siastical preferments. To subscribe articles which men do not believe in the obvious sense of the words, and which they mean to oppose; to avow themselves, "moved by the Holy Ghost, to take on them" the sacred ministry, when secular motives alone induce them to choose that line of life; to ratify this equivocating profession, by receiving the LORD's Supper; to read a liturgy, and in their sermons and conversation to contradict what they have uttered on their knees before GOD; and then to palliate and vindicate such a system of prevarication and hypocrisy: this, I say, must constitute a degree of guilt of no common atrocity. And I deem myself the more bound to speak on this subject, because I only describe my own conduct in times past; and I verily believe, that in this respect I added more to the aggregate of our national guilt, than in any other action of my life.*

But, indeed, many other things, which continually are practised and connived at, in men's entrance into holy orders, and in their obtaining and holding livings and preferments, are utterly incompatible with either piety, truth, or righteousness. Yea, in these respects,

profaneness goes forth from the priests, to all the in"habitants of the land:" and whilst infidels adduce such facts among their best arguments against religion;

* It may be needful to mention, that I have since been led most cordially to embrace the doctrines I then rejected; or else I should have deemed it my duty to quit the situation which I had surreptitiously obtained in the Church of England.

though we cannot wonder that profligate men will prostitute the ordinance of the LORD's supper, as a step to preferment; it may well be considered as surprizing, that such a scandal to our church-establishment is allowed to subsist among us.

the

5. Covetousness, fraud, lying, and oppression of poor, have hitherto been so general in all ages and nations, and have so connected with the commercial dealings of ungodly men; that it might appear an empty declamation, should I insist upon them on this occasion. One particular, however, must not be omitted; I mean the execrable and execrated slave-trade. Whilst the extreme iniquity and cruelty of this commerce, and its fatal effects on three quarters of the globe at least, but especially throughout the vast continent of Africa, were little known or regarded; it might be considered as the guilt of individuals, and not a national iniquity: but now that the monster has been dragged forth to publick view, and all the world hath been shewn, beyond possibility of palliation, the multiplied murders, cruelties, and enormities that are inseparable from its existence; to set it up, as another Moloch, to be immolated by myriads of human sacrifices every year, merely on a false or dubious persuasion of national emolument, is such a renunciation of all justice, truth, humanity, and mercy, for the sake of filthy lucre, as can hardly be equalled in the annals of mankind!"Blood defileth the land in which it is "shed; neither can it be cleansed from it, save by the "blood of him that shed it;"* and the case cannot be

* Numbers, xxxv. 33.

altered by the mere circumstance of the blood being shed at a distance, by the inhabitants of this nation. So that the unavenged blood of thousands of poor negroes, cries daily from the earth unto GoD, against the inha❤ bitants of Great Britain; and will continue to do so; more and more, until this atrocious evil be completely terminated; and murder, rapine, and cruelty be no more sanctioned by our legislature: or, till the LORD take the matter into his own hands; and we learn, to our cost, that honesty and mercy are the best policy; and that oppression of the poor and helpless can never enrich, but will certainly sink, the nation that sanctions them.

In vain do we fast and pray, unless we "loose the "bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, and "let the oppressed go free."* For whilst lucrative sins are persisted in, our repentance can only resemble that of Pharaoh, who cried out, "I have sinned," but would not consent to liberate the oppressed Israelites. Without attention to such plain duties, how can we call this a fast, or an acceptable day to the LORD?

After such an overgrown evil and bloodshed, on so large a scale, it may almost seem an approach to trifling, when I proceed to mention the blood shed in duels, and not avenged by the death of the murderer. Whilst so many thieves are put to death, by a policy not authorized in the word of GOD, and evidently not

*Isaiah lviii. 5, 6.

attended with his blessing, almost the worst of murderers are suffered to escape! But let magistrates and jurymen look to it, how they will answer it to GOD; if, under the term of man-slaughter, they liberate the malicious murderer, and so abet duelling, which is one of the greatest outrages against both the law and the gospel of GoD, which can almost be conceived.

6. Among other national sins, it will perhaps excite surprise, that I mention the luxury and extravagance of the age. I mean not, however, to inveigh against all those excesscs, which, though indeed very criminal, are not peculiar to the present times. I advert to the prevailing disposition of all orders in the society to emulate their superiors, till all distinction of rank is nearly lost. By a variety of methods, which are useful to a certain degree in a commercial country, credit may be acquired to a very large extent: men therefore, possessed of small property, engage in business disproportionately large; and then launch out in their expenditure, according to their apparent, not their real, circumstances. They vie with each other, and with persons of real affluence, in their houses, furniture, appearance, attendants, and entertainments; they frequent expensive publick diversions, (which are multiplied beyond the example of former times,) and they join in every fashionable vanity: till at length their accumulated debts weigh them down, and multitudes are ruined along with them. This is come to such a pitch, that it threatens the destruction of credit itself, and commerce with it; and the effect may possibly Hove the punishment of our other sins.

The case is similar with the inferior orders: servants emulate their masters; their wages are lavished away in needless expences; so that old age or sickness finds them destitute, or their death leaves families unprovided for. The evils which originate from this source, can scarcely be enumerated; it concurs with other things to produce that spirit of gaming, which ruins numbers, and often terminates in suicide; and it is a principal cause of those varied methods of fraud and robbery, which fill our jails with wretched inhabitants, and make way for so many lamentable executions: whilst the other national sins, that we are about to consider, greatly originate from this prolifick source of vice and misery.

7. Of these we may next mention the venality, which so greatly degrades our national character, and threatens even the subversion of our excellent constitution. Whilst men in general live above what they can afford, they will certainly be tempted to grasp at gain from every quarter; and in general, a sufficient compensation will determine them to any measure or any party. Thus things are now come to that pass, that few of those who elect members to serve in parliament, honestly vote for the wisest and most upright men that are proposed to them, without expecting any other compensation than their faithful endeavours to serve their country; but by far the greatest number, in other places, besides the small boroughs, expect to be paid, in some way or other, for their votes: and so great is the selfish ingenuity, that is exercised in evading the laws, that no method hath yet been found efVOL. II. N N