VII.

ftrolling Egyptians and diforderly people LECT. who went up with the Hebrews out of Egypt, and attended their camp from motives of curiofity or beggary. These are faid to have fallen a lufting, and to have propagated their evil inclinations among the congregation; who, led by their example, provoked God with their discontent and murmurings. The Chriftian church hath always been attended by a like unprincipled multitude of heretics, fenfualifts, enthufiafts, fectaries, and even atheists; men, who being discontented with the ways and doctrines of the Chriftian fociety, have recommended and spread their own evil opinions, and occafioned multi_ tudes to fall away. A defection from the doctrines of Christianity is the natural consequence of a departure from the worship and facraments and authority of the Church. Some of the earliest inftances of blafphemy against the doctrine of the bleffed Trinity, were found among ignorant people in thofe times of confufion and rebellion, when a mixt multitude of more than fixty different fects arose even N

to

LECT. to the aftonishment of those who first be

VII.

gan the feparation*. But afterwards the fame error was adopted by men of higher pretenfions to learning, who have found too many followers; till the times have at length produced a new generation of opinionists, who affume to themselves, and attribute to one another, the honours of confeffion aud martyrdom, for afferting the blafphemy of Socinus against the church and the kingdom of Christ, with the same boldness as the faints, in the primitive times, afferted the doctrines of the gospel against the heathen powers and the kingdom of Satan. But boldness without truth will never make a Chriftian confeffor: and if a man injures himself for the love of error, he is not a martyr but a fuicide.

They who are acquainted with the world, and the prefent ftate of religion

* An authentic and very curious account of the errors and blafphemies of that time, (two years before the death of the king) was published in a Treatife entitled, Gangræna, by Thomas Edwards, Prefbyterian minifter: of which, fee part 1. p. 32. 110. But fee alfo Burnet's Hift. of the Reformation, An. 1549. vol. 2. p. 111, 112.

VII.

and literature, must have obferved, that LECT heresy, schism, and the new philosophy of the Deifts, with their numerous adherents, form a mixt multitude, which are always hovering about the Chriftian camp, and never fail to corrupt it. They are now boafting of their fuccefs, and threaten to overwhelm this church in a very short time with a deluge of Unitarianism, that is, of Mahometan Infidelity*.

The deftruction of three and twenty thousand was occafioned by the Ifraelites affociating with the people of Midian, who invited them to the feafts of their idols; in confequence of which, they fell into fhameless fornication after the manner of the Heathens. And as there were wicked Midianites and Moabites in the neighbourhood of the camp, fo is there a wicked world always near at hand, ready to invite and feduce the fervants of God by its enfnaring customs and diverfions. To mix with the world on all occafions, and not be corrupted by its ways, is almost as un

*See Priestley's Sermon on Free Enquiry.

VII.

LECT. likely, as that the Hebrews fhould go to an idol-feast with the Midianites, and not be the worse for it. What is the natural tendency of many, and even the defign of fome public diverfions tolerated among Christians, but to corrupt youth and give opportunities to vice? How are most of the scenes of public diverfion crouded with the daughters of Midian, who are well aware, that what is there to be feen and heard will feldom fail to encourage the vicious, and betray fome of the innocent, into their fnares! wherever any public meetings have this tendency to corrupt the manners, we may call them by what names we please, but they are as Moab and Midian, if they are the enemies of Christian virtue.

Balak, the king of the Moabites, hated the camp of Ifrael, and bribed Balaam, a prophet, to curse them. world hate the church,

Juft thus doth the

and is never hap

pier than when it can hire the ministers of the church to turn against it and betray its interefts. But it can no more fucceed by

all

all its curfes than the wicked Balak could: LECT. VII. it must feduce Chriftians to fin, and then it prevails; not by its own power, but by tempting the church to provoke the anger of God. When Balaam found that he could prevail nothing by his facrifices and enchantments, then he gave counsel to Balak to corrupt the people of the camp with fornication; and that foon answered the purpose.

But now we are to learn another leffon, from the example of those who are said to have tempted Chrift with their impatience under the ways of his providence. When the people expected to see an end of their journeyings, it pleafed God ftill to lead them round about; but being weary of this unfettled life, we are told, that the foul of the people was much difcouraged because of the way*: and, to punish their impatience on this occafion, fiery ferpents were sent to destroy them. But when Mofes prayed for them, he was directed to place a fer