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holy Scriptures; and though thoroughly purged of Popery and superstition. To this they were led by violent pretensions to inspiration, exhibited in extemporary prayers and preachings, now absolutely exploded by every body of common sense and honesty among them, excepting by new upstart sects, which, for a time carry off from them and us a number of very giddy people. Since the first establishment of Christianity under Constantine, no other service of equal purity so conformable to the word of God, to Christian charity, or to sound reason, hath ever been known, in any country under heaven, as that of England and Ireland. Although it stood in need of no defence, it hath been so amply defended, that no church ever afforded the dissenters from it so little pretence or excuse. Yet justice must be done to the sincerity of such as openly follow another way of worship, compared with whom, the dissenters who go to church, and nevertheless seldom communicate with it, but rail at it, and use their utmost endeavours to undermine and overthrow it, are certainly the most detestable of mankind. To this they are led by a species of infidelity, proceeding from, as they think it, the too expensive support of the established clergy, which they see, in too great a measure, sacrificed to pride and luxury. Bad as the choice is that is made for the ministry of young illiterate puppies, crowding into the church for a morsel of bread, and obtruded by their atheistical families; far worse would it be, if the people themselves were to choose their clergy; and then such bickerings and bloodshed would attend that choice, as often did in more impartial times than these, when the most ignorant of the laity took upon them to judge for the church. If, at any rate, we are to have an insufficient and degenerate succession of clergy, it is best to have it quietly. In an age like this, when the mass, out of which the ministry must be made, is so enormously corrupted, it is rather wonderful that we have any good clergyman among us (and some we have), than that we have so few. The constitution of a church is to be considered, and not the behaviour of its clergy, when conformity with it, or nonconformity, is under deliberation. A clergy duly authorized to preach God's word, and administer his sacraments, in a church well constituted, demand conformity on principles, not to be shaken by their particular defects, while they continue themselves to act in conformity to the stated rules of its constitution. At different times, they may be a very different kind of men, or may be thought so by their people, though they are still but the

same. The constitution of the church, however, being uniformly the same, hath uniformly the same divine right to the conformity of all who live in the country where such church is established. The clergy are but men, and have their gifts in frail and earthen vessels.' To conform or dissent therefore on account of their private and particular behaviour, is to pay no respect to Christ, the head of every church, at least of every church constituted on his principles, and founded on his authority. Conformity in matters of religion should be the effect of three things, first, a sound and candid judgment, regulated by the word of God, without any mixture of fancy or prejudice; secondly, a peaceable and charitable disposition, for peace and charity are among the very first essentials of Christianity; and, thirdly, obedience to the Almighty Source of order and power. Nothing can apologise for dissension from the established church of any country, but a constitutional departure of that church from these principles whereby it is to be examined and judged of. Whenever it is forgotten, that the church of Christ is a society, whereof he himself is the sole head; whenever his disciples cease to be social in regard to one another; or at all prefer their own humours and tempers to his authority; they cease to be his disciples, and fly asunder into divisions, equally wild, uncharitable, and rebellious, in regard to him. At the council of Trent, forced on the pope by the emperor, the king of France, and the loud call for reformation of almost the whole Christian world, the pope attempted, by his creatures in that assembly, to have the bishops decreed, non jure divino, but in this was disappointed. In the mean time, the cry of Calvinists was, No king, no bishop. Accordingly, they established a republican form of government, both in church and state, wherever they had it in their power. These attempts of the pope and Calvinists, so alarmed the kings and bishops, as to put a stop to the intended reformation, how little to the credit of all the parties concerned, may be easily judged. Since that, the work of reformation hath been left to individuals, sometimes, but not always, duly qualified for the undertaking. Although in all sorts and sects among us there is a general falling off from the principles and spirit of Christianity, yet among our dissenters there are so many men so sound in the former, and so warm in the latter, that it may still be reasonably hoped, they may yet be prevailed on by the Prince of Peace to join with the established church, in which their piety is much wanted. Piety and peace

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should go together. Truth and charity should never be found asunder in the breast of a Christian. They ought to find in this union a sweet encouragement from the nature of our Liturgy, whereof all the prayers and addresses are offered up to the throne of grace in and through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, with the Father, who saith, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, believing, ye shall receive; whereas few of their present ministers remember, in their extemporary prayers, the mediatorial power, with the Father, of a Son, in whose Divinity they do not believe. If there are any such among us (and it is thought there are many), the prescript form of our Liturgy, from which they cannot, dare not depart, the efficacy of Christian prayer stands forth in its full force for the devotion of every real Christian. Come, dearly beloved in Christ, let the love of God towards you, which passeth all understanding of divines and statesmen, and your love of him, which should be suitable to his, beget in you, that uniform charity towards us, your Christian brethren, which is the very soul of our religion, which thinketh no ill, which believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.' Are not you and we worshippers of the same God? Have we not one and the same book of God to guide us therein? Have we not one Father, one Saviour, one Comforter? Are not our hearts animated by one Spirit? Or is that Spirit divided? Can he be a Spirit of love in one man, and a Spirit of hatred in another? How then can we keep at a distance from one another in that very office of life wherein we ought to be most closely united? How did the primitive Christians, persecuted by Jews and Pagans, wish for the happy privilege of serving God, which we enjoy, without disturbance from the enemies of Christ? And do we enjoy it, only to disturb and distract it? Only to tear in pieces the body of Christ for petty differences in opinion, which, on both sides, we confess to be insignificant trifles, in comparison of those saving fundamentals, in which we are perfectly agreed? Foreigners think us the most factious people on earth in point of politics, the most apt to complain of our laws, and the administration of them, though we are our own legislators. Yet we crowd to the courts of law and justice; with one another on either jury; do right or wrong with unanimity; assemble at the theatre or tavern; buy and sell to one another; as if we had forgotten our schismatical divisions, I hope, not often, as if we had left our very religion behind us. Strange! that we should shew ourselves, notwithstanding our factious dis

