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we may readily enough comprehend; but there seems to be fomething unaccountably romantic in an attempt to compromise matters as it were with the author of our faith by accommodating these truths to the human understanding.

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But whatever may be the views, or whatever the claims, or whatever the pretences of Latitudinarians in general, the notion of a Creed, or a fyftem, or an establishment respecting the great doctrines we have been confidering, occurs to us in a manner fpontaneously. In the Church of Christ, the only queftion ought to be, not whether a confeffion, a formulary, or a series of articles, be long or fhort, fimple or circumftantial, antient or modern, but whether it has its grounds in competent authority. (mm) If the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Refurrection, as they are held in the Church, be fcriptural doctrines, no more objection can justly lie against the Nicene, or the Athanafian Creed, than against that of Dr. S. This author not only admits but refers to an original Creed, which he obferves has been enlarged

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enlarged "as circumftances arofe," or occafions called; though that it has been enlarged in fome inftances beyond all reason he ftrongly infifts, with many others with him. But be this as it may, and even if these things were not fo as we have reprefented them, it is abundantly fufficient that they appear to be fo to us. No rule, no system, no establishment whatsoever can in any tolerable fense be said to invade the right of private judgment in matters of religion; because Creeds, formularies, inftitutions, and appointments in general must be incompatible with the exercise of this right, at all periods of the Chriftian Church, or at none. It is pleasant enough to remark how zealously fome will be affected in a ridiculous thing; and how vehemently they will beat the air in their contention for that right of private judgment, which is indeed unalienable; and in fact is exercised by thofe who fubmit to what may be called public; by men of all perfuafions; by Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics; by the Sectaries of all religions; and by people of no religion at all. (nn) "Not Heretics only, fays the great Chillingworth, but Ro

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mish Catholics also, set up as many judges, "as there are men and women in the Chrif"tian world. For do not your men and wo"men judge your religion to be true before 'they believe it, as well as the men

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" and women of other religions? Oh! but you fay, they receive it, not because they "think it agreeable to Scripture, but because "the Church tells them fo. But then, I hope,

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they believe the Church, because their own. "reafon tells them they are to do fo. So that "the difference between a Papift and a Pro"teftant is this, not that the one judges, and "the other does not judge, but that the one

judges his guide to be infallible, the other "his way to be manifeft." The fact is, every man's attachment to any thing, to this or that Church, to this party, or to that principle, &c. is ultimately refolvible into his opinion of its excellence, its truth, its propriety, or its expedience; or of its conduciveness on the whole to his welfare, comfort, and fatiffaction, &c; i. e. it is refolvible into his own private judgment. This judgment, it is true, may be warped by paffion, biaffed by prejudice, clouded by ignorance, and blinded S 2

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by perverseness; it may be intoxicated by voluptuoufnefs, enervated by indolence, or inverted by frenzy; or it may be influenced by wisdom, by folly, or by caprice. But, at the fame time, whether we judge well, or ill; or of whatever differences or degrees human judgment may admit; we shall strictly and properly be found in all cafes and inftances to judge for ourselves. (00).

It was the concurrence of private judgment which firft formed the Chriftian Church; it was the fame concurrence which gradually compounded the enormous mass of popery ; it was the fame that effected the Reformation; and it was the fame that conftituted the numerous fects and parties into which this Reformation has been moft deplorably split and fubdivided. It is to nothing more or less than this that the Church of England owes her existence. And upon this ground it is certain, her requifition of affent to her public offices, and of fubfcription to her articles, the measure of just policy, and common prudence for her fecurity, are no more to be re

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garded as invafions of the right of private judgment, than the open attempts, or the fecret machinations of her enemies, for her deftruction. Upon this ground, in short, her declarations of faith in what the holds to be evangelical truth; and indeed the whole scheme of her doctrine, discipline, and polity, are perfectly intelligible, and manifeftly confiftent. But is not the inference drawn from the acknowleged right of private judgment by a late famous author, and his affociates, altogether chimerical, and totally incomprehenfible? Their inference is, that every individual Chriftian may, if he thinks fit, withdraw himself from all the Churches upon the face of the earth, ftand abfolutely fingle in the profeffion of his faith, or, as this author expreffes it, be a Church to himself.* And is not this in effect to affert, that a Church may be formed without a communion, without government, or miniftry; without a poffibility of being infected with heresy, or divided by schism? Is it not to all intents and purposes to aver, that a fociety may subsist without members, without establishment, or

* See Confeffional. Ch. 2. p. 34. Note.

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