10. But let us descend to particulars: and see that each of you deal faithfully with his own soul. If any of you have now twice, thrice, or four times, as much substance as when you first saw my face, faithfully examine yourselves, and see if you do not set your hearts, if not directly on money or riches themselves, yet on some of the things that are purchasable thereby; which comes to the same thing. All those the apostle John includes under that general name, the world; and the desire of them, or to seek happiness in them, under that form, "the love of the world." This he divides into three branches: "The desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life." Fairly examine yourselves with regard to these. And first, as to "the desire of the flesh." I believe this means the seeking of happiness in the things that gratify the senses. To instance in one: do not you seek your happiness in enlarging the pleasure of tasting? To be more particular: do you not eat more plentifully, or more delicately, than you did ten or twenty years ago? Do not you use more drink, or drink of a more costly kind, than you did then? Do you sleep on as hard a bed as you did once; suppose your health will bear it? To touch on one point more: do you fast as often, now you are rich, as you did when you was poor? Ought you not in all reason to do this rather more often than more seldom? I am afraid your own heart condemns you. You are not clear in this matter.

11. The second branch of the love of the world, "the desire of the eyes," is of a wider extent. We may understand thereby, the seeking our happiness in gratifying the imagination, (which is chiefly done by means of the eyes,) by grard, or new, or beautiful objects. If they may not all be reduced to one head: since neither grand nor beautiful objects are pleasing, when the novelty of them is gone. But are not the veriest trifles pleasing as long as they are new? Do not some of you, on the score of novelty, seek no small part of your happiness in that trifle of trifles, dress? Do not you bestow more money, or (which is the same) more time or pains upon it, than you did once? I doubt this is not done to please God. Then it pleases the devil. If you laid aside your needless ornaments some years since, ruffles, necklaces, spider caps, ugly, unbecoming bonnets, costly linen, expensive laces, have you not, in defiance of religion and reason, taken to them again?

12. Perhaps you say, "you can now afford the expense. This is the quintessence of nonsense. Who gave you this addition to your fortune? Or (to speak properly) lent it to you? To speak more properly still, who lodged it for a time in your hands as his stewards? Informing you at the same time, for what purposes he entrusted you with it? And can you afford to waste your Lord's goods; for every part of which you are to give an account? Or, to expend them in any other way than that which he hath expressly appointed? Away with this vile, diabolical cant! Let it never more come out of your lips. This affording to rob God, is the very cant of hell. Do not you know, that God entrusted you with that money, (all above what buys necessaries for your families,) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud your Lord, by applying it to any other purpose? When he entrusted you with a little, did he not entrust you with it that you might lay out all that little in

doing good? And when he entrusted you with more, did he not entrust you with that additional money that you might do so much the more good, as you had more ability? Had you any more right to waste a pound, a shilling, or a penny, than you had before? You have, therefore, no more right to gratify the desire of the flesh, or the desire of the eyes, now, than when you was a beggar. Oh no! Do not make so poor a return to your beneficent Lord! Ratner the more he entrusts you with, be so much the more careful to employ every mite as he hath appointed. 13. Ye angels of God, ye servants of his, that continually do his pleasure: our common Lord hath entrusted you also with talents far more precious than gold and silver, that you may minister in your various offices to the heirs of salvation! Do not you employ every mite of what you have received, to the end for which it was given you? And hath he not directed us to do his will on earth, as it is done by you in heaven? Brethren, what are we doing? Let us awake! Let us arise! Let us imitate those flaming ministers! Let us employ our whole soul, body, and substance, according to the will of our Lord! Let us render unto God the things that are God's; even all we are, and all we have!

14. Most of those, who when riches increase set their hearts upon them, do it indirectly in some of the preceding instances. But there are others who do this more directly; being, properly, "lovers of money:" who love it for its own sake; not only for the sake of what it procures. But this vice is very rarely found in children or young persons; but only, or chiefly, in the old; in those that have the least need of money, and the least time to enjoy it. Might not this induce one to think, that, in many cases, it is a penal evil? That it is a sin punishing evil? That when a man has, for many years, hid his precious talent in the earth, God delivers him up to Satan, to punish him by the inordinate love of it? Then it is that he is more and more tormented by that auri sacra fames. That execrable hunger after gold, which can never be satisfied. No: it is most true, as the very heathen observes :—Crescit amor nummi, quantum ipsa pecunia crescit.—" As money, so the love of money grows; it increases in the same proportion." As in a dropsy, the more you drink, the more you thirst; till that unquenchable thirst plunge you into the fire which never shall be quenched!

