mystery and obscurity, the learned might have employed their curiosity upon it, and prided themselves upon finding out the riddle; but this would have been gratifying a few at the expense of the multitude. Upon the present plan, the wise and prudent have to stoop to receive the gospel, and are thus taught humility as they enter into the kingdom of God. Here all men are upon a level; the rich and poor, the learned and illiterate meet together; the Lord is the Saviour of them all. The christian religion contains a few articles of faith, which furnish helps and motives to the practice of its precepts; and it is supported by miracles, prophecies, and internal characters of divinity. Its creed, morals, and evidence, are all adapted to the meanest capacities: "He who runs may read, and the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein." (Isaiah xxxv. 8.)

Telling people that the gospel system is too difficult for common comprehension, has had a most pernicious effect upon the morals and manners of the lower orders of society. The obligations of religion cannot be binding upon persons who are incapable of understanding its nature: if the New Testament, therefore, be so mysterious, that the illiterate cannot make out its meaning, they have nothing to do with it; and, indeed, this is all that the greater part of them pretend to know about it. They have heard so much preaching of late concerning the mysteries of our holy religion, and the impossibility of shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, and chimney-sweepers understanding it, -all which stuff has been urged with apostolic zeal, to keep them from the tabernacle,-that multitudes of these poor deluded creatures have concluded religion is intended only for the learned, and have excused themselves for neglecting it in their lives, by saying: "O Sir! these things are too deep for us! We are no skollards. Our parson says if we make much ado about religion, it will make us crazy!"

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What then, it is demanded, must every ignoramus, who thinks he understands religion, be allowed to turn

preacher? Certainly, but the people are not obliged to honour him with their attendance; they will not listen long to the vociferations of ignorance, and pay for it into the bargain; the evil will, therefore, soon cure itself. Learning, piety, and eloquence will command the multitude; and the dull, the graceless, and the senseless, will soon be obliged to shut up shop.

It is commonly said, that the illiterate will propagate false doctrine, but there is very little danger from that quarter. It is agreed on all hands, that there is a deformity in error which is forbidding; and hence it is necessary, in order to procure it a favourable reception, that it should be artfully disguised in the garb of truth and innocence. But an ignoramus is not adequate to this task, it requires a person of consummate abilities to introduce heresy without exciting suspicion; there is not a single article in the creed of heterodoxy, but what owes its prolonged existence to some literary character who has taken it under his protection. Error has sometimes been begotten by ignorance, but it has never long survived its birth, when not nursed by learning. Instead, therefore, of lamenting that the illiterate will support heresy, it is desirable that it may never get into better hands: and then, like the ephemera in the natural world, it will live only for a day.

Learning is sure to lead into the paths of error, when not under the guidance of piety. Two reasons may be assigned for this: First. Learning, when not humbled by religion, is proud. She looks above truth, which dwells with the meek and lowly, and builds a castle in the air, from which she receives the adoration of the gaping multitude, who, forgetting that it has no foundation to rest upon, are lost in astonishment at the grandeur of the edifice, and are extravagant in their praise of the abilities of the architect. Our Saviour addressed himself in thanksgiving to God, for hiding the gospel from the wise and prudent, and for revealing it unto babes, that is, persons of an humble and teachable disposition. And, no doubt, the principal reason why the wise and prudent ones of

the present day talk so much about mysteries in religion, is, the gospel is hid from their eyes. But it is revealed to the meek and lowly, who learn of Christ; and, therefore, they have no mysteries in their creed.

