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this state of deviation, without the enjoyment of the promised land: which happened to them in a figure, as an example to others, who through an evil heart of unbelief should depart from the living God*.

. When men have begun to think, independently on God's will, and to follow the suggestions of their own hearts, they have never failed to turn aside from the way of life into the ways. of death. Therefore it occurs next in the Apostle's description, that they are together become unprofitable for, to use his own language, what fruit can there be in those things, the end of which is death? They who depart from God are unprofitable to themselves, and to him who created them. They can reap no possible benefit from their own destruction: and if the most perfect of the servants of God are to look upon themselves as unprofitable on the score of merit, after all their endeavours, the ungodly, who have apostatized of malice, must be of that other species of unprofitable servants, who are to be cast into outer darkness. The word unprofitable, if more strictly rendered according to the original in the 14th Psalm, is putrid, filthy, or stinking: the meaning of which is this, that man by the present sinful

Heb. iii. 12.

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ness of his nature is become offensive to God, as a dead carcase, or a body full of sores: in allusion to which, the Psalmist saith in another place, my wounds stink (meaning the wounds. of sin) and are corrupt through my foolishness: but when this quality of sin is purged away, and a subsequent purification takes place by virtue of an accepted sacrifice or burnt offering, then the Lord is said to smell a sweet savour; as at the offering of a sacrifice by Noah, after the world had perished in its corruption.

We have now considered the depravity of human nature, as it shews itself in the thoughts or counsels of men, with respect to God and his religion. It is asserted moreover, that there is none that doeth good, no not one: and this is proved by a particular introduction of their words and their works. First of their words-their throat is an open sepulchre. If the inward man is dead by nature, as the Scripture teaches us, then the outer may be considered as the structure of a sepulchre, whose inside is filled with dead men's bones, and all uncleanness. When we remove the covering of a sepulchre, there comes forth from it an offensive odour of death: and if we would know what is in the heart of man, he must discover it to us by his words; which are of such

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a sort as to betray and publish the corruption of his mind. When he opens his mouth, he opens a grave, and the disagreeable savour of his unsound speech shews that there is a dead corpse at the bottom. But it seems as if there were something farther to be understood: their throat is not only a sepulchre, but an open sepulchre. Men of impure thoughts have not the modesty to keep their mouths shut, but they glory in their shame. When their minds are given up to folly, they cannot be satisfied till they have made it public. The more unsound their discourse is in its quality, you have so much the more of it in quantity: and if we observe the world throughout, few people have more to say than common swearers, slanderers, blasphemers, and reprobates.

For the iniquity of their words, men are also compared to serpents-with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips. When interest and worldly affection dictate to the tongues of men, they are double and deceitful, and are aptly represented by the forked or double tongue of the serpent; for if it serves their purpose, they make no scruple of telling two different stories about the same thing. But the words of the slanderer are worse than those of the common lyar: they

wound

wound and infect at the same time, like the venomous asp, whose bite is incurable.

Many a fair character of an innocent person hath been ruined, and the comfort of his life irrecoverably destroyed, by the bite of calumny and detraction; so that the bite of an asp would have been preferred as the less hurtful of the two: yet how common is the practice; and what an insipid life would many talkative people lead, if their conversation were to be purged of slander! It is observed by St. James, that the tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison*: but certainly that poison was no part of man's original constitution, when he was pure and upright, as he came from the hands of his Creator: it was derived from that father of lies, who infused into our first parents a poison, which hath run in the blood of their posterity ever since. Soon after they are born they shew the effects of it: for the first use they generally make of their speech is to lie; and if they are permitted, either through wilful folly or neglect, to follow their natural disposition, deceit will be their practice to the end of their lives. So strong is the propensity to lying, that all children have need to be warned and instructed against this evil. Many are cured

* Jam. iii. 8.

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by the vigilance, severity, good example and frequent admonitions of their parents: others retain the habit till the age of discretion, when either the fear of shame, or the more powerful principles of religion and conscience, get the better of it: but too many, especially of the common sort, who are ignorant of good principles, and feel but little from the impressions of honour, carry the habit with them to their graves; never ceasing to lie, till they have ceased to speak.

To their lying and deceit other evil symp toms are added. The same poison which infects their speech with falsehood, fills their mouth with cursing and bitterness. Their minds are disordered with pride, malice, envy, and hatred; passions which break out naturally in bitter expressions; and where the passions are under no regulation, they are uttered upon every slight occasion. They who are stirring about amongst the mixed multitude of the world, and have opportunities of observing human nature in its uncultivated state, will find their ears assaulted by many miserable creatures, whose speech seems to have been given them for no end, but to utter imprecations against themselves and all that come in their way. Others contract such an habit of

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