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Expreffions, without due Awe and Reverence, be a Violation of this Divine Mandate, and is accordingly punishable as fuch without Repentance, what fhall we fay to thofe impious and blafphemous Monsters, who daily deafen our Ears in all our Streets, to the Terror of all fober and well-difpofed Perfons, notwithstanding which, they are fuffered to go on therein with Impunity? We hope, however, the late falutary Law, for the Punishment of fuch audacious Offenders, will, in a great meafure, put a Stop to this daring Impiety; which otherwife will undoubtedly call down the Judgments of Heaven upon fo wicked a Nation, if our late Sufferings are not very much owing thereto.

In effect, if Blafphemy was punished with immediare Death amongst the Jews, under the Levitital Law, as we find, Levit xxiii. 16. and that by the exprefs Command of GOD; and if even Strangers, when guilty, tho' not Worshippers of the Almighty, were not exempted from the fame Sentence, as we may fee in the fame Piace, what can we expect, who profefs to live under a purer Difpenfation, but that our grofs Connivance at thefe daily and open Impieties (by not bringing the Offenders to Juftice) fhould draw down upon us the fevereft Intances of the Divine Displeasure? Or where would be the Wonder, if, in return of fuch open Rebellion againft our great Creator (for fuch it is) he fhould fend a Spirit of Divifion amongst us, fer the Sword of every Man against his Neighbour, (whereof we have many Examples in Scripture) and involve the whole Nation in all the Calamities of a Civil War Might we not then read our Sin in our Punishment? Could any thing be more adequate? We openly revolt against the great King of Kings, and nobody is found fufficiently zealous to efpouse his Caufe; wherefore he delivers us up to a Spirit of Sedition; we take up Arms againft our lawful Sovereign; the Well-affected rife in his De

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fence, and the whole Nation become thereby the Executioners of God's Wrath upon one another.

To fay the Truth, it is very certain there are no People in the Univerfe, fo villanously addicted to this grievous Sin as ourselves; and therefore, though the Almighty has been graciously pleafed to grant us a Reprieve for the prefent, and has chaftifed us only like a loving Father, not like an angry Judge determined to execute strict Juftice, and make a full End, we have all the Reafon in the World to expect a fecond, and yet more fevere Vifitation, unless we avert it by fincere Repentance. Having thus fhewn the Enormity of this Tranfgreffion in a ftrong Light, in order to deter our Countrymen from a Vice, which is fo much the more inexcufable, as no Temptation can be pleaded in Mitigation thereof, we shall now proceed to fet before them fome Examples of the good and evil Effects of obferving or violating this Law; being not infenfible, that with the Generality of People, Example is of much more Force than Precept. Not to mention then the People of the Jews, with whom the great Name of the Moft High, Jehovah, was held in fuch Awe and Veneration, that it was never ronounced by them but once a Year, and then only by the High Prieft, on the Day of Atonement, when he entered into the Holy of Holies, infomuch that it was called the Unutter able Name; not to mention them, we fay, who carried this Veneration fo far, that, in order to avoid the Prophanation of a Word fo facred, whenever they read the Scriptures, and it occurred therein, they pronounced it Adonai, or Elohim, which fignify the "Lord, or God, we fhali fcarce find any Nation even among the Heathens, where they fwore fo common. ly, or fet fo light, by their falfe Deities, as we do by that of the Almighty.

To give one remarkable Inftance of this Truth,

it will be fufficient to relate the Story of Acontius and Cydippe, which is as follows: The former being a young Man of low Extraction, and falling violently in Love with the latter, a young Maiden greatly his Superior in point of Birth and Fortune, when he had no Hopes of gaining her any other Way, by reafon of the great Difproportion between them, had recourfe to the enfuing Stratagem, whereby he trapanned her into a Promife of Marriage. It was it feems the Cuftom at that Time, that whatever folemn Vow was made in the Temple of Diana at Delos, during the Celebration of the Feafts in Honour of that Goddef, it was to be kept inviolably, for fear of drawing down upon themfelves the Displeasure of that falfe Deity; whereof, by the way, they flood in more Awe, than most of us do of the true God. Now Acontius, being well apprized of this, and having waited till Cydippe came thither, as was ufual for all the young Maidens thereabouts, took that Opportunity to throw an Apple into her Bofom, whereon were written these two Verses:

Furo tibi fane, per Myftica facra Dianæ,

Me tibi venturam Comitem, Sponfamque futuram.

