermaphrodites of our time, whom it troubles that they may not be all man? But if sexes be known by clothes, what is become of Degrees? Every base Ter rivagus wears Artaxerxes's coat: soft raiments are not for courts: peasants degenerate into gallants; and every Midianitish camel must shine with gold; Judges viii. 26. But oh the mad disguises of the world, especially in that weaker sex; which, in too much variety, is constant still to a prodigious deformity of attire; to the scorn of other nations, to the dishonour of their husbands, to the shame of the Gospel, to the forfeit of their modesty, to the misshaping of their bodies, to the prostitution of their souls, to the just damnation of both. It is not for me, to urge this here, in a masculine assembly; wherein I fear there cannot be want of faults enough in this kind. Away with this absurd and apish vanity of the world. They, that glister in scarlet, shall once embrace dunghills; Lam. iv. 5. Yea it were well if no worse. Let us, that are Christians, affect that true bravery, which may become the Blessed Spouse of Christ; The King's Daughter is all glorious within; and, say with the Prophet, My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness; Isaiah Ixi. 10. Thus, fashion not your Back to the Disguise of the World.

8. We had like to have forgotten the NECK and SHOULDERS of the World, which have an ill fashion of stiffness and inflexible obstinateness; stubbornly refusing to stoop to the yoke of the Law, of the Gospel. This is every where the complaint of God; They have hardened their necks; Exod. xxxii. 9. Amongst all fashions of the world, this is the worst; and that, which gives a height to all other wickednesses. Let all the other parts be never so faulty, yet, if there be a readiness to relent at the judgments of God, and a meek pliableness to his corrections, there is life in our hopes: but, if our iron sinews will not bow at all, bearing up theinselves with an obdured resolution of sinning, the case is desperate: what can we think other, than that such a soul is branded for hell? He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy; Prov. xxix. 1. Fashion not your Neck therefore, to

the Stiffness of the World.

9. But the Cyclopean furnace of all wicked fashions, the HEART, calls my speech to it: which I could not have forborne thus long, were it not, that, besides the importunity of these other parts, I have heretofore, at large, out of this place, displayed to you and

the world the wicked fashions thereof*. Shortly yet, for we may not utterly balk them, all the corrupt desires and affections of the soul are so many ill fashions of the Heart to be avoided. These affections are well known: inordinate Love, uncharitable Hate, immoderate Grief, intemperate Joy, unjust Fears, unsound Hopes, and whatsoever either distemper or misplacing of these Passions. If we love the world more than God, if we hate any enemy more than sin, if we grieve at any loss more than of the favour of God, if we joy in any thing more than the writing of our names in heaven, if we fear any thing more than offence, if we hope for any. thing more than salvation; and, much more, if we change objects, loving what we should hate, joying in what we should grieve at, hoping for what we should fear, and the contrary; in one word, if our desires and affections be earthly, groveling, sensual, not spiritual, sublimed, heavenly; we fall into the damnable fashion of the World. Away, therefore, with all evil concupiscence, all ambitious affectations, all spiteful emulations, all worldly sorrows, all cowardly fears, all carnal heats of false joy. Let the World dote upon vanity, and follow after lies: let our affections and conversation be above, where Christ Jesus sitteth at the right hand of God. Let the base earthworms of this world be taken up with the best of this vain trash the desires of us Christians must soar aloft; and fix themselves upon those objects, which may make us perfectly and unchangeably blessed. Thus, fashion not your Hearts to the Carnal Desires and Affections of the World.

10. Affections easily break forth into actions; and actions perfect our desires. Let us from the Heart look to the HANDS and FEET, the instruments of motion and execution of the world. Fashion not yourselves, lastly, therefore to the Practice and Carriage of the World.

The World makes a God of itself; and would be serving any God, but the true one. Hate ye this cursed Idolatry; and say with Joshua, I and my house will serve the Lord.

The World would be framing religion to policy; and serving God, in his own forms. Hate ye this Will-worship, Superstition, Temporizing; and say with David, I esteem all thy precepts to be right, and all false ways I utterly abhor; Psalm exix. 128.

