nor insist upon a vindication of our conduct in the several particulars, that go to make up the grounds of non-conformity. You may find them put together and well-supported by other writers, and particularly by Dr. Calamy in his three volumes of Moderate Non-conformity; and the chief heads of them, so far as they relate to the people, are well abridged in a very little book called Lay-non-conformity Justified, to which I refer my readers, who desire to take a more particular notice of the reasons of our separation.

My only design in this place, is to mention some of those advantages, which you protestant dissenters are generally supposed to enjoy above your neighbours in the affairs of religion; and even these I shall cite and borrow from those books which were written several years ago, to make it appear that I design no contention; and if I am necessitated to speak of some of the differences that lie between us, the reader will see that I represent them not in the language of dispute, nor pursue them any farther than to shew mere matter of fact, that I may thence derive more forcible and pungent warnings and reproofs to those of our own communion, who are negligent of piety and virtue under all their supposed advantages.

Advantage I. You are not in so much danger of taking up with the outward forms of religion, instead of the inward power and more spiritual parts of it, as your neighbours may be, and that particularly in the two following instances: First, You are in no such danger of mistaking baptism for inward and real regeneration*, as those who are educated in the established church. You are not in the least tempted or encouraged in any of our ministrations to suppose, that your souls are regenerated by the outward ceremony of baptism, or that you are really born again, and made new creatures by being baptized with water; to which unhappy and dangerous mistake, the office of baptism in the church of England, has been thought to give too much countenance, in the plain sense of the expressions, and without any sufficient guard or caution; and the answer in the catechism which children are taught, does but too much confirm and establish them in this mistake: read the second question in the church catechism: Quest. Who gave you this name? Ans. My Godfathers and Godmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. And when their parents hear it mentioned so expressly at the baptism, that the child, after it is baptised, is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's church, and that this infant is regenerated with the Holy Spirit, it is no wonder, if they encourage children to believe in a most literal sense what their catechism expressly teaches them, that they are all born

* See Dr. Calamy of Moderate Nonconf. Vol. II. p. 131.

again so as to become the children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of heaven by baptism. I readily grant, that many of the ministers of the church and the wiser christians do know and believe, that there is no such inward grace and salvation really communicated by baptismal water: yet almost all the expressions in the offices relating both to public and private baptism, and to the baptism of those of riper years, establish persons in the same mistake, and that as I hinted before without any manifest caution to secure them from it.

But you, my friends, who separate from the national forms of worship, are afraid of receiving this doctrine, for you think it a matter of dangerous consequence both with regard to yourselves and your children. You have been taught and have learned that regeneration is a great and holy change, wrought in the powers of your soul, your understanding, will and affections by the Spirit of God, whereby you come to see the evil and defiling nature of sin, and the dreadful consequences of it, beyond whatever you saw before; whereby you learn the excellency and necessity of holiness; whereby your sensual, vain and earthly temper of mind is altered, and your heart set upon the things of God and heaven and eternity instead of the perishing enjoy • ments of this life; whereby your sinful nature is renewed by divine grace, and you are brought to love God and fear him, to hope and trust in him, as he has manifested his grace in Christ Jesus his Son; and whereby you are inclined to practise all the duties of piety towards God, and justice and charity towards your fellow-creatures. You are taught also, that though bap tism or washing with water be a sign or figure or emblem of this great and holy change, this purification from the defilement of sin, and this renovation of your natures to holiness, yet it is not the thing itself, it is not the real spiritual blessing; nor does this divine blessing always attend it; and it is often administered to persons who are never truly regenerate, who never have this divine change or purification passing upon them.

You lie therefore under the strongest obligations to see to it, that you have better evidences of regeneration than your mere baptism with water; you are bound by your own principles to seek this divine change of your heart, this spiritual and important blessing with the utmost care, diligence, devotion and prayer, You are exhorted in the ministry of the word, to labour with your own hearts to convince them of the evil of sin, of the beauty and necessity of holiness, of the excellency of true religion and the divine life; to impress your spirits by all proper motives that they may repent of all sin, that your will may be turned away from it with hatred; that your love and fear and hope may be fixed upon better objects than they are by nature, even upon God and Christ, and things spiritual and eternal; you are fre

quently called upon to strive and seek, that your inward disposition of soul toward your neighbour may be kind and just and faithful, such as God requires; that you may be delivered from the power of sin reigning in you, and that you may be reformed and made fit for the business and blessedness af heaven, where nothing shall enter that defileth. You are exhorted and obliged to pray earnestly to God for the assistance of his Spirit in this divine work, for unless we are born of the Spirit as well as washed with water, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God; John' iii. 3, 5, 6. Now has this been your solemn care? Has this been your zealous desire, and the matter of your labour with your own heart in secret, and of your fervent prayer to God? Do you give yourselves no rest till you find such a change wrought in your souls, whereby you are become new creatures, whereby you hate every thing that is offensive to God, and love and delight in the practice of your duty toward God and man? What clear and convincing evidences have you, that you have entered into this new state, and obtained this divine blessing? That instead of being a child of sin and wrath (as you are by nature) you are become a child of grace, and a son or daughter of the Most High God?

