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who are still alive. However, it can be no difadvantage to their characters, that they were of this fociety. As fuch a set of men, to fay the leaft, is rarely to be met with, fo no doubt the methods they purfued in the meetings of their fociety for mutual_improvement, were a great means of their being qualified for the reputable appearance they made in the world, and the important fervices to which they were called.

MANY had begun very foon to conceive a great jealoufy of this fociety. It was whispered about, that these men aimed at great alteration, in the church. That they had given up some articles of religion which had been looked upon as of great importance, and that they were about to lay afide the Weftminster Confeffion of faith (which had been always regarded in the north, with great veneration, and to which from the year 1705, in pursuance of an act of the Synod, fubfcription had been required of intrants

and intereft, and by arbitrating in cafes referred to him. He bestowed much time and pains in fuch fervices, and by degrees became much more involved in business than himself or his friends could have wifhed, but raifed himfelf to high efteem with perfons of rank and diftinctiin that country.

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Ir was a custom with the Belfast fociety, at their meetings, to have a fermon preached upon fome article of natural, or revealed religion. Mr. Abernethy, at their defire, preached one upon Rom. xiv. 5. Let every man be fully perfuaded in his own mind. In this he explained the rights of private judgment, and the foundations of chriftian liberty, very much to the fatisfac tion of his hearers. The fermon was pub lished, and has been esteemed an excellent performance: But it greatly increased the jealoufies which were then growing up. Some favourite points refpecting church power, and the terms of chriftian communion, were ftruck at in it, and a very great cry was raifed. Some papers were published against it, and the fociety published defences of it: But I do not mean to give the reader a history of the debates and controverfies which followed upon this. They were foon brought into the general Synod, and continued from year to year, ftill increafing till they ended in an unhappy rupture in the year 1726. the Synod; at last, determining

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determining rmining that thofe minifters, who, the time of this rupture, and for fome years before, were known by the name of Nonfubfcribers, fhould be fhould be no longer of their body. I do not mean, I fay, to write history of these debates (there is a very full one in the narrative published by the Nonfubfcribers, to which I refer the reader) but only to give a short account of the part Mr. Abernethy acted in them, and of his fentiments concerning them, Yet it may not be improper, for the fake of fuch readers as are altogether strangers to these matters, to fhew what the avowed principles of the Nonfubfcribers were, about which the controverfy was raised. These principles are contained in fome propofitions published in their Narrative, which may be abridged in a very few words, viz. First, That our Lord Jefus Chrift hath in the New Teftament determined and fixed the terms of communion in his church. That all chriftians who comply with thefe, have a right to communion; and that no man, or set of men, have power to add any other terms to those fettled in the gofpel. Secondly, That it is not neceffary, as an evidence of foundnefs in the faith, that candidates for the

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miniftry fhould fubfcribe the Westminster Confeffion, or any uninfpired form of articles, or confeffion of faith, as the term upon which they shall be admitted. And that no church has a right to impofe fuch fubfcription upon them. Thirdly, That to call upon men to make declarations concern ing their faith, upon the penalty of cutting them off from communion, if they should refuse it; and this merely upon fufpicions and jealoufies, while the perfons required to purge themselves by fuch declarations, cannot be fairly convicted upon evidence, of any error or herefy, is to exercise an exorbitant and arbitrary power, and is really an inquifition. These are the main princiciples of the Nonfubfcribers. They will be found explained at large in their narrative, from pag. 185, to 188.

BUT the reader is not to imagine, that all the minifters of the fynod denied all these propofitions, and held the contradic tory to them: For, with refpect to the first, tho' it is the main foundation upon which the non-fubfcribers built, yet it is what all agree in; no one pleading, that there is any power in the church to make

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new laws or terms of communion; tho' it thoit has been often pleaded, that church judicatories have authority to judge concerning the fenfe and meaning of those terms which our Saviour has fixed. But the main debates were concerning the other propofitions; and the reader will readily conjecture, that, with respect to thefe, likewife, all who were of the fubfcribing fide, might not be of one mind in every particular, especially as to the importance of them: But they univerfally went into the demand of fubscription, which the others opposed.

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ALL who know any thing of churchhistory, know, that no debates in the world have been keener or more obftinate, than thofe concerning matters of religion. The natural paffions of the human heart are greatly enflamed by zeal, for what is believed to be the cause of truth and of God; and intemperate heat may easily pass upon the partial and less difcerning, and be indulged" as a highly commendable virtue. The debates in the general fynod, and in other affemblies of minifters upon the present occafion, were very warm, and abundantly fruitful of most unhappy confequences.

BEFORE

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