this, every body thinks he understands.

So that little learning or reading is necessary, to make any clergyman a judge over the learnedest man alive.

Another thing I take leave to tell you, is, that most men think they can do conscientiously whatever they can do legally. Men of refined and exalted understandings, who have a large compass of thought, and have looked into the principles of things, know that written laws are but deductions of the law of nature, which is prior to all human institutions; that these sometimes deviate from that unwritten law; and, when they do, are of no real intrinsic authority. They know that a thing is not just and reasonable, because it is enacted; but, in good governments, is enacted, because it is just and reasonable. They know that laws are sometimes obtained by surprise or corruption, by party management, by craft or superstition. They know that penal laws, in matters of religion, are seldom advisable. They would not easily contribute to the making them; and, when they are made, would be glad to have them generally lie dormant. They know that no authority of man can alter the nature of things, or justify a cruel or unjust sentence in the sight of God. They are sure, that, if to punish men for their opinions be not very right, there is no medium, it must be very wrong. It is public robbery or murder, to deprive a man of his life or

goods for his religion; if it be not just in itself to do so, as well as legal.

Some perhaps may think in this manner; but these must be men of refined and exalted understandings; and therefore must be very few. The generality think they may do justly, whatever they can do legally. And it is, no doubt, for them, a good rule. They cannot judge of the nature of things for themselves; and therefore the law is the most proper guide and direction they can have. As long therefore as there are laws to punish the asserters of heretical opinions, or such as oppose the established doctrines; you may depend on it, they will not be suffered to lie dormant. There will never be wanting great numbers, who will call aloud to have them put in execution; and they will think their zeal, in this matter, the best service they can do the church.

This is human nature; thus it has been in all times. And no experience of the mischief done. to christianity by a forwardness to pronounce anathemas on those, who dissent from the received opinions, will make us wiser. It may, I doubt not, be demonstrated with the greatest evidence, that all christian churches have suffered more by their zeal for orthodoxy, and by the violent methods taken to promote it, than from the utmost efforts of their greatest enemies. But, for all that, the world will still think the same methods necessary.

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The same zeal will prompt to the same persecutions or prosecutions (call them which you will), without considering the same matter must necessarily produce, at long run, the same fatal consequences.

Let me therefore intreat you, not to fancy the world is altered in this point. Do not think your opinions cannot ruin you, because it is not reasonable they should. Do not flatter yourself, that temper, prudence, and moderation can, in religious controversies, get the better of indiscreet zeal, bigotry, and superstition. In short, be not hasty in espousing opinions, which can have no other effect, but to lay the best men at the mercy of the worst. Every mean person, who has nothing to recommend him but his orthodoxy, and owes that perhaps wholly to his ignorance, will think he has a right to trample on you with contempt; to asperse your character with virulent reflections; to run down your writings as mean and pitiful performances, and give hard names to opinions he does not understand; which you must bear, without the least hopes of being heard a word in your defence.

Let me observe one thing more, that it is the misfortune of a clergyman that he is confined to one profession. Other men, if they cannot live in one way, are at liberty to try another; but a man, who has once the indelible character, must live by the one profession he has made his choice. If therefore that livelihood be taken from him, it is

in vain he has learning, parts, industry, and application. He will not be allowed to take any other course to repair the loss he suffers by his opinions as a clergyman. His time, and fortune, and studies have been spent to make him useful in that one profession; and, if he had abilities to maintain himself in any other, it is too late; he has made his choice, and must abide by it. This then is the unhappy dilemma a reputed heretic is reduced to; he will neither be suffered to keep the profession, nor to leave it; he shall neither live in it, nor out of it. So that, notwithstanding his learning, parts, virtue, and industry; though he could make a good lawyer, physician, merchant, or mechanic; if he be not orthodox, all possibilities of living comfortably, at least, and reputably, are taken from him. Go now, and think, if you can, that the advice I give you is not the advice of a friend. It is the advice of one who loves virtue and learning, who is a friend to all good men, and is in particular greatly concerned for your success and advancement in the world. It is advice seconded by the examples of the greatest men; for name me any one of the men most famed for learning in this or the last age, who has seriously turned himself to the study of the Scriptures. I might name to you the most eminent men down from Scaliger and Casaubon to the present time. Capellus, indeed, and the excellent

Grotius, are exceptions; but they met with such usage, that one has little encouragement from their examples. But not to go beyond our own country; who are the men that have excelled most (excepting always Sir Isaac Newton) in philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics? Have they not been clergymen ? And was not their skill, in these sciences, the effect of their great and constant application to them? Was not that time spent in these studies, that you think should have been applied to the study of the Scriptures? On the other hand, take out two or three from so great a body, and where is there a clergyman of a great genius, and that has made a chief figure in the learned world, that has written upon the Scriptures, at least with any masterly skill in criticism?

And what is it Did these learned

they wanted the

that all this can be imputed to? men decline this study, because abilities proper for it? Surely that will not be said of men of their confessed learning. Or was there want of inclination and good will to it? No, they were men of virtue, and good protestants, as well as scholars and men of letters. What then? Did they, who have taken so much pains upon other books, and with so much success, think the Scriptures the only ones that needed not their help? Neither can that be presacred books, through the

tended. They saw the

injury of time and the ignorance of scribes, had