he believed it should not; ' And,' said ho, ' when I am gone, let them that come after me look to it.' This poor nation of England liath, for many generations in a succession, had a number of precious, righteous ones, who have, through God's grace, walked close with God, and been kept in a great degree unspotted from the defilements of the imgodly times they lived in. These were the At- lases of their several ages ; these have often foimd favour of God to beg the life of this nation, when its neck hath been on the very block. But they are gone, or wearing away apace, and a new generation coming in their room ; unhappy would the day be called when you were born, if you should be the men and women that, by degenerating from the power of holiness, should cut the banks, which was their chief care to keep up, and so let in a desolating judgment to overflow the land. That heir we count unworthy of his birth and patrimony, who, by his debauched courses, prodigally makes away that estate which by the care and providence of his ancestors was, through many descents, at last trans- mitted to him ; but, together with the honour of the family, unhappily ends in him. If ever any age was like to do thus by the place of their nativity, this present, wherein our sad lot is cast to live, is it. How low is the power of holiness sunk among us, to what it was but in the last generation ! Religion, alas ! runs low and dreggy among professors, God he knows, that will not long suffer it. If Egypt knows a dearth is coming, by the low ebbing of the Nile, siu'ely we may see that a judgment is coming, by the low fall of the power of godliness. There are great complaints of what men have lost in these hurl- ing times ; some bemoan their lost places and estates, others the lost lives of their friends in the wars ; but professors may claim justly the first place of all the mom-ners of the times, to lament their lost love to the truths of Christ, worship of Christ, servants of Christ; yea, that imiversal decay which appears in their holj^ walking before God and man. This is sad indeed; but that which adds a fearful aggravation to this is, that we degenerate, and grow loose at a time when we are under the highest engagements for holiness that ever people were. We are a people redeemed from many deaths and dangers ; and when better might God expect us to be a righteous nation? It is an ill time for a person to fall a stealing and pilfering again, as soon as the rope is off his neck, and he let safely come down that ladder, from which he was even now like to be turned off. Surely it added to righteous Noah's sin, to be drunk as soon almost as he was set on shore, when a little before he had seen a whole world sinking before his eyes ; and he, the privileged person, left by God to plant the world again with a godly seed. O sirs, the earth hath hardly yet drunk in the rivers of blood that hath been shed in ovn* land ! The cities and towns have hardly got out of their ruins, which the miseries of war laid them in. The moans of the fatherless and husbandless, whom the sword bereaved of these their dearest relations, are not yet silenced by their own death ; yea, can our own frights and scares which we were amazed with when we saw the nation, like a candle lighted at both ends, on a flame, and every day the fire coming nearer and nearer to ourselves, be so soon foi'gotten ? Now, that at such a time as this, a nation, and that the pro- fessing part of it, shovild grow looser, more proud, covetous, contentious, wanton in their principles, and careless in their lives, this must be for a lamentation. We have little cause to boast of our peace and plenty, when the residt of our deliverance is to deliver us up to commit such abominations ; this is as if one whose quartan ague is gone, but leaving him deep in a dropsy, should rejoice that his ague hath left him, little thinking that when it went, it left him a worse guest in its place. An unhappy change it is, to have war, pestilence, and famine, removed, and to be left swollen up with pride, error, and libertinism. Again, we are people who have made more pretensions to righteousness and holiness than our forefathers ever did : what else meant the many prayers to God, and petitions to man, for reformation ? What interpretation could a charitable heart make of our putting ourselves muler the bond of a covenant, to endeavour for personal reformation, and then national, but that we meant in earnest to be a more righteous nation than ever before ? This made such a loud report in foreign parts, that our neighbour-churches were set a wondering to think what these glorious beginnings might ripen to; so that now, having put forth these leaves, and told both God and man by them, what fruit was to be looked for from us, our present state must needs he nigh imto cursing, for
OQQ AND HAVING ON