The World cares not how it rends and tears the Sacred Name of their Maker with oaths, and curses, and blasphemies. Oh, hate ye this audacious Profaneness, yea this profane Devilism, and tremble at the dreadful Majesty of the name of the Lord our God.

The World cares not how it slights the ordinances of God, violates his days, neglects his assemblies. Hate ye this common Impiety; say with the Psalmist, Oh, how sweet is thy Law, how amiable thy Tabernacles!

The World is set to spurn at authority, to despise God's messengers, to scorn the nakedness of their spiritual fathers. Hate ye

* Alluding to his Sermon entitled, "The Great Impostor;" No. IX. in the present volume.-EDITOR.

this lawless Insolency; and say, Quàm speciosi pedes! How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace! Isaiah lii. 7. Rom. x. 15.

The World is set upon cruelty, oppression, violence, rapine, revenge, sieging, sacking, cutting of throats. Hate ye this bloody Savageness: Put on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, meekness, long suffering; Col. iii. 12.

The World is a very brothel, given over to the prosecutions of noisome and abominable lusts. Hate ye this Impurity, and possess your vessels in holiness and honour.

The World is a cheater; yea, to speak plain, a thief: every where abounding with the tricks of legai fraud and cozenage; yea, with sly stealths; yea, with open extortions. Hate ye this Injustice; and, with quietness work, and eat your own bread; 2 Thess. iii. 12.

Thus, fashion not yourselves to the Actual Wickednesses of the World. All these are the unfruitful works of darkness: they are not for our fellowship; they are for our abomination and reproof.

III. And now I have laid before you some patterns, if not models, of the ill fashions of the World, in the Thoughts, Dispositions, Affections, Actions thereof. Like them if ye can, O ye Christian Hearers, and follow them.

I am sure, from our outward fashions of attire, we need no other dissuasive, than their ugliness and misbecoming.

1. And what shall I need to tell you how loathsomely DEFORMED these fashions of the World make us to appear in the sight of God? The toad or the serpent are lovely objects to us, in comparison of these disguises to the pure eyes of the Almighty: yea, so perfectly doth God hate them, that he professes those hate him that like them. Whosoever will be a friend to the world, is an enemy to God; James iv. 4. Oh, then, if we love our souls, let us hate those fashions, that may draw us into the detestation of the Almighty; for our God is a consuming fire.

2. Besides misbeseeming, it is a just plea against any fashion, that it is PAINFUL. For, though there be some pain in all pride, yet too much we endure not; and, behold, these fashions shall pinch and torture us to death, to an everlasting death of body and soul. The ill guest in the Parable was thus clad; Matt. xxii. 12; the King abhors his suit; and, after expostulation, gives the sentence, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into utter darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Oh, fear and tremble at the expectation of this dreadful doom, all ye, that will needs be in the Fashion of the World. If ye be so foolish, as to flatter yourselves here in the conceit of your liberty, there shall be binding; in the conceit of a lightsome and resplendent magnificence, there shall be darkness; in the conceit of pleasure and contentment, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

3. COMMONNESS and age are the usual disparagements of fashions. The best may not go like every body: where a fashion is taken up of the basest, it is disdained of the eminent. Behold, these are the fashions, if not of all, I am sure of the worst: the very scum of the

world is thus habited. Let us, that are Christians, in a holy pride, scorn to be suited like them.

4. As common, so OLD fashions are in disgrace. That man would be shouted at, that should come forth in his great-grandsire's-suit, though not rent, not discoloured. Behold, these are the overworn and misshapen rags of the old man: away with them, to the frippery of darkness; yea, to the brokery of hell. Let us be for a change. Old things are passed, all things are become new. As we look to have these bodies once changed from vile to glorious; so let us now change the fashions of our bodies and souls, from corrupt and worldly, to spiritual and heavenly and, loathing all these Misbeseeming, Painful, Common, Old Fashions of the World, let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ; that, being clad with the robes of his Righteousness here, we may be clothed upon with the robes of his Glory in the Highest Heavens. Amen.

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