PREFACE.

THE following discourse owes its appearance to a circumstance which, perhaps in the opinion of some, will furnish the Author with the most justifiable reason for laying his performance before the Public. A much-respected friend of his was pleased so often to express his high sense of the merits of Bishop Hoadly as a profound Divine, and especially of his "Plain Account of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper," that he conceived it at last to be his duty to address him a letter on the Bishop's hypothesis, which, under the pretence of reducing the Lord's Supper to a greater degree of simplicity, and of freeing it from superstition, has exhibited in fact nothing more than those momentary glimpses of truth, which leave the traveller, from the casual light they afford, to wander in greater darkness than before, instead of guiding his footsteps in the paths of life and peace.

Now, though most polemical discussions, like political ones, are apt to end with the parties being more positive in their own opinions, yet, as truth was the only object the Author's friend had in view, and that he imagined most likely to be obtained by calm and rational investigation, the result was—a candid acknowledgment, on his part, that Bishop Hoadly, in excluding the idea of a feast on a Sacrifice, and confining us to the notion of a bare memorial, has abated the true comforts, shaken the best hopes,

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and disturbed the saving faith of the Christian: while this admission was accompanied with an urgent request, conveyed however in terms too flattering here to repeat, that the Author would make public his reasonings on this momentous topic, as he was firmly convinced, that the opinion of a simple memorial is rapidly increasing among those who call themselves sincere members of the Establishment.

If that be true, it is indeed of incalculable importance to turn the people to a better way of thinking on this point; and he who succeeds in thus opening their eyes, may be justly deemed to have rendered some service to the cause of religious truth. Nor is he to be considered as having failed the least in such attempt, though the positions brought forth by him for the elucidation of this sublime subject be not supported by new arguments, or recommended by new illustrations, provided he is able to clear those evidences, which are dimly and indistinctly perceived by uncultivated * minds, from every thing which tends to obscure their lustre. For prejudice and ignorance are fruitful sources of error and conceit, while they will always abound, as long as people shall presume to think that nothing more is necessary to qualify them for Scripture critics, than a superficial knowledge of the old and new Testament. From those prolific sources indeed, arise that variety of difficulties and objections, which are of weight only, because they are unexamined. Hence, the half-learned are more easily taken by a bold objection to established truths, than susceptible of the reasoning which supports them; others, too, in a weak admiration of

And cultivated ones also, are words which the writer might have been well justified in adding, "from a consideration," as Mr. Burke says, in his usual forcible manner," of the fat stupidity and gross ignorance concerning what imports men most to know, which prevails at courts and at the head of armies, and in senates, as much as in the loom and in the field."-Sce Vol, 5 of his Works, oct, edit. p. 243,

their own sufficiency, are ever ready to fly in the face of the deliberate decisions of the greatest numbers, and of the most acknowledged learning; and with an ideot-like simplicity to regard the mere dissent from general persuasions, as an instance of superior penetration, and vigour of intellect.

Among such persons, we are not greatly surprised to meet unlimited scepticism, where we expected immediate conviction, to discover prejudice, where we supposed liberality to exist, to see indifference pass for candour, wily sophistry for artless simplicity, arrogant mediocrity for profound wisdom, and, in short, to find "the Plain Account" ranked among the best productions of human reasoning by many within, and without the pale of the Church. Though at the same time it is more than conjectural, that not a few of those who now cry up the voluminous writings of the "Republican Bishop," as masterpieces of clear ratiocination and manly freedom of thought, would (if the Writer of them had died without a mitre on his head) discover in those Socraticæ charta, various positions founded upon false views, false facts, and false assumptions, calculated to produce no good in the first place, but likely to lead to the most mischievous consequences in future, and all owing to an ambitious spirit of subtle refinement, which prefers the exclusive praise of ingenuity to that of a sincere and devoted attachment to Truth: added to which, the most careless reader cannot fail to perceive that with all the Bishop's boasted love of candour and simplicity, he is as equivocal in his expression, as he is clear in his design, and that he has used, more than any other divine, the artifice too often detected in polemical controversy, that of changing the subject, and then arguing from it; a mode of proceeding which will lead none to infer,

The propriety of this epithet will not be disputed by those who have even looked into, much less attentively examined the Bishop's system of Church authority.

but his most bigotted admirers, that his mind was peculiarly exempt from the influence of error, or that he always combated with truth and reason on his side.

"The Plain Account" would then have been soon reduced to its proper dimensions, (for it appeared in an age when that canon Si quis dixerit Episcopum aliqua infirmitate laborare anathema esto, was a mere dead letter,) had not its author been at that time the great object of Whig idolatry; and the same circumstance which rendered those the loudest in praise of Hoadly, who took the least pains to ascertain the import of his conclusions, still prevents his book from being thrown on the shelf of oblivion; since there is as natural a connection between socinian doctrines and modern* whiggism, as between the Roman Catholic system, and despotism." The Plain Account" therefore is not popular from its own intrinsic merits, but from its alliance with the factious principles of a political party.

Now, though the Author of the following pages does not promise to the learned any striking novelty of proof on a subject which has exercised the powerful pens of a Cudworth, a Warburton, and a Cleaver; yet, if he should succeed in convincing those, whose minds are well disposed towards religion, and are somewhat opened by education, but who expect at the same time to be Christians without labour, study, or enquiry, (and such only be it remembered is he addressing) of the high and inestimable privileges annexed to the Sacrament,† (called so by way of

* That modern whiggism is but another word for rank democracy, is amply confirmed and illustrated in the celebrated "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs."

+ The Scripture term Murpov observes the learned Bishop Burgess in his valuable little Tract on First Principles of Christian Knowledge, 3d edition, p. 64, is translated Sacramentum in

excellence,) but which, Bishop Hoadly, in his darling propensity to simplify and to decry all mystery, has thought proper to reject-he shall consider this Essay not to have been written in vain, and more real satisfaction will then result to him, than if he had been the most successful in the most popular species of composition.

We abound in admirable works on the evidences of Christianity. Never perhaps since the Apostles' days, was the general and substantial truth of its principles better understood. But as to doctrines, it is in vain to deny, that those of our Clergy who are the most celebrated for their talents or erudition, seldom introduce them either from the press or the pulpit. With the exception of that splendid luminary of our Church, a Horsley, and some few others, the number of great divines appear to be small indeed, who, in our days, have sedulously brought forwards and pertinaciously pressed in their writings, the genuine doctrines of the Church of England. Hence the followers of Wesley and Whitfield are furnished with the pretext for saying, (which from their proselytizing spirit it is to be taken for granted they avail themselves on every occasion,) that we have abandoned, shamefully abandoned, the true sense of our Articles, which they alone retain. Perhaps the learned and judicious in our Church regard those doctrines as strong meat, unfit for those who are " Babes in Christ," and therefore not to be mentioned with advantage at all times. But

the earliest Latin Versions. The word vorpion, however, expresses only the inward meaning of an emblematical action ;—ra yap vorgia xpupiws yivov. as the learned scholiast says in the Plautus of Aris-tophanes. But the word Sacramentum has a more extensive signification. I think Tertullian or some other Latin Father, calls the whole of Christianity, Sacramentum. And here by the way, those critics are clearly mistaken who derive that name from Sacramentum, the military oath of the Romans. Archbishop Secker in his Lectures, vol. 11, p. 208, seems disposed to give a classical origin to this word,

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