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I have, I hope, fufficiently confuted your doctrine of fincerity, from the nature of religion. I fhall now in a word or two examine it farther, by confidering the nature of private perfuafion, which can do all thefe mighty things."

And, first, I deny that perfuafion was the only thing which -juftified the Proteftants, or which recommends people to the favour of God in the choice of a religion; and that, because if their private perfuafion was founded in pride, prejudice, worldly intereft, or any thing, but the real truth, and the juftice of the caufe, that their private perfuafion did not justify them before God; nor had they, upon this fuppofition, fo good a title to his favour, as those who did not reform.

If you fay, that perfons cannot be fincere in their perfuafions, who are influenced by pride, or prejudice, or any falfe motive, to' this I anfwer;

First, That according to your own principles, that man is to be esteemed fincere, who thinks himself to be fincere. For, as it is a first principle with you, that a man is justified in point of religion, not because he obferves what in its own nature is true and right religion, but because he obferves that which he thinks to be true and right religion; fo according to this principle a man is to be accounted fincere, not because he acts up to true and just principles of fincerity, but because he thinks in his own mind, that he does act up to fuch just and true principles of fincerity. So that, my lord, fincerity it feems is as truly a private perfuafion, as religion is a private persuasion; and therefore any one may as easily think himself truly fincere, and yet not have true fincerity, as he may think himself in the true religion, and yet not be in the true religion.

Unless therefore you will maintain, that a perfon who is miftaken in his fincerity, and mistaken in his religion too, who hath neither true religion, or true fincerity, hath as good a title to the favour of God, as he who is truly fincere, and in a true religion, you must give up this caufe of fincerity. For it is demonftrable from your own principles, that any one may as often happen to be mistaken in his fincerity, and take that for fincerity which is not fincerity, as he may be mistaken in his religion, and take that for religion which is not religion.

And confequently it is as reasonable to talk of fincere perfons, who are influenced by wrong motives, as to talk of perfons being juftified in religion, who live in a falfe religion."

So that, my lord, this is the refult of your doctrine, that perfons neither truly fincere, nor in the true religion, are yet entitled to the fame degrees of God's favour, with those who are truly fincere in the true religion.

The fhort is this, according to a maxim of your own, you are obliged to acknowledge that man to be fincere, who thinks himfelf to be fincere; because you fay a man is to be esteemed religious, not because he practises true religion, but because he thinks he practises true religion; therefore you must fay, that a man is fincere, not because he is truly fincere, but because he thinks himself to be fincere.

It is alfo as poffible and as likely for a man to be mistaken in those things which conftitute true fincerity, as in those things which conftitute true religion.

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And therefore if this fincerity be the only and the same title to God's favour in any religion, it follows, that fincerity, though influenced by false motives, and in a falfe way of worship, is as acceptable to God, as a fincere perfuafion governed by right motives in a true and inftituted way of worship.

So that all the fine things which you have faid of fincerity, as implying in it all which is rational and excellent, are come to nothing; and you are as ftrictly obliged to allow that man to be fin

cre who mistakes the grounds and principles of true fincerity, because he thinks himself to be fincere, as to allow that perfon, to be juftified in his religion, who mistakes the true religion, because he thinks himfelf in the true religion.

So that it is not fincerity as it contains all that is rational and excellent which alone juftifies, but as it may be an idle, vain, whim, fical perfuafion, in which people think themselves in the right. This perfuafion, though founded in the follies, paffions, and prejudices of human nature, confecrates every way of worship, and makes the man thus perfuaded, as acceptable to God, as he who through a right ufe of his reafon, ferves God in that method which he has inftituted.

I fhall end this point with only this obfervation, that however hearty a friend you may be to the Chriftian religion yourself, this I dare fay, that the heartieft enemy it has, will thank you for thus defending it. And they who with all the diftinction betwixt religions confounded, and maintain that we have nothing to hope or fear but from our own perfuafions, are the only perfons who can call you their proper defender,

VOL. I.

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I I

I

Of the Reformation.

PROCEED now in a word or two to fhew, that the neceffity of communion with any particular church, and the effects of excommunication, are perfectly confiftent with the principles of the Reformation.

You say, “If there be a church authority to oblige people to external communion-I beg to know how can the Reformation itself ́be justified.-For there was then an order of churchmen, vested with all spiritual authority-there was therefore a church authority to oblige Chriftians, a power of fome over others. What was it therefore to which we owe this very church of England * ?"

