tions for happiness in that, not only cautions us, as many other places of Scripture do, against 'Setting our affections on things below,' but also against falling in with, and forming our manners by, the reigning practices of mankind, which at once proceed from, and feed, the corruption of our

nature.

That a practical attention to this caution may give us the appearance of singularity among the weak and foolish; or be ascribed to pride and hypocrisy by the malicious; I shall readily own. But all men of common sense, who hear us declare, as Christians, that we belong to another world, will do us the justice to allow that it would be infinitely more foolish and ridiculous in us to look wholly unlike our profession, than to look ever so unlike the people we are to pass only a few days with, on our way homeward to that better and more abiding country, we say, we are bound for. It is but fit, that we, who neither can make, nor even wish to make, a long stay here, should follow a different rule, in most parts of our conduct, from that which those very wise people observe who look on this world as their only home, set death at defiance, and have no thoughts of ever removing. It would be acting like coxcombs, a character, of all others, the most absurd in the professors of religion, either to set ourselves out in the pink of the mode for so short an appearance, or to think of travelling, especially in the narrow way, so craggy and so thorny, in a very fashionable dress, as far, in this case, from looking ornamental, as from being convenient. A small conformity therefore with the custom of the place, in two or three indifferent particulars, will be a sufficient compliment to people, we mean so little respect for as those about the inn; where the children of this world do not sojourn, but inhabit. One acquainted with their actions only, and not at all with their bodily constitutions, must conclude, they know of no other world but this, have no other home but here; and hold possession of it by a tenure that can never expire; for why otherwise should men so wise in their generation,' men capable of wisdom in any one thing, take so much pains, indeed lay out all their thoughts and endeavours, in improving (for such they think it) on the present spot? To make the most of what they have, an infinite deal of art is called in to help out nature,

till at length nature is buried under an endless medly of refinements; the thing lost in the manner; and necessity itself set aside for mode and fashion. Who, in the genteel world, eats to satisfy his hunger, drinks to quench his thirst, clothes himself to keep out the cold, or does any of the three, to support life? And who in the lower ranks aims not at an imitation of the higher, in these things, with all his little might, nay, beyond his power, and above his circumstances? Awkward ambition! Miserable rack! Whereon these wretches are stretched between want and pride, between poverty and splendor, till their scanty substance, and too often their feeble consciences, are put wholly out of joint. It is the tyrant, fashion, that thus inverts the order of nature among the people of this world, properly so called; that gives the night for action, and the day for sleep; that turns their stomachs at the wholesome and delicious food of their own country, only because it may be easily had; and whets their appetites for foreign poisons, only because they are far-fetched and expensive. It is in a great measure owing to this total departure from nature and necessity in the rich and great, that so many of the poor go half-naked, and pine for want of food; while so many of their betters, who feed and dress only for the fashion, never consider, that food and raiment are still necessary things, nor that a man without meat, must be hungry, and without clothing, cold. Nature, necessity, the laws of our country, the commands of God, and, what is more with the men of this world than all these, their visible interest, pass for nothing in opposition to custom. An individual might as well think of encountering an army, as resisting this usurper, who never wants a bigotted crowd to back him. Supported by that, he conquers all, governs all, and persecutes all, who are so singular as to dissent, till they are thought fit only for a dark room and straw; for he is not considered as mad, who acts against reason, but he who acts oddly; and he only is thought to act oddly, who acts as few others do. The power of this tyrant is derived from our pride, cowardice, and living together. He or she is greatest, who is soonest and highest in the fashion. Few have sufficient resolution and greatness of soul to bear up against the stream of custom, and contemn the ridicule of crowds, though known to be

made up of fools, as long as living, dealing, and conversing with them, is necessary. The greatest slaves to custom, therefore, are those who live most in the world; and they who submit least to his power, are such as spend their days in retirement. This tyrant can subdue a multitude together with more ease, than one person by himself. Contagions of all kinds are propagated fastest in places that are most populous; and custom may be called a contagion, because through the corruption of our nature, it becomes the vehicle of little else but vice, which, carried by example, flies from mind to mind, infecting souls, as the plague does bodies. Pity, that for so contagious a disorder, there are too few good and wise examples to furnish us with an epidemic cure!

