they soon lost the truth of their law, and fell into an idolatrous worshipping of the calves they had set up in Dan and Bethel. Their government was troubled with great disorders, and their confusion ended in their utter dispersion. When men leave the worship of the Church, it is very 'natural for them to become disaffected to its doctrines; and they, who hate the Christian Faith, will take part with those who are against the Church; because they foresee, that if the Church be destroyed, the faith will be lost; as the light goes out when the lamp is broken. One of the most blasphemous books that ever was written in this country against the Christian Faith, was all of it apparently directed against the Church: on which consideration, many, who then believed the Christian doctrines, were drawn in by a disaffection to the Church, to take part with an infidel.

2. I am to remark farther, that with those who are ignorant and ill-instructed in the nature and use of the Church, there is a perverse prejudice in favour of preaching; and consequently a shocking neglect of those duties which belong to the people. It is a fine easy way for people with itching ears, to hear a preacher talk them into Heaven; while they neglect all the more essential parts of divine worship. Many hear a Sermon with the same vain curiosity as people hear a speech upon a stage, and consult nothing but their own amusement. And while the whole of the ministerial duty is supposed to consist in preaching, a man who can bawl and rant is tempted to take himself for a minister of Jesus Christ, without any regular mission; of which sort we have multitudes in this kingdom at this time and it is to be feared they are increasing. It is no uncommon thing for persons of all persuasions to meet in the same Church to hear the same' preach

er; many of whom have no communion with one another at any time; how is a preacher to please such a mixt multitude of hearers, but by leaving the Church of Christ out of the question, and preaching a loose sort of Christianity, which will fit them all? Perhaps if he were to speak the plain truth, and, from a sincere regard to their souls, give them such information as they stand in need of, many of them would leave him with indignation: as there were those who would walk no longer with Jesus Christ, because they were not able to bear the things that were spoken by him. There is a fashion of inviting people to come to Christ, without telling them where and how he is to be found. Besides, it is a great mistake to suppose, that the whole of religion consists in our taking of Christ; it is beginning at the wrong end: for Christ is to take us, as he took the little children in his arms, and gave them his blessing*. He said to his disciples, ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. There is a covenant between us and God, into which God, of his infinite grace, takes us: we do not take him, neither can we; and this confines us to the ordinances of the Church, which are not of us, but are the gifts of God's free grace to us miserable sinners: and Christians are united to God, and to one another, by the services of prayer, and the participation of the sacraments, more than by

Mr. Locke, in his Reasonableness of Christianity (a strange piece of divinity) is in the same mistake. He makes baptism a visible act, whereby those, who believed Christ to be the Messiah, received him as their King. So again in the same style, he says, that by baptism men enroll themselves in the kingdom of Jesus; which is but to say in other words, that they write their own names in Heaven. From fuch language as this, it is too apparent, that Mr. Locke's ideas of the Christian Priesthood and sacraments were exceedingly low.

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the hearing of the word of God without them; which many hear for reasons of vanity and uncharitableness. Who are the best friends every minister hath in his parish? They who attend the prayers and sacraments with him; who are edified by his priesthood as well as by his preaching; and are active in the great work of their own salvation.

3. As the latter times of the Jewish Church were very corrupt, and the doctrines of God were rendered of none effect by the inventions of men: it is agreeable to the prophecies of the New Testament, that offences must come amongst us; that men must arise, out of the Church, speaking perverse things, to draw way disciples after them: also that many will not endure sound doctrine, but heap up to themselves teachers (of their own appointing) having itching ears.

These and many other like passages give us notice, that there must be a falling off from the faith, with confusion and disagreement in the Christian society. If we look at our own Church, we have but a melancholy prospect; and cannot help observing, that it ap proaches too near to the state of the Jewish Church before its destruction. As they had corrupted the doctrines of Moses and the Prophets, and in consequence of it were divided into sects (for as truth unites, error always divides men) so have we corrupted the doctrines of the Gospel, and are miserably divided in consequence of it. I could name some doctrines, which if our Saviour were now to deliver in the metropolis of London, with the same freedom and authority as he did in Jerusalem, I verily believe he would be persecuted and put to death by people called Christians, as he was of old by those who were called Jews. The Church of Jerusalem was infested with temporising and philosophising Jews, who were farthest of all

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others from the faith, while they affected to be wiser than all the rest of the people. The Sadducees believed neither Angel nor Spirit, and said there was no résurrection. The Herodians were politicians and men of the world, who flattered Herod that he was the Messiah. The Pharisees were a proud and sanctified sect, very godly in outward shew, but full of hypocrisy within. They justified themselves and despised others, as not good enough to stand near them, or belong to the same Church with them. Of the sect of the Essenes we have no particular account in the New Testament; but from all we can learn, I take them to have been the Quakers of that time, who had thrown off all external rights of worship, and affected a religion per'fectly pure and philosophical. The Sadducees were the Socinians of Judaism; who had nothing spiritual belonging to them, and had reduced their law to an empty form. The venality and avarice of the Jews of our Saviour's time, was notorious, and provoked his indignation. Their temple, filled with buyers and sellers, was turned into a den of thieves: and, God knows, there is too much of a worldly traffic amongst us; which is too far gone to be reformed, and too bold to be censured-venduntur omnia* !.

4. But whatever abuses there may be in the Church, it is our duty to make the best of it, The Church is our spiritual mother and we may apply those words of the wise man, despise not thy mother when she is

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Perjury, which is now in a very growing state, may, in time, come to market with as much boldness as her sister Simony hath done for many years past,

old; not even if she should be in rags and dotage. The doctrine of the Church of England is, by profession, still pure and apostolical; and, whatever faults it may have contracted, it cannot be worse than the Church which our Saviour found in Jerusalem; yet he still recommended to the congregation, the duty of obedience to their spiritual Rulers. The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. Bad as the Church then was, our Saviour never forsook it, but taught daily in the Temple: and his Apostles attended upon his worship at the hours of prayer; and probably continued so to do, till they were dispersed. Neither Christ nor his disciples ever considered the doctrines of Church-authority, and Succession, and Conformity, as vain words and idle dreams, as our Sacinians have done of late years; and after what hath been said, their views want no explanation.

5. In our behaviour toward those who have departed from us, let us not, who honour the Church, fall into the error of those who despise it. Let us not betray any symptoms of pride in censuring with severity, but rather, with hearts full of sorrow and compassion, lament the differences and divisions which expose the Christian religion to the scorn of its enemies. Infidels are delighted to see that Christians cannot understand one another; for thence they are ready to report, that there is no sense amongst them all, nor any reason in their religion for that, if there were, they would agree about it. In this also the Papists triumph; they boast of their advantage over the Reformed, in that they are preserved in peace and unity *, while we are torn to pieces with factions

* But see Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History; where he proves by incontrovertable evidence, that the Romish Church has not al ways maintained her boasted unanimity.