pered mortar of new inventions displease thus. Set afide the corruptions, and the church is the fame.” Upon this fame ground must every reformation of the church continue to proceed: it must tend to fome established point, and be governed by fome fixed ftandard of judgment; otherwise a boundless field of fpeculation being opened to the human mind, theory will follow upon theory in endless fucceffion; till man, with respect to his most important concern, will be left in the hopeless condition described by the Apostle, "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

In a word, what upon the ground of Divine revelation was the faith of the church feventeen hundred years ago, must continue to be fo still.

"GOD has

revealed himself; and all that He has fpoken, and confequently all that is demanded of us to accede to, is declared in one book; from which nothing is to be retrenched, and to which nothing can be added. All that it contains, was as perfpicuous to those who first perused it, as it can be to us now, or as it can be to our posterity in the fiftieth generation." To talk, therefore, of adapting creeds and confeffions to the varying fentiments and circumftances of the church for the time being, is to forget that the fashion of the

H H

world has nothing to do with a bufinefs of this kind. It is to forget that religion, as deriving its establishment from that Being, with whom "is neither variableness nor shadow of turning," must be expected to wear the character of its Divine Author, that of being "the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

The reader will, I truft, excufe my having thus dwelt upon a fubject, which to me appears important. The mafter prejudice of this enlightened age is, that all opinions or modes of faith are equally good. That liberality of fentiment, mifnamed charity, the offspring of fpeculative religion, which affects to think well of men's fafety in any religion, or even without any, has introduced a way of thinking upon religious matters unknown to the members of the Chriftian church in its better days. The object at prefent seems to be, not fo much to bring mankind up to the standard of revealed religion, as to accommodate that standard to the opinions of mankind; by infifting as little as may be upon those doctrines which conftitute the effence of Chriftianity; and fo generalizing our creed, that perfons of every perfuafion may find no difficulty in fubfcribing to it. This plan of extending the Christian communion at the expence of the Christian faith, may certainly answer the purpose

of enlarging our congregations; but in that cafe they will be congregations of unbelievers of different defcriptions, rather than what they were defigned to be. Had the Christian religion been of this comprehenfive nature; or had the first preachers of it thought fit to have adopted eafy and conciliating measures for the fake of making converts to it, instead of being decided preachers of the faith as it is in CHRIST; the history of the church would have presented us with a very different scene from what it now does; and the Apostles and martyrs might have died natural deaths.

The ground upon which I have proceeded in the fubject before me (and I wish it to be tried fairly upon the authority on which it stands, and not hastily condemned, because it is old-fashioned) is this; that there is an establishment both for the government and doctrine of the church of CHRIST founded upon Divine revelation, and confirmed by Apoftolic practice. Should this be admitted, that establishment, fo far as it can be ascertained, conftitutes a certain fixed ftandard of judgment for mankind in religious matters. It cannot otherwise be what the name itself implies...

Archdeacon PALEY, if I understand him, has * placed this fubject before his readers in a different

light; by making both the government and doctrine

of the church dependent upon the varying opinions of its members from time to time. The fubftance of what he has faid in his chapter on religious establishments, when condensed into one fentence, being fimply this; that there is no fettled ftandard of authority by which the judgment of mankind is to be regulated on this fubject; but that, confidering the church as a flux body, its opinions and practices must be accommodated to the fluctuating condition of its members.

It fhall be left with the reader to judge which plan is most conformable to facred writ, and the defign of the Christian revelation; that, whofe object it is to bring mankind together in the unity of the fame profeffion; or that, the perfection of which feems to confist in reconciling differences of opinion on religious fubjects with the fame church communion.

The circumstance of not one fingle reference being made, in the Archdeacon's chapter upon religious establishments, to the authority of any preceding writer upon that fubject, will not, I trust, operate so far upon the reader's mind, as to make him forget that there have been, among the primitive fathers of the church, fuch writers as IGNATIUS, CLEMENT, and CYPRIAN; and among the divines of our own

church, fuch learned men as ANDREWS, HOOKER, HAMMOND, HICKES, and LESLEY; from whofe writings, as from a ftorehouse well furnished with information upon all matters of doctrine and government, as they existed in the primitive church, every fcribe, who wishes to be inftructed unto the kingdom of Heaven, would do well to draw.

Should it be urged, that appeal to human authority. was forborne, upon the idea that the letter of fcrip. ture could furnish the only conclufive evidence on fubjects of this nature, the answer which CHARLES I. heretofore returned to HENDERSON the Scotch presbyter, may not be mifapplied: "Scripturam quidem fe omni veneratione profequi; at, cum fcripturæ, fenfus fit ipfum zwoμevov, et interpretandæ scripturæ aliqua demum methodus aut norma accommodanda fit, fibi quidem nullam hoc primitive ecclefia fuffragio magis idoneam videri.".

There is still one remark, which prefents itself on the perufal of moft writers who appear diffatisfied with our present establishment; that when they would be understood to allude to the test required by our church, they adopt general pofitions, and ambiguous exprcffions, without particularizing those objection.