410 ent xareaN nconar.rrv, too near to the borders of iniquity." Let such a temper be our constant guard and ornament. VI. Following the common practices of the saints in doubt- ful matters, is another thing of good report, and ought to be so among those that profess the name of Christ ? NVhether it be in Our trade and business, in our apparel, or our visits, in our forms of address to our superiors, or common methods of conversation and civility, of recreation, or entertainment, let the general cus- toms ofthe saints of the purest ages, or the customs of the purest churches, and the best christians in our own age, be n direction to our practice. Ask for the good old way, says the prophet Jeremy, mud if we know not what part to chose, let us go by the fbot.stepa of the flock of Christ. Enquire what the followers of our Lord have done in past ages, and what the wisest and best of them do in our owci age, and this will give us a considerable assistance to determine what ought to be our practice. In I Cor. xi. 16. the apostle Paul seems to refer to this general head, for our determination in doubtful matters. When he had been proposing the law ofnature, or the orderof creation, to direct the mini and the woman wkat sort of covering they ought to wear, viz. that a woman ought not to be 'uncovered, anal that a man should not wear long hair, that is, should not nourish hishair to make it grow long, as women, nor manage it with a nice and effeminate curiosity, he concludes with this sentence, If any moan seem to be contentions, that is, if any man be not con- tented with the arguments I have brought, but will carry on contention and dispute, let him remember this decisive argument, that we have no such custom, nor the churches Of God; we the preachers of the gospel, and the apostles of Christ, have neither found nor approved such sort of customs among the christians where we have lived, nor are they practised in any of the churches of God, whichwe have heard of. I will readily allow, that the strict professors of religion in some particular ages of the church, may have generally indulged either some unreasonable scruples, or some unreasonable liberties. There are -some practices of evident and undoubted lawfulness, which have been forbidden in severe and dreadful language by some or other of our religious ancestors ; such as wearing bor- rowed hair, or suffering our own to reach the shoulders; using any thing that borders upon lot or chance, except in matters of sacred or solemn concernment: wishingá friend's health when we drink ; practising any part of our civil calling after sun-set on Saturdays, or even calling the months, or the days of the week by naines borrowed from the heathens, such as Monday or Tues- day ; January, or February : Vet in such cases as these, had I lived amongst them, I would have conformed to their customs,
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