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that of our calling, which is "Christ in us the hope of glory?" Can there be a trust to be preferred to a reliance on Christ Jesus, "who is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

"Repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ," was the sum of the apostolical instructions.

Faith in the sacred volume, is regarded as the radical principle of holiness. If the root exist, the proper fruits will be brought forth, and the practical precepts of christianity be no less pure, than its doctrines are sublime.

Can the compass of language furnish injunctions, stricter in their measure, or larger in their comprehensions, than those with which the word of God abounds. "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,' are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus." Such are the scripture admonitions. If, therefore, we ex

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pect to be saved, by the Christian religion, we must practice morality upon Christian principles.

Paganism had its didactic codes, and they present views of great moral elevation. But though these systems of ethics remained for ages, they stood in the midst of manners, ever degenerating, for want of religious doctrine. They stood, but as the summit of a rock, from the sides of which, the vegetable mould has fallen, without soil to give root to a principle, or to support the bloom, and feed the fragrance of a virtue. And what are the precepts of the gospel when heathenised, and stripped of their peculiar sanctions, by that worldly wisdom, to which the preaching of the cross is foolishness? they are commands, but no longer gospel commands. Man wants motives as much as direction; his hopes and his fears are the sinews of his actions. The heart of the whole system of Christian morality, is the love of Christ. To take the morals of the new testament, and to discard its faith, is to sever the tree from the root, while it is yet in bloom. The hues may be admired, and the smell be for a

time, as a field which the Lord hath blessed ; but their blossom shall go up as dust, be cause they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

To bring men to Jesus Christ, and when brought, to save them from their sins, and keep them steadfast unto the end, in the faith and obedience of the gospel, was the great work of the ministry of the apostles, the desire of their hearts, and the labour of their lives; and this is the grand point aimed at by the reformed episcopal church. Of her strict conformity to the sacred writings, she has given, indeed, every reasonable satisfaction to mankind,*

*An objector may say that all sects and parties appeal to scripture.

This argument proves nothing, because it proves too much, for it is equally an argument against all rules. Heretics have appealed to reason, therefore reason is no rule. Some have pleaded tradition, there fore tradition is not to be pleaded. Heathens have appealed to universal consent (all Asia and the world worshippeth Diana. Acts, xix. 27.) therefore, it is not to be regarded. The later Arians pleaded the councils of Sirmium and Rimini, therefore, councils are not to be

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1st, By publishing an excellent translation of the scriptures, and leaving them free and open for all persons to judge, concerning the doctrines which they actually teach. This shews

A firm persuasion that she is not afraid of any opposition in the word of God, to the articles of her religion.

2. By not pretending to deliver the sense of scripture on infallible authority, but

appealed to. Miracles have been pretended to by impostors, as signs of truth, therefore, true miracles are no proof. All this objection is a transfering the fault from the men, and fixing it upon the faultless rule. But do not many, who pretend to follow scripture, deny the divinity of Christ? what then?-this is not for want of evidence in scripture, but from making and devising ways to avoid this evidence. Will any one dare to say that there was no clear evidence from the word of Christ and his miracles, "that they were of God;" because the Pharisees, and other unbelieving Jews, who conversed with him, and saw his miracles, and heard his word, did not acknowledge him as the Messiah?

It does not follow, that there is no truth in the world because there is much falsehood; others may think themselves right as well as we, but the only way to talk to the purpose, is to examine the evidence in any controversy to consider not, who says, he is in the right, but who proves it.

requiring her members to examine for themselves, she removes all mistrust, for inquisitive men are always suspicious, where there is too much caution.*

3. By constantly appealing to the primitive church, which believed the same doctrines, and expounded the scriptures in the same sense we do, (though the bible alone contains the religion of protestants) she shews, that she posseses sufficient certainty for

*The Scriptures are called the bread of life, the food of our souls, the sight of our eyes, the judge of our ways, and I never can believe, that the people ought not to read, what God himself caused to be writ, or that they should be kept ignorant of the laws, which they are to be judged, and governed by. In explaining difficult passages, the priests' lips are to preserve knowledge, and it behoves private men to pay a due difference to the sentiments of their Spiritual guides, that they may inform their judgments, and enable them to understand for themselves. Thus our Saviour' taught his disciples, and thus the apostles taught the world, by expounding scripture to them, which does not signify merely to tell them what the sense of Scripture is, and requiring them to believe it, but shewing them out of the scripture that this is, and must be, the

true sense of it.

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