XI. I therefore humbly offer an address to the serious consideration of the civil magistrate, that, if the money which is expended in every parish in such vain fashions as wearing of laces, jewels, embroideries, unnecessary ribbons, trimmings, costly furniture, and attendance, together with what is commonly consumed in taverns, feasts, gaming, &c. could be collected into a public stock, or something in lieu of this extravagant and fruitless expense, there might be reparation to the broken tenants, workhouses for the able, and alms-houses for the aged and impotent. Then should we have no beggars in the land, the cry of the widow and the orphan would cease, and charitable relief might easily be afforded towards the redemption of poor captives, and the refreshment of such distressed Protestants as labour under the miseries of persecution in other countries: nay, the Exchequer's needs, on just emergencies, might be supplied by such a bank: this sacrifice and service would please the just and merciful God: it would be a noble example of gravity and temperance to foreign states, and an unspeakable benefit to ourselves at home. Alas! why should men need persuasions to what their own felicity so necessarily leads them? Had these _vitiosos_ of the times but a sense of heathen Cato's generosity, they would rather deny their carnal appetites than leave such noble enterprises unattempted. But that they should eat, drink, play, game, and sport away their health, estates, and, above all, their irrevocable precious time, which should be dedicated to the Lord, as a necessary introduction to a blessed eternity, and than which, did they but know it, no worldly solace would come in competition: I say, that they should be continually employed about these poor, low things is to have the heathens judge them in God's days, as well as Christian precepts and examples condemn them. And their final doom will prove the more astonishing, in that this vanity and excess are acted under a profession of the self-denying religion of Jesus, whose life and doctrine are a perpetual reproach to the most of Christians. For He was humble, but they are proud; He forgiving, they revengeful; He meek, they fierce; He plain, they gaudy; He abstemious, they luxurious; He chaste, they lascivious: He a pilgrim on earth, they citizens of the world: in fine, He was meanly born, poorly attended, and obscurely brought up; He lived despised, and died hated of the men of his own nation. O you pretended followers of this crucified Jesus! examine yourselves, try yourselves, know you not your own selves; if He dwell not, if He rule not in you, that you are reprobates? Be ye not deceived, for God will not be mocked, (at last with forced repentances,) such as you sow, such you must reap. (1 Cor. xiii. 5; Gal. vi. 8.) I beseech you to hear me, and remember you were invited and entreated to the salvation of God. I say; as you sow, you reap: if you are enemies to the cross