CONFIRMED CHRISTIAN. 565 times are best when the clergy are richest and greatest in theworld, and overtop princes, and claim the secular power, and live in worldly pomp and pleasures ; but when holiness most aboundeth, and the members ofChrist are likest to their head, and when mul- titudes of sincere believers are daily added to the church, and when the mercy and holiness of God shine forth in the numbers and purityof the saints. It is no riches or honor that can be heap- ed upon himself,,or any others, that make the times seem good to him, if knowledge and godliness are discountenanced and hindered, and the way to heaven is made more difficult'; ifatheism, infideli- ty, ungodliness, pride and malignity do prevail, and truth and sin- cerity are driven into the dark ; and when "he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey ;" Psal.. lix. 15. When " the godly man ceaseth, and the faithful failfrom among the children of men ; when every man speaketh vanity to his neighbor, and the poor are oppressed, and the needy 'sigh, and the wicked walk on everyside, when the vilest men are exalted;" Psal. xii. 1, 2. 5. 8. The times are good when the men are good; and evil when the men are evil, be they never ,so great or prosperous. As Nehemiah, when he was cup-bearer to the king himself, yet wept and mourn- ed for the desolations. of Jerusalem ; Nehem. i. 3, 4. ii. 2, 3. Whoever prospereth, the times are ill when there is a "famine of theword of the Lord, and when the chief of the priests and peo- pledo transgress and mockGod's messengers, and despise his word, and misuse his prophets ; ". 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14. 16. Amos viii. 11, 12. When the apostles are "charged to speak no more in the name of Christ ;" Acts iv. 18. v. 40. It is a text enough to make one tremble, to think into what, a desperate condition the Jews were carried by a partial, selfish zeal ; "who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and they please not God, and are contrary to all men ; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they might be saved, tofill up their sin alway, fer the wrath is crime upon them to the uttermost;" 1'Thess. ii. 15, 16. When the interest of themselves, and their own nation and priesthood, did, so far blind and -pervert them,` that they durst persecute the preachers of the gospel, and " forbid them to speak to the people that they may be saved ;" it was a sign that " wrath was come upon them to the uttermost." A Christian indeed had rather be without Jéroboam's kingdom, than ' make Israel to sin,' and ' make the basest of the people priests,' and ' stretch out his hand against the prophet of the Lord ;' 1 Kings xii. 30, 31. xiii. 4. He had rather labor with his hands, as Paul, and live in pov- erty and rags, so that the gospel may be powerfullyandplentifully preached; and holiness abound, than to live in all the prosperity of the world, with the hinderance of men's salvation. He had rather be adoor.keeper in the house of God, than be a lord in the kine-
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