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that is, engagements not to preach certain doctrines, nor to revive certain controverfies, would exclude indecent altercations among the national clergy, as well as fecure to the public teaching of religion as much of uniformity and quiet as is neceffary to edification, then confeffions of faith ought to be converted into articles of peace."

This mode of pleading in behalf of religious liberty does not appear calculated to do service to the cause. To me the violation of religious liberty appears to be greater upon the plan here laid down, than upon the one adopted by the church in the cafe of its ministers.

We will fuppofe that a minister who difbelieved the divinity of our SAVIOUR, Dr. PRIESTLEY, for inftance, fhould, for the fake of peace and order, conform to the rites, liturgy, and offices of the church; and upon his engagement not to preach certain doctrines, or to revive certain controverfies, fhould be admitted into its facred miniftry. Would not the engagement, by which Dr. PRIESTLEY, in the dif charge of his ministry, is held bound, not to preach those very doctrines, which in his confcience he believes to be true, be a much greater violation of his Christian liberty, than the excluding him from an

office by a teft, to which he, as an honest man, cannot fubfcribe? ST. PAUL, when he took leave of the church of Ephefus, told the elders of it, that he had kept back nothing that was profitable for them; "I take you to record (fays he) this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not fhunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Acts xv. 26. Would not Dr. PRIESTLEY, with the example of ST. PAUL before him, when he felt himself fhackled by the obligation under which the church had laid him, be apt to bring the authority of the Archdeacon against himself, by telling him in his own words, that "every fpecies of intolerance which enjoins fuppreffion and filence, and every species of perfecution which enforces fuch injunctions, is adverse to the progrefs of truth;" and that confequently such an engagement as the one here proposed ought not to be required?

But there is a confideration which church governors must be supposed to have before them, in the establishment of creeds and confeffions, which must always give them a decided preference to the plan here propofed; because they promise to answer an effectual purpofe; whilft an engagement of a loofer nature might anfwer no purpose but a bad one.

But before reformation in any cafe is adopted, the confiderate man wishes to be informed, with respect to the precife nature of the reformation propofed; that he may be qualified to compare the prefent condition of things with what it may be under a new fyltem. Some inconveniencies in the establishment of public focieties, like fome diftempers in the body, are borne with lefs danger than they are cured. Before the establishment, therefore, of our present teft is fet afide, he requires to be made acquainted with the conditions of the engagement proposed to fuperfede it; what particulars it respects; and what are those certain doctrines upon which it enjoins filence; lest the extreme of our profeffion being burdened with more articles of faith, than may by fome be deemed neceffary to existing circumftances, fhould lead to an oppofite but ftill more dangerous extreme, by which the church may be left unpoffeffed of any fettled faith at all.

In fhort, the object of a teft is to preferve the unity of the faith among those who are appointed to teach the Chriftian religion; fhould it not be made fufficiently explicit to answer that purpose, the object in view is defeated, and the end of its establishment rendered nugatory. In due fubferviency to this

confideration, the position advanced, "that tefts and fubfcriptions fhould be made as fimple and eafy as poffible," will be readily admitted.

But the reafon given for relaxing the terms of fubfcription, or for dropping any or all of the articles. to be fubfcribed, "that no prefent neceffity requires the strictness which is complained of, or that it should be extended to so many points of doctrine,” is a reason that will not perhaps be readily admitted. The propriety of fixing fome standing marks upon thofe errors, by which Chriftians in former days have made fhipwreck of their faith, appears to be of a fimilar kind with that of placing a light-house upon a dangerous rock, where fhips have been heretofore caft away. It is an old faying, that what has been may be again. Herefies, like the fashions of the world, have a kind of periodical revolution. A man who could fit ftill for a certain number of years, might in both cafes fancy himself living in the days of his forefathers.

No man fhould, indeed, be charged with all the confequences which may regularly follow from his notions; whilst he neither draws them, nor perhaps perceives, nor owns them. But in the treatment of religious matters, it were much to be wished, that

But before reformation in any cafe is adopted, the confiderate man wishes to be informed, with respect to the precife nature of the reformation proposed; that he may be qualified to compare the prefent condition of things with what it may be under a new fyftem. Some inconveniencies in the establishment of public focieties, like fome diftempers in the body, are borne with lefs danger than they are cured. Before the establishment, therefore, of our present teft is fet afide, he requires to be made acquainted with the conditions of the engagement proposed to fuperfede it; what particulars it refpects; and what are those certain doctrines upon which it enjoins filence; lest the extreme of our profeffion being burdened with more articles of faith, than may by fome be deemed neceffary to existing circumftances, fhould lead to an oppofite but ftill more dangerous extreme, by which the church may be left unpoffeffed of any fettled faith at all.

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In fhort, the object of a teft is to preferve the unity of the faith among those who are appointed to teach the Christian religion; fhould it not be made fufficiently explicit to answer that purpose, the object in view is defeated, and the end of its establishment rendered nugatory. In due fubferviency to this

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