suading any man by reason, to forsake his lusts, unless he will first consent to mortify his body. The least measure can be advised are all the fasts of the church; and let each man's zeal add to these, as he sees cause. Without this, your lusts will never give you leave to be heard; but keep you in perpetual hurry, and want of thought. This is the deaf adder that stoppeth your ears, and her own, against the voice of the charmer. It is not words will do it; this is a more stubborn devil. We must set too our whole strength, and all our application, and fast, and pray, and beg God's assistance; we fight for our souls! we must not do it indifferently; and we must not be discouraged, if we do not presently prevail. God may think fit to try us, and to shew us the danger, we were in, and the bitterness of sin, by the difficulty of returning from it, and overcoming long habits; and to let us see our own weakness, that we have no power of ourselves, to help ourselves; and thence to teach us to put our whole trust in him; and apply diligently unto him, by earnest prayer, and a careful attendance upon all his holy ordinances: And then he will not fail us; we shall presently perceive that we have gained ground of our enemy, and we shall overcome in the end. We have gone a great length, when we are brought seriously to reckon our lust as our enemy: for then we shall begin to stand upon our guard against it; and never till then can we deny it any thing, but follow its impetuosity, as a horse rusheth to the battle; and violently pursue our own destruction; and nothing can stop us, but a stronger than this strong man; an higher relish of divine than of sensual things: till when, sensual things must prevail: and this true knowledge of heavenly pleasure is obtained in fasting and retirement. Then it is that God works with us, when we are at leisure to hear him; and shall we deny him such an opportunity?

All this may seem an excursion, and leaving of the argument; but it is not. Their arguments for this sin are easily answered; and I have, in few words, answered them, for more needed not; but that which they most want is to be stirred up, and shaken out of their lethargy. If once they come to consider, their conversion is half effected; towards which, I can only add my prayers to what I have said in the small compass to which I confine myself. And I will now go on to consider the other point, which you heard discoursed of, that is, polygamy.

This is bottomed upon the same loose principles as the other; to give the range to our lusts, and let them endure no limits. But it has more pretence than the other; because God did dispense with it, as with arbitrary divorces, in many ages of the world. But our blessed Saviour reduces both back again to the original institution, Matth. xix. from verse 3, to the 10th. he) it was not so.' How was it then? God at the beginning made From the beginning (says only one male, and one female. And, for this cause, a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh.' was the original institution; and this is applied to the mystical They twain, here, were but two; this

marriage betwixt Christ and his church; even as to the number two, and no more. Eph. v. 31, 32. They two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church. This parallel is made up by two, being joined in one; but not in one being joined to many; it can hardly be said to be one with many. There is a rivalship of the many to that one, and there is a dispersion of the love of the one among many; and they cannot all partake of the one alike. This is no perfect union; like the union of one and one, which is a full perfect union; and a true emblem of the union betwixt Christ and the Church: 'My love, my undefiled is but one,' Cant. vi. 9.

The first who broke in upon the original constitution was Lamech, of the posterity of Cain, who took two wives, Gen. iv. 19. But we find not that it prevailed in the posterity of Seth; for, at the flood, Noah, and his three sons, had but each of them one wife, who made up the eight persons in the ark.

And even when polygamy was most in use, it was thought, though (in strictness) lawful, because then dispensed with, yet an imperfect, a miserable, and inconvenient state. Therefore Laban adjures Jacob thus, Gen. xxxi. 50. If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, God is witness,' &c. And Lev. xviii. 18. It is written, 'Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, or, as our margent reads it, One wife to another.' This was a more perfect state, though the other, for the hardness of their hearts,' was dispensed with, till Christ came to restore all things, who gives a plain rule, Mark x. 11. against polygamy, when he made it adultery to put away one wife, and marry another. For, if polygamy be lawful, how comes it to be adultery to marry another wife, whether he put away the first or not? To put away a wife unjustly, is a crime; but it is not adultery; the adultery is the marrying of another, while the first wife is alive.

