are increafing. It is no uncommon thing for perfons of all perfuafions to meet in the fame church to hear the fame preacher; . many of whom have no communion with one another at any other time: how is a preacher to please such a mixt multitude of hearers, but by leaving the church of Christ out of the question, and preaching a loose fort of religion, which will fit them all? Perhaps, if he were to speak the plain truth, and, from a fincere, regard to their fouls, give them fuch information as they stand moft in need of, many of them would leave him with indignation as there were those who would walk no longer with Jefus Chrift, because they were not able to bear the things that were fpoken by him. There is a fashion of inviting people to come to Christ, without telling them where and how he is to be found.. Besides, it is a great mittake to suppose, that the whole of religion confists in our taking of Chrift; it is beginning at the wrong end: for Chrift is to take us, as he took the little children in his arms, and gave them his bleffing*. He said to his disciples, "ye have not chofen me, but I have chosen you." There is a covenant between us and God, into which God, of his infinite grace, takes us; we do not take him, neither can we: and this confines us to the ordinances of the church, which are not of us, but are the gifts of God's free grace to us miferable finners: and Chriftians are united to God, and to one another, by the fervices of prayer, and the participation of the facraments, more than by the hearing of the word of God without them; which many hear for reafons of vanity and uncharitableness. Who are the best friends every minifter hath in his parish? They who attend the prayers and facraments with him; who are edified by his priesthood as well as by his preaching; and are active in the great work of their own falvation.

3. As the latter times of the Jewish church were very corrupt, and the doctrines of God were rendered of none effect by the inventions of men, it is agreeable to the prophecies of the New Teftament, that offences muft come amongst us; that men must

* Mr. Locke, in his Reasonableness of Christianity, (a strange piece of divinity) is in the fame mistake. He makes baptifm a vifible act, whereby thofe, who believed Chrift to be the Meffiah, received him as their king. So again in the fame ftyle, he says, that by baptism men enroll themselves in the kingdom of Jefus; which is but to fay in other words, that they write their own names in heaven. From fuch language as this, it is too apparent that Mr. Locke's ideas of the Chriftian priesthood and facraments, were exceedingly low.

arife, out of the church, " fpeaking perverfe things, to draw away "difciples after them :" alfo that many will not "endure found "doctrine, but heap up to themfelves teachers, having itching "ears."

Thefe, and many other like paffages, give us notice that there must be a falling off from the faith, with confufion and disagreement in the Chriftian fociety. If we look at our own church, we have but a melancholy profpect; and cannot help obferving, that it approaches too near to the ftate of the Jewish church before its deftruction. As they had corrupted the doctrines of Mofes and the prophets, and in confequence of it were divided into sects, (for as truth unites, error always divides men) fo have we corrupted the doctrines of the Gofpel, and are miferably divided in confequence of it. I could name fome doctrines, which if our Saviour were now to deliver in the metropolis of London, with the fame freedom and authority as he did at Jerufalem, I verily believe he would be perfecuted and put to death by people called Christians, ás he was of old by thofe who were called Jews. The church of Jerufalem was infefted with temporifing and philofophifing Jews, who were fartheft of all others from the faith, while they affected to be wifer than all the reft of the people. The Sadducees believed neither angel nor fpirit, and faid there was no refurrection. The Herodians were politicians, and men of the world, who flattered Herod that he was the Meffiah. The Pharifees were a proud fanctified fect, very godly in outward fhew, but full of hypocrify within. They juftified themfelves, and defpifed others, as not good enough to ftand near them, or belong to the same church with them. Of the fect of the Effenes, we have no particular account in the New Teftament; but from all we can learn, I take them to have been the Quakers of that time, who had thrown off all external rites of worship, and affected a religion' perfectly pure and philofophical. The Sadducees were the Socinians of Judaifm; who had nothing fpiritual belonging to them, and had reduced their law to an empty form. The venality and avarice of the Jews of our Saviour's time, were notorious, and provoked his indignation. Their temple, filled with buyers and fellers, was turned into a den of thieves: and, God knows, there is too much of a worldly traffick amongst us; which is too far gone to be reformed, and too bold to be cenfured-venduntur omnia*!

* "CHURCH LIVING.

Two thousand pounds ready for the next presentation to a rectory of adequate

4. But whatever abuses there may be in the church, it is our duty 10 make the best of it. The church is our spiritual mother; and we may apply thofe words of the wife man, "defpife not thy mother when she is old;" not even if the thould be in rags and dotage. The doctrine of the church of England is, by profeffion, ftill pure and apoftolical; and, whatever faults it may have contracted, it cannot be worfe than the church which our Saviour found at Jerufalem: yet he still recommended to the congregation the duty of obedience to their spiritual rulers. "The "Scribes and the Pharifees fit in Mofes' feat; all, therefore, "whatsoever they bid you obferve, that obferve and do." Bad as the church then was, our Saviour never forfook it, but " taught "daily in the Temple ;" and his Apostles attended upon its worship at the hours of prayer; and probably continued fo to do, till they were difperfed. Neither Chrift nor his disciples ever confidered the doctrines of church authority, and fucceffion, and conformity, as vain words and idle dreams, as our Socinians have done of late years; and after what hath been faid, their views want no explanation.

