of item for all things in heaven and earth,-together with a severe restraint upon the consciences of men, not to think or act contrary to the judgment of the church. This burden contains several parcels of very ponderous goods; such as the canons of the church, the decrees of councils, the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome: all these men must receive, however absurd they may appear to them, upon the pain of purgatory or hell-torments for ever. In a word, every man in that communion must believe almost every thing but the Scriptures, which are indeed entirely excluded from this heavy burden.

In case any who have these burdens laid upon them prove any way refractory or perverse, they are put in mind of their duty by very powerful arguments. The holy office of the inquisition have several spurs for such perverse asses as will not bear their burdens with patience. They may kick and spurn as they will, but they may as well think of bringing Rome to London, as think to get clear of their burdens. As in England there are schools for training horses to learn them their exercise, so they have schools for training such asses as they conceive do not bear their burdens with patience dungeons, where neither light or sunshine ever enter, the very picture of the mansions of the dead tortures, which furies in council only could contrive, are here the sad monitors of obedience to miserable mortals. Strange, that nothing else could be contrived to convince the consciences of men, but what is fit for the most stubborn and sluggish of animals! Can bodily torture convince the mind? Can hunger and pain give evidence to absurdity, and confinement reconcile contradictions? Kind Jesus, this was never thy contrivance; whose law is love, whose conduct is all mercy. How can kingdoms bear such a yoke? How can millions of reasonable creatures submit to such unreasonable slavery? It must have cost much time and pains thus to have deprived men of their sense and reason. The human mind must be capable of sad depra- . vity, to submit to such abject bondage and slavery. Can it be natural to men thus to degenerate into a state of brutal stupefaction? So many millions of rational beings, endowed with mural capacities, having all the full exercise of the corporeal functions, to submit to be treated like brutes; what a shocking consideration! Could not these nations free themselves, by making use of those powers the Author of Nature hath endowed them with? They have lost their guide, and are destitute of a leader. Reason, that guide of mankind, is enslaved, and held captive by enthusiasm and servile superstition. But is there not some original cause why men degenerate so far below themselves? Can perfect nature relapse so far into barbarity? If all the principles are pure, what is the reason of such a departure from rationality? There is a cause; reason is duped by the passions; those who have address enough to command the one, will also overcome the other when men's eyes are put out, they grope in the

dark.

dark. Heaven send the light of the Gospel to open the eyes of such blinded mortals, that they may see their own interest, and assert their own privileges. What can induce men in sacred offices thus to play the devil with their feliow-creatures? Interest, sordid self-interest, is the cause. Long hath this principle been the ruling one in the hearts of the clergy of the church of Rome instead of pointing out the way of righteousness to men, and teaching them the way of salvation, they have long treated them like asses, and kept them in ignorance. Who gave them that right? Are not all men equally free? Hath not God made of one blood all the kindreds of the earth? But thoughtless mortals give up their privileges through indolence and inactivity. What can men do without instruction? We are all infants before we be men;-instruction is necessary to make us wise. Suffer men to follow the first bent of their inclinations, and it will be a miracle if they do well. But nature is not suffered to take her own way; for if there be none to instruct us, there will be hundreds ready to seduce us: bad as men are, they would not be so ill if they were not seduced. Shall parents neglect to instruct us in the rudiments of true wisdom, and not provide tutors to conduct us in the paths of knowledge, the world and designing men will not neglect to make their own of us, to the ruin of both soul and body.

Where men are no sooner out of the hands of their nurses than they fall into the hands of priests, whose leading maxim is, that ignorance is the mother of devotion, how can they understand: their own interest? The first who gave up their privileges, by. neglecting to follow after true knowledge, justly deserved to bear a heavy burden;-but what shall be said of their unfortunate children, who, through their negligence and inactivity, are trained up in ignorance, and know not how to deliver themselves? Could not the dictates of nature have directed them otherwise? Could not the law of the heart have admonished them against such absurd seduction? Alas! men are capable of being instructed, but cannot learn without teaching. But how shall we vindicate the conduct of Providence towards the many thousands of them that sit in darkness? Why should children suffer for the iniquity of their fathers? Could not the Almighty have sent them the means of knowledge, as a compensation for their father's deficiency? He could, no doubt.

But what, if we shall affirm, that this judgment upon several generations of misled and wretched mortals has been suffered to continue, because they abused the dictates of common sense? We read of a people that loved to be seduced: "The prophets prophesy for a reward, and the people love to have it so.' Justly do they deserve slavery who choose it.

When men are instructed in principles of true or false knowledge, it must be by either the use or abuse of their senses: false teachers cannot even lead men wrong, without in some measure

dealing

dealing with their sensations. Sensation is naturally ingrafted in our nature; our feelings are the workmanship of our Creator. In matters of speculation it may be easy to lead us astray; and as to what things are not the objects of our senses, it may not be difficult to impose upon us: but to believe absurdity, in matters our senses are judges of, must be choosing our own delusions. Suppose, through our ignorance of testimony, men may mislead us, yet in what comes under the notice of our senses they cannot, unless we please. The senses of the clown are generally as quick as those of the philosopher, and it requires no more but to use them, as to those things that are their objects, to keep clear of seduction. Though every man is not able to judge of the orthodoxy of a creed, and the truth of the canons of the church, yet they are able, by the exercise of their senses, to know that bread is not flesh, nor wine blood; and that the same body cannot be in a thousand places at the same time. When men thus depart from common sense, which their Maker has endowed them with, it is but just to deprive them of other advantages, which there is a likelihood they would give up through indolence, as they do their senses. The Almighty knows what use men would make of better enjoyments; and when he tries them with common mercies, which they abuse, he vindicates his providence in withholding others of higher value, as a punishment of their crime for abusing what he hath bestowed." He that is faithful in "He little will be faithful also in that which is greater."

