It is one of the ten commandments, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; our Saviour has, in the most solemn manner, forbid swearing, yet where is more swearing than amongst Christians, and among such Christians as would think it hard to be reckoned a reproach to the Christian name?

The Scripture says of Christians, that they are born of God, and have overcome the world; can they be reckoned of that number who have not so much as overcome this flagrant sin, and to which they have no temptation in nature?

Well therefore may the doctrines of humility, heavenly-mindedness, and contempt of the world be disregarded, since they have all the corruptions of flesh and blood, all the innate and acquired pride, and vanity of our nature to conquer before they can be admitted.

To proceed.

I know it is pretended by some, that these doctrines of our Saviour concerning forsaking all, and the like, related only to his first followers, who could be his disciples upon no other terms, and who were to suffer with him for the propagation of the Gospel.

It is readily owned, that there are different states of the church, and that such different states may call Christians to some particular duties, not common to every age.

It is owned also, that this was the case of the first Christians; they differed from us in many respects.

They were personally called to follow Christ; they received particular commissions from his mouth; they were empowered to work miracles, and called to a certain expectation of hatred and sufferings from almost all the world.

These are particulars in which the state of the first church differed from the present.

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But then it is carefully to be observed, that this difference in the state of the church is a difference in the external state of the church, and not in the internal inward state of Christians. It is a difierence that relates to the affairs and condition of the world, and not to the personal holiness and purity of Christians.

The world may sometimes favour Christianity, at other times it may oppose it with persecution: now this change of the world makes two different states of the church, but without making any difference in the inward personal holiness of Christians, which is to be always the same, whether the world smiles or frowns upon it.

Whatever degrees, therefore, of personal holiness, or inward perfection, was required of the first followers of Christ, is still in the same degree, and for the same reasons required of all Christians to the end of the world.

Humility, meekness, heavenly affection, devotion, charity. and a contempt of the world, are all internal qualities of personal holiness; they constitute that spirit and temper of religion which is required for its own excellence, and is therefore of constant and eternal obligation. There is always the same fitness and reasonableness in them, the same perfection in practising of them, and the same rewards always due to them.

We must, therefore, look carefully into the nature of the things, which we find were required of the first Christians; if we find that they were called to sufferings from other people, this may perhaps not be our case; but if we see they are called to sufferings from themselves, to voluntary self-denials, and renouncing their own rights, we may judge amiss, if we think this was their particular duty as the first disciples of Christ.

For it is undeniable that these instances of making themselves sufferers from themselves, of

voluntary self-denial, and renunciation of all worldly enjoyments, are as truly parts of personal holiness and devotion to God as any instances of charity, humility, and love to God that can possibly be supposed.

And it will be difficult to show why all Christians are now obliged, in imitation of Christ, to be meek and lowly in heart, if they, like the first Christians, are not obliged to these instance of lowliness and meekness; or if they are obliged still to imitate Christ, how can they be said to do it if they excuse themselves from these plain and required ways of showing it.

if, therefore, Christians will show that they are not obliged to those renunciations of the world which Christ required of his first followers, they must show that such renunciations, such voluntary self-denials, were not instances of personal holiness and devotion, did not enter into the spirit of Christianity, or constitute that death to the world, new birth in Christ, which the Gospel requireth. But this is as absurd to imagine, as to suppose that praying for our enemies is no part of charity.

Let us, therefore, not deceive ourselves, the Gospel preaches the same doctrines to us that our Saviour taught his first disciples, and though it may not call us to the same external state of the church, yet it infallibly calls us to the same inward state of holiness and newness of life.

It is out of question that this renunciation of the world was then required, because of the excellency of such a temper, because of its suitableness to the spirit of Christianity, because of its being, in some degree, like to the temper of Christ, because it was a temper that became such as were born again of God, and were nade heirs of eternal glory, because it was a right instance of their loving God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their strength, and with all their mind

because it was a proper way of showing their disregard to the vanity of earthly comforts, and their resolution to attend only to the one thing needful.

If, therefore, we are not obliged to be like them in these respects, if we may be less holy and heavenly in our tempers, if we need not act upon such high principles of devotion to God, and disregard of earthly goods as they did, we must preach a new Gospel of our own; we must say that we need not be meek and lowly as the first Christians were, and that those high doctrines of charity, of blessing, and doing good to our worst enemies, were duties only for the first state of the church.

For this is undeniable, that if any heights of piety, any degrees of devotion to God, of heavenly affection, were necessary for the first Christians, which are not so now, that the same may be said of every other virtue and grace of the Christian life.

All our Saviour's divine Sermon upon the Mount may as well be confined to his first disciples as these doctrines, and it is as sound in divinity, as well founded in reason, to assert, that our Saviour had only regard to his first disciples, when he said, Ye cannot serve God and mammon, as when he saith, Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

For let any one think, if he can find the least shadow of a reason, why Christians should, at first, be called to higher degrees of heavenly affection, devotion to God, and disregard of the world, than they are now.

It will be as easy to show that they were obliged to a stronger faith, a more lively hope, than we are

now.

But if faith and hope are graces of too excellent a nature, too essential to the life and spirit of a Christian, to admit of any abatements in any age

of the church, I should think that heavenly affection, devotion to God, and dying to the world, are tempers equally essential to the spirit of religion, and too necessary to the perfection of the soul, to be less required in one age than in another.

Besides it is to be considered, that these tempers are the natural and genuine effects of faith and hope; so that if they are changed or abated, faith and hope must have so far suffered abatements, and failed in their most proper and excellent effects.

All men will readily grant that it would be very absurd to suppose, that more articles of faith should have been necessary to be believed by our Saviour's first followers than by Christians of afterages.

Let it then be considered why this would be absurd, and it will plainly appear that the same reason which makes it absurd to suppose that any thing which was once necessary to be believed should ever lose that necessity, will equally show that it is alike absurd to suppose that any thing that was once necessary to be done should ever be lawful to be left undone.

For it is absurd to suppose that articles of faith should not have always the same relation to salvation. And is it not equally absurd to suppose the same of any graces or virtues of the soul? That the kingdom of heaven should, at such a time, be only open to such degrees of piety, of heavenly affection, and dying to the world, and at other times make no demand of them..

Again, I believe all men will readily grant, that whenever the church falls into such a state of persecution as was in the beginning, that we are then to suffer for the faith as the first Christians did.

Now I ask, Why we are to do as they did when we fall into the like circumstances?

Is it because what they did was right and fit to be done? Is it because their example is safe and