of discontent one with another. Be of a single. heart one towards another; hunger and thirst for peace; seek peace, and earnestly ensue it; dwell with one another in the bonds of love. This is what will cast the accuser out, who was cast out of heaven by the blood of Christ, and, the word of the testimony of the martyrs who loved not their lives unto the death. So let your consciences be sprinkled from all evil works by the blood of Christ, and maintain the word of truth in your lips; and fear not man, who killeth the body.

Finally, As the character of the devil, or the accuser, consisteth both of murder and of falsehood, so be ye as tenacious of truth as ye are studious of love. Speak the truth one to another, in the love of it; and then shall you have little ear for slander of any kind. Guard against pride, for that openeth the door to the evil report of a brother. Desire also the good report of those that are without, for it is a great consolation of life; but, oh! be much more intent upon the answer of a good conscience, and the approbation of God. Even the heathens could say, that they reckoned an accuser to be worse than a thief: and what then should Christians say, and what feel, towards the system of evil speaking and endless accusations which ruleth the times, and riots in its rule? Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them; put away from your houses the works which indulge in them.

When your eye meeteth them, in perusing what for the business and duties of life it is necessary to peruse, let not your eye delight in them; nor your tongue repeat them. Yea, repeat them not, though it were to blame them, but consign them with shame and with pity to oblivion, and pray God to have mercy upon the land which harbours such envious and wicked people.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be.............. incontinent.

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 any where 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, “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 any thing-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 connexion 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 connexion is, "without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent" (or, as we have expressed it, unrestrained), “fierce" (or unmeek), "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 shew, that in the Christian church this wicked character hath been increasing of late to a most alarming extent,