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positions, so much better subjects to our king and laws, than servants to God. Forbid it, common sense, that we should be dissatisfied with religion, because we had not the making of it for ourselves, which indeed seems to be the wish of those, who, in every age, are for casting it over again in a model of their own, though they acknowledge that God is its author. Undoubtedly, he hath never listened either to Christ, or his gospel, who doth not, in his practice acknowledge, that peace, charity, and uniformity, compose one of its primary and most essential articles.

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155. He,' saith Solomon, that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker,' the Maker of the poor, as if his poverty were a disgrace to the creation, wherein the poor man holds so low and contemptible a place, that one, who, but a man like himself, is able to tread him down into the mire. But doth not the oppressor still more flagrantly reproach and even blaspheme his own Maker, for having sent such a monster into being? God is the Maker both of the rich and poor, who meet here together for the trial of both; not but that the one frequently makes himself poor, and the other, rich; so that God having made the men, leaves them to make, in some measure, their own fortunes. It is true, however, that he who honoureth God, hath mercy on the poor, because he considers him as bearing the image of his Maker by nature, and still more by grace; for, in this very instance, his resemblance is still greater to his Saviour, who chose to be poor.

156. It is a fine saying, that it is human to err; but divine, to confess one's error. The word divine, here is taken in a qualified sense. To see truth is the highest proof of a sound understanding; but in an argument or debate, to see it, when coming from the mouth of an opponent, is yet a higher proof of this soundness; and to own it for such, proves, that, for the love of truth, the man can conquer and blow away his own pride, than which there is nothing more apt to cloud the faculties of an otherwise rational creature.

157. We are too apt to misjudge the dispensations of Providence, when we weigh them with our own wishes. The refractory heart would needs be left to its own way, though too blind to see a single step of it. A religious widow of my acquaintance, had two sons, grown up men, of whom she was very fond, and indeed a little proud; and two daughters, not much less dear to their worthy mother. Her two sons, going out one Sunday morning, with a design not justifiable on any other day, were drowned,

It was as much as her strong sense of religion could do, to carry her over this heavy affliction. Sometime after this, when her Christian resignation had began to blunt the sting of her misery, in spite of all her remonstrances, her eldest daughter married a poor profligate young man. Her second daughter, tired with the company of a too admonitory mother, as she thought her, went to live with the young couple; and soon proved with child to her brother-in-law; the married sister, dreading the tyranny of her husband, allowing them to sleep together in one room. On this, the unhappy mother said to me, 'Oh, sir! I thought death the most terrible of all things, when I lost my two fine young men in one day; but now I feel the sweetness of death. O that my two daughters had gone to the bottom with my two sons!'

158. A new and enlarged edition of Chambers's Dictionary, is now publishing here in Dublin, which, among other things, is to serve as an almanack of opinions, particularly in matters of religion. Here it is, that the readers of scraps, of newspapers, magazines, reviews, &c. apt enough to go astray without such aids afforded them, as occur in many parts of this voluminous work, find the subject of demoniacks handled as wholly fabulous, and consequently exorcism, recorded in the gospel, as an imposition on the credulity of Christians; the government of the church by bishops as nothing better than usurpation; and the proof of our religion by prophecies, though at first speciously applauded, yet, immediately afterward, whiffled away into almost nothing between Collins and Surenhusius, with the aid of Whiston. Here it is, that the giddy reader is led away by a treacherous infidel in the mask of a bigoted Presbyterian, whom he is to take for a clergyman of some sort, that his fallacies may pass the more readily in disguise. The prophecies of the Old Testament concerning Christ are artfully represented as altogether figurative, allegorical, and not applicable, but by somewhat like a cabala. That some of those prophecies are figuratively, nay even obscurely, expressed, on set purpose, and for wise and good reasons, that nothing, but the accomplishment might explain them; and that for other reasons, equally wise and good, an event, soon to happen, is pointed to, as a type of another, more important, but more distant in time; we readily acknowledge. That in some prophecies from the Old Testament, referred to in the New, it is sometimes said, that such or such a thing is done, in order that this or that prophecy might be fulfilled, hath been long ago, and now again ob

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