Secondly. A man of parts, without piety, finds nothing in the holy, abasing, self-denying doctrines of the gospel to engage his affections; and he can only be induced to become a preacher of it from motives of interest. Christianity is valuable in his esteem no further than as it can be moulded into a system of priestcraft; to this object, therefore, his labours are directed. And because he perceives the New Testament condemns most strongly in priests a haughty spirit, and the love of filthy lucre, he endeavours to make the laity believe, that it is a very mysterious book, and that a learned clergy are best qualified to explain and dispense its sacred mysteries; hence creeds and liturgies, pompous rites and ceremonies, have been provided to amuse the vulgar, and draw their attention from the sacred records. By such men, the Bible is supposed to be in religion, what mercury is in medicine, taken according to the prescriptions of a professional gentleman, it is a specific for almost every evil; but otherwise, it is always dangerous, and generally fatal to meddle with it. Thus the people are turned from the fountain of truth, and persuaded to drink in error. A sensible writer has remarked: "The meanest man is as much interested and concerned in the truth of religion, as the greatest priest; and though his knowledge thereof be not in all respects equally easy, yet in some respects it may be easier. For want of learning does not so much hinder the light of the layman, as worldly advantage and faction sometimes does the priests. Corruption in the church, before our Saviour, and in our Saviour's days, and ever since, has oftener begun among the greatest priests, rabbis, and bishops, than among the meanest laity."*

*

True Grounds of Ecclesiastical Regimen, page 84.

As priestcraft is the only religion of corrupt ministers, so their principal concern is to support the dignity, and promote the interest of the priesthood. Popery, though a solid mass of sin and error, is the best organized system of priestcraft that ever was invented; and hence all the profligate ministers of the church of Rome, however learned, have always been determined enemies to reformation. It has already been noticed, that most of the bishops voted against the very first act of the reformation, that of disowning the authority of the pope. But when the king and parliament carried that point in opposition to them, these mitred gentry, true to their principle, that half a loaf is better than no bread, all, except one, set their hands to the bill, and held their places, and thus betrayed the suppleness of their consciences.

No person is silly enough to believe, that the blustering of a wicked priest, in favour of an establishment, flows from a conviction of its apostolic constitution, and an anxious concern for the interests of religion. It is a matter of no consequence to him, whether the national creed be true or false, good or bad. It is enough for him, that he gets some hundreds, perhaps thousands a-year by it. Demetrius and his friends, roared out most lustily, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" But he explained to them the principle which inspired this holy transport:"By this we have our gains! Our craft is in danger!"

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The apostles, if we except Paul, were not learned men. It is said that though they were not favoured with a liberal education, inspiration supplied that defect; but I affirm it did not. Their inspiration supplied them with valuable religious sentiments, but did not make them learned in other things, nor enable them to write with classic purity and elegance. Any man, by reading the New Testament with suitable dispositions, may make himself master of their sentiments, and then he has acquired all the learning which they received by inspiration; and when he has added to this, a rustic education equal to theirs, he is

on a level with them in point of literature. As the advocates for a learned ministry have long deluded the vulgar upon this subject, and affirmed that illiterate men have no right to preach, unless they possess the same kind and degree of inspiration with which the apostles were favoured, and which none now pretend to, but wild enthusiasts, and frantic fanatics, I must prepare for the most formidable opposition; I shall not, therefore, attempt to fortify my opinion by arguments of my own, but by extracts from critics of the greatest eminence, whose authority will impose silence, should their reasonings fail to produce conviction.

Paul is universally acknowledged to have been the most learned among the apostles; if in any of them, therefore, we may expect to find in him a fine writer. Hear Dr. Macknight: "Although the sermons and epistles of the apostle Paul be much superior in sentiment to the finest orations and treatises of the Greeks, many who are judges of elegant writing, I doubt not, will pronounce them inferior, both in composition and style. But though with Beza I acknowledge that Paul was capable of all the different kinds of fine writing; of the simple, the pathetic, the ironical, the vehement, and the sublime; and that he hath given admirable specimens of these several kinds of eloquence in his sermons and epistles; I would not be understood to mean, that he ought, upon the whole, to be considered either as an elegant, or as an eloquent writer. The method and connexion of his writings are too much concealed to entitle him to these appellations; and his style, in general, is neither copious nor smooth. His style, upon the whole, is difficult and obscure."

The apostle despised fine writing. "As he did not follow the rules prescribed by the Greek rhetoricians in disposing the matter of his discourses, so he hath not observed their precepts in the choice of his words, the arrangement of his sentences, and the measure of his periods. That kind of speaking and writing which is more remarkable for an artificial structure of