non sunt, &c. "They do not think themselves heretics, though we do; they err, but it is with an honest. mind; and how it will go with them at the great day, none but the Judge himself can tell."* This is more Christian, and becoming a modest sense of our darkness and difficulties, than to pronounce honest minded men odious to God, and to render them odious to ignorant men, by charging them with, and anathematising them for damnable heresies; and that usually by rote as we have been taught, without knowing what, or how to answer, what they have to say for themselves, and which perhaps we are afraid should be known to others. *De Guber. 1. v. [THIS essay, as remarkable for the strength and beauty of its composition, as for its elevated and rational tone of piety, was written in reply to Mr Wakefield's treatise, in which this very learned and ingenious author attempted to show from the Scriptures, that there are no good grounds for the present custom of social, or public worship among Christians. He builds his argument on the practice of the Saviour, his precepts, and the example of the Apostles. He quotes many passages to illustrate each of these, and concludes from the whole, that no proofs can be found in the sacred writings of its having been designed by the founder of our religion, that certain days and seasons should be set apart for ceremonial or formal worship in a public manner. He thinks, also, that if such an institution as the sabbath had been intended to be perpetual in the christian church, it would have been enjoined by a direct, positive precept, or at least indicated by some explicit declaration on the part of the Saviour or his Apostles; whereas, nothing is said expressly on the subject, as implying a command, or rule, or recommendation, in any part of the Scriptures. Mr Wakefield considers secret |