arife, out of the church, " fpeaking perverse things, to draw away "difciples after them :" alfo that many will not "endure found "doctrine, but heap up to themselves 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 difagreement in the Chriftian fociety. If we look at our own church, we have but a melancholy prospect; and cannot help observing, that it approaches too near to the state 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 fects, (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, as he was of old by those who were called Jews. The church of Jerufalem was infested with temporifing and philosophising Jews, who were fartheft of all others from the faith, while they affected to be wifer than all the rest 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 sanctified sect, very godly in outward fhew, but full of hypocrify within. They justified themselves, and despised others, as not good enough to ftand near them, or belong to the fame 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 philosophical. The Sadducees were the Socinians of Judaism; who had nothing spiritual 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 smnia*!

* "CHURCH LIVING.

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

4. But whatever abuses there may be in the church, it is our duty to 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 fhould be in rags and dotage. The doctrine of the church of England is, by profeffion, still 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 ftill recommended to the congrégation the duty of obedience to their spiritual rulers. "The "Scribes and the Pharifees fit in Mofes' feat; all, therefore, "whatsoever they bid you obférve, 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 difciples 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 divisions which expose the Christian religion to the scorn of its enemies. Infidels are delighted to fee that Christians 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 boast 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 reformation, 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 boldnefs as her fifter Simony hath done for many years past.

1

D 4

to the bottom : that is, till we have run either into the madness" of enthusiasm, or the profaneness of infidelity. How shall we ftop this wide mouth of fcandal, while appearances are fo 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 Papists 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 preserve it, they muft confider for what end the church is appointed. A Chriftian 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 fuch thing as telling people what they are to do, without telling them what they are to believe; because the Christian morality is built upon the Christian faith, and is totally different from the morality of Heathens. Deifm, fo called, is à religion without Chriftianity; it has neither the Father, the Son, nor the Holy Ghoft, into whose 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 Deism; it is the fame thing in all refpects; and I may challenge all the philofophers in Europe to fhew the difference. Therefore, to recommend moral duties on the ground of natural religion, is to preach Deism from a pulpit: and we should ask ourselves whether God, who upholds his church, to declare salvation by Jesus Christ 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 unwise to take it up; but with such a mixture of error and indiscretion, 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 reason and nature. It is in Deifm, properly fo called, that our more dif

cerning and rational divines have constantly placed the aloné 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 ftructure; and that Christianity, as a superstructure, is unneces fary and it is lamentable to see what advantage this author takes of the unguarded conceffions of fome celebrated Christian preachers and controversialists of the church of England, who did not forefee, or did not confider, the confequences of their doctrinės.

:

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 fense of it. But here it is laid down as a fundamental rule, that we should always interpret the Scripture in a fenfe "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 fcarce worth any thing at all of our notice, in comparison of natural

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

religion. For here, I fay, before we defcend to the Scripture, we are poffeffed of a system founded in the unchangeable nature of things; from which, whatsoever the Bible may seem to reveal, we are never to depart. Let us then fuppofe, that our Chriftian baptifm teaches us to believe in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft: What have we to do? Natural religion hath already determined, from the "unchangeable nature of things, that God is but one perfon*." Therefore we must interpret the form of baptism to such a fenfe, as will still leave this doctrine of nature in poffeffion; either by teaching that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are in reality but one Perfon, or that Jefus Chrift is no perfon in the Godhead, but a mere man, like ourselves; or, that Christianity is not true, &c. So in like manner, by another anticipation, natural religion makes every man his own priest and his own temple: therefore it cannot poffibly admit the true and proper priesthood of Jefus Chrift, but must reject the whole doctrine of atonement, and the corruption of man's nature; for this is incompatible with the idea of a natural religion, inasmuch as corrupt nature muft produce a corrupt religion. If we fay that nature is not corrupt, we overturn the foundations of the Gospel; which teaches us, that "the natural man receiveth not the things "of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them."-Man, it feems, is fo far from knowing the fpiritual things revealed to him in the Scripture, that, as he now is by nature, he is not in a condition to receive them (they will be foolishness to him) till he is enabled fo to do by a new faculty of difcernment, which is fupernatural and spiritual. It is therefore eafy to foresee what must be the confequence, when Dr. Taylor's rule is admitted; and the younger clergy of this church, prefented (as I hear some of them are) with a copy of his lordship's collection, ftudy divinity upon this ground. They will take the doctrines of nature, and work them up with the doctrines of the Scripture: that is, they will throw natural religion into the Scripture, as Aaron threw the gold of Egypt into the fire: and what will come out? Not the Chriftian religion, but the philofophical calf of Socinus.

Mr. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity may be read with safety by those who are already well learned in the Scripture: but

* "This, (fays Dr. Clarke) is the first principle of natural religion." See Mr. Jones's Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity; p. 15, of the fixth edition; where this is confidered more at large.