heathens? Or will you say that the tempers and passions of the heathen world are lost and gone?

Consider, secondly, what you are to mean by the world. Now this is fully described to our hands by St. John. "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, * etc. This is an exact and full description of the world. Now will you say that this world is become Christian? But if all this still subsists, then the same world is now in being, and the same enemy to Christianity, that it was in St. John's days.

I was this world that St. John condemned, as being not of the Father: whether therefore it outwardly professeth, or openly persecuteth Christianity, it is still in the same state of contrariety to the true spirit and holiness of the Gospel.

And indeed the world, by professing Christianity, is so far from being a less dangerous enemy than it was before, that it has by its favours destroyed more Christians than ever it did by the most violent persecution.

We must, therefore, be so far from considering the world as in a state of less enmity and opposition to Christianity than it was in the first times of the Gospel, that we must guard against it as a greater and more dangerous enemy now, than it was in those times.

It is a greater enemy, because it has greater power over Christians by its favours, riches, honours, rewards, and protection, than it had by the fire and fury of its persecutions.

It is a more dangerous enemy, by having lost its appearance of enmity. Its outward profession of Christianity makes it no longer considered as an enemy, and therefore the generality of people are easily persuaded to resign themselves up to be governed and directed by it.

How many consciences are kept at quiet, upon no 1 John ii. 16.

other foundation, but because they sin under the authority of the Christian world!

How many directions of the Gospel lie by unregarded, and how unconcernedly do particular persons read them, for no other reason but because they seem unregarded by the Christian world!

How many compliances do people make to the Christian world, without any hesitation or remorse; which, if they had been required of them only by heathens, would have been refused, as contrary to the holiness of Christianity!

Who could be content with seeing how contrary his life is to the Gospel, but because he sees that he lives as the Christian world doth?

Who, that reads the Gospel, would want to be persuaded of the necessity of great self-denial, humility, and poverty of spirit, but that the authority of the world has banished this doctrine of the Cross?

There is nothing, therefore, that a good Christian ought to be more suspicious of, or more constantly guard against, than the authority of the Christian world.

And all the passages of Scripture which represent the world as contrary to Christianity, which require our separation from it, as from a Mammon of unrighteousness, a monster of iniquity, are all to be taken in the same strict sense, in relation to the present world.

For the change that the world has undergone has only altered its methods, but not lessened its power, of destroying religion.

Christians had nothing to fear from the heathen world but the loss of their lives; but the world become a friend, makes it difficult for them to save their religion.

Whilst pride, sensuality, covetousness, and ambition, had only the authority of the heathen world, Christians were thereby made more intent upon the contrary virtues. But when pride, sensuality, covetousness, and ambition, have the authority of the Christian world, then private Christians are in the utmost danger, not

only of being ashamed out of the practice, but of losing the very notion, of the piety of the Gospel.

There is, therefore, hardly any possibility of saving yourself from the present world, but by considering it as the same wicked enemy to all true holiness, as it is represented in the Scriptures; and by assuring yourself, that it is as dangerous to conform to its tempers and passions now it is Christian, as when it was heathen.

For only ask yourself, Is the piety, the humility, the sobriety of the Christian world, the piety, the humility, and sobriety of the Christian spirit? If not, how can you be more undone by any world, than by conforming to that which is Christian?

Need a man do more to make his soul unfit for the mercy of God, than by being greedy and ambitious of honour? Yet how can a man renounce this temper, without renouncing the spirit and temper of the world, in which you now live?

How can a man be made more incapable of the Spirit of Christ, than by a wrong value for money? and yet, how can he be more wrong in his value of it, than by following the authority of the Christian world?

Nay, in every order and station of life, whether of learning or business, either in Church or State, you cannot act up to the spirit of religion, without renouncing the most general temper and behaviour of those who are of the same order and business as yourself.

And though human prudence seems to talk mighty wisely about the necessity of avoiding particularities, yet he that dares not be so weak as to be particular, will be often obliged to avoid the most substantial duties of Christian piety.

These reflections will, I hope, help you to break through those difficulties, and resist those temptations, which the authority and fashion of the world hath raised against the practice of Christian humility.

CHAPTER XVIII

Showing how the education which men generally receive in their youth makes the doctrines of humility difficult to be practised. The spirit of a better education represented in the character of Paternus.

ANOTHER difficulty in the practice of humility arises from our education. We are all of us, for the most part, corruptly educated, and then committed to take our course in a corrupt world; so that it is no wonder if examples of great piety are so seldom seen.

Great part of the world are undone by being born and bred in families that have no religion: where they are made vicious and irregular, by being like those with whom they first lived.

But this is not the thing I now mean; the education that I here intend, is such as children generally receive from virtuous and sober parents, and learned tutors and governors.

Had we continued perfect, as God created the first man, perhaps the perfection of our nature had been a sufficient self-instruction for every one. But as sickness and diseases have created the necessity of medicines and physicians, so the change and disorder of our rational nature have introduced the necessity of education and tutors.

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And as the only end of the physician is to restore nature to its own state, so the only end of education is to restore our rational nature to its proper state. cation, therefore, is to be considered as a reason borrowed at second-hand, which is, as far as it can, to supply the loss of original perfection. And as physic may justly be called the art of restoring health, so education should be considered in no other light, than as the art of recovering to man the use of his reason.

Now as the instruction of every art or science is founded upon the discoveries, the wisdom, experience,

and maxims, of the several great men that have laboured in it; so human wisdom, or right use of our reason, which young people should be called to by their education, is nothing else but the best experience, and finest reasonings, of men that have devoted themselves to the study of wisdom, and the improvement of human

nature.

All, therefore, that great saints, and dying men, when the fullest of light and conviction, and after the highest improvement of their reason, all that they have said of the necessity of piety, of the excellency of virtue, of their duty to God, of the emptiness of riches, of the vanity of the world; all the sentences, judgments, reasonings, and maxims, of the wisest of philosophers, when in their highest state of wisdom, should constitute the common lessons of instruction for youthful minds.

This is the only way to make the young and ignorant part of the world the better for the wisdom and knowledge of the wise and ancient.

An education which is not wholly intent upon this, is as much beside the point, as an art of physic that had little or no regard to the restoration of health.

The youths that attended upon Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Epictetus, were thus educated. Their everyday lessons and instructions were so many lectures upon the nature of man, his true end and the right use of his faculties; upon the immortality of the soul, its relation to God, the beauty of virtue, and its agreeableness to the Divine Nature; upon the dignity of reason, the necessity of temperance, fortitude, and generosity, and the shame and folly of indulging our passions.

Now as Christianity has, as it were, new created the moral and religious world, and set every thing that is reasonable, wise, holy, and desirable, in its true point of light; so one would expect, that the education of youth should be as much bettered and amended by Christianity, as the faith and doctrines of religion are amended by it.

As it has introduced such a new state of things, and