'Let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband,' 1 Cor. vii. 2. and the reason given for it, ver, 2, 3, and 5, is only applicable to monogamy. If it be said, that that was for the time to come; but did it dissolve the polygamies before contracted? I suppose not; so that, if a man, who had several wives, were converted to the Christian religion, it did not divorce from them all, or from all of them but one; but that he might keep those wives which he married before his conversion; yet such man should not be preferred to any office in the ministerial function, and this I take to be no improbable construction of those com mands, 1 Tim. iii. 2. and 12, that bishops and deacons must be the husbands of one wife,' that is, though polygamy did not incapacitate a man to become a Christian, yet it did to be a clergyman; at least it was so thought expedient by the apostle,

And from the apostles times, to this day, there is no one doctrine of Christianity, which has descended by a more universal consent, and uninterrupted tradition, than this of monogamy, polygamy having never been allowed in any Christian church or nation: and yet

against the doctrine of Christ, as understood and practised by the apostles, and the church of that age, and all the ages since, our thin beaux would oppose their little criticisms; and cover themselves with cobwebs; who one day, if they repent not, will call to the hills and mountains to fall upon thein, and hide them from their judge, and their guilt. Who now, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.. But ye have not so learned of Christ, Eph. iv. 19. For, chap. v. 5, this ye know, that no whoremonger (óg it is, not only μosxos adulterer) nor unclean person hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.'

THE PARABLE OF THE THREE JACKDAWS, &c.

Printed in the Year 1696. Quarto, containing four Pages.

THER

HERE was a time when the feathered commonwealth fell into great disorder, about chusing a successor to the eagle, whose advanced years portended the fal: of his scepter; and the disputes, which happened amongst the several pretenders, did mightily perplex the kingdom of birds, who were in doubt, whether theagle had any genuine offspring. The magpies, who had an inveterate malice against the black-birds, and nightingales, because they were better liked than themselves, on the account of their harmonious notes and innocent nature, improved the opportunity,to make interest with the jackdaws and cuckows, to settle the succession on a noted bird, which was reckoned brother to the eagle, because hatched in the same nest; but a mortal enemy to the nightingales, and blackbirds, and accused of a confederacy with the storks and kites, to betray the winged nation to the birds of prey. The magpies were frequently told of this, and remonstrances were entered against their proceedings, as destructive to the whole volatile empire; but they turned the deaf ear to every thing, that was said to them; for being used to feed upon carrion, they delighted in slaughter. In process of time, the eagle died, and his brother, the friend to the magpies, succeeded. As soon as he mounted the throne, the magpies chattered for joy, the jackdaws cawed, and the cuckows made protestations of loyalty in their usual note; but he was scarcely seated on the throne, when the region of the air was filled with birds of prey; the screech-owls began to quarrel with the jackdaws, and the cormorants pretended a right to the nests of the mag

