contribute to the increase of charity, as it most assuredly does to creating in us habits of obedience.

Let us now examine how far the condition of mankind in the early ages, as it is disclosed to us in scripture, accords or not with these ideas.

We may, I think, see good grounds to divide the inhabitants of the earth, in what we may call the former days, into two distinct classes; one which does not seem to have been subjected to any particular form of government, or, at least, not to any strict rule in religious matters: the other, on the contrary, kept under a discipline as strict as it was uniform, under regulations which no one was allowed to transgress without the severest punishment. Now, what shall we find to have followed from these two different orders of things? To which of them was annexed either greater purity of mind, and innocence of conversation, or a greater share of God's blessing, and even temporal happiness? We must, I think, perforce answer this in favour of that description of persons who were governed by the most positive and severe

laws.

If we consider the state of mankind before the deluge, when, as far as appears to us, the greatest liberty of action was permitted, when all men seem to have been left to worship God

according to their own private judgment; although we shall find some individuals, one or two in particular, highly distinguished for piety and the practice of righteousness, yet we cannot surely think very favourably of that order of things which led to such a general corrup tion, that in the end only one man was found worthy in the sight of God to be saved from the general destruction in which all the rest of mankind were involved. If we extend our view further to the period which immediately succeeded the deluge, when the-same liberty appears to have been continued to Noah and his sons, what do we see but the same disposition to forget God, and to transgress his laws, even in those who had been actual eye-witnesses of his judgments? And we perceive this perverseness of disposition breaking out not only in the posterity of Ham, but even in the immediate or almost immediate descendants of the other bro thers, whom we find early engaged in a project of making themselves independent of their Divine Creator and Judge; a project which was only defeated by that confusion of tongues and subsequent dispersion which produced the variety of nations by which the earth is now peopled. What was the sort of religious worship which all these nations adopted, into what gross idolatry they fell, even from that very time as far back as we can trace them, I need

not detail to you. So prevalent and so popular was the worship of false gods, so absolutely were the inhabitants of the earth besotted with, and given up to, the most abominable superstition, that the knowledge of the true God was only preserved by instituting that other order of persons, by selecting a particular people to be put under the most strict ordinances and subjected to the most severe discipline.

But, still more clearly to shew the profitable. ness if not the necessity of a uniform rule or standard, in order to preserve men from 'error, it has so happened, that, in the history of this very people there was a particular period, when, as I hinted before, a relaxation took place in this respect when, as we are told, "There was

no king in Israel, but every man did that "which was right in his eyes*." Now, what was the consequence of this? Why, that wickedness and impiety of all sorts, nay, and idolatry in various forms, generally and abominably prevailed among them; that they were constantly torn with dissentions and divisions, and one tribe was nearly extirpated. During the greatest part of this period they were, in consequence of this their rebellion and misconduct, given over and subjected to other nations who tyrannized over them. When too, under the

* Judges xvii. 6. and xxi. 25.

pressure of their calamity, they turned to God, and he heard their cry and helped them; when "he sent judges which delivered them out of the "hands of them that spoiled them*;" even then the remembrance of these mercies had not any lasting effect upon their minds; for we are expressly told in their history, that it came to pass, that "when the judge was dead," (that is, the judge who had been the instrument of any particular deliverance) "they returned and cor"rupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods, and bowing down "unto them."

From the consideration of these examples it does seem to me, that we may fairly conclude, upon a general view of things, that it is at least dangerous for men to be indulged with that complete liberty for which some persons would stipulate; that it is neither safe nor scriptural to declare against all sort of restraint, in the choice of particular modes of worship, and in the performance of religious offices.

Let us now see what was God's manner of dealing with the people whom he placed under his own peculiar superintendence, and to whom he prescribed with the greatest minuteness the forms in which he would be approached, and the honours which should be paid to him. Did

he lightly suffer the order which he had established to be infringed? Did he not on the contrary most severely punish those who deviated from it? And this whether individuals or bodies of men? It is most undoubted and notorious that he did. But as in many of those instances the falling off from God's word was attended with the wickedness of open rebellion and idolatry, as it was what we may call heretical, I shall confine myself to two of those instances where the offence committed was, at least in the beginning, purely what we may call schismatical, where all that was intended was to set up other ministers and other teachers, in opposition to those who were so constituted by divine appointment.

The first of these is the well-known case of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, which is so directly in point that it is not possible wholly to pass it over. But it is also so well understood that I need not enlarge upon it. I shall only observe two things: First, that the origin of this schism was clearly the ambition of Corah and his fellows. They wished to partake of the power and pre-eminence with which God had invested Moses and Aaron. Secondly, I would have you note the language which was held by these men, and consider whether it be any thing more than what has been commonly urged in latter times against the rulers of our church. "Ye take