To this it may be answered,

- First, That this argument proceeds upon a false supposition, namely, that it is the laws of any men, which obliges us to external communion. Which I have already fhewn to be as false, as to fuppofe that it is the laws of any men which oblige us to be Chriftians.

Secondly, That there may be a real and a great authority which obliges us to external communion, though this authority be not founded in any human laws, for there is as real and apparent an authority for baptism, and the supper of the Lord, and other parts of external communion, as if they were the express matter of any human laws.

Thirdly, That the laws of men in this affair of religion, are of the fame obligation and force that they are in other matters. If they command things indifferent, they are to be obeyed for the authority of the command; if they enjoin things in their own nature good, the neceffity of obedience is greater; but if they command things unlawful, we are not to comply, but obey God

rather than man.

Fourthly, The question therefore at the Reformation was not whether the laws of the pope or the prince were on the side of the church of Rome, but whether that faith and thofe inftitutions which conftitute the Chriftian religion was with the Reformers, or

Answer to Repr. p. 118.

with the Papists. For the church authority which obliged them then, and which obliges us now to external communion, was not an authority w ich obliged them to comply with any number of bishops, or any state laws, but to enter into communion with that bishop or bishops who obferved that way of worship which Chrift had inftituted. The neceffity of being in external communion, does not oblige us to be in communion with the pope or any number of bishops, as fuch, whose authority we may happen to be born under, but it obliges us to be in that communion which is that way or method of falvation which Chrift has inftituted.

So that though we fhould grant, that at the Reformation we broke through the human laws of the church which required us to continue in communion with the church of Rome, it will by no means follow that we broke through that authority which obliges us to external communion, because that authority is not founded in any human laws, but is the authority of Christ, requiring us to obferve all thofe things which conftitute external communion. For as it is the authority of Chrift which obliges us to be Christians, fo that fame authority obliges us to enter into that communion where the inftitutions and faith of Chrift are preferved.

When therefore you fay, "if church authority (meaning human laws) be a fufficient obligation upon them to determine them, then our fore-fathers ought not in confcience to have feparated from the church of Rome *."

This, my lord, is no more to the purpose than if you had faid, if the king of France has a right to be obeyed all over Europe, then all over Europe they ought in confcience to obey him.

For fince it is neither pretended nor allowed, that human laws are a fufficient obligation to external communion, to argue from this fuppofition is as foreign to the purpose, as to suppose that the king of France was governor of all Europe.

The next step you take is also very extraordinary, where having rejected human authority from being a sufficient obligation to external communion, you thus proceed, "but if men are their own judges by the laws of God and of Christ in this matter; if they have a right to use their judgment and be determined by it —then here is a justification of the Reformation, and particularly of the Protestant church of England t."

The most complaisant justification, my lord, that could poffibly

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have been thought of, because it as peculiarly justifies all the enemies of the church of England, of what kind foever, as it justifies the Proteftant church of England.

For your argument proceeds thus; if there be no human authority to which we are abfolutely obliged to fubmit, but have a right to use our own judgments, then the Reformation is justified. Here we see the doctrines of the reformed church are not taken into the question; fhe is not said to be justified, as being a true church, or as preferving those orders and inftitutions, which conftitute the true church; but is juftified, because men may use their reason, and not enter into any communion which human laws have happened to establish. Now if we of the church of England are juftified in the choice of our religion, because no human laws have an abfolute power to oblige us to be of any particular religion, then all people, whether Papists or Proteftants, whether Quakers, Ranters, Jews, Turks, and Infidels, are equally justified in the choice of their particular ways of worship, because human laws have not an abfolute power to oblige them to be of any particular religion. So that though you call this a juftification of the Proteftant church of England, you might as justly have called it a justification of Quakers, Jews, Turks, and Infidels: for it is as truly a juftification of every one of them, as it is a juftification of the church of England.

But to proceed, How comes it, my lord, that the Reformation is juftified, because people may use their reason, and are not under a neceffity from human laws of being of this or that church? Why muft the Reformation be right and juft, because human laws are not fufficient to hinder a reformation? Is there no other authority that can make any particular religion neceffary, because human authority cannot? May it not be our duty to be of this communion, and a fin to enter into another communion, though human laws, as fuch, cannot make the one a duty, or the other a fin? Does baptifm, the fupper of the Lord, and a belief in Jefus Chrift, ceafe to be neceffary, because that neceffity does not arife from human laws?

Now if things may be neceffary to falvation, though they are not made fo by human authority, then it is no juftification of the Reformation to fay, that the reformers might use their reason, and not chufe that religion which human laws commanded them to chufe; this will be no juftification, till it appears, that they

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