gospel, should be treasured up in his heart; and upon proper occasions, of private visit and conference, the lips of the priest should make it appear that they keep knowledge, that the law may be sought at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts ; Mal. ii. 7.

Not that every man is bound to pay an implicit faith and blind obedience to the opinions and dictates of his bishop or presbyter. This is popish slavery wheresoever it is practised, and popish tyranny where it is commanded: But christians ought to give due attention to the advice and counsel of such as are set over them in the Lord; Heb. xiii. 17. 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16. Such as are solemnly devoted to the ministry of the gospel, and have addicted themselves to the study and search of the scriptures, and are chosen by the people to be their teachers, and set apart for that office in the way they best approve; and so far as their advice is conformable to the written word, they are to receive it as from some of the messengers of Christ.

We may humbly suppose a fourth design which God had in his eye when the sacred penman wrote so many verses of holy scripture, which God knew were so difficult to be interpreted; and that is, that no christian might put the Bible out of his own hands, or neglect to read and meditate and study the word of God; and that together with their reading they might constantly implore the presence of the Spirit, the enlightener and the comforter, to lead them into all truth. It is the duty of every man, so far as his capacity and opportunities of life will admit, to study the holy scriptures himself, and to see with his own eyes what he must believe, and what he must practise.

We should imitate the example of the noble Bereans; Acts xvii. 11. who searched the scriptures with diligence, and brought the sermons of Paul himself unto that sacred touch-stone, to see if the things which he spoke were true or no: And after all our study, we shall find such difficulties that will convince us of the necessity of depending upon a higher teacher, even the Holy Spirit. Our blessed Saviour commands that we search the scriptures, and pray for the Spirit too; John v. 39. Luke xi. 9, 13. And St. Paul prays unto God that he would give to the saints which were at Ephesus, that Spirit of wisdom and revelation to enlighten the eyes of their understanding ; Eph. i. 17. This unction which true believers have from the holy one, makes known to them all things necessary to salvation; 1 John ii. 20. And though we have no ground to expect that he will unfold to us every lesser difficulty, while we live in this world; yet we may humbly hope that in those things which regard the forms of his own worship, and the means of his own visible glory amongst men, he will by degrees let some divine rays of light into the mind of him that seeks after truth with great diligence, fervent prayer, and most sincere designs. There are many instances to be given of plain christians that have been made the favourites of the enlightening Spirit, and have arrived at uncommon knowledge in christianity by these methods.

A fifth blessed end, and which is certainly attained in the providence of God, by leaving so many disputables in religion, is, that our souls are hereby drawn out to long for heaven, and pant after the state where there is no contention, no dispute. This prospect renders those happy regions more desirable whilst we are here, and more abundantly welcome hereafter.

It is impossible that any controversy should there arise to interrupt the worship of the church triumphant. It is eternally impossible to divide them into parties, or to disturb their repose. The doctrines of their profession are all written as with sun-beams, they

are no longer the articles of faith, but the objects of sight: We shall be all taught of God, we shall see face to face, and know as we are known. So much of the Holy Spirit dwells in all the saints, as a perpetual spring of revelation and wisdom. The discipline of that church can occasion no disputes, for the Son of God, in our nature, is the pastor or bishop, he keeps the keys of heaven in his own hands, and the keys of hell and death. The soul that is once admitted into that fellowship shall abide like a pillar in the temple of his God, and shall go no more out; Rev. iii. 12. but the hypocrite and the unclean shall never enter there. The worship that is paid there is with perfect uniformity of mind and affection amongst all the happy spirits; an unanimous consent in self-abasement, divine honour and love; and perhaps when our bodies shall be raised again to make a visible church in heaven, worship may be performed with a glorious liberty, and with such a pleasing variety of form as glorified nature shall dictate, and our exalted reason approve; but still with the exercise of the same perfect love and delight among the worshippers, and under the influence of the same Spirit.

