"There are not wanting, however, fome amongst us, who are "for fhortening thefe refearches into truth; and tell us, it is "enough without any thing farther, if we only know, that fuch

a thing is written in which opinion, it may be worth while "to obferve, they feem to differ a good deal from St. Philip; "who, upon feeing a perfon with a bible in his hand, was not " content with merely afking him, what he faw written there; "but made this farther inquiry, Underitandeft thou what thou "readeft? And how this bufiness of understanding is to be ac"complished, without the act of reasoning, without inquiring

by whom any thing was written; on what occafion; with "what probable defign; how it agrees with other parts of 66 fcripture; and poffibly alfo, how confonant it is to our own "notions of God, and the relation we ftand in to him, is, I "own, a point far above my comprehenfion. One would not "fuppofe, that these men thought fcripture falfe; but furely "they talk as if they did: For whrat harm can inquiries about "it do, if it be true? It is the nature of all truth to love the "light; of error to avoid it. The one acquires fresh charms "by being more clearly feen; and the uglinefs of the other can "no otherwise be fully detected, than by being brought into public view. They would do well to tell us, before they "take the use of our reafon away, what difference there is be"tween a false religion, and a true one falfely understood." A new estimate of manners and principles, printed at Cambridge, 1760. Part II. Chap. 10.

66

ΤΟ

THE REVEREND THE CLERGY

OF THE

ARCHDEACONRY OF LINCOLN.

REVEREND BRETHREN,

THE following difcourfe is offered to your favourable, acceptance from the prefs, in teftimony of the preacher's refpect for the clergy of a district, among whom he is happy to number himself. Its contents are a few plain and undisguised thoughts on a subject of the greatest importance to himself, and, in his opinion, to all who, like himself, have undertaken the office of difpenfing the word of God to a christian and protestant people.

It is the substance of a plea for a further reformation in the established church of England, in those inftances more especially, where restraints feem to be laid upon the

exercife of our common rights as chriftians and proteftants; reftraints, which are by no means confiftent (at feat in the preacher's opinion) with the principles on which the proteftant reformation arose, and on which only it can be justified.

Nor can he poffibly perfuade himself that there is one among you, his respectable brethren of the clergy, who will not so far agree with him as to acknowledge, that not only the free enjoyment of his liberty, but the full exercise of his function, according to his own perfuafion, are privileges which no minister of God's word can give up in compliment to any man, or any body of men, while he values himself on the principles, as well as the profeffion, of the proteftant religion.

And being thus perfuaded of you, he hopes he shall be readily excufed for holding forth the subject in this general view, upon the confideration, that while he is afferting this liberty to himself, and those who are like-minded, he is likewife pleading that the fame privilege may be fecured to those from whom it is perhaps his misfortune to differ

in matters of lefs importance to the common cause.

The common principle (acknowledged even by the authority that lays upon us the restraints above-mentioned) is, that the fcriptures are our only rule of faith and practice, which have not only the fanction of Christ and his apoftles as a divine revelation, majestic indeed, and awful in the circumstances of its promulgation, but at the fame time. accommodated in its contents to the underftandings, the wants, and dearest interests of mankind, even of thofe of the meanest capacity.

But what the clearness of evidence compels men to confefs, with respect to the general tenor of what is proposed to them, their prejudices, and fome circumstances of their present fituation, prevail with them too often to overlook in their practice, and fometimes to form mifconceptions, both of the nature and end of the christian difpenfation, and, by confequence, of the means by which its bleffed author intended it should be pagated.

pro

Obvious as this obfervation might be, few perhaps have been ftruck with it in former times; nor has it been, 'till of late, laid before the world with fufficient freedom, what pernicious tendency the deference paid to human authority in matters of religion, has had towards defacing the beauty, and corrupting the purity of that gracious plan of falvation by which all the families of the earth were intended to be bleffed.

It is no argument against the importance of the remonftrances made on this head, that they have been treated with neglect, not to fay contemptuous and malevolent oppofition. The preacher has been long convinced that they should never be laid afide, 'till they have produced fome good effect; and, under this conviction, whenever he fhall be called upon. to bear his teftimony in the cause of chriftian liberty, he shall think it his duty that it should be made as public as may be; and he hopes he shall need no other apology for communicating the fentiments delivered in the following difcourfe by the means of the prefs. He was called upon, (according to

the