This observation is verified by another made on the poorer sort of people, and on such as live at a very great distance from towns, the fashion, whatever it is, reaching these more slowly, and those more imperfectly, than the rest of mankind. Yet even among these it is aimed at, and adored at a distance, when it cannot be attained to. The young labourer, in the wildest part of the kingdom, will have his new coat, though as coarse as his sack, cut as near to the last fashion as possible; and the poor girl behind the most distant mountain, who never once inquired about religion, asks what is the fashionable cap, and hath her kenting shaped by the pattern of the finest lawn or cambric on the head of the princess. Fashions of this kind, however, take some time to go down; but the dissimulation, treachery, ingratitude, and ambition, of high life, run like electricity, and reach the dregs of mankind, as in a moment. In regard to these modish vices, all ranks of people have received the last polish, and are within the very precincts of the court.

Many practices in trade are deemed lawful by dealers who still mean to be honest, which, if they would examine them by the word of God and the royal law, not by common practice, the same men would abhor as much, when done by, as to themselves.

It is a law of custom, that young gentlemen, who, apt as they may be to learn, know yet, merely for want of time, but little of the vices of their own country, and consequently but a very little of any thing else, must travel for the vani

ties and vices of foreigners, that we islanders may not be too far behind the mode of pride, expense, and wickedness, established in nations more early refined than ourselves. A young hopeful, who goes abroad with nothing but his native propensity to conceit and lewdness, checked by some modesty in the outward appearance, which he and his wiser parents call awkwardness and bashfulness; comes home full of contempt for his own country, and for virtue; with assurance enough to do any thing; and as to religion, with a stock of Popery for low folks, and of Deism for himself. Now it is an heresy against custom to question, whether all this is not improvement.

I know nothing wherein the tyranny of custom is so remarkably seen, as in the established rules and notions of honour. To debauch the daughter or wife of a friend is honourable. To run him through the heart in defence of these gentlemanlike actions, is still more honourable; more honourable, though done with all the palpitations of a coward, who trembles between the opinions of men and the judgments of God, and of a fool, who prefers the former to the latter.

Behold the tyranny of custom in another instance, wherein, notwithstanding all his affectation of politeness, he destroys the very shadow of hospitality at the houses of the great, whom you must pay, as you do other inn-keepers, for a dinner or a night's lodging, it being all one to you in the conclusion, whether you reckon for your accommodations with the landlord, or his waiter; and to him, whether you discharge the account immediately with himself, or apply your debt to the payment of his servant's wages. This custom might be justifiable as the only expedient to keep at a proper distance from the great, a number of low and spunging acquaintances, were it not, that we hear them pressingly invited, no doubt as customers rather than friends, by one who hath the utmost contempt for their conversation.

These two or three specimens may serve instead of a thousand others, which it will be more agreeable for every one of you to recollect, than to hear from the pulpit, whereby the usurpations of custom, and the slavery of mankind to this notional tyrant of their own creating, may be easily set

in their proper but shameful light; shameful indeed, both to those who stand high enough to impose by example such practices on their inferiors, and to those inferiors who are content to follow in the rear of stupidity and infamy, to make borrowed stupidity their honour, and aspire to infamy, without a capacity of distinguishing themselves even in that. O despicable ambition! How low a thing is pride! surely it were better, I had almost said, genteeler, to turn downright Christian, than to value oneself on being only the tail of a body, that, at best, hath but gross folly for a head.

But this tyrant stops not at folly, nor will he be confined to particulars. No, he establishes enormities of the blackest kinds, and of the most extensive influence. He even works miracles; for what else is it to transpose, as he does, the very nature of moral good and evil? to turn day into night, and night into day? to juggle the whole world and the course of all its affairs, its pleasures, troubles, interests, and even produce, into quite other things than they really are, to human apprehension? to change its inhabitants into so different a kind of creatures, and so exceedingly for the worse, that Adam would not know his sons, nor Eve her daughters? to regale himself with the sacrifice of their lives, nay, their souls, by thousands, on the sea and in battle? to force commerce, with all the arts, and most of the sciences, into his service? How many beasts, birds, worms, must, they strip or embowel for his clothing! from how many distant parts of the globe must they bring him the materials of one meal! How many nations, some of them the most refined in point of understanding, hath he taught to adore a piece of timber, and pray to a lump of stone! How many Christians hath he persuaded, contrary to their own nature, and the repeated commands of Christ, to disbelieve their own senses, and, from motives of Christian charity, to burn their fellow-creatures alive, to murder emperors with poisoned sacraments, and blow up kings and parliaments with gunpowder! By what an amazing miracle is it, that he teaches us of this church to place the spirit of religion in kindness, good nature, and love; and then to despise that religion? and so many among us of another