Again, as you profess this doctrine of inward regeneration, and the necessity of it in order to eternal life, do you take due care to impress the sense of it on your children? Do you let them know, that though they are baptized with water, which is designed to be a type or figure of regenerating grace, and of your duty of purification from sin, yet this is not a sufficient evidence of it, unless they find that their hearts are inwardly changed? Do you inform them at proper seasons, and by all gentle and convincing means, that they are early sinners before God, that their hearts and lives are corrupt and unholy, that washing with water can never make them christians any farther than a bare profession goes, that they must be born again, i. e. they must become new creatures, and have their hearts and inclinations and desires and passions altered from what they are in a sinful state, and formed unto holiness, if ever they would be saved? John iii. 3.

What profit is it to yourselves or your children, to avoid this unhappy mistake of inward regeneration by baptismal water, if you never concern yourselves to seek after such a real divine change of heart and life, in yourselves or in them, as may make it appear that you are born again? What advantage is it to your offspring to guard them from this error, if you never take care to convince them of their corrupt nature and sinful inclinations ? If you never teach them plainly that it is their duty to be converted and turned from sin to God, and beseech them earnestly to set about the work of conversion with all holy diligence?" What signifies it to keep them from this mistake about regene

ration, if you never pray for them, nor teach them to pray for themselves, that God would renew their hearts by his Spirit, that he would work this glorious and divine change in them, that he would really translate them out of the family of Satan, and make them his sons and his daughters? What! do you take care to let them know that the outward washing of baptism does not, cannot make them really the children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and yet have you no solicitude, nor take pains to shew them, how they may become the children of God and inheritors of his kingdom? Do you let them grow up from the day of their baptism, wherein the figure and emblem of renewing grace past upon them, until they are become men and women, without ever instructing and exciting them, to seek after the substance of this heavenly blessing? Fathers, mothers, elder kindred, do you never concern yourselves that your children should obtain this divine favour, and give good evidence of the work of the renewing Spirit of God in them, by a holy behaviour and a heavenly conversatien? It is but a poor pretence for separating from the established church, that you or your children are in danger of being led into mistaken opinions there, if you are not deeply solicitous, that both they and you avoid the mischief as well as the error, and that you pracmay tice as well as learn the truth.

But leaving this mistake about baptism, there is another thing also, wherein you protestant dissenters, are free from the danger of taking up with outward forms instead of spiritual blessings, and that is the ceremony of confirmation*. You have no such rite performed among you, as the solemn imposition of the hand of the bishop on your head, to become a token or sign of the favour of God toward you, as is found in the offices of the established church. See the office of confirmation in the common prayer. So soon as children are come to a competent age, and can say in their mother tongue their creed, and Lord's-prayer, and the ten commandments, and also can answer to other questions of this short catechism, they shall be brought to the bishop. And every one shall have a godfather or a godmother as a witness of their confirmation. Then the first prayer begins, Almighty and ever-living God, who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins, &c. And in a following collect the bishop says-These thy servants upon them (after the examples of thy holy apostles) we have now laid our hands, to certify Them (by this sign) of thy favour and gracious goodness towards them. But you declare to the world that you cannot find that God has given to his ministers any such authority to certify persons, of the favour and gracious goodness of God toward them, by any such sign as this. But since you reject this sign, are you

* Dr. Calamy's Moderate Nonconf. Vol. II. p. 271.

not bound then to enquire what surer signs you have of the favour and love of God to you? What better inward tokens and evidences have you, that you are the children of God and partakers of his favour?

You complain that the public liturgy tempts children to believe, they are regenerated or born again, and made members of Christ and children of God in baptisin, which dangerous opinion is also repeated in the office of confirmation ;* and you complain that they are further confirmed in this mistake when the bishop lays his hand upon their head to certify them by this sign of the favour of God; are you careful then to teach your children, and to enforce it upon their consciences, that they must seek after better signs of regeneration and of the divine favour, even the graces of faith and love, and the exercise of universal holiness in heart and life? What a vain imagination is it, what an idle pretence to guard against the dangers, of mistaking the imposition of the hand of a man, for a certain sign of the favour of God, unless you instruct your household, what are the true and undoubted signs of his favour? Unless you persuade them to all holy diligence, in securing and maintaining such evidences of converting grace and the love of God, as God himself has prescribed, such as God will approve of, and such as will stand the test in the day of judgment?

II. Another advantage that you protestant dissenters have, towards your inprovement in true religion and in acceptable service to God is, that you are freed from the inventions of men, and from the impositions and incumbrances of human ceremonies in divine worshipt. There need be no proof of the imposition of such rites in the established church, since the preface to the common-prayer book confesses they have been devised by inan, and yet it is thought good to reserve them still. But you, my friends, are required to practise nothing in the worship of God, but what you take to be his own pure institutions.

It has pleased God in his providence, and it hath pleased our late and present rulers in their great goodness and justice, to give you freedom from these human appointments, and to permit you to worship God in a way more agreeable to his own word and to your own consciences: the question of my text then returns upon you, What are you better than they who submit to them, what do you more than they? Do you never content yourselves with mere forms of Godliness? Are you more spiritual in the

* This mistake is still more confirmed and established by the office of burial wherein every baptized person, except the self-murderers and the excommunicated, has his body committed to the dust in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life, and is called a dear brother or a sister, and thanks are given for God's taking their souls to himself, how wicked soever their lives have been.

See Dr. Calamy's Introduction to his Second Vol. of Moder. Nonconf.