are baptized. It has no Sacraments, no Redemption, no Atonement, no Church Communion, and consequently no Charity; for Charity is the love and unity of Christians as such. Natural Religion is but another name for Deism; it is the same in all respects; and I may challenge all the philosophers in Europe to shew the difference. Therefore to recommend moral duties on the ground of natural religion, is to preach Deism from a pulpit; and we should ask ourselves, whether God, who upholds his Church, to declare salvation by Jesus Christ alone, will preserve a Church, when it has left the Gospel, and holds forth the light of Deism in the candlestick which was made, and is supported in the world, only to hold forth the light of Christianity? What else is it that hath made way for the enthusiastic rant of the Tabernacle? When the wise forsake the Gospel, then is the time for the unwise to take it up; but with such a mixture of error and indiscretion, as gives the world a pretence for never returning to it any more; and then the case is desperate.

Deism, properly so called,' (said a certain writer) is the religion essential to man, the true original religion of reason and nature. It is in Deism, properly so 'called, that our more discerning and rational divines have constantly placed the alone excellency and true glory of the Christian institution.—The Gospel, (says ⚫ Dr. Sherlock) was a republication of the Law of Nature, and its precepts declarative of that original religion, which was as old as the creation.-If natural religion (says Mr. Chandler) be not a part of 'the religion of Christ, 'tis scarce worth while to enquire at all, what his religion is: from whence it seems very natural to infer, that the other parts of the religion of Christ are scarce worth any thing at all

of our notice.' [Deism fairly stated by a moral Philosopher: pp. 5, 6, 7.] See the whole book, which proceeds on this principle: that natural religion being admitted, it must be a perfect scheme, a complete structure; and that Christianity, as a superstructure, is unnecessary; and it is lamentable to see what advantage this author takes of the unguarded concessions of some celebrated Christian preachers and controversialists of the Church of England, who did not foresee, or did not consider, the consequences of their doctrines.

Dr. Taylor, some time since a dissenting teacher at Norwich, a man of considerable learning, was the author of certain Theological Lectures, which I have reason to think have met with a more favourable reception than they deserved among some of the Clergy of our own Church, and have been even recommended as elementary tracts to young Students in Divinity. In the first chapter of these Lectures, I find a rule of interpretation repugnant to the rule given us by the Scripture itself, which directs us to compare spiritual things with spiritual, that is, to compare the Scripture with the Scripture, that we may keep to the true sense of it. But here it is laid down as a fundamental rule, that we should always interpret the Scripture, in a sense consistent with the laws of natural religion; for that the law of nature, as it is founded in the unchangeable nature of things, must be the basis and ground-work of every constitution of religion which God hath erected. This rule of Dr. Taylor prejudges the Scripture before we come to it, and inculcates into inexperienced Students of Divinity the very principle that hath ruined us, and given us up as a prey to the Deists; it allows them the advantage they have contended for against the peculiar doctrines of Revelation,

as scarce worth any thing at all of our notice, in comparison of natural religion. For here, I say, before we descend to the Scripture, we are possessed of a system, founded in the unchangeable nature of things; from which, whatsoever the Bible may seem to reveal, we are never to depart. Let us then suppose, that our Christian baptism teaches us to believe in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: what have we to do? Natural Religion hath already determined, from the unchangeable nature of things, that God is but one person Therefore we must interpret the form of Baptism to such a sense, as will still leave this doctrine of nature in possession; either by teaching that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are, in reality, but one person; or that Jesus Christ is no person in the Godhead, but a mere man, like ourselves; or, that Christianity is not true, &c. So in like manner, by another anticipation, natural religion makes every man his own Priest and his own Temple: therefore it cannot possibly admit the true and proper Priesthood of Jesus Christ; but must reject the whole doctrine of atonement, and the corruption of man's nature; for this is incompatible with the idea of a natural religion; inasmuch as corrupt nature must produce a corrupt religion. If we say that nature is not corrupt, we overturn the foundations of the Gospel; which teaches us, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them.-Man, it seems, is so far from knowing the spiritual things revealed to him in the Scripture, that, as he now is by nature, he is not in a condition to receive them (they will be foolishness to him) till he is enabled so to

"This (says Dr. Clarke) is the first principle of Natural Religion." See Mr. Jones's Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity; p. 15, of the sixth Edition; where this is considered more at large.

do by a new faculty of discernment, which is supernatural and spiritual. It is therefore easy to foresee what must be the consequence, when Dr. Taylor's rule is admitted; and the younger Clergy of this Church take him for their guide. They will take the doctrines of nature, and work them up with the doctrines of the Scripture; that is, they will throw natural Religion into the Scripture, as Aaron threw the gold of Egypt into the fire: and, what will come out? Not the Christian Religion, but the philosophical calf of Socinus.

Mr. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity may be read with safety, by those who are already well learned in the Scripture: but what a perilous situation must that poor young man be in, who, perhaps, when he can but just construe the Greek Testament, or before, is turned over to be handled and tutored by this renowned veteran; who, with a shew of reasonableness, and some occasional sneers at orthodoxy, and affecting the piety and power of inspiration itself, has partly overlooked, and partly explained away, the first and greatest principles of Christianity, and reduced it to a single proposition, consistent with Heresy, Schism, Arianism, Socinianism, and Quakerism.

CHAPTER IV.

On the abuse of the refoRMATION, &c.

To the doctrines which are pleaded in defence of separation, I might have added the use which has been made of the historical event of our Reformation from the errors of the Church of Rome. Here the Dissenters are in confederacy with the Papists against us. The Papists object, that by the fact of our separation from their Church, the principle of separation is admitted ; and being once admitted, it will multiply sects and divisions amongst us, and justify them all, as much as it justifies us. This is the very argument, which the Dissenters have repeated an hundred times; and they borrowed it originally from Rome, whose emissaries were detected among the Puritans in the days of Elizabeth, feeding them with reasons and objections for the multiplying of schism, and the weakening of the Episcopal Church of England: and, God knows, they succeeded but too well. However, the link which unites these two parties may easily be broken. They both agree, that the Reformation of the Church of England was a separation from the Church of Rome,