pies. In the mean time, though they could not agree amongst themselves, yet all of them united against the nightingales and black-birds, who, by this means, were forced to retire to the solitary groves, where they chirped and warbled out their own misfortunes. The affair of the winged empire being in this posture, a generous falcon, as he was called by some, or the true offspring of the eagle, as reckoned by others, being moved with compassion, towards the injured birds, attempted their relief; but the magpies and jackdaws, with their adherents, the cuckows, where so much incensed against the generous falcon, because of his favourable inclinations to the nightingales and black-birds, that they summoned together their friends, the rooks, and jo ning with the storks and kites, oppressed the poor falcon, with his small retinue; and having barbarously destroyed them, the eagle's brother looked upon his throne, as surer than ever; and the magpies, jackdaws, and cuckows, concluding that they had insured his favour, by this new merit, pressed on to destroy the black-birds, and nightingales But all of a sudden, when they thought themselves secure, the night-owls and cormorants, with the storks and kites, their adherents, having been a long time disposse-ed of their nests, by the magpies and jackdaws, and their flowers, the rooks and cuckows, resolved to come to a trial of skil with them, upon which the magpies came to have some remorse for their barbarous treatment of the innocent black-birds; and abating something of the usual harshness of their note, began to call, mag, mag, poor mag a cup of sack for poor fainting mag;' and the jackdaws cawed to the black-birds, in a milder note than before, bewailed their former severity, and invited the nightingales and black birds, to join with them, against the kites, cormorants, and screech-owls. The eagle's brother, being afraid of the consequences of such an union, came also to a parley with the black-birds and nightingales, and offered them fair quarter, provided they would concur towards the procuring of an authentick act, at the general dyet of the winged empire, to secure his followers in the possession of their nests, for all time coming; the amazed black-birds, being surprised with this mighty change, and having been wretchedly torn by the talons of both parties, knew not whom to trust; but the eagle's brother being possessed of the throne, decency obliged them to make civil replies; but some of the bats, which frequented the company of the black-birds, engaged too far with the cormorant interest, and by this time both parties owned the possessor of the throne, for a true eagle. Having gained his point so far. he resolved to push on his fortune, and being provoked with the behaviour of the magpies, he designed to put their pretensions of loyalty to the touch-stone, and commanded them to publish his imperial edict, giving liberty to all the subjects of the airy regions, to warble out the praises of their great creator, in such notes as nature had furnished them with; it being highly unreasonable to say, that the canary-bird was no bird, because she could not croak like the raven, or that the nightingale was no subject of the winged empire, because she could not chatter like the magpy.

The magpies and jackdaws were thunder-struck, at the hearing of this unlooked-for command, and most of them did sullenly refuse it; yet some of the magpies and the swallows, which nestled about the altars, thought fit to comply; but the metropolitan magpy, and six of the rest, did positively refuse to obey the eagle, who did thereupon commit them to his imperial prison. Then nothing was to be heard, but, alas poor mag, a cup of sack for mag;' and on the other hand, the cormorants and kites cried, a rope for mnag, mag, mag, a halter for mag;' and the black-birds and nightingales, though they were something concerned at the misfortune of the magpies, yet could not but say, that mag was served according to her deserts; but the jackdaws and cuckows, with their allies, the rooks, did so much disturb the eagle's quiet, with their cawing and croaking, that he released the magpies, but pursued his design, of establishing a tyranny in the regions of the air; and, in order to accomplish his design, did enter into a confederacy with the vulture, resolved to disinherit the generous she eagle, of his own race, and to impose a counterfeit he eagle upon the nation of birds; which did so much provoke the feathered commonwealth, that they agreed, with the assistance of a genuine eagle, of the true imperial nest, who had the generous she eagle, abovementioned, to his mate, to curb the tyrannical eagle, and prevent his imposing an ostrich instead of an eagle upon the winged empire. Many of the magpies and jackdaws, with all the black-birds and nightingales, joined in the invitation to the young eagle, who taking his flight from beyond sea, did happily alight, in the imperial grove; and being joined with a promiscuous flock of black-birds, jackdaws, nightingales, and some rooks, put the kites, cormorants, and old eagle to flight; who, after he had roosted awhile in his imperial nest, abandoned the same, and fled beyond sea, with the ostrich his mate, and the counterfeit eagle, her supposed son, to the vulture's grove.

The eagle having thus taken his flight, the magpies began to relent, and to wish that things had not come to that extremity; for the jackdaws and they became now apprehensive, that they were in as much danger of losing their nests, by the black-birds and nightingales, as they had formerly been by the kites and cormorants, because the young eagle, who came from beyond sea, was judged to have a mighty kindness for the black-birds and nightingales, and his mate, the generous she eagle, had no aversion to them; and thus it came to pass, that the metropolitical magpy, who had been the ringleader of those who opposed the old eagle, and invited the young one to his nest, began to grow sullen, and his example infecting the rest of the mags, the faction was divided amongst themselves; so that some of the magpies and jackdaws, were for ac knowledging the young eagle as sovereign of the birds, and others, chattering still upon the abdicated theme of passive obedience, alledged that the old eagle had injury done him, and did all that they could to obstruct the progress of the young eagle's affairs; and, having, by the interest of the magpies, who owned his title, got an influence on his councils, they advised him to disband the black