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doctrine, but after their own lufts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they fhall turn away their ears from the truth, and fhall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things; endure afflictions; do the work of an Evangelift; make full proof of thy ministry.” TIM. iv. I, &c. No qualifying claufes, calculated to make minifters of CHRIST time-fervers and menpleafers, rather than faithful fulfillers of their trust, are to be found in the foregoing paffage. SAINT PAUL'S charge places the duty of CHRIST's minifter plainly and authoritatively before him; and that minifter who fhrinks from it, muft have forgotten his Mafter's awful words-" No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of GOD." LUKE Ix. 62.

Moreover, the ground upon which your doctrine of expediency is built, namely, the regard proper to be paid to times and circumftances, when generally applied, is in itself unfound. Times and circumftances may be fuch as to require a more firenuous exertion of duty for the prefervation of truth, rather than any qualification of it in compliment to prevailing error: and fuch I conceive the prefent times and circumftances to be; when, in confequence

of the generally prevailing ignorance in ecclefiaftical matters, the constitution of the church is disregarded, and its Divinely-established order trampled under foot; when fchifm is confidered as no fin, and is even promoted by those who call themselves steady members of the church; when the people are turning away from the regularly-appointed stewards of the Divine mysteries, and "of their own lufts, heaping to themselves teachers, having itching ears."

"The temper of the age (you fay) is by no means calculated to listen to an extreme of ecclefiaftical par tiality." The temper of the prefent age is by no means favourable to establishments of any kind. But this, Sir, is a temper to be lamented, not to be humoured. It is a temper which must be corrected by found and wholesome doctrine, or this nation is undone. The honeft phyfician adapts his préfcription, not to the vitiated palate of the patient, but to the nature of his disease.

The comparison you have thought proper to make between Papal Rome, and the established church of this country, appears totally foreign to the fubject. The maintenance of the Divinely-established conftitution of the Chriftian church, and the endeavour to prevent an unlawful feparation from it, are fubjects

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which bear no more affinity to Popery, than do the regular Acts of the British Parliament to the defpotic decrees of the French Directory. Sorry am I, therefore, that should defcend to give countenance to a fenfelefs cry, calculated only ad captandum vulgus; and which has been fo often brought forward in this kingdom, as a convenient fubftitute for found argument and rational conviction.

You are much afraid (you fay) that the doctrine contained in the Guide to the Church, "fo far from tending to conciliate at this alarming crisis, is more likely to irritate and difguft." The doctrine of conciliation must always be welcome to a minifter of the Gofpel of Peace. At the fame time, it is to be remembered, that it is a doctrine not to be enforced at the expence of truth. "Amicus PLATO, amicus SOCRATES; fed magis amica veritas." The Apostle has fore. warned us, that the time fhould come, when Chriftians would not endure found doctrine: but fo far from forbidding ministers to preach it on that account, he charges them, in the perfon of TIMOTHY, to make full proof of their miniftry, by preaching it with more earneftnefs and long-fuffering. The kingdom of CHRIST " is not of this world:" the lefs the concerns of this world are mixed up with it, the better. To facrifice,

therefore, the establishment of the church to what may be deemed the fecurity of the ftate, under the plaufible idea of conciliaton, would not be political wifdom but political weakness, and must eventually terminate in the deftruction of both. My book was written for the exprefs purpose of maintaining the conftitution of that church of which I am a minister, at a time when the love of many towards it is waxen cold, Your book, written by a person who calls himself a Steady member of the fame church, under the idea, it shall be admitted, of promoting the cause of true religion, is calculated, if I understand it rightly, by fetting Chriftians loose from the established order and government of that church, to undermine and destroy it. Allow me, Sir, to call upon your cool judgment to determine, to which of these two cafes your threefold confideration, "an liceat, an deceat, an expediat," does most properly apply?"

In page 167, fpeaking of the evangelical plan of Divine grace, you obferve, that " it is by its fecret, peculiar, and efficacious operations alone, that we can ever become the living members of the church." We are both, it is prefumed, perfectly agreed, that without the Spirit of GOD no man can become a Christian; or, if you please, "a living member of the church."

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But there is not, I conceive, a more dangerous delufion than to rely on the fecret and peculiar operations of Divine grace, whilft we neglect to make ufe of the means appointed by CHRIST to convey it. Outward means of grace had never been inftituted by an allwife Being, who does nothing in vain, if the effect to be produced by their ufe could in ordinary cafes have been as well procured without them. There is no part of fcripture which warrants this visionary idea. The grace of GoD, we are there taught to expect, in the regular ufe of the appointed means, but not without them. Only those who looked on the brazen ferpent were healed. NAAMAN had never been cleanfed, had he not, in compliance with the Prophet's direction, washed feven times in Jordan. Baptifm is called the door, because it is the way appointed by CHRIST for us to become members of the church; our being living members of it depends upon our making a regular and due ufe of thofe means of grace, with which the miniftry of that church was appointed to furnish us. The description of the primitive church is this: the members, having been introduced into it by baptism, continued ftedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers, as the regular means of their