we shall do evil, and without doubt be taken in some snare or other. Or if we will draw a line amongst them, and say, These are good, and may be safely indulged in; these are evil, and may at no hand be meddled with; we shall add to the former this other error, that there be certain things which cannot be sanctified by God unto the use of his people: and so restore the Jewish bondage of clean and of unclean, among the creatures which God hath cleansed by the blood of his own Son. The true principle to go upon therefore, in knowing, in appropriating, in using the creatures, is, that they are all most seductive in themselves to the nature of man, and links of the chain which binds him in darkness, and therefore, cautiously and carefully to be intermeddled with; but, seeing we must pass our lives amongst them, and be beholden to them for the support of our life, for the means of well-being, and of well-doing, we ought to believe that, being considered with the eye of reason, and in the light of revelation, they are all good, and capable of affording to us most excellent instruction concerning God, and a most excellent discipline of all our moral and religious faculties. Therefore, we ought to look at them with the eye of reason, not with the eye of sense; in the light of revelation, not in the darkness of nature; being thankful unto God for whatever portion of his goodness he permitteth us to behold and to enjoy. I put reason and revelation in conjunction with one another, because I believe, as I have set forth in several places, that the light of reason is a gift of God, for which we are beholden, and shall be responsible, to THE WORD, "in whom was life, and the

life was the light of men;" and that it is a derogation from his rights to omit the continual claim and assertion of reason as his gift bestowed upon man not in full property, but in trust until the judgment. Now I say, that these two agree in teaching us one constant lesson concerning the use of the creatures, that they are to be partaken with temperance; for intemperance in eating or drinking, or beholding, or possessing, or any other mode of enjoying, doth as much obscure the light, and impede the actings of the reason, as it doth vex the Holy Spirit, and quench the life of God in our souls.

The Apostle, when entreating of the intemperance and lusts of the heathen, findeth their guilt to consist in two things chiefly; of which the first is, That they "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is God over all blessed for ever:" and the second, that they "changed the natural use of the creatures into that which is against nature," and burned with all manner of intemperate and unnatural lusts. And he placeth the intemperate desires as a consequence of the idolatrous worship of the creature; yea, he assigneth it as an express judgment of God upon them for the same: "Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." To be guarded against the like degradation of our bodies and minds beneath the creatures, against becoming the slaves of the senses, which are the

slaves of the visible world, when they are not under the controul of the reason, or Spirit of God (which are one in substance and in origin, though diverse in degree), it is therefore most necessary, that we should guard against the idolatry of any thing which is created and made. And what is idolatry? Not the bowing down unto a graven image; this is the form of it; but the act is the loving of any thing, and the desiring of it for its own sake, and the using it for its own sake: wherefore the Apostle calleth covetousness idolatry, because it affecteth a thing on its own account, instead of desiring it from God and for God, and using it to His glory. I do think, therefore, that even reason teacheth us we should ask of God that which we desire to possess; and when we have obtained it, give him thanks, and again ask his blessing upon it; and so, "whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, do all to his glory." Unless the natural reason, or the renewed spirit of man, be thus acknowledging God as its fear, it must either acknowledge itself as its fear, which is vanity, pride, and Stoicism; or it must acknowledge the creature as its fear, which is idolatry, and intemperance, and every evil.

A right apprehension then, dear brethren, of God's propriety in all things, and a due acknowledgment of his goodness, is essential to the righteous use of the creatures; which, if we forget or neglect, he will give us also up, as heretofore he gave up the heathen, to all manner of intemperance and uncleanness.And this is very important to you, whose occupation is so much with traffic and merchandize, bringing you continually under a temptation to desire these things, and to

delight in them, and to amass them, or to exchange them to the greatest advantage. Upon the continuance or increase of their value dependeth your own and your family's wealth; and therefore, if you do not continually commit your way to God, and leave all to the disposal of his providence, your heart will be stolen away to the creature, and, as sure as the laws of God, covetousness or intemperance will be the consequence. And in your families, if you be not careful to keep up a continual acknowledgment of God, and reverence of him before your wives and children, and servants, you may rest assured they will fall into some excesses; the women into vanity of dress and appearance, the young men into ambition or covetousness, the children into the indulgence of the appetite, and all into the neglect of God's word, and the incapacity of improving under its ministrations. Oh, what exceeding evils arise unto the soul from the indulgences of the table! what fatness of the heart, what stupidity of the mind, what bondage of the will! Look how it hampers and hinders even the worship of God, which must conform to or compromise it with the worship of the dinner-table. Now, brethren, I am no cynic nor satyrist, but a lover of hospitality, and one who delights to see men rejoicing together in the abundance of the Lord I have no taste whatever for interdicting meats and drinks, like the Apostasy; and I can enter into the honest and lordly feeling of our Scottish Reformer, who, upon his death-bed, and the day before his decease, commanded his servant to broach a pipe of wine, in order to welcome some one who had come to take farewell of him

from this world, and bid him God-speed into the world to come. I say this was lordly; it was like a man who had achieved through grace the lordship over himself, and over the wine-cup, and could look upon it and durst use it, with innocency, as the good creature of God, which our Lord also did immediately before his crucifixion. Therefore 1 pray you, not to put it to the score of asceticism, when I earnestly exhort you to be constantly upon your guard against the evil tendency of the creatures to engross and debase the spirit of man.

Again: are you students and inquirers into any region of nature? then, be assured, that the understanding will blind the reason: the understanding which judgeth by the sense of the nature of things, will blind the reason, which judgeth by the conscience. And of all blinds and eclipses, this is the most helpless which hath darkened all our scientific men to the light of God, and made them most contemptuous of the Gospel of Christ. I might say professional men also, especially the medical profession which is conversant with the material world: I might say political men, especially those that consider themselves as enlightened in the science of political economy. Speak to any of them of justification by faith only in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ; speak to them of the quickening of the Divine Spirit, and the sovereign will of the Father in and over all things; or give them a hint that there is a Trinity of Persons in the Divine substance, and if they do not openly blaspheme, or contemptuonsly mock you, depend upon it they will silently wonder at your gross stupidity and amazing folly. Be upon your guard also in the beholding of nature; in the viewing of its sublime and beautiful