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that, because a right may be abused, therefore there neither is, nor ought to be, any such right in a community, is a method of reasoning, which, if it could ever pass in the world for sound and conclusive, would soon banish order and peace out of it for evermore. We have no cause to expect that angels should come down from heaven, to take upon them the administration of government; and authority in the hands of men must ever, like all other things, be liable to abuse. But he who therefore fancies it were better there should be none, would find himself strangely mistaken, on making the experiment. The truth is, that the great body of mankind must be directed by some or other, both in temporals and spirituals. And the present question really is not, whether we shall subscribe to articles of religion, but, as it will appear in the end, who shall draw them up, and impose the subscription; in one word, whether the church of England will preserve in her hands the power of granting a toleration to others, or be reduced to the necessity of accepting it from others, if they will grant it to her, which it is ten thousand to one that they never will, should God, for our sins, permit them to effect a change, and get into power.

Loud were the clamours, in the last century, against the tyranny of the hierarchy. Its demolition was attempted and achieved by the advocates for what was then called religious liberty. When this was done, the poor, ignorant, deluded populace expected that the kingdom of Christ should

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immediately appear, and that from thenceforth they should be subject, in matters of conscience, to him only. But how different was the event! The little finger of presbytery proved to be thicker than the loins of prelacy. Those who were of a different persuasion were now told, that toleration was the establishment of iniquity by by a law. And yet the proceedings of presbytery itself were found to be mild and moderate, when compared with the insufferable insolence and cruelty of its supplanter, independency.

It was proposed, in those days, to make Christians of one heart and mind, and to introduce a heaven upon earth by the destruction of the church, which, though the only centre of unity, was, at that time, thought to stand in its way. But so far was this from being the case, that, in the few years between her fall and resurrection, there sprang up a multitude of religious sects, contradicting, reviling, and persecuting each other. Truth was torn in pieces, and blown about by the breath of contending factions, so that a remnant of it was hardly to be found; and men were either driven back to popery, or tempted to an atheistical disbelief of all religion.

How far the same consequences might follow the execution of a plan for admitting every man into the ministry who will only declare in general, that he "believes the Scriptures," which all the heretics of former ages, and all the sectaries of the last century, would at any time have declared-deserves your most serious consideration.

Peace, without all doubt, is an admirable blessing. But in giving up truth for it, we should, in the first place, pay too dear for the purchase, and, in the second, be defrauded, after all, of that for which we bargained.

There are times when the most peaceable men in the world will find it their bounden duty to "con"tend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the "saints;" and it is submitted, whether the present be not such a time: since, to erase from our services (if indeed we shall be permitted to have any) the grand fundamental article of that faith, is the avowed end and design of the projected reformation. He who exhorted his Corinthians to be "of

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one mind," never thought it a matter of indifference whether they were so in the belief and propagation of TRUTH or of ERROr. To speak out plainly if Arianism be a truth, it is certainly high time that it were established; but if it be an error, and one of the most pernicious tendency, the church cannot be too vigilant in guarding those fences which the prevarications and evasions of her adversaries made it necessary to raise for her security. One thing in the history of Arianism is worthy notice, that its partisans, within less than forty years after they had rejected the Nicene doctrine, drew up seventeen different confessions of faith, and when they had done, would abide by none of them. With what propriety men of this cast are wont to exclaim against creed-makers, or how well qualified they are to have the modelling of articles

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and liturgies, you will determine; and may God Almighty enable us upon this, and every other occasion, as far as lieth in us, to maintain truth and preserve unity, to reject error and avoid confusion!

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DISCOURSE XVI.

DUTY OF REPENTANCE ILLUSTRATED.

JEREMIAH, VIII. 7.

The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgement of the Lord.

THE whole passage is well deserving of attention, both for matter and manner: the matter, of the utmost importance; the manner, to the last degree engaging and affecting.

The day of Jerusalem's visitation drew near: destruction was coming upon her, like a whirlwind out of the north. Jeremiah appeared with a commission from above to predict as much, and withal to assign the reason. It was not that the people had sinned -more or less all have sinned: not that they had grievously sinned-all sin may be forgiven; but that having sinned, and having grievously sinned, they refused to repent, without doing which no forgiveness can be obtained; it cannot indeed be expected. That had happened to Israel, which happens often to others; temptations to evil had prevailed; single acts had been improved into habits, and habits had grown inveterate, till they had

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