any infant, and as soon as it can but move an hand, we shall see it reaching out after something or other, which it should not have; and he who does not know it to be the proper and peculiar sin of old age, seems himself to have the dotage of that age upon him, whether he has the years or no. For, who so intent upon the world commonly, as those who are just going out of it? Who so diligent in heaping up wealth, as those who have neither will nor time to spend it?

Men are frequently forced to make their way to great possessions, by the commission of great sins, and therefore the happiness of life cannot possibly consist in them. It has been a saying, and a remarkable one it is, that there is no man very rich, but is either an unjust person himself, or the heir of one or other who was So. I dare not pronounce so severe a sentence universally: For I question not, but through the good Providence of God, some are as innocently, and with as good a conscience, rich, as others can be poor: But the general baseness and corruption of men's practices has verified this harsh saying of too many; and it is every day seen, how many serve the god of this world, to obtain the riches of it. 'Tis true, the full reward of a man's unjust dealing never reaches him in this life; but if he has not sinned away all the tenderness and apprehensiveness of his conscience, the grudges and regrets of it will be still like death in the pot, and give a sad grumbling allay to all his comforts; nor shall his heart ever find any entire, clear, unmixed content in the wealth he has got, when he shall reflect upon the manner of his getting it; and assure him, that nothing of all that, which he possesses in the world, is yet paid for; so that, if the justice of God should exact his soul in payment of that vast score, which his sinful gains have run him into, when this sad debt came once to be cleared off, who then would be the gainer; or what could be got, when the soul was lost?

The very management of a great estate is a greater and more perplexing trouble, than any that a poor man can be subject to. He, who is vastly rich, must live like one who is so; and whosoever does that, makes himself thereby a great host, and his house a great inn; where the noise, the trouble, and the charge, is sure to be his, but the enjoyment (if there be any) descends upon the persons entertained by him; nay, and upon the very servants of his family, whose business is only to please their master, and live upon him, while the master's business is to please all that come about him, and sometimes to fence against them too. For a gainer by all his costs and charges, he shall never be. Such being the temper of most men in the world, that though they are never so generously entertained, yet they are not to be obliged; but go away, rather envying their entertainer's greatness, than acknowledging his generosity.

DISCOURSE XIII.

OF FALSEHOOD AND LYING.-Prov. xii. 22.

I am sensible, that by discoursing of lies and falsehood, I must needs fall into a very large common place; though yet, not by half so large and common as the practice: nothing in nature being so universally decried, and withal so universally practised, as falsehood. So that most of those things, that have the mightiest and most controlling influence upon the affairs and course of the world, are neither better nor worse, than downright lies. For, what is common fame, which sounds from all quarters of the world, and resounds back to them again, but generally a loud, rattling, impudent, over-bearing lie? What are most of the histories of the world, but lies? lies immortalized, and consigned over as a perpetual abuse and flam upon posterity? What are most of the promises of the world, but lies? Of which we need no other proof but our own experience. And what are most of the oaths in the world, but lies? And such as need rather a pardon for being took, than a dispensation from being kept? And lastly, what are all the religions of the world, except Judaism and Christianity, but lies? And even in Christianity itself, are there not those who teach, warrant, and defend lying? and scarce use the bible for any other purpose, but to swear upon it, and to lie against it?

Thus a mighty, governing lie goes round the world, and has almost banished truth out of it; and so reign

ing triumphantly in its stead, is the true source of most of those confusions, and dire calamities, that infest the universe. For look over them all and you shall find that the greatest annoyance of mankind, has been from one of these two things, force or fraud. Of which, as boisterous and violent a thing as force is, yet it rarely achieves any thing considerable, but under the conduct of fraud. Slight of hand has done that, which force of hand could never do.

Plato accounted it lawful for statesmen and governors; and so did Cicero and Plutarch; and the Stoicks (as some say) reckoned it amongst the perfections of a wise man, to lie dexterously, in due time and place. And for some of the ancient doctors of the Christian church; such as Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Lactantius, and Crysostom; and generally, all before St. Austin, several passages have fallen from them, that speak but too favourably of this ill thing. So that Paul Layman, a Romish casuist, says, that it is a truth but lately known, and received in the world, that a lie is absolutely sinful and unlawful; I suppose, he means, that part of the world, where the scriptures are not read, and where men care not to know, what they are not willing to practise.

But then, for the mitigation of what has proceeded from these great men, we must take in that known and celebrated division of a lie into those three several kinds of it. As 1. The pernicious lie, uttered for the hurt or disadvantage of our neighbour. 2. The officious lie, uttered for our own, or our neighbour's advantage. And 3. and lastly, The ludicrous and jocose lie, uttered only for mirth's sake, in common converse. Now for the first of these, which is the pernicious lie, it was, and is universally condemned by all; but the other two have found some patronage from the writings of those fore-mentioned authors.

Το pass from thence* to fanatic treachery, that is, from one twin to the other; how came such multitudes of our own nation, at the beginning of that monstrous rebellion, to be spunged of their plate and money, rings and jewels, for the carrying on of the schismatical, dissenting, king-killing cause? Why, next to their own love of being cheated, it was the public faith of faithless miscreants that drew them in. And, how came so many thousands to fight, and die in the same rebellion? Why, they were deceived into it by those spiritual trumpeters, who followed them with continual alarms of damnation, if they did not venture life, fortune and all, in that which wickedly and devilishly those impostors called, The cause of God. So that I myself have heard one say (whose quarters have since hung about that city, where he first had been deceived) that he with many more, went to that execrable war with such a controlling horror upon their spirits, from those sermons,† that they verily believed they should have been accursed by God forever, if they had not acted their part in that dismal tragedy.

Where fraud and falsehood, like a plague or canker, comes once to invade society, the band which held together the parts compounding it, presently breaks; and men thereby put to a loss where to league, and to fasten their dependences; and so are forced to scatter, and shift every one for himself. Upon which account, every notoriously false person ought to be looked upon as a public enemy, to be pursued as a wolf, or a mad dog, and a disturber of the common peace and welfare of mankind. There being no person whatsoever, but has his private interest concerned, and endangered in the mischief that such a wretch does to the public.

For look into great families, and you shall find some [That is, Popish.-ED.]

Col. Axtell; he particularly mentioned those of Brooks and Calamy.