* Yea, and over our own ancestors, as well as theirs. But is this our glory, or our shame? Were _Edward_ the third, or _Henry_ the fifth to come among us now, what would they think of the change in their people? Would they applaud the elegant variety at the _old Baron_’s table? Or the costly delicacy of his furniture and apparel? Would they listen to these instruments of musick? Or find pleasure in those diversions? Would they rejoice to see the nobles and gentry of the land, lying _at ease, stretching themselves on beds_ of down? Too delicate to use their own limbs, even in the streets of the city; to bear the touch of the people, the blowing of the wind, or the shining of the sun! O how would their hearts burn within them! What indignation, sorrow, shame must they feel, to see the ancient hardiness lost, the _British_ temperance, patience and scorn of superfluities, the rough, indefatigable industry, exchanged for softness, _idleness and fulness of bread_! Well for them, that they were gathered unto their fathers, before this exchange was made! 19. To prove at large, that the luxury and sensuality, the sloth and indolence, the softness and idleness, the effeminacy and false delicacy of our nation are without a parallel, would be but lost labour. I fear, we may say, the _lewdness_ too; for if the _Jews_, as the prophet speaks, _assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses_, so do the _English_, and much more abundantly. Indeed, where is _male chastity_ to be found? Among the nobility? Among the gentry? Among the tradesmen? Or among the common people of _England_? How few lay any claim to it at all? How few desire so much as the reputation of it? Would you yourself account it an honour or a reproach, to be ranked among those of whom it is said, _These are they which are not defiled with women: for they are virgins_? And how numerous are they now, even among such as are accounted men of honour and probity, _who are fed as horses, every one neighing after his neighbour’s wife_? But as if this were not enough, is not the sin of _Sodom_ too, more common among us than ever it was in _Jerusalem_? Are not our streets beset with those monsters of uncleanness, who _burn in their lust one toward another_, whom God hath _given up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient_? O Lord, thy compassions fail not: therefore we are not consumed.