5. In our behaviour toward those who have departed from us, let not us, who honour the church, fall into the error of those who defpife it. Let us not betray any symptoms of pride in cenfuring with feverity, but rather, with hearts full of forrow and compaffion, lament the differences and divifions which expofe the Chriftian religion to the fcorn of its enemies. Infidels are delighted to see that Chriftians cannot understand one another; from thence they are ready to report, that there is no fenfe amongst them all, nor any reafon in their religion; for that, if there were, they would agree about it. In this alfo the Papifts triumph; they boaft of their advantage over the reformed, in that they are preserved in peace and unity, while we are torn to pieces with factions and divifions. Hence they reflect upon the whole refor mation, as a natural fource of confufion; that they belong to Jerufalem, and we to Babel; that when we leave their church, the city upon the hill, we never know where to stop, till we get

value, with immediate refignation.-The advertiser is fixty-five years of age. Apply to Mr., Attorney, Holborn."

Perjury, which is now in a very growing state, may, in time, come to market with ́as much boldness as her filter Simony hath done for many years past.

D 4

to the bottom: that is, till we have run either into the madness of enthusiasm, or the profaneness of infidelity. How fhall we stop this wide mouth of scandal, while appearances are so much against us? However this reproach doth not reach us of the church of England; who, in doctrine and profeffion, are where we were two hundred years ago. Let those who have left us, try if they can answer the Papifts upon this head: it is their business to account for the confufion which they only have introduced.

If the clergy of this church have any defire to preferve it, they must confider for what end the church is appointed. A Christian church is a candlestick, to hold forth the light of the Gospel. When it ceases to answer that end, it is of no use as a church and the world may do as well without it. Great things have been attributed of late times to moral preaching: but there is no such thing as telling people what they are to do, without telling them what they are to believe; because the Chriftian morality is built upon the Christian faith, and is totally different from the morality of Heathens. Deifm, fo called, is a religion without Chriftianity; it has neither the Father, the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, into whofe name Chriftians are baptized. It has no facraments, no redemption, no atonement, no church communion, and confequently no charity; for charity is the love and unity of Chrif tians as fuch. Natural religion is but another name for Deifm; it is the fame thing in all respects; and I may challenge all the philofophers in Europe to thew the difference. Therefore, to recommend moral duties on the ground of natural religion, is to preach Deifm from a pulpit: and we should ask ourselves whether God, who upholds his church, to declare falvation by Jefus Chrift alone, will preserve a church, when it has left the Gospel, and holds forth the light of Deism in the candlestick which was made, and is fupported in the world, only to hold forth the light of Christianity? What else is it that hath made way for the enthufiaftic rant of the Tabernacle? When the wife forfake the Gofpel, then is the time for the unwife to take it up; but with such a mixture of error and indifcretion, as gives the world a pretence for never returning to it any more: and then the cafe is defperate.

Deifin, properly fo called,' (faith a certain writer) is the religion effential to man, the true original religion of reafon and nature. It is in Deifm, properly fo called, that our more dif

cerning and rational divines have conftantly placed the alone excellency and true glory of the Christian institution.' The Gofpel (fays Dr. Sherlock) was a republication of the law of nature, and its precepts declarative of that original religion which was as old as the creation.' If natural religion' (fays Mr. Chandler) be not a part of the religion of Chrift, it is scarce worth while to enquire at all what his religion is: from whence it seems very natural to infer, that the other parts of the religion of Chrift are scarce worth any thing at all of our notice. [Deifm fairly flated by a moral philofopher: p. 5, 6, 7.] See the whole book, which proceeds on this principle; that natural religion being admitted, it must be a perfect scheme, a compleat structure; and that Christianity, as a fuperftructure, is unneceffary and it is lamentable to see what advantage this author takes of the unguarded conceffions of fome celebrated Chriftian preachers and controverfialists of the church of England, who did not foresee, or did not confider, the confequences of their doctrines.

The Bishop of Llandaff's Collection of Tracts, in fix volumes, opens with the Theological Lectures of Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, a Diffenting teacher; which fhews his lordship's great candour toward that party. In the first chapter of which Lectures, I find a rule of interpretation repugnant to the rule given us by the Scripture itself, which directs us to "compare spiritual things with spiritual;" that is, to compare the Scripture with the Scripture, that we may keep to the true sense of it. But here it is laid down as a fundamental rule, that we fhould always interpret the Scripture in a sense "confiftent with the laws of natural religion; for that the law of nature, as it is founded in the unchangeable nature of things, must be the bafis and ground-work of every conftitution of religion which God hath erected*." Now, with all due deference to his lordship's judgement in collecting properly for the edification of the clergy, and the people committed to their charge, this rule of Dr. Taylor prejudges the Scripture before we come to it, and inculcates into inexperienced students of divinity, the very principle that hath ruined us, and given us up as a prey to the Deifts; it allows them the advantage they have contended for against the peculiar doctrines of revelation, as scarce worth any thing at all of our notice, in comparison of natural

See Theologic. Tracts, vol. i. p. 5.