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But the law establishing the payment of tithe does not stand in this predicament; for it must be confidered rather as a law in conformity with the revealed will of God, than in contradiction to it. The private perfuafion of the Quaker, under the imposing plea of confcience, may therefore be confidered as set up in oppofition to the law both of GOD and man; and the admiffion of it by the legiflature is but establishing a precedent for further oppofition to its authority.

For let this principle be carried to its length, and it is easy to see where it must terminate. Upon the ground that the Quaker refifts the law of tythe, he may take it into his head to refift any other act of the legislature; and if his resistance be admitted, if the private perfuafion of the individual (for confcience it must not be called) be allowed to be pleaded in bar of obedience to an exifting law, there will shortly be an end of all government in the world.

That this fame plea of confcience is of equal validity, when made ufe of by Diffenters of any kind, as a juftification for their non-conformity tothe liturgy, rites, and ceremonies of our church, is a point that has been abundantly and repeatedly proved.*

* See SOUTH's Sermons on 1 John iii. 21, vol. ii.; and “ Difcourfe of Confcience" by Archbishop SHARP, in London Cafes.

As in temporal matters, then, the law of the land becomes obligatory upon every individual of the community; fo, in concerns of a spiritual nature, the will of GOD, fo far as it has been revealed, admits of no exemption from its obligation; nor can confcience be pleaded as a justification for disobedience in either case.

If GOD, then, has been pleased to appoint a way in which he will be worshipped; I am no more at liberty, upon the mere ground of my own perfuafion, to worship him in any other way, than I am at liberty to act in contradiction to his revealed will in any other When men, therefore, talk of liberty of confcience, they would do well to confider, whether it be not, as the phrafe is now generally understood, rather a liberty of their own making, than any portion of that liberty with which CHRIST has made them free.

matter.

Indeed, the idea that has for fome time prevailed among us, that Chriftian liberty gives every man a right to worship GoD in his own way, appears to have been admitted without fufficient examination. There is not one fingle paffage of fcripture, which strikes me as warranting the conclufion that has been drawn upon this fubject. Our SAVIOUR fays,*" he that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath

John xii. 48.

one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the fame fhall judge him in the last day." And

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though we, or an angel from heaven, (faith ST. PAUL) preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accurfed." Gal. i. 8.

Suppofe, now, any man, upon the plea of confcience, fhould reject CHRIST, as many, alas! have done; refufe to acknowledge him in his mediatorialcharacter, and thereby set up for himself a religion, effentially different from that which has been revealed; will it be faid, that CHRIST has given man a liberty to be thus employed against himself? "He that is not for me," faith CHRIST, "is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, fcattereth."+

It has, indeed, been faid, that in a matter which concerns his own falvation, every man should be left to the direction of his own judgment.

Provided the revealed will of God be made the rule of that judgment, this will be readily granted. But as this pofition is generally understood, those who are forward in advancing it, have not duly confi-, dered, perhaps, to what extent it may be carried; or, what is still more to the purpose, whether God has,

+ Matt. xii. 30.

with refpect to man's fpiritual concerns, been pleafed to leave him thus abfolutely, as it were, in his own hands. If he has not, all reasoning upon the matter is at an end; and before men fuffer themselves to be governed by a specious dogma, which is calculated to impose, they fhould examine, whether they have fairly measured their application of it by the standard set up for that purpose in the word of GOD. In other words, whether they have honestly made ufe of all means to inform their judgment, before they adopt it as their rule of conduct. If they have not, their fincerity, merely as fuch, will furnish no plea in their favour. They will be condemned, not because they are fincere, but because they have neglected thofe means of information, which would have directed their fincerity to its proper object. In confequence of which neglect, they may be in the condition of numberless affertors of the rights of confcience, that have appeared in all ages of the world; who, in the ftrenuous exertion of their zeal, thought they were doing GoD service, at the time they were engaged in the most direct oppofition to his will; and facrificing to idols which their own corrupt nature had fet up, under the differ ent fhapes of pride, prejudice, and worldly intereft.

DISCOURSE VIII.

On TOLERATION.

THE fubject of TOLERATION has been open to

much misconception.

The Act upon which it is founded, should be seen in a civil, not in a religious point of view; for it concerns men as members of a civil fociety, rather than

in

a very

any other character. The paffing this Act was a seasonable exertion of political wisdom, for the purpose of securing the government of this country, at critical period, upon the broadeft foundation. And the Act itself may with more propriety be called an Act of Sufpenfion, than of Toleration; the purpose of it being to fecure Proteftant Diffenters from the Church of England, on certain conditions, from the penalties to which they had been made fubject by former ftatutes. That this was the idea which the legifl ators had before them at the time, may be fairly concluded, from the word Toleration not being once

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