but can never tend to the detriment of any one, if this leading truth is embraced with warmth proportionable to its beauty and importance, namely, that charity is the first of Christian duties. The true Christian reasons for the fundamental principles of his religion (those I mean which he takes to be such) with all the force of his understanding, but shews, at the same time, that all the warmths of his heart go out in love to the man he is addressing. No spice of acrimony is employed by him; but in regard to such deceivers as labour to pervert and corrupt the principles of simple and well-meaning people, whom he endeavours to guard against their artifice. The deceiver hath nothing left for it, but to call this reasoner a bigot, because he is firm in defence of a divine truth. Into this odious extreme however he will be apt to run, if he is not very careful to temper his warmth with that 'meekness and fear,' wherewith his principles oblige him to 'answer every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him.' Latitudinarianism is that indifference to all religion, which qualifies a man to espouse, or repudiate, any principle or sort of religion, without much caring whether it is well or ill founded. A hereditary bigot is not more blindly attached to the opinions infused into him by a wrong education, than the silly child of vanity, rigidly adhering, as he thinks, to new notions in religion, though but licking up the exploded drivel of old heretics. What room for vanity is there in thus servilely borrowing errors! How much less in one of the clergy, who not only contents himself with being, in like manner, a fool at second hand, but shews himself to be a knave too of the worst kind, by entertaining and covertly insinuating such principles, as he himself hath condemned by his public professions! The latitudinarian, near akin to the sceptic, paying little or no regard to reason, or the word of God, will tell you, that God loves variety of religions among mankind, as if all were equally false or insignificant; and that he will not at the last day ask any man what religion he was of. It is true, he will not, because he knows it already. But it does not follow, that one religion is not better than another, nor that there is not one, better than all the rest, which every man that had an opportunity of judging ought to have chosen, and therefore is accountable for his choice, or for his having made none. This dissembler would needs palm on us his indifference to all religion for an enlargedness of mind. But if his line is longer than ours, it is only made so by its curvature, which leads him this way and that withi

VOL. VI.

out end, and without fixing him any where. He may truly call himself a bigot to nothing, for, if he believes himself, he hath no principle, and hardly an opinion. There is another, and a wiser sort of man than this, who tries all things, and, by God's blessing, holds fast that which is right. This man hath the use of his senses, and the reason God hath given him. In a due exercise of these he finds little trouble in the search of religious truth. His candour and honesty throw the truths of religion open to him, insomuch that, aided by the word of God, he throws both his understanding and heart open to them, and justifies his choice of principles by as steady an adherence to it, as the bigot does to his, which were perhaps but entailed upon him by an ignorant father, and riveted by an inveterate habit. Though his principles, as certainly they do, point out to him the reduction of his appetites and passions, and a degree of mortification and self-denial, he cheerfully obeys, and trusts God with the consequences. He hates no man for thinking in a different manner from himself; but is ever ready to oblige and serve all men, as far as opportunity occurs, and integrity will permit. Among mankind there is not a more amiable nor a more illustrious character than his. He hath but one thing to guard against, and that is, the danger of sitting too loose as to religion, which a mind once afloat, as his was, may still give in to, as agreeable to the happy liberty he hath so successfully indulged, if the wind of new doctrine, or the current of fashionable opinions, should attempt to carry him away. Superstition, the foible of weak minds, consists in laying too great a stress on trifles, or things foreign to religion. In such minds the infinite importance of religion itself is apt to communicate some share of its own weight and dignity to all its circumstances, and to every thing, that but seems to second its good purposes, to raise its ardours, or promote its effects. In this light, superstition looks like the harmless, but simple child of religion, and passes unsuspected, till, grown up to a degree of strength, it steals the reins from its mother's hands, and drives her out of the house. It begins with observations on spilling salt, on meeting a red haired woman in the morning, on the flight of a bird; but proceeds to an adoration of the moon, and to offer human sacrifices to a fancied deity. This at least is throwing religion off its strong hinges, and giving it those of wire or packthread; but, in its farther progress it throws away the doors themselves, and lays the house open to whim, instead of principle, after which there is no

extravagance so wild or wicked, that may not find an entrance, and assume an absolute sway. Hence it may come to pass, that ghosts, hobgoblins, and ideal devils, the forerunners and brokers of a real one, have been believed in, have been imprecated, have been consulted, as powers that know every thing, and could do every thing. Opposite to a mind so wretchedly groveling, there is another, of high and wide capacity, that having by a right use of reason and a continual application to revealed religion, filled itself with objects, of magnitude immense, hath left itself neither room, nor time, for an attention to trifles. These hardly weigh as the lightest dust on its balance. Its greatest condescension is to astronomy. With systems, suns, and worlds, it sometimes amuses itself, and then only because they are the works of God. To him, to the eternal world, and to the road thither through Christ Jesus, it devotes itself in such a manner, that other things, as too minute for consideration, are lost to its meditations. A creating, a governing, a redeeming, a sanctifying God engages its gratitude, fires its love, confirms its faith, trust, hope, and by its goodness excites its wonder more than by all the demonstrations of wisdom and power displayed throughout the universe. In self-abasement this mind draws near to Christ, and through him, the way, the truth, and the life,' struggles upward to the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Folly, sin, and time, are left behind, and eternity strains the eye of faith, till every thing below disappears, and retires from attention. This mind meddles not with the mysteries of Divine Nature, but with those only of its mercy, patience, love; and is not at leisure to quarrel with other men about ceremonies, or metaphysical refinements, or the senseless whims of heretics, or the refractory spirit of schismatics. He is indeed engaged in a sharp controversy; but it is with himself, as a sinner, and with the devil, the world, and his own fleshly lusts, as the enemies of God, and his poor soul. In this he watches with all the severity, prays with all the ardour, and fights with all the vigour, that God hath given him. Having drawn this short character of a true Christian, it will be easily seen, wherein the fanatic, the enthusiast, the zealot, differ from him, and are culpable. The fanatic believes, or would have others believe, that he is divinely inspired and we shall believe that he really is, and that extraordinarily, as soon as he proves it by working miracles, as the apostles of Christ did. But no volubility in praying or preaching, especially with a mixture of nonsense; no shaking, no falling into