Such as are endowed with common sense, and depart from it, or give it up, but ill deserve to be entrusted with the sublimest truths of religion. What! common sense is the foundation of religion. Such as depart from, or are destitute of it, could not really be truly religious. When we consider the situation of many deluded nations and people, we cannot but pity them, but at the same time cannot hold them guiltless for giving up their senses. Such as have had the happiness of enjoying better instruction than others who remain in ignorance, upon a little reflection may find they have nothing to boast of. The inhabitants of Italy and Spain are not the only people who receive absurdities. In a land where freedom is the privilege and Boast of almost every subject, we may perhaps find a tame enough submission to several absurdities.

Not, you will say, in Britain,-a land renowned for all sorts of fiberty,a nation to which there is none equal upon the face of the earth, that we know of. We have reason indeed to be thankful to the Almighty for the liberty we enjoy: but Britain is only comparatively free. It matters not whether men become slaves or are made so, if they are really in bondage; Issachar couched down, and became a slave. To the charge of our Sovereign nothing can be laid that tends to affect our liberties. But perhaps there is yet something in our laws that fixes a burden' upon several of the subjects. Is a man entirely free, who is subjected to losses

C

and

and disappointments by the laws of his country on account of his religion? Is he altogether a free subject, who is faithful to civil government, and whose principles teach him to be so, and yet is deprived of some of its advantages on account of his method of worshipping God? Is he free of a burden, who must either submit to a test act, contrary to the dictates of his own conscience, or lose a privilege that may redound to the welfare of his country?

It is easy for such as have enlarged consciences to call this no hardship, and such as love to make a monopoly of privileges to say he may let it alone: but where then is our much boasted-of liberty, when it only consists in negatives of this kind? Even this is not always the case. Shall a good subject refuse the calls of his King and his Country in the time of danger, to help them out of difficulty? On the one hand he might be reckoned disaffected, and on the other he could not miss to be unconscientious. Here the laws of his country lay him under bondage, and bring him into a grievous dilemma. A burden this is undoubtedly, however light it may seem to such as are not immediately concerned. Can such slavery be necessary to make faithful subjects, and good members of society? Or do not such restrictions tend to fill places of power and influence with men of no principle? Strange, that men cannot be supposed faithful, just, and good, unless they kneel down before an altar, and communicate in a way their consciences remonstrate against. Is not this something like laying a snare for our brethren? There is certainly no reason to suspect the loyalty of all those who scruple to commu, nicate with the Church of England; nor is such a compliance any evidence of a true member of society, or a good subject. There is even reason to suppose, that persons who have been otherwise educated do not act sincerely in such a compliance: at least it is a great snare to their honesty. Can the kingdom of Jesus Christ be so dependent upon the kingdoms of this world, as that it cannot subsist, if any be admitted to civil preferment without giving security for their behaviour towards it? In what part of the New Testament do we find this alliance between church and state founded, so that a man cannot be found qualified for any office in the one, without first becoming a member of the other? It is but reasonable to have some New Testament warrant for a matter of so great importance. Arguments taken from convenience, and the alteration of circumstances, will not bear any weight with a sincere conscience, till once it is made good, that the alteration of the kingdoms of this world make a change in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

It has been often affirmed, that our circumstances are much altered since the times of Christ and his Apostles, which is an undoubted truth; but this does not, I hope, infer that the laws of Christ's kingdom have undergone any alteration. There have been many great alterations since the Magna Charta of England.

was

was granted, and yet it is allowed to be the foundation of our civil privileges, and continues unaltered. And if it be true what I have often heard, the constitution would be destroyed if this was taken away. The New Testament is the Magna Charta of the Church, which is the kingdom of Jesus Christ; if once we make encroachments upon it, then the liberties of the church are at an end. In Scripture account, adding or diminishing are equally destructive of privilege. I think, before any additions are made to the laws and rules Jesus Christ and his Apostles have given to the Christian church, they should be proved first defective and insufficient; and before any thing is taken from these laws, they ought to be made appear to be redundant. If either of these can be made evident, the divinity of the Scripture will be at an end, and there will be no gospel church at all. There has been of late times much noise about the increase and spreading of infidelity, and none have made more noise concerning it than those who have been the cause of it. When fathers in councils, and bishops in convocation, have made so free with the Scriptures, as to add to the worship of God so many decent things that never were appointed by Christ or his Apostles in the New Testament, and at the same time attempt to prove the necessity of these additaments, the inference from this is very easy and plain, that the Scriptures are not perfect in things belonging to Christian duty. If once men begin to add any one thing that is not specified in the word of God, who can tell where the end may be? Hath the Spirit of God been so exact in all things pertaining to faith and practice among Christians, and yet been deficient as to what is decent and comely in the worship of God and the ceremonies of the church? What a severe reflection is this upon the Holy Spirit of the Most High? What rude and unpolished mortals have the Apostles of Jesus Christ been, to have no rules of decency in their worship of the Almighty? Strange, that they should have been so exact in all other matters of importance pertaining to the church of God, and so much deficient in comely order and decency? Though they were illiterate fishermen, and not bred like our modern clergy, yet the Holy Spirit that inspired them certainly knew what was decent and orderly; at least, he knew better what would please God than all the councils and convocations that ever existed.

It is no hard matter to account for the growth of infidelity, When those who have assumed sacred functions have made free to alter and add at their pleasure, in things pertaining to religion; what could such as were inquiring, and not yet settled in their principles, infer, but that there was nothing certain in Divine revelation? Is it not to use men like asses, to tell them they have a complete revelation of the will of God in the Scriptures, and yet impose many things upon them that are not mentioned therein? To say, that the word of God is plain and perfect in all things pertaining to godliness, and yet allege, that it cannot

sufficiently