15. But is there no way, you may ask, either to prevent or to cure this dire disease? There is one preventive of it: which is also a remedy for it and I believe there is no other under heaven. It is this: after you have gained (with the cautions above given) all you can, and saved all you can, wanting for nothing; spend not one pound, one shilling, or one penny, to gratify either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, or the pride of life; or indeed, for any other end than to please and glorify God. Having avoided this rock on the right hand, beware of that on the left. Secondly, hoard nothing. Lay up no treasure on earth, but give all you can; that is, all you have. I defy all the men upon earth, yea, all the angels in heaven, to find any other way of extracting the poison from riches.

16. Let me add one word more. After having served you between sixty and seventy years; with dim eyes, shaking hands, and tottering feet, I give you one more advice before I sink into the dust. Mark those words of St. Paul: "Those that desire [or endeavour] to be rich,

[that moment] fall into temptation:" yea, a deep gulf of temptation, out of which nothing less than almighty power can deliver them. "They fall into a snare ;"-the word properly means a steel trap, which instantiy crushes the animal taken, to pieces ;" and into divers foolish and hurtful desires, which plunge men into destruction and perdition." You, above all men, who now prosper in the world, never forget these awfui words! How unspeakably slippery is your path! How dangerous every step! The Lord God enable you to see your danger, and make you deeply sensible of it! Oh may you awake up after his likeness,

and be satisfied with it !"

17. Permit me to come a little closer still. Perhaps I may not trouble you any more on this head. I am pained for you that are "rich in this world." Do you give all you can? You who receive five hundred pounds a year, and spend only two hundred, do you give three hundred back to God? If not, you certainly rob God of that three hundred. You that receive two hundred, and spend but one, do you give God the other hundred? If not, you rob him of just so much. Nay, may I not do what I will with my own?" Here lies the ground of your mistake. It is not your own. It cannot be, unless you are lord of heaven and earth. "However, I must provide for my children." Certainly But how? By making them rich? Then you will probably make them heathens, as some of you have done already. "What shall I do then ?" Lord, speak to their hearts! else the preacher speaks in vain. Leave them enough to live on, not in idleness and luxury, but by honest industry. And if you have not children, upon what scriptural or rational principle can you leave a groat behind you more than will bury you? I pray consider, what are you the better for what you leave behind you? What does it signify, whether you leave behind you ten thousand pounds, or ten thousand shoes and boots? Oh leave nothing behind you! Send all you have before you into a better world! Lend it, lend it all unto the Lord, and it shall be paid you again. Is there any danger that his truth should fail? It is fixed as the pillars of heaven. Haste, haste, my brethren, haste! lest you be called away before you have settled what you have on this security! When this is done, you may boldly say, "Now I have nothing to do but to die! Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit! Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly." Bristol, September 21, 1790.

SERMON CXXXI.-True Christianity Defended.

[THE following sermon was found in a mutilated manuscript among Mr. Wesley's papers. It is dated June 24, 1741. A Latin copy of the same discourse has also been discovered. Mr. Pawson, with great care, copied the former, and I have supplied the deficiencies out of the latter On collating both sermons, I find several variations, and though not of any great importance, yet sufficient, in my judgment, to vindicate the propriety of translating and publishing the Latin one, not merely as a matter of curiosity, but of utility. The sermon, no doubt, was written with the design of being preached before the university of Oxford; but whether it ever were preached there, cannot be determined. A. CLARKE.]

"How is the faithful city become a harlot !" Isa. i, 21.

1. WHEN I bring the sword upon a land, saith the Lord, if the watchman blow the trumpet, and warn the people; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword

come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand," Ezek. xxxiii, 2–6.

2. It cannot be doubted, but that word of the Lord is come unto every minister of Christ also. 'So thou, oh son of man, I have set

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thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, Oh wicked man, thou shalt surely die: if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand."

