Excess in 17041,

exprefs a fort of Men, who in Oppofition to the Simplicity and Obedience of the Crofs (the peculiar Badge and Characteriftick of the real Chriftian) do acknowledge no other Law or Obligation than what their brutifh Appetite, or (at moft) their own weak and benighted Reafon fhall fuggeft or approve And who confequently fhall think it their greatest Concern, and fpend the greateft part of their Time to accomplish themselves according to their own Ideas of Perfection; and (as they call it) make a Figure in the World. They have no Notion of thofe Chriftian Duties, of Meeknefs, Poverty of Spirit, Self-denial, and Mortification, fo earnestly recommended by our Bleffed Lord. The Beauty of Holinefs doth not affect them half fo much, as that of their own Perfons; and the Praife of Men, in their Opinion, is every way preferable to the Praife of God: And the Wisdom of God himself, if it feems to interfere with, or contradict their Oracles of Reason, must be decried as Unreafonable, foolish and contradictory. Now if these are the Perfons comprehended under this grand Divifion of Sin, The Pride of Life, as it feems plain to me they are, then we need not multiply Arguments to prove the future Increase of these Men: Since we our felves (upon whom the Ends of the World are furely come) do every Day fee fuch prodigious Excefs of this kind, as ought to excite our most generous Compaffion for them, and moft diligent Watchfulness for our felves, that we fall

not

not under the fame Condemnation. In the
Proof of which we need not be very par-
ticular, but only appeal to the daily Ob
fervation of every impartial Spectator. Do
not we fee how the Men of Power and'
Fortune, which God that gave them will.
exact a fevere Account of, do very often,
inftead of applying them to the End for
which they were defign'd, only make use.
of them to aggrandize themselves, and fup-
port them in their extravagant and luxuri-
ous Pleafures? Do we not fee how the mo-
dern Pretenders to Wit and Senfe, fet it
up in Oppofition to what is Good and Sa-
cred, making it the grand Concern of their
Lives, to deserve that Character? To go
yet further; Do we not fee the Great Pa-
trons of rational and philofophical Truth ca
fome of them exprefly denying the very
Being and Existence of a God; others
granting this, yet denying the Neceffity or
Poffibility of having any Revelation or
Discovery made of Himfelf or his Will?
And all for no other reafon, but because
they cannot comprehend the Manner or
Reafons of God's acting with Men; nor
exactly reconcile every, Difficulty which
their darken'd Understanding may meet
with, and very often themfelves make:
Whilft a third fort, admitting what the
others deny, yet are fo in love with their
own darling Opinions and Prejudices, as to
make them the Standards of Divine Truth &
to which the very Scriptures themfelves
must be reduced, and made to speak their
Language, tho' never fo contrary, before
E
they
with the sourian

+ This is care

*

they fhall pass for fuch. So alfo among 1 the divided and fubdivided Parties, it which our modern Chriftendom is rent f crumbled, how few are there that foll t their Saviour Chrift Jefus, in the Spiritm Humility, Refignation, and bearing g Crofs. Do they not rather every H pride himfelf in the Rags of his own m Covering, inftead of the Covering of Gti *Ifa. 30.1. Spirit? They have forfaken the Founty living Waters, and have bewn out for to felves broken Cisterns that will hold no Jer. 2. 13. And rather than they will w in the dark and difconfolate Path of u Crofs, they will kindle a falfe Fire of their e and encompass themselves with Sparks of own kindling; but their End must be that t Shall lay down in Sorrow, Ifa. 5o. II. T The ( is, All thofe Perfons, whofe Love, who di Happiness, and whofe Religion is foun no deeper than the Flesh, or outward M fhall be punished in a more remarka and exemplary Manner, by Plagues Difeafes, which fhall blaft and deftroy th Life or Principle, on which they have t ftowed all their Care and Pain, and 'which they have put their Trust.

That there

the laft

Days.

S4. THAT there fhall be + Peftilences Jhall be fore Difeafes in the laft Days, more remarkab Difeafes in or univerfally than ever, is exprefly forero by our Lord. There fhall be Famines, Peftilen † Aouoi. and Earthquakes in divers Places, Mat. 24 Luke 21. 11. (to omit feveral Places in Prophetical Writings which undoubte belong to the fame time) by which, principally underftand that Species of D

feafes

feafes, commonly called by us the Plague and Peftilence, fo alfo in a more general Senfe all forts of Diseases incident to human Bodies, those more particularly that arife from immoderate Heat, fuch as are all forts and degrees of Fevers, Inflammations, &c. and the Holy Writers understood the Word in this more general and comprehenfive Signification, does appear from many Places of Holy Scripture, whereof I fhall only mention

one or two.

(1) ALL thofe Maladies and Diseases which are called Terror, or, (as the + Word ufed by the LXXII feems rather to import) extreme Melancholy or Dejection of Spitit; Confumption, Burning Ague, or ( || as || integ the LXXII understood it) the King's Evil, (which also seems to be implied by its Predicate, viz. that fhall confume the Eyes) as alfo what is call'd Deut. 28. 22. The Confumption, Fever, Inflammation, extreme Burning, Blafting (or Blight) and Mildew,as also v. 28. Madness and Blindness, v. 27. the Botch of Egypt and the Emerods, the Scab, and the incurable Itch, and v. 59, 60, 61. All the great Plagues and fore Sickneles, and all the Diseases of Egypt, and every Sickness, and every Plague that is not written in the Book of the Law. All these, I fay, are briefly comprehended in the one * Word which we tranflate Peftilence. When T * ye are gathered together within your Cities, I will Jend the Peftilence among you, Levit. 26. 25. The Lord fhall make the Peftilence cleave unto thee, until he have confumed thee from off the Land, whither thou goeft to poffefs it. Deut. 28. 21. In the latter of which Places it is obfervable E 2

that

that God threatens to fmite them with this Peftilence, till it have confum'd them (utterly, or perfectly confum'd them, * as the Words fignify) from the Face of the Earth or Land, &c. which if it were meant precifely of that Species of Diftempers fo commonly called, it cannot be easily conceived what occafion there fhould be for those other Evils mentioned in the very next Verfe. We are therefore rather to underftand by it the whole Complex or Body of Difeafes, in which Senfe it is commonly ufed bythe latter Prophets,whenfoever they had occafion to threaten the Jews with thofe Judgments which God had before in this Place fo folemnly denounced against their Difobedience: So alfo it is used by the latter Rabbins; as appears particularly from the Book of R. Jacob, Intitled, Sepher Abeboth Rochel, which treats of the last Times, and of the Signs and Tokens that fhall precede the Coming of the Meffiab, where Lib. 1. Part 1. there are thefe Words, fpeaking of the fecond Sign. God fhall fend upon the World an exceffive Heat from the Sun, with Confumption and Burning Fevers, and other bad Diseases, the Peftilence alfo, and other Plagues, which fhall deftroy daily thousands of People, and fo fhall all the Wicked in Ifrael perish. All of them understanding no more by all these various kinds of Dif eafes, than what is comprehended, by that tone Word † Peftilence, Ezek. 14. 21. and other Places of the Prophetical Writings, where undoubtedly it was meant to fignify

C

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