O the happiness of that upper region, where all the inhabitants are of one mind and one heart! Every doubt shall for ever vanish, for we shall behold all things without a cloud. In thy light, O Lord, we shall see light and enjoy it; Psalm xxxi. 7. Every quarrel shall for ever cease, for we shall dwell in the land of harmony and love. Though our capacities, perhaps, may be of different sizes, yet we shall see all divine truths in the same light, and therefore our sentiments, at least in things of importance, shall differ no more; we shall be united to each other in the same band of love, nor can our affections be separated any more for ever: That light and that love springs from the ever-blessed God; God the Creator communicating himself to all his holy and happy creation, and holding them fast to himself for ever, in and by that glorious person Christ Jesus his Son and image; for in him must all things be gathered together in one, and all things reconciled unto God in him, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven ; Col. i. 20. then shall the prophecy of Zechariah be fulfilled, the Lord shall be king over all the earth, there shall be one Lord, and his name one; Zech. xiv. 9. in the fullest meaning of that expression; nor shall the saints be distinguished by different parties or denominations, but their hearts and their names shall be all one; according to those expressions of inconceivable glory, wherein our Lord describes the things which are truly unspeakable, all the saints shall be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; John xvii. 21.

O with what pleasure have I often read, and methinks would be always reading, those words of a* great man spoken on the funeral of his fellow-saint. "When death shall have discumbered and set us free from all sorts of distempers, and brought us into the state of perfect and perfected spirits, how delectable will the society be, when all shall be full of divine life, light, love and joy, and all freely communicate as they have received freely! But above all that is conceivable in that other state, how delectable will the society be in worship, in the unanimous adoration of the ever-blessed God, Father, Son and Spirit! O the inexpressible pleasure of this consociation in worship perpetually tendered with so absolute a plenitude of satisfaction in the dueness of it, and the gustful apprehension of what those words import, Worthy art thou, O Lord: Each one relishing his own

Mr. Howe's Funeral Sermon for Dr. Bates.

act with just self-approbation and high delight, heightened by their apprehended perfect unanimity, and that there is among them no dissenting vote. Whence it cannot be but to worship God in spirit and in truth, must be to enjoy him, and that he is not under any other notion; a satisfying object of our enjoyment, more than he is the object of our worship."

These are beams of celestial light for souls to drink in, and to live upon them while we are passing onward to these fair mansions through a wilderness of doubts and darknesses. These are words of harmony and love to entertain our ears, and make us deaf to the noise of a wrangling and disputing world. This is a heaven worth wishing for, while we are travelling to it through this tiresome earth, this unhappy stage of vexation and controversy: To this let us look with eyes of ardent expectation, and the devoutest wishes of souls: To this let us all aspire and hasten, who have groaned long under our own ignorance, and been burdened and grieved with the quarrels of the christian churches, and whatsoever name or party we have chosen in our divided opinions, let us unite our hearts and voices in this loud request, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.

ESSAY IX.

AN APOLOGY FOR THE DIFFERENT JUDGMENTS AND PRACTICES OF SINCERE CHRISTIANS, THAT ARE WEAK IN KNOWLEDGE.

IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND.

GIVE me leave, my dear friend, to make a charitable apology for honest and upright

souls, who maintain a strict course of piety and virtue, and yet appear to be unalterably determined for or against the communion of the church of England, upon very slight and feeble grounds: Perhaps we shall learn compassion to the weaknesses of our fellow-christians, if you and I together meditate on these following considerations:

Let us take a survey how many are the circumstances and various occurrences of human life, which do sometimes powerfully determine the opinions even of good and sober men, to one or the other side of this controversy, whether they shall fix their communion in the church of England, or amongst those who separate from it.

Here the first thing that naturally occurs, is the education of different persons, which has a mighty influence to form their opinions, and to fix their practice; and this, it must be confessed, is not in a man's own choice; the providence of the great and blessed God, the over-ruler of all things, determines this affair in a wise and holy manner, whatever the final event may be.

Jonathan goes to worship every Lord's-day where his father goes, and as the child was never led to hear a sermon at a public church, so the youth grows up in a groundless aversion to it, and the man stands at a wider distance, and can hardly be persuaded to venture in. By use and custom from his very childhood, he understands the methods of the dissenters' worship, and the terms that are used in their sermons; and if by any strange occasion he is led to the church of England, he finds no profit by hearing a clergyman preach, for he does not clearly take in the expressions and the meaning; and it must be acknowledged, many of them have a different way of managing the word of God in their explications of it, different phrases and modes of expression, and too many of them preach doctrines different from their own articles and our common faith; these things are shocking and offensive to the ear, rather than instructing or edifying to a new hearer.