The Meaning whereof is,

By Dian's facred Myfteries I fwear,
Thy Spoufe to be, and in thy Fortune share.

Cydippe, as was natural, taking the Apple out of her Bofom, and reading the Verfes, was thereby betrayed into an Oath to become the Wife of Acontius ; at least, a Sickness that feized upon her foon afterwards, and which was urged by hat young Man as a Sign of the Anger of that Goddefs, for deferring the Accomplishment of herVow, induced her to believe fo, and accordingly to take him for her Husband; which fhe would not other

wife have done. Now, without entring into a Difcuffion, whether Cydippe fhewed more Weakness or Prudence in this her Behaviour, let us propose a Cafe or two, fomewhat fimilar thereto.

Suppofe a young Woman of Fortune should take a Fancy to a Man much her Inferior, and should be fo far from being feduced into a Promise of Marriage unawares, that the fhould actually make the first Advances to him, and enter into a formal Con ract to be his; and yer, upon the Profpect of a better, that is a richer Match, regardless of all her Oaths, and even of common Modefty, in Defiance of Shame, and in the Face of the Sun, in the midst of a Crowd of Wineffes who were privy to her Engagements with this Man, fhould be publickly married to another, and that after the greateft Familiarities had paffed between her and the former, after he had frequently had carnal Knowledge of her Person, what could we fay of fuch aWoman? Muft not every one confefs fhe was worle than a Heathen? What could the expect from fuch an open and profligate Violation of the Laws of Honefty, Truth, and Decency, and fuch a daring and manifeft Contempt of that God, whom he had invoked as a Witnefs to her firft Vows, but continual Unhappiness, Jarrings, and Reproaches from her new Choice, and unless the averted t by timely Repentance, eternal Mifery hereafter? And yet all this, and more, was a young Lady of a good Family in Wales, publickly charged with fome Years ago in Print, by an Organist of Rofs in Herefordfhire. Again, fuppofing a young Woman, who ha ving been Daughter to one learned Doctor, and Daughter-in law to another, might reafonably have been imagined to have been well apprized of the Nature and Obligation of folemn Vows, after having engaged herself voluntarily, even by a mutual Repetition of the Office of the Church, in the most ferious Manner, to a reverend Clergyman®

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gyman, after having even a Ring put upon her Fourth Finger, and accepting of Prefents in Cloaths "to a confiderable Value from him, fhould afterwards in Violation of fuch folemn Vows, be married to another; and that her own Mother, Widow of two fuch learned, if not reverend Doctors. fhould be the Perfon by whose Irftigation, if not Com pulfion, fhe had been induced thereto, what could we think both of the one and the other, but that they were many Degrees worfe than Infidels; and that, without a hearty Repentance, fome fevere Judgment would befal them? And yet this is neither more nor lefs than what a young Lady of Oxfordshire was charged with in Print, and we think evidently proved guilty of, by a reverend Clergy, man about twelve Years ago, in a Book, intitled, The Contract violated, or the hafty Marriage.

Enormities of this Kind are not always immediately punished by the Hand of Heaven; but fometimes the Chaftifement follows pretty clofe upon the Heels of the Offence; and fo it feems to bave done in the Cafe of this Gentlewoman and her Mother, whom we think both equally to blame; fince the former feems not to have been married above a Week to the Perfon, for whofe Sake fhe had fo fhamefully and bafely violated and broken a folemn Contract, before the heartily repented it: At leaft, her anfwering her Mother in-law, who vifiting her on the Monday after her Wedding, found Fault with her appearing melancholly and penfive, and faid, She ought to be enjoying herself. Enjoying myself, Madam! I never expect a Day's Enjoyment as long as I live, looks very much like it. Nay, it carries with it a yet worfe Afpect, and has greatly the Air of a Remorse of Confcience, arifing from a Senfe of fich he nous Guit as would imbitter all her future D ys, and never more allow her any Peace of Mind. A State to terrible, that we can hardly conceive any Punishment on this Side the Grave,

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