him but another. Others again, knowing this diftinction to be vain and indefenfible, and the fame for fubftance with the Latria and Dulia by which the Church of Rome excufes her adoration of the blessed Virgin &c, have fairly got rid of it, by denying to the perfon of Chrift any divine worship or invocation at all; which is the cafe with our Socinian Unitarians here in England; for thofe of Poland are quite of another mind. How far fuch differences as these muft needs affect a Liturgy, it is very eafy to foresee: and that it will for ever be as impoffible to frame a Creed or a Service to please all those who bear the name of Chriftians, as to make a coat that fhall fit men of all fizes. * *Hales of Eaton, in his farcastic and malicious Tract upon Schifm, proposes it as a grand Expedient for the advancing of Unity, that we fhould "confider of all the Liturgies, that are and 66 ever have been; and remove from them whatever is fcanda"lous to any Party, and leave nothing but what all agree on." He fhould have closed this fentence a little fooner; and advised us fairly and honeftly to leave nothing; for that will certainly be the event, when the objections of all parties are fuffered to prevail: there being no one page of the Liturgy, wherein all, who pretend to worship God as Chriftians, are agreed. Pray Prayer and divine worship and religious confeffion, are the fruit and breath of Faith; and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh: so that until we are agreed in matters of faith, there is neither hope nor poffibility of our agreeing in any form of worship. God is the fountain-head, and religion the ftream that defcends from it. Our fentiments as to religion, always flow from the opinion we have formed of the divine nature; and will be right or wrong, fweet 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 falfe God, a falfe religion. Jews, Turks, Pagans, Deifts, Arians, Socinians, and Chriftians, all differ about a religion, because they differ about a God. These few obfervations will be fufficient, I hope, to raise the attention of the reader; and persuade him, that a right faith in God is a much more ferious affair than fome would make it; that it is of the laft concern, and hath a neceffary influence upon the practice and holiness of our lives; that as no other devotion is acceptable with God, but that which is feafoned with love and charity and uniformity, the very mark and badge whereby his difciples are to be known from the men of this world, it is the principal duty of every Chriftian to know in whom he ought to believe, that with one mind and one mouth we may glorify God: for a right notion of God, will as furely be followed by a found faith and an uniform profeffion in all other points; as a falfe faith and a difcordant 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 necef a Rom. XV.6. fary fary to affift and ratify the evidence of Revelation: but enquiries of this kind, as they are now managed, generally end in the degradation of Chrift and the Chriftian Religion + till it can be fhewn therefore, that the fcripture neither does nor can shine by a light and authority of its own, the evidence we are to reft in, must be drawn from thence; and as we all have the same scripture, without doubt we ought all to have the fame opinion of God. But here it is commonly objected, that men will be of different opinions; that they have a right to judge for themfelves; and that when the beft evidence the nature of the cafe will admit of is collected and laid before them, they muft determine upon it as it appears to them, and according to the light of their own confciences: fo that if they adhere as closely to their errors after The You may have a proof of this from the Effay on Spirit, by comparing the Book with its title, which runs thus Doctrine of the Trinity confidered in the Light of Reason and Nature, &c. they they have confulted the proper evidence as they did before, we are neither to wonder nor to be troubled at it. This very moderate and benevolent way of thinking, has been ftudiously recommended by those, who found it neceffary to the well-being of their own opinions, that not a fpark of zeal fhould be left amongst us. And furely 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 softeft and ftand least in the way. Hence it is, that however magifterial and infolent 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 Chriftian 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 faved by it, is browbeaten, condemned, and caft out of their mo ral |