Besides, Jonathan has imbibed long prejudices against the modes of worship and ceremonies of the church, the forms, the gestures, the vestments, the responses, &c. and his soul is thereby mightily unfitted for edification by the prayers of the church of England, that are mingled and interwoven with them; his palate is so much disgusted with this sort of entertainment before-hand, that he either disrelishes or neglects what

ever solid and wholesome food is set before him in the sermon that follows: I will not say, there is nothing of this folly owing to the influences of his education; but it is hard, if not impossible, to amend or prevent all the faults of this kind in the education of children, by the best and wisest of parents.'

These things joined together, put a strong bias upon the judgment of the man, and it is exceeding difficult to be removed; and it is evident that his prayers, his practice in religion, his secret acts of devotion, are all regulated by the instructions he has received from his parents or some of his teachers: This makes his spirit grow uneasy under ceremonious forms, and he is quite untuned for devotion by the very sound of the organ. These things must needs have a mighty force on the minds of young sincere creatures beginning their course of religion and christianity, to establish them in the non-conformist way. And I might also add, how rude and indecent a thing the plain and natural worship of the dissenters appears to one, that has been bred up to ornament and ceremony in the several parts of worship in the established church. By education and custom a particular form of religion is so mingled with their nature, and wrought into their constitution, that you might as soon alter their palate, and change their taste of meats, as you can persuade their souls to dislike the ministry under which they have been brought up, and to forsake the mode of worship to which they have been trained. They are so positive

Since I have occasion, in this place to mention the education of children, amongst persons of the established church, and those that have separated from it, I could scarce excuse it to my own conscience, if I should neglect to make this solemn remark on both, viz. that there is something very dangerous that is early impressed on the minds of children of the one party and the other, and they unhappily learn it from the different respective catechisms in which they are instructed.

The children who are educated in the church of England, as soon as they have learned to answer "what is their name?" they are immediately told in the next answer, that in their baptism, they are made the members of Christ, the children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven." This arises from the doctrine they are generally taught, that baptism and regeneration are much the same thing, or that all men are regenerated by being baptized; whereas in scripture, baptism is but an emblem and representation of such a change of the heart, as regeneration requires and implies; and for want of this distinction, the children usually grow up through all their stations in life without enquiring whether they have had any such real change in their souls, as includes in it repentance for sin, and a turn of soul towards God and godliness, whereby a man is born again and becomes a new creature. And this necessary change, upon which the favour of God, and an interest in the salvation of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven depend, is very grossly and shamefully neglected by them through their whole lives, they always supposing as they have been taught, that all this work is done in baptism.

And for this reason many divines of the church of England have heartily wished that either these words in the catechism were a little altered, or that this answer should never be taught to children without explaining the meaning of it. Among the dissenters, one part of the education is usually learning the catechism written by the assembly of divines at Westminster. Now in the 19th answer it is said, "That all mankind by their fall,—are under the wrath of and curse of God, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever:" And some persons have been so grossly unwise, as to assert under this influence, that there are children of a span long suffering the vengeance of God in hell, for their interest in the sin of Adam. Now the very hint of such a notion frights children terribly, and while they are required to love God with all their hearts, it gives them a very terrible and cruel notion of the great and blessed God, who has ordained young children to these everlasting torments for the sin of Adam. There are some that deny this answer, and renounce this doctrine roundly.

Indeed there is one author that has endeavoured to explain it in a moderate way, and to make a just distinction upon this subject, and that is in the last question of a book, called "The Ruin and Recovery of Mankind." There it is shewn that all good christians, by their faith in Christ, are become the children of Abraham, and that they and their infant children have an interest in the promise made to Abraham, Gal. iii. 26, 29. viz. that God would be their God, and the God of their seed, which gives abundant hope for the children of good parents dying in infancy, that they are translated to the blessedness of heaven, and the hope of a joyful resurrection by the covenant of Abraham. And it is the children of the wicked, who have never accepted of the covenant of grace, are left under the curse, that is, of temporal death, which Adam had incurred for himself and his posterity, and that without any prediction or promise of any resurrection at all. Now I speak of those who never sinned actually, nor enjoyed a state of personal trial for themselves in this world. "See the original writer." When these things will be corrected in the education of children, of the one side or the other, it is only the providence of God can determine.