classes who have devoted themselves to self-sufficiency, outward reputation, and worldly gain, cannot profit from preaching, cannot enter into the kingdom of Christ, cannot be saved, but, without one solitary exception, must utterly perish. And in particular, at this time, do you observe, and take it to heart, that every man is dead, without remedy or help even of Christ, who hath the opinion of others and the custom of the world before his eyes as a rule to walk by. Those who give in to the mastery of fashion, and allow it to be a sufficient reason in any matter;-in the stile of our house-keeping, which should be ruled by honesty; in the stile of our person, which should be ruled by modest appearance and comely plainness; in the treatment of our servants, which should be ruled by duty; in the manner of our speech, which should be ruled by truth; in the manner of our feeling, which should be ruled by charity;-I say that whoever giveth himself up to fashion, as a rule of life, and multitudes know no other, though they profess to know Christ, and attend upon his ordinances, -is dead while he liveth, and the word of God is cast away upon him, and crieth to God as a witness against him. You who are whirling in this gulf of active life know that all who are there perish.

And, though for distinction's sake, fashion be in an especial manner applied to a certain rank of life, and have a certain locality given to it, where it is most active in its energy, and most foolish in its visible operation, turning night into day, and day into night, the retirement of home into the bustle of a multitude, and domestic society into a mob; and valuing, according to their no

toriety and publicity, those sweets of social intercourse which heretofore were valued by their quietness and confidence; though this be the high service and unmasked wickedness of fashion, yet be it known unto you, that this influence of the opinion of the world is every where operative, and, wherever it operates, produceth spiritual death; mark the word, wherever it operates, produceth spiritual death, and there cannot be spiritual life but by the death of this deadly influence. And why? Because the friendship of the world is enmity with God, because the world cannot, will not consent to the word of God: it knoweth not to yield, but to die; for Satan is the prince of it.

And this their vaunted public opinion is no better than Satan's voice disguised according to what the times will bear; from which disguise he would fain persuade you that it is the voice of God: but I tell you it is the voice of Satan; and whosoever is a spiritual man knoweth that it is so. What, you say to me, do you call that the voice of Satan which forbids us to drink, and swear, and commit adultery; which cuts off any one who transgresseth the orderly customs of the world? Thou silly child, dost thou think that Satan is only a sensualist? Dost thou not know that he is also a prince of light, yea an angel of light when it suits him? He will please thy pride by the sacrifice of thy senses, and even he will please thy humility with the sacrifice of thy pride: he will please thy intellect with the sacrifice of thy interest: and so that he can hold thee in any one of the meshes of his net, or take thee with any one of the hooks of his line, it mattereth not to him by

which. But come, tell me when did public opinion, at its purest, persuade thee of the total corruption of human nature, and of the wickedness of the whole world, and of its being fit only for destruction? and when did public opinion tell thee of its own errors and veering changes? Yea, even so far it will go, as to affect humility and orthodoxy, to set up the Bible as the only truth, and orthodoxy as the only doctrine, and morality as the only life. I was bred in such an atmosphere of public opinion. There is about as much of the earth as Gideon's fleece, which hath such a goodly stile of it; and it pleased the Lord to appoint my birth in such a Goshen. But, taken at the best, as I have known her, public opinion is but a formalist, a formal Pharisee at the best; a hypocrite and dissembler, overawed perhaps by the presence of Christ, but hating him not the less, and ever ready to take occasion against Christ's servants, scandalizing them, suspecting them, censuring them, ever suggesting the least possible service of God, and to those who would enter into it with the whole heart saying continually, "Be not over righteous," be moderate in all things. And therefore our Lord solemnly denounceth it: "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. If you are of the world, the world will love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."

Take heed, brethren, to what I say; for I am exposing to your sight the most powerful of all Satan's temptations, the idol of the time, the idol of the place, I may say the terror of all men; for I have met with very few, hardly one in a thousand, who can stand up in the face of public

opinion and say, 'I will do thus, say it or gainsay it who please.' A sentence in a newspaper will cow a man's honesty more than an opened battery will his valour. It hath become the very neces sary of men's life, to feed on the public opinion of their brethren. We are become an outward people, from the top to the bottom of the community; and therefore the word of God can make little or nothing of us. Can you make the unstable water change places with the immoveable mountains, or the sands of the windy desart erect themselves into pillars of strength? So soon shall you make that spirit stand attentive and stedfast before the unchangeable word of God, which is accustomed to give way in the daily affairs of life to the changeable and expedient world. Nor let any man go to take out an exception for himself, as if he were exempt from the temptation. The man who feeleth and acknowledgeth it, is the man of whom there is some hope: the man who hath not felt, and doth not acknowledge it, is the man of whom there is no hope for the present; and the man who addresseth himself to defend it, is the man of whom there is no hope at all. I preach it solemnly and advisedly, on the authority of the Lord, that there is no hope of any one who is given up to this outward authority and government of others. He hath no root in himself, he is a changeling: the seed of the word will as soon grow upon the salt sea as in his heart; the foam of the waves of the sea will as soon prove a nourishing soil to the seed of corn, as his stony and barren heart, his wavering and irresolute will, will prove a soil for the word of God. He is as chaff driven before the wind, and he shall not stand in the judgment.

Do you ask me what is the remedy? I ask you in return, do you believe that the disease is mortal? If you shuffle the question to a side, and will not answer directly, that you do believe it to be a deadly disease, I hold no further intercourse with you. For I am not here to soften down my Lord's peremptory words, or to dilute his Gospel to please your diseased taste: which were to make myself obnoxious to the like condemnation; to unteach the lesson in the teaching of it; to do you harm, and to do myself harm, and to dishonour the Gospel of the Lord. But if you admit that the spirit of world-pleasing is a spirit of death, and desire to know how you may be delivered from its thraldom, then hear what I have to say unto you from the Lord who bought with his blood from the world's oppressor. you

The world is to be destroyed, and the things that are therein, because they are altogether enmity to God. When Christ cometh in judgment, its bulwarks, its towers, and its high places, its pleasures and enjoyments, the noise of its viols, the vanity of its attire; its barns and storehouses; its courts, and palaces, and chambers of revelry; its pomp, and pride, and bravery, with all its flatteries, and lies, and dissimulations, shall be destroyed, along with every one who had pleasure therein: and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness; and holiness unto the Lord shall be upon every person, and upon every object, and nothing shall enter thereinto which defileth or maketh a lie. Believest thou that in the regeneration all these things shall be changed, the impure alloy purged out of them by fire; Satan, the spirit of corrup