3. Nor ought any man therefore to be counted our enemy because he telleth us the truth: the doing of which is indeed an instance of love to our neighbour, as well as of obedience to God. Otherwise few would undertake so thankless a task: for the return, they will find, they know already. The Scripture must be fulfilled. "Me the world hateth," saith our Lord," because I testify of it that the deeds thereof are evil.” 4. It is from a full, settled conviction, that I owe this labour of love to my brethren, and to my tender parent,* by whom I have been nourished for now more than twenty years, and from whom, under God, I have received those advantages, of which, I trust, I shall retain a grateful sense, till my spirit returns to God who gave it: it is, I say, from a full conviction, that love and gratitude, as well as that dispensation of the gospel wherewith I am entrusted, require it of me, that even I have undertaken to speak on a needful, though unwelcome subject. I would indeed have wished that some more acceptable person would have done this. But should all hold their peace, the very stones would cry out, "How is the faithful city become a harlot!"

5. How faithful she was once to our Lord, to whom she had been betrothed as a chaste virgin, let not only the writings of her sons, which shall be had in honour throughout all generations, but also the blood of her martyrs, speak; a stronger testimony of her faithfulness than could be given by words, even

"By all the speeches of the babbling earth.”

But how is she now become a harlot! How hath she departed from her Lord! How hath she denied him, and listened to the voice of strangers; both

I. In respect of doctrine, and

II. Of practice.

I. In respect of doctrine. 1. It cannot be said that all our writers are setters forth of strange doctrines. There are those who expound the oracles of God by the same spirit wherewith they are written; and who faithfully cleave to the solid foundation which our church hath laid agreeable thereto; touching which we have his word who cannot lie "That the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." There are those also, (blessed be the Author of every good gift,) who, as wise master builders, build thereon not hay or stubble, but gold and precious stones, but that charity which never faileth.

2. We have likewise cause to give thanks to the Father of lights, for that he hath not left himself without witness; but that there are those

* The university of Oxford.

But

who now preach the gospel of peace, the truth as it is in Jesus. how few are these in comparison of those ( xarnλevovτes) who adulterate the word of God! How little wholesome food have we for our souls, and what abundance of poison! How few are there that, either in writing or preaching, declare the genuine gospel of Christ, in the simplicity and purity wherewith it is set forth in the venerable records of our own church! And how are we inclosed on every side with those who, neither knowing the doctrines of our church, nor the Scriptures, nor the power of God, have found out to themselves inventions wherewith they constantly corrupt others also!

3. I speak not now of those (gwTOTOXо TOU Eαrava) first-born of Satan, the deists, Arians or Socinians. These are too infamous among us to do any great service to the cause of their master. But what shall of those who are accounted the pillars of our church, and champions of our faith; who indeed betray that church, and sap the very foundations of the faith we are taught thereby?

we say

4. But how invidious a thing it is to show this! Who is sufficient to bear the weight of prejudice which must necessarily follow the very mention of such a charge against men of so established a character ? Nay, and who have indeed, in many other respects, done great service to the church of God? Yet must every faithful minister say, "God forbid that I should accept any man's person." I dare not give any man flattering titles, nor spare any that corrupt the gospel. "In so doing my Maker would soon take me away.”

5. Let me, however, be as short as may be upon this head; and I will instance only in two or three men of renown, who have endeavoured to sap the very foundation of our church, by attacking its fundamental, and indeed the fundamental doctrine of all the reformed churches, viz. justification by faith alone.

One of these, and one of the highest station in our church, hath written and printed, before his death, several sermons, expressly to prove, that not faith alone, but good works also, are necessary in order to justification. The unpleasing task of quoting particular passages out of them is superseded by the very title of them; which is this: "The necessity of regeneration, (which he at large proves to imply holiness both of heart and life,) in order to justification."*

6. It may appear strange to some, that an angel of the church of God, (as the great Shepherd terms the overseers of it,) and one so highly esteemed both in our own and many other nations, should coolly and calmly thus speak. But, oh what is he in comparison of the great bishop Bull! Who shall be able to stand, if this eminent scholar, Christian, and prelate, in his youth wrote and published to the world, and in his riper years defended, the positions that follow :

"A man is said (ε egywv dinaιourai) to be justified by works; because good works are the condition, according to the divine appointment, established in the gospel covenant, requisite and necessary to a man's justification; that is, to his obtaining remission of sins through Christ," Bulli Harm. Apost. p. 4.

A little after, being about to produce testimonies in proof of this proposition, he says, "The first class of these shall be those who speak of good works in a general sense, as the requisite and necessary condition * Tillotson's sermons, vol. 1, &c