I thank thee, I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican;" thus spake the Pharisee "but, the publican, standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes to Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner!" Which of these went home to his house, justified rather than the other? And of whom did Christ spake this parable? He spake it (says St. Luke) unto certain men, which trusted in themselves, that they were righteous, and despised others. It is absolutely necessary; in order to prevent the young from being imposed upon by these lofty pretensions, to protest against them, in the plainest, and most serious manner; they are so far from being proofs of pure, and genuine religion, that they are the almost infallible characteristics of vulgar, and unblushing fanaticism, the most mistaken, and impetuous enthusiasts have all began in the same manner, have all arrogantly, and studiously,. depreciated every other mode of worship, have all grasped at the monopoly of piety and reason: It is not the practice of the church of England to do these things; it is

not the habit of her ministers to speak insultingly, or to think arrogantly of those who worship the same God, however different be the mode of that adoration, she prefers her own doctrine; but she prefers it without boasting, and without invidious comparison; she derives from her antiquity, calm, and dignified satisfaction, and from her experience, the high blessings of moderation, and forbearance; but when these vain, and mistaken zealots tell her, that she is superannuated, and decayed, that she is oppressed by the languor of age, and unstrung by the indolence of success; that she should rebuild her altars after their model, and speak to the God of Heaven as they speak; when this is the part assumed by men, whose predominant notion of religion seems to be that it is something removed as far from common sense as possible, it is then surely time to ask these men who made them lords, and teachers over us, and where each of them has found that garment of Elijah, in which they so fondly walk upon the earth; they have so long held this language; it has been so long heard in silence, that the silence of inactivity has

been mistaken for the silence of guilt: it is time that the young, upon whose unprac tised minds they are always at work, should know, that moderation is not wholly indefensible; and it is time they should be taught to exact, of religious presumption, proofs as severe as its pretensions are high.

Not that it is meant by these remarks to › insinuate, that the church is endangered by this denomination of christians; I hope, and believe that its roots are too deep, its structure too admirable, its defenders too able, and its followers too firm, to be shaken by this or any other species of attack; but if such dangers do exist, which I am not able to perceive, that danger is not from principles well known, and previously refuted; it is not from men who profess to reason about their faith, and who give you some means of making to them a reply; but it is from that fanaticism, which professes only to feel, and not to reason, which is intangible, and invisible to its enemies, which it is no more possible to meet with the common efforts. of reason, than it is to dispute with a burning fever, or to argue down a subtle contagion.

There exists too, in this sect, not only the arrogance of which I am speaking, but that unchristian charity in the judgment of the motives of others, which is the natural consequence of such arrogance; they are perpetually in the habit of putting on the actions of the rest of mankind, a construction which depreciates all other religions, and exalts their own; like all small sects, living, and acting together, their proselytes inflame each other, by mutual praise, into an exaggerated sense of their own value; and glide, imperceptibly, into a kind of confused notion, that they are a chosen, and consecrated people, placed by God in the bosom of idolatry, to purify, and to save mankind. It is impossible not to perceive, that such are the secret feelings by which these men are influenced, and, perceiving it, it is not possible, at the same time, to admit, that they hold the christian faith in all that vigour, purity, and vitality, which they would make us ordinary Christians to believe.

Another mischief which they do to the cause of religion is, that, by their

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eager, and overheated imaginations, they bring discredit upon the sacred cause, and upon the name of religion; they are taunted as the priests of Baal were taunted;" cry 66 aloud, for he is a God: either he is talk

ing, or pursuing, or he is in a journey, "or, peradventure, he sleepeth, and must "be waked: and they cried aloud, and cut "themselves, after their barbarous manner, "with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed "out upon them." Nothing can be more mistaken in fact, than to look upon the frantic extravagance, or the undignified trifling of their teachers as innocent: Nothing is innocent which casts the faintest shade of error, or of folly upon true religion: Nothing is innocent which disposes the minds of men to confound a serious Christian with an enthusiastic Christian: Nothing is innocent which induces them to dishonor alike the firmness of rational conviction, and the vehemence of ignorant passion; nothing which, by disgusting correct judgments, runs the remotest risque of involving sober Christi anity in the fate of low fanaticism.-He who is reproached for being in one extreme,