SERIOUS AND FREE

THOUGHTS

ON THE

PRESENT STATE

OF THE

CHURCH,

AND OF

RELIGION:

IN A

LETTER to the BISHOPS.

Can ye not difcern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi. [First printed in the year 1755.]

My Lords,.

Er is a very dark, and it becomes every day a

more just picture of the face of things around us, which was drawn by a late great prelate of your church, who thus paints and laments the complexion of the times.*

"An open disregard to religion is become, "through a variety of unhappy causes, the dis"tinguishing character of the present age. This " evil is grown to a great height in the metropolis of the nation, is daily spreading through "every part of it, bringing in such dissoluteness and contempt of principle in the higher part

Archbishop. Secker.

"of the world, and such profligate intemperance "and fearlessness of committing crimes in the "lower, as must, if this torrent of impiety stop

not, become absolutely fatal; and God knows, "far from stopping, it receives, through the ill designs of some, and the inconsiderateness of "others, continual increase.

"Christianity is now ridiouled and railed at "with very little reserve, and the teachers of it "without any at all. Disregard to public wor 'ship and instruction hath increased, many are

grown prejudiced against religion, many more"indifferent about it. The emissaries of the "church of Rome have begun to reap great har"vests in the field, which hath thus been pre86 pared for them.

66

66

"This melancholy state of things (his Graceproceeds) calls loudly upon us (the clergy) to correct our mistakes, to supply our deficiencies, "and earnestly to beg of God, that he would di"rect the hearts of those who preside over the public welfare, and humbly to represent to them "on all fit occasions, the declining state of reli"gion, and the importance and the means of "preserving it. These things are unquestionable duties."

It is from a deep sense of this duty that I presume thus to address your lordships, and humbly to suggest some occasions of this spreading evil, which seem not to have been so thoroughly and so seriously adverted to as their importance de serves. To know the cause of a disease, in thebody politic as well as natural, is the first step to its care. The causes of the present prevailing scepticism are, no doubt, complicated and various. The strictness of the christian morals, and the restraint which the gospel lays upon the corrupt appetites of men, are, probably the chief causes of some men's violent opposition to it. But there are, my lords, I apprehend, a variety

of inferior causes, offences the gospel calls them,. which co-operate and help it on; offences, which confirm greatly men's prejudices against christianity, and which strongly tempt and seem to warrant their treating things, reputed sacred, with much drollery and ridicule; offences, which are found not in professors only, but in those who are SET for its propagation and defence. May I be permitted, my lords, with the freedom of a christian, to expostulate on this subject? Things evidently seem to draw, as the archbishop above observes, to a dangerous and important crisis. When the exigency of affairs presses, a liberty of speech may with some confidence be claimed. Will your lordships then indulge me, whilst, with no greater freedom than the great danger of the cause seems plainly to require, I endeavour to point out some things which hang as a portentous weight upon the cause of christianity, and are some of the fatal stones at which the sceptics of the present age stumble, dange rously stumble, and sometimes grievously fall. It is impossible, we are told, but offences will come: but woe to that man, woe to that church, by whom the offence cometh!

Great, it must be owned, is the felicity of this nation, in having so many of its established clergy, whose learning and whose lives reflect honour on their profession, and whose writings have blessed the world with some of the noblest defences of virtue and religion. But, as matters are at present constituted, are there not some things which greatly abate the force of the strongest arguments they offer? Some prejudices, which too naturally and too justly arise, of which disaffected minds not a little avail themselves in their opposition to christianity!

The first unhappy cause of the growth of infidelity, which beg leave to mention, is a general apprehension that the clergy themselves are not

7

thoroughly persuaded of the truth and importance of the christian religion, inasmuch as they solemnly subscribe articles which they do not really believe, and declare publicly, in God's presence, their unfeigned assent and consent to forms, in divine worship, which they highly disapprove, per-haps heartily condemn.

If this apprehension, my lords, should appear to be well founded; if there be good reason to think that your lordships, the bishops, do rigo-rously impose, and that the clergy do subscribe articles of religion, which neither you nor they do really believe; and that, in the most solemn manner, your lordships require, and they are constrained to give, unfeigned assent and consent› to certain matters and forms which, at the same time, you both judge to be highly censurableand wrong: what will, my lords, what must a doubting enquirer naturally conclude, but that the profession of christianity is all artifice and pretence! that there is no such thing as conscience, integrity, or faith, in transactions relating to ecclesiastical concerns! that the terrors, which the gospel threatens to the hypocrite or unbeliever, are known, by those who preach them, to be only an empty phantom, as is also the future glory which it promises to those who are couras geous to confess and to avow the truth!**

* Bishop Burnet fays, "He is forced to declare, that, having "had much free conversation with many who have been fatally. "corrupted with atheistic and infidel principles, they have very "often owned to him, that nothing fo much promoted this im "them, as the very bad opinion which they took up of all "clergymen on all fides.

"That they did not fee in them that strictnefs of life, that " contempt of the world, that zeal, that meeknefs, humility, and charity, that diligence and earzeftness, with relation to "the great truths of the chriftian religion, which they reckoned "they would most certainly have, if they themselves firmly believed it. They therefore concluded, that thofe, whofe **buflness it was more strictly to enquire into the truth of their "religion, knew that it was not fo certain, as they themselves, "for other ends, endeavoured to make the world believe it was;.

The articles of religion, which your lordships are obliged to make every clergyman subscribe,, and which every clergyman does with great so, lemnity subscribe, it is notorious to the whole, world, are strongly what is called Trinitarian and Calvinistic. Little less notorious is it, that the clergy do not generally entertain those religions sentiments which the articles express, and that many, if not most of them are either Unitarians or Arminians. What, then, can any serious impartial spectator judge, when gentlemen, in the Unitarian scheme, subscribe solemnly, in God's presence, (i. e. calling upon him to witness the sincerity and truth with which they subscribe,), the first, the second, and the eighth articles of the church, which strongly assert, Art.. I. "That "there is but ONE living and true God,---And, "in the UNITY of this Godhead, there be THREE, persons of one substance, power, and eternitý,, "the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Art. II. "That the Son is the VERY and ETERNAL GOD,,

66.

of ONE substance with the Father." Art. VIII. "And that the creed of Athanasius ought tho-. "roughly to be received and believed; for, it may

be proved by most certain warrants of holy "scripture! And that whoever does not believe. "it faithfully, shall be most certainly and ever"lastingly damned!"

In like manner, those, who favour what is called, the Arminian scheine, and reject the Calvinistic, stand forth before God, and subscribe, and declare that they do it willingly and ex animo, (i. e. sincerely and from their heart,) the ninth, thirteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth articles, as likewise the twentieth, which expressly affirm,.

" and that, though, for the carrying on their own authority or "fortunes, which, in one word, they call their TRADE, they "feemed very positive in affirming the truth of their doctrine, "yet they in their own hearts did not believe it, fince they lived. "fo little fuitable to it." Paftoral Care, Preface, page 15, 16.