method men's attention is turned away from the consideration of the word as the word of God, or as the means of his appointment for our conversion and sanctification: under which consideration alone we are to expect that God will bless and make the truths delivered effectual to these salutary ends. Besides, when people are accustomed to receive doctrines upon the ground of their own reason, without any reference to the authority of God speaking in the scriptures; their natural prejudice against receiving the mysteries of the gospel upon the ground of that authority alone, is countenanced and increased; and they are prepared to imbibe any corrupt opinion, when recommended to them by some plausible reasoning.

Fourthly, the fashionable systems of philosophy have contributed much to the present defection from the doctrines of the reformation. It is generally allowed, that even in the first three centuries, many were chargeable with corrupting the doctrines of the Christian religion by mixing them with the opinions of the Platonick philosophy; a scheme, which gave birth to the Gnosticks, the Valentinians and other heretics, in that early period. Thus, many professors are obstinately attached to the false tenets which they have learned from the modern systems of philosophy: systems, which represent the doctrines of God's eternity without succession, his omnipresence without extension as unintelligible jargon; which describe the powers of human nature in a manner inconsistent with its present fallen state; which hold the nature of things, men's feelings, or something else than the revealed will of God to be the standard of moral virtue; which reduce the evil of sin to a light and trivial matter, by calling it a human frailty or imperfection, of little account in

the eye of the Deity; and which allow us no other ground for the faith of what is revealed in the Holy Scriptures, than human reason or human testimony. We would not detract from the praise due to sound philosophy, which teaches to study distinctness in our conceptions of these things and accuracy in reasoning about them; and which by its discoveries heightens our views of the wisdom, power and goodness of God in his works, and promotes the conveniency and comfort of human life. Philosophy may be also a handmaid to faith. But, in order to be useful in this respect, it must be duly subordinate to the authority of Divine revelation*.

* Habuit se ad Theologiam philosophia in scholis quorundam saltem Patrum, ut socia; in gymnasiis scholasticorum, ut domina in reformatorum cathedris, ut ancilla : That is, Philosophy was to Theology in the schools of the Fathers, a sister or equal; in the disputations of the Schoolmen, a mistress or superior; but in the seminaries of the Reformed churches, only a handmaid. To this observation of Dr. Arrowsmith, an eminent Divine of the seventeenth century, may be added some remarks of the celebrated Voetius, a contemporary writer. Vide Disput. de Errore et Hæresi. In the epistle to the Coloss. ii. 8. Christians are warned of the danger they are in of being spoiled, or made a prey of, through philosophy. But then it is such philosophy as is but vain deceit. It is not that philosophy, which God himself teaches, as he is the Author of nature and of right reason. The apostle here intends those false opinions and sects of philosophers, which, being too much followed and admired by many professors of Christianity, were a principal cause of their departure from the truth. Thus he condemns endless, vain or fabulous genealogies, 1 Tim. i. 4. Science falsely so called, 1 Tim. vi. 20. false revelations, 2 Thessal. ii. 2. and gaudy or sophistical eloquence, 1 Corinth. ii. 1, 4. but not the genealogies we have recorded in scripture, nor any true science, revelation, or eloquence. Here the maxim holds, That the abuse of a thing may be taken away, without taking away the thing itself or its use. It is true, some positions, usually admitted as axioms by Philosophers in treating of natural things, seem repugnant to the mysteries of faith, such as, That nothing is made of nothing, and that a power or habit, totally destroyed, cannot be restored. But we justly allow, that these axioms hold true of second causes, operating according to the ordinary

Fifthly, the decline of stedfast adherence to the doctrine of the reformation has been promoted by lax

course of nature. And we no more deny the necessity and usefulness of them within their own sphere, when we say, that they are not to be applied to matters of faith, which cannot be known but by supernatural revelation; than we deny that the manner of knowing external objects by means of our bodily senses is useful and necessary in the present state; when we say, that that manner of knowing is not to be extended to objects purely intellectual; an abuse, which has led some to hold, that pure spirits and even the Divine Essence may be seen with the bodily eye.

True philosophy ministers, as an handmaid; to the Christian religion, not only as it teaches us to handle every subject with accuracy and precission; and as the knowledge, thereby attained, helps us to make use of natural things, by