Over against these records of individual excellence, however, must be placed appeals in contemporary sermons, and also treatises, which teem with rebukes and reproof, such as imply very unfavourable impressions of the general religious character of the times. Farindon, in one of his discourses, exclaims: "The Church mourneth, her very face is disfigured. Religion mourneth, being trod underfoot, and only her name held up to keep her down." "Have ye no regard, all ye that pass by the way, to see a troubled State, a disordered Church moulded into sects, and crumbled into conventicles, religion enslaved and dragged to vile offices, true devotion spit at, and hypocrisy crowned, common honesty almost become a reproach, and the upright moral man condemned to hell."[463] Farindon, however, it must be remembered, was a son of the Episcopal Church of England, stung with grief for his mother's sad humiliation; and although he owed something to those who allowed him to preach, and who restored him to his pastoral charge, still he could scarcely avoid regarding with some prejudice what was going on around him. Not only do Episcopal authors speak unfavourably of the times, but Presbyterian and Independents do the same. Dr. Annesley, in a sermon preached at St. Paul's, in the year 1655, thus addressed his congregation:--"When you stood upon lower ground did you not think magistrates might do more than they did? Do you now do what you then thought? If you say you have performed the commandment of the Lord, a bystander will perhaps reply: What mean, then, the blasphemous swearing, the roaring drunkenness, the common whoredoms, the rambling Sabbath breakings, &c.? may these sons of Belial plead liberty of conscience? If you cannot reach those that pull the crown from the head of Christ in way of spirital wickedness, pray hold their hands that would stab the heart of Christ by moral wickedness."[464] The language of Dr. Owen is very strong. "Whilst all the issues of providential dispensations in reference to the public concernments of these nations are perplexed and entangled, the footsteps of God lying in the deep, where His paths are not known; whilst in particular, unparalleled distresses, and strange prosperities are measured out to men, yea to professors; whilst a spirit of error, giddiness, and delusion goes forth with such strength and efficacy, as it seems to have received a commission to go and prosper; whilst there are such divisions, strifes, emulations, attended with such evil surmises, wrath, and revenge, found amongst brethren; whilst the desperate issues and products of men's temptations are seen daily in partial and total apostasy, in the decay of love, the overthrow of faith, our days being filled with fearful examples of backsliding, such as former ages never knew; whilst there is a visible declension from reformation seizing upon the professing party of these nations, both as to personal holiness, and zeal for the interest of Christ."[465]