SERMON X.

INCONTINENT.

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be . . . . . . incontinent."-2 Tim. iii. 1, 3.

THE word incontinent, as it is now commonly used, hath a much narrower import than the word in the original; which I shall endeavour to define to you, according to its grammatical import and classical use: for it is not found anywhere in the New Testament save in the passage before us; so that we cannot proceed by referring to other passages, but must be content with an exact definition of the proper power and signification of the word. It consists of two parts, not, and governed; being the negation of strength (properly of body), or power of any kind-as Heb. xi. 14,

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He who had the power of death;"—and, in general, the positive part of the word is used in such expressions as these: To have the power, to hold the government, to exercise the command of anything-as in the ascriptions unto God: "To whom be honour and power everlasting,” (1 Tim. vi. 15); "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power" (Rev. v. 13.) Strength, power, and government, may therefore be regarded as the quality which men in the latter times are said

to be without as we would express it, ungoverned, powerless, unrestrained, or weak, hasty, and destitute of self-command. This is the common use of the word in classical authors, to signify one who hath no power over himself; and it is found applied to the various passions of the mind as well as of the body, as, unrestrained in wrath, unrestrained in gain, unrestrained in glory. I do not say but that it is also found used of the lower passions, in the sense of the English word by which it is translated; but am very much inclined to believe that it is not this special sense, but the general one of intemperance, as applied to the whole man, both body and soul, which is here intended. And to this persuasion I am drawn, not only by the grammatical composition of the word, but also by the connection it stands in; which, if you examine, you will find to relate, not to sensual characteristics, but to dissoluteness of the affections and passions of the mind. The connection is, "without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent" (or, as we have expressed it, unrestrained), "fierce" (or unmeek),

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despisers of those that are good." Now these all relate to the evil passions and affections of the mind, and will not admit of being limited to mere sensual indulgence. They tell of a state of society, full not so much of low, brutal intemperance, as of high mental excitement; under no guidance of reason or of religion; but under the impulse of feverish passion, hasty, headlong temper, and engrossing selfishness. Not the savage brutality of an uncivilized, uncultivated people; but the unprincipled and unrestrained energy

of a highly intellectual and cultivated people. In one word, not the bondage of superstition or of oppression, but the outbreakings and impetuosities of infidelity and liberty. And being so, that this is the type and character of the times described, and that in the midst of such mental pravities this feature of man contained in the text occurreth, we have no hesitation in taking the word incontinent in its old English sense, of unbridled, unrestrained, hasty, and immediate, rather than in the more modern sense of unchaste; the greater including the lesser, but the lesser not rising into the magnitude of the greater. Be it so, then, that the features of character in our text is unbridled, ungoverned, or unrestrained.

We proceed, in the first place, to open the ground of that Christian grace, or virtue, which is here denied unto the men of the last times; in the second place, to open the nature and causes of the vice which is here ascribed to them; and, thirdly, to show, that in the Christian Church this wicked character hath been increasing of late to a most alarming extent, and at present stands out as a most ominous feature of the times.

We are therefore, in the first place, to discourse of the restraint and self-government which is so essential to every Christian man, and worketh in him that patience, and meekness, and self-possession, which is the opposite of the impotency, incontinence, and impetuosity, mentioned in the text. It is a high and noble theme, which carries us at once into the midst of Christian doctrine, and leadeth us to converse con

cerning the great mysteries of our being: for it involveth that great question of the controversy and warfare, which never ceaseth, and never shall cease, on this side the grave, between the flesh and the spirit, between nature and grace. The nature of man is in itself exceedingly rash, impetuous, and ungovernable; as you may see by observing the character of the untamed tribes, who wander in the desolate places of the earth, who are incapable of any restraint when their passion is kindled, but will destroy their enemy outright, devour his flesh, and drink his blood. Look back, also, into the heroic ages of the civilized world: what rapes, what rapine, what hideous destruction! And behold by what acts and labours of generous valour against those unprincipled and headstrong savages, your Hercules, and your Theseus, and your Ulysses also, attained the honour of being ranked amongst the gods. Observe next, to what a high and solemn state amongst the fathers of mankind, Solon, and Lycurgus, and Minos, and other sages, have attained, who devoted themselves to the second stage of bridling the violence of men, which is to give them laws. This, as Lord Bacon well observes, is the mystery of Orpheus's lyre, whose melodious and harmonious sounds stilled the particular instinct of each tribe of the wild beasts of prey, and held them in assembled concord and gentle society with one another. Orpheus, who was deemed worthy to descend into the lower parts of the earth, to bring back his wife from the place of separate spirits-fit emblem of the great truth of Jesus our Lawgiver descending

into the earth, to destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver his betrothed wife, his Church, from the grave.

And thus may we observe, in general, do the works and labours of civilization proceed, by bridling the various passions of anger, malice, and revenge, and obliging all to conform themselves according to the righteous government of law and justice; and, if possible, to ascend into the region of grace, and mercy, and benevolence. It is not self-interest, as fools in these times idly talk, which binds and unites society, but it is the obliging of self-interest to submit itself to the common weal; whereof the fruit, no doubt, is greater health and wealth to each several member thereof. Thus doth man, by laws and constitutions of government, and still more by the good customs and ordinances of civil life, endeavour what he can to prevent those hasty and evil tendencies of his nature from breaking out into instant gratification. This, which man, by natural reason, is ever doing his endeavour to accomplish in nations and societies, God, by revelation, doth accomplish in his Church, in such a way as becometh the perfections of his own being, and the perfectness of every work to which he addresseth himself. He first gave a law which admitted no latitude of sin, however small, but condemned the least evil as the greatest; and, like the laws of Draco, may be truly said to be written in blood; and that, too, for the reason which Draco assigned-that for the least offence he could find no less penalty than death, and he had no greater for the greatest. For