against it, and keep a jealous eye upon it; for it would confound all truth, and unhinge the world.

The grand motives on which men judge who do not judge on principles of right reason, are custom, vanity, and self-interest. I knew a gentleman who was allowed to be a person of piety and benevolence, and yet his example afforded a striking instance of the weakness of private judgment. When he first took the sacred function upon him he went to reside in a city where Arianism had long been a fashionable doctrine here he was touched with a pious indignation, like that of Paul at Athens, and his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city wholly given to heterodoxy. In the execution of his office, he gave an unpopular proof of his zeal in the congregation, which at that time was much talked of. Some time afterwards he removed into another neighbourhood, where the clergy being generally addicted to the good old way, orthodoxy was no distinction: in this situation he became a zealous Arian: took up his pen in the cause; and I have been informed he was a considerable member among the gentlemen of the FeathersTavern. Dr. Young calls Pride the universal passion: and I think we may with equal propriety say of it, that whensoever we are surprised with strange anomalies in the words and actions of men, otherwise good and virtuous, it is the universal explanation.

Custom is another principle which has a fatal effect in directing men's judgments, and keeping their minds in bondage. To account for their opinions nothing more is necessary than to ask where they have been, and what they have been doing? Trace them back to the places of their early education, and follow them from thence into their connections in life, and you will find how they fell into their present principles. You

have some knowledge of a right honourable gentleman who is regular in his morals, and serious in his behaviour, tender to his family, generous to his friends; and yet is perpetually struggling and raising disturbances, and perhaps would venture his head for the sake of some fantastical ideas in politics, which would be pernicious to his country, and will probably never do any good to himself. You think all this utterly unaccountable in a man who wants nothing that the world can give him: but I will explain the whole in a few words. When he was a boy his father sent him to a republican seminary, by the advice of a certain bishop, who was no great friend to the Church of England.

It is to be numbered among the many misfortunes and miseries of human life, that men differ so widely in their judgments, and upon such slight grounds; but you must have patience to see this, without being corrupted or perplexed: their example is rather to be lamented than imitated; and their opinions afford no argument against the truth. They judge according to the circumstances of their birth, parentage, and education: men always have done so, and always will to the end of the world. If a monkey could write, and give his judgment of the constitution of the world, and the Histoire Generale of the animal creation, he would produce something to the following effect. He would begin with informing you, that the monkey is the original man, and man a clumsy imitation of the monkey. Then he would describe the monkey-nature by all its perfections; the human by its wants and weaknesses. He would appeal to the order of nature itself; which has ordained that men shall plough the ground, and plant maize, for monkies to come and eat it; which proves, by the plainest of all arguments, an undeniable fact, a stubborn sort of E e

VOL. V.

evidence, that nature intended man for a labourer, and a monkey for a gentleman; for nature never sent monkies to plough. His native freedom would demonstrate a farther superiority; for while men are gathered into societies within walls, like a fold of sheep, to be governed by laws, and driven by authority, and loaded with taxes, like beasts of burthen, every monkey is his own master, and takes possession of the woods without going to the lawyers for a title..

Thus would the private judgment of a monkey argue, in opposition to the better knowledge of the human species. By monkies he would be heard with applause; and when his reputation was established as a writer, his name would be a compendious proof of his doctrine. Some things unfavourable to his system would of course be concealed: he would never tell you, that while monkies take themselves for gentlemen, mankind shoot them for thieves, and chain them to a post for a shew, amongst the other freeholders of the desert.

THE

CHURCHMAN'S CATECHISM,

OR

ELEMENTS OF INSTRUCTION

ON THE

NATURE AND CONSTITUTION

OF THE

CHRISTIAN CHURCH;

BRIEFLY SHEWING,

1. What the Church is, and how it is called.

II. The Signs or Marks by which the Church is known.

III. The Duties taught by the Church.

IV. The Discipline of the Church.

v. The Authority of the Church in Matters of Faith and Doctrine.

VI. The Nature and Sinfulness of Schism.

VII. The false Principles on which Schism defends itself.

viii. The difference between Morality and Religion.

Extracted chiefly from Bishop BEVERIDGE; Archbishop POTTER ; Bishop HORNE'S CHARGE; and a late ESSAY on the CHURCH.

Intended for the Use of Sunday Schools and such adult Persons as are yet uninstructed in the Subject.