SERMONS. 343 



more righteous than ourselves? Pliny* hath ob- 

 served it, Nulliiiii animal maleficum in Cretd ; and 

 Solinust adds. Nee nlla serpens : but they should 

 have excepted the inhabitants ; for they were y.oc- 

 y.oi ^ri^tx, (and '^ this witness, I am sure, is true ;) 

 not only evil beasts, as we translate it, but venom- 

 ous too : and I wish there 'were no other island 

 could show vipers too many, that have eat out the 

 bowels of their common mother, and flown in the 

 face of their political father, without whose be- 

 nigner influence their chill and benummed for- 

 tunes had not warmth enough to raise them to so 

 bold an attempt. It is unwillingly that I go on 

 to the rest of that character ; but your own expe- 

 rience shall justify me, if I say that the yocfi^sg 

 d^yoc) that remains hath been since exemplified in 

 some other sense ; and our idleness, and fulness 

 of bread, those sins of Sodom, have, I fear, long 

 since, proclaimed it to our faces. And now I 

 cannot wonder, if it be observed from the records 

 of history, (as § Grotius assures us, who knew 

 them well,) that the Cretans were (and I wish 

 there were no other such) a mutinous and a sedi- 

 tious people ; and had but too much need to be 

 put in mind by Titus, to be subject to principali- 

 ties and powers, and to obey magistrates : For || 

 the men of Shechem eat and drink, and (then most 

 naturally go on to) curse Abimelech ; (aye, and 



* Lib. 8. cap. 58. t Cap. 17. 



X Ver. 13. § InTit. iii. 1. 



II Jud. ix. 27. 



z4 



