ripe for Heaven every day; and as fast as these are taken off, others are daily rising up. And by the Presence and Power of the Divine Institutions thus maintained in the Country. We are still so happy, that I suppose there is no Land in the Universe more free from the debauching, and the debasing Vices of Ungodliness. The Body of the People are hitherto so disposed, that _Swearing_, _Sabbath-breaking_, _Whoring_, _Drunkenness_, and the like, do not make a Gentleman, but a Monster, or a Goblin, in the vulgar Estimation.[48] All this notwithstanding, we must humbly confess to our God, that we are miserably degenerated from the first Love of our Predecessors; however we boast our selves a little, when Men would go to trample upon us, and we venture to say, _Wherein soever any is bold (we speak foolishly) we are bold also_.[49] The first Planters of these Colonies were a chosen Generation of Men, who were first so pure, as to disrelish many things which they thought wanted Reformation elsewhere; and yet withal so peaceable, that they embraced a voluntary Exile in a squalid, horrid, _American_ Desart,[50] rather than to live in Contentions with their Brethren. Those good Men imagined that they should leave their Posterity in a place, where they should never see the Inroads of Profanity, or Superstition: And a famous Person returning hence, could in a Sermon before the Parliament profess, _I have been seven Years in a Country, where I never saw one Man drunk, or heard one Oath sworn, or beheld one Beggar in the Streets all the while_.[51] Such great Persons as _Budæus_, and others, who mistook Sir _Thomas Moor's_ UTOPIA, for a Country really existent, and stirr'd up some Divines charitably to undertake a Voyage thither, might now have certainly found a Truth in their Mistake; _New-England_ was a true _Utopia_. But, alas, the Children and Servants of those old Planters must needs afford many degenerate Plants, and there is now risen up a Number of People, otherwise inclined than our _Joshua's_, and the Elders that out-liv'd them. Those two things our holy Progenitors, and our happy Advantages make Omissions of Duty, and such Spiritual Disorders as the whole World abroad is overwhelmed with, to be as provoking in us, as the most flagitious Wickednesses committed in other places; and the Ministers of God are accordingly severe in their Testimonies: But in short, those Interests of the Gospel, which were the Errand of our Fathers into these Ends of the Earth, have been too much neglected and postponed, and the Attainments of an handsome Education, have been too much undervalued, by Multitudes that have not fallen into Exorbitances of Wickedness; and some, especially of our young Ones, when they have got abroad from under the Restraints here laid upon them, have become extravagantly and abominably Vicious. Hence 'tis, that the Happiness of _New-England_ has been but for a time, as it was foretold, and not for a long time, as has been desir'd for us.