fits, or dancing; no bitter railing; no splitting or dividing the church of Christ, can ever prove any thing like it, but must prove the very reverse; as must also, in a still stronger manner, the advancement of opinions and practices contrary to, or not authorized by, the word of God. If the sacraments instituted by Christ, and the peace and charity of the church, placed by him and the Holy Spirit, as among the first fundamentals of our holy religion, are, in the smallest degree, slighted by any sect, that sect is not of God. There is not, there cannot be a clearer demonstration than this. So infinitely important and interesting are the principles of our divine religion, that it is utterly impossible to be too zealously affected towards it. No feelings of the most grateful heart can ever rise in warmth, equal to the demand made on it by a dying Saviour. No zeal, no enthusiasm can carry the human heart too far, or too high, for the acknowledgment of such goodness. Let no man therefore call him, by way of reproach, a zealot or enthusiast, who cheerfully gives his life on the rack, or in flames, in return for that God who shed his blood for him on the cross, for he repays but a little for that which is immense; a trifle not his own, for that which Christ held in property. But this enthusiasm, this zeal should be according to knowledge.' If our own vanity or our worldly interest, or our prejudice, or our attachment to a sect or party, hath any share in it, so far it is but base hypocrisy ; and it had been even better for us to have classed with the Laodiceans, perhaps with the infidels. Blessed Jesu! Thou hast offered up thy blood to redeem us from the torments of hell; thou hast entitled us to the joys of heaven. We are thine by creation, by redemption, by sanctification; what then have we of our own? Nothing, but a will and a heart, a vagrant will, and a corrupted heart, which, without thy influence, can hardly be said to be at our own disposal. Poor offerings indeed, if brought to thy altar, unless they flame up in gratitude and love! Yet if they should, what would that be to thy pity, and thy love for us, which drew thee from the glories of heaven to the infamy of the cross? Our warm and steady adherence to the saving truths of thy religion, instead of stirring us up to any degree of animosity against such as differ from us concerning those truths, inspires us with pity for their errors, and charity towards themselves, for this is one of those most sacred truths to which we adhere, that we should love all men, and particularly all that call themselves by thy name, howsoever imperfectly they make good their title to

that glorious name, in the midst of sincerity and honest dealing. Thy prayer on the cross for them, who knew not what they did, when they murdered thee, is more than a sufficient direction to us for our behaviour towards men, who as little know what they ought to believe.

130. Our Saviour tells us, that God knows better what we stand in need of than we do ourselves, and therefore orders our words to be few, and our prayers short, when we address ourselves to the majesty of heaven. We ourselves ought to consider, how little good it is, that we deserve at the hands of God. These considerations lead to modesty and brevity in our devotions, which ought ever to be preceded by meditation. The above serve for reasons in the minds of some infidels, for not praying at all. With these that other precept of our Saviour, to pray always, passes for nothing. It is much that they allow his doctrine to be just and right, when it seems to fall in with their own way of thinking. But may not our prayers be short and comprehensive, and yet frequently offered up? It is most true that God knows our wants much better than we do. This is not a reason why we ought not to be sensible of our own wants, of our great inability to supply them, and our continual dependence on him alone who can do it. Hence it is that prayer should be made ever unto the great Provider and Helper,' and that He 'ought daily to be praised for' being 'always more ready to hear, than we to pray.' All our addresses to the throne of mercy should be founded on a profound submission to his infinite wisdom; should not be offered by way of information or direction to him, but purely as representations of our wants and weakness, and of a humble sense in us of both. He that hath not this sense, is become a god of his own making, sets up for independence, and if left to his own presumption, must surely perish. To the Fountain of all goodness and power, the weak creature should continually pray, that he may be made stronger; the wicked creature should incessantly cry, that he may be converted; and the good creature, if such there is among mankind, should constantly solicit that he may become better. Not one of these can help himself; the world is more ready to corrupt, than aid him; and the devil is on the watch utterly to destroy him. What then can he do, but turn himself to God, ever present with him, ever full of pity for him, and mighty to save him? Cut off prayer, the sweet and comfortable communication between God and him, and he is lost for ever. This wretched