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qualifying comment, to assure him you do it only in hypocrisy, not meaning him but another. Others, again, knowing this distinction to be vain and indefensible, and the same for substance with the Latria and Dulia, by which the church of Rome excuses her adoration of the blessed Virgin, &c. have fairly got rid of it, by denying to the person of Christ any divine worship or invocation at all; which is the case -with our Socinian Unitarians here in England; for those of Poland are quite of another mind.

How far such differences as these must needs affect a Liturgy, it is very easy to foresee: and that it will for ever be as impossible to frame a Creed or a Service to please all those who bear the name of Christians, as to make a coat that shall fit men of all sizes *. Prayer and divine worship and religious confession, are the fruit and breath of faith; and "out of the

*Hales of Eton, in his sarcastic and malicious Tract upon Schism, proposes it as a grand expedient for the advancing of Unity, that we should consider all the Liturgies, that are and ever have been; and remove from them whatever is scandalous to any party, and "leave nothing but what all agree on." He should have closed this sentence a little sooner; and advised us fairly and honestly to leave nothing; for that will certainly be the event, when the objections of all parties are suffered to prevail; there being no one page of the Liturgy, wherein all, who pretend to worship God as Christians, are agreed.

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abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh" so that until we are agreed in matters of faith, there is neither hope nor possibility of our agreeing in any form of worship. God is the fountain-head, and religion the stream that descends from it. Our sentiments as to religion, always flow from the opinion we have formed of the divine nature; and will be right or wrong, sweet or bitter, as the fountain is from whence they are derived. It is the having a different God, that makes a different religion. A true God produces a true religion, a false God, a false religion. Jews, Turks, Pagans, Deists, Arians, Socinians, and Christians, all differ about a religion, because they differ about a God.

These few observations will be sufficient, I hope, to raise the attention of the reader; and persuade him, that a right faith in God is a much more serious affair than some would make it; that it is of the last concern, and hath a necessary influence upon the practice and holiness of our lives; that as no other devotion is acceptable with God, but that which is seasoned with love and charity and uniformity, the very mark and badge whereby his disciples are to be known from the men of this world, it is the principal duty of every Christian to know in whom he ought to believe, that

a Matt. xii. 34.

" with one mind and one mouth we may glorify "God":" for a right notion of God will as surely be followed by a sound faith and an uniform profession in all other points; as a false faith and a discordant worship will grow from every wrong opinion of him.

All that can be known of the true God, is to be known by Revelation. The false lights indeed of reason and nature are set up and recommended, as necessary to assist and ratify the evidence of Revelation: but enquiries of this kind, as they are now managed, generally end in the degradation of Christ, and the Christian religion*: till it can be shewn therefore that the Scripture neither does nor can shine by a light and authority of its own, the evidence we are to rest in, must be drawn from thence; and as we all have the same Scripture, without doubt we ought all to have the same opinion of God.

But here it is commonly objected, that men will be of different opinions; that they have a right to judge for themselves; and that when the best evidence the nature of the case will admit of is collected and laid before them, they must determine upon it as it ap

a Rom. xv. 6.

* You may have proof of this from the Essay on Spirit, by comparing the book with its title, which runs thus-The Doctrine of the Trinity considered in the Light of Reason and Nature, &c.

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pears to them, and according to the light of their own consciences: so that if they adhere as closely to their errors after they have consulted the proper evidence as they did before, we are neither to wonder nor be troubled at it.

This very moderate and benevolent way of thinking, has been studiously recommended by those, who found it necessary to the well-being of their own opinions, that not a spark of zeal should be left amongst us. And surely it is no new thing that the advocates of any particular error, next to themselves and their own fashion, should naturally incline to those who are softest and stand least in the way. Hence it is, that however magisterial and insolent they may carry themselves in their own cause, they always take care to season their writings with the praises of this frozen indifference; calling that Christian charity, which is nothing but the absence of Christianity and any the least appearance of earnestness for some great and valuable truth, which we are unwilling to part with, because we hope to be saved by it, is brow-beaten, condemned, and cast out of their moral systein, under the name of heat, want of temper, fire, fury, &c. They add moreover, that articles of faith are things merely speculative; and that it is of little signification what a man believes, if

he

is but hearty and sincere in it: that is, in other words, it is a mere trifle whether we feed upon bread* or poison †, the one will prove to be as good nourishment as the other, provided it be eaten with an appetite. Yet some well-meaning people are so puzzled and deceived by this sophistry, that they look upon concord among Christians as a thing impracticable and desperate; concluding a point to be disputable because it is disputed; and so they fall into a loose indifferent humour of palliating and thinking charitably, as it is called, of every error in faith and practice; as if the church of Christ might very innocently be turned into a Babel of confusion.

Now that men do maintain opinions strangely different from one another, especially on subjects wherein it most concerns them to be agreed, is readily confessed: we are all witnesses of it: and, allowing them to be equally informed, there are but three possible sources from whence this difference can arise. It must be either from God, or from the Scripture, or from themselves. From God it cannot be, for it is a great evil; it is the triumph of Deists and reprobates, and the best handle the enemies of Christianity ever found against it; and God is not the author of evil.

* See and compare Deut. viii. 3. +James iii. 8.

Amos viii. II. 1 Tim. iv. 1.

Acts xx. 28,

Nor

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