facility, that little of the spirit and vigour even of the style of the best writers is diminished; an advantage the English industry and curiosity hath not yet brought home to that nation: they who have performed that office hitherto, for the most part, having done it for profit, and to live, without any delight in the pains they take; aud though they may have had some competent knowledge of the language out of which they have translated, have been very far from understanding their own mothertongue, and being versed in the fruitful productions of the English language. But though learning may be thus attained by many nations in their own proper dialect, and the language of their own country, yet few men who take the pains to search for it in their own, but have the curiosity to look into the original, and are conversant in those which are still, and still will be, called the learned languages; nor is yet any man eminent for knowledge and learning, that was not conversant in other tongues besides his own; and it may be those two necessary sciences, that is, the principles of them, grammar and logic, can very hardly be so well and conveniently taught and understood as by Latin. It shall serve my turn, and I shall willingly comply with and gratify our beloved modern education, if they take the pains to read good books in that language they understand best and like most; I had almost said, if they will read any books, be so much alone as reading employs; if they will take as much pains to be wise aud polish their minds, as they do to order and dispose their clothes and their hair; if they will put that constraint upon themselves in order to be learned, as they do to attain to a per

fection in any bodily exercise; and, lastly, which is worth all the rest, if they will as heartily endeavour to please God, as they do those for whom they have no great affection, every great man whose favour they solicit, and affect being good Christians, as much as they do to be fine gentlemen, they shall find their labour as much less, as their reward and recompense will be greater. If they will not do this, they must not take it ill if it be believed, that they are without knowledge that their souls are to outlive their bodies; and that they do not so much wish to go to Heaven, as to get the next bet at play, or to win the next horse-race they are to

run.

To conclude: If books and industry will not contribute to their being wise, and to their salvation, they will receive from it (which they value more) pleasure and refreshment in this world; they will have less melancholy in the distress of their fortune, less anxiety in the mortification of sickness; they will not so much complain for want of company, when all their companions forsake them; their age will be less grievous unto them; and God may so bless it, without any intention of their own, that such thoughts may insensibly insinuate themselves into them, that they may go out of the world with less dismal apprehensions, and conclude their neglected lives with more tranquillity of spirit, at least not be so much terrified with the approach of death, as men who have never entertained any sober thoughts of life have used to be, and naturally must be,

OF IMPUDENT DELIGHT IN WICKEDNESS. 39

IV. OF IMPUDENT DELIGHT IN WICKEDNESS.

:

If it be too great a mastery to pretend to, over our own passions and affections, to restrain them from carrying us into any unlawful desire, and from suffering that desire to hurry us into some unlawful action, which is less perfection than every good Christian is obliged to endeavour to arrive at; if some sin knock so loud and so impetuously at our breast, or our blood, that it even forces its entrance, in spite of any resistance we can make for the present, let it at least find such a reception as we would give to an enemy, who doth in truth enter into our habitation by force, though he doth subdue us; let it not have the entertainment of a friend, of a companion for whose presence we were solicitous if we want power and strength to reject it, let us dismiss it with such a rudeness, that it may not promise it a better welcome and reception. It was some degree of modesty in Job's adulterer, (xxiv. 25.) when his " eye waited for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me, and disguised his face," that he was so far ashamed of the sin he acted, that he desired to conceal the suspicion of it from other men; though he had the guilt within himself, he abhorred the being made an example to corrupt others. Whilst there is any shame remaining upon the spirit of a transgressor, any blush discovers itself after the guilt, there is hope of the subduing and conquering that temptation; and that at last it may groy to such a detestation of the transgression itself, and of himself for transgressing, that it may even recover his lost innocence, that is,

:

repair the state and integrity of it. The most severe philosopher, who thought human nature strong enough to suppress and extinguish all temptation, had yet great compassion for him, "qui adhuc peccare erubescit ;" he thought it worth the care of philosophy itself, "ut nutriendus esset hic pudor," that this disinclination and bashfulness towards vice should be so cherished and nourished, that it should not discover itself to be discerned under any other notion than of pure virtue, till it recovered strength enough to 'be so; and without doubt, whilst this bashfulness possesses any place in us, till the custom and malice of sin hath totally subdued the shame for sinning, there is a war kept up that may drive sin from every corner and angle of our hearts and it may be, there have not been more men recovered and reformed by the counsels and animadversions of others, than by their own severe recollections, and reflections upon their own transgressions, and their own observations of the nature and insinuation of sin, and of the unquietness and uneasiness of it, even when it is complied with, and of the restlessness and importunity of it after it is satisfied; "Ipsæ voluptates eorum tepidæ et variis terroribus inquietæ sunt, subitque, cum maxime exsultant, solicita expectatio; Hæc quanı diu?" They who hearken to the voice of their own consciences, and take notice of the reluctance of their own spirit in the very moment they enjoy the pleasures they most delight in, need no other remembrancers, and easily disentangle themselves from all its allurements. But alas! we live in an age wherein vice is not taught so perfunctorily, as to be in danger to be dislodged after it is once en.

OF IMPUDENt delight IN WICKEDNESS. 41 tered and received; the devil is too good a husband, to venture a beloved sin upon a constitution capable. of being ashamed of his guests; he secures himself in that point, by choosing such proselytes as will first brag of having committed some notorious sins, before he admits them to the pleasure and guilt of them, that so the shame of being discovered to be liars may harden their faces against all other shame; the fame of being eminently wicked hath mastered and suppressed the infamy of it; and many would rather be without the pleasure of the sins they most delight in, than without the pleasure of pub!lishing and bragging of them after the commitment; as if there would be too much innocence left, if there should not be an equal proportion of impu2. dence planted in its place. This is it which makes us excel in all lewdness, and our youth doctors in those faculties of wickedness, which were understood in former times by some few discarded ruffians, who were banished the conversation of mankind, and of the sun itself. We travel into foreign | countries, not to improve our own manners, but to learn the worst of theirs, and to transplant them carefully into our own climate; where we cultivate and polish them, that we may excel all nations in their own peculiar vices: and we have so much modesty, as to suspect that our own fancy and invention is not fertile enough to contribute improvement enough to them; and so bring them into conference and conversation with more experienced gamesters, that we may be sure to make the most of them, and imp them out with texts of Scripture with all profaneness and blasphemy, that there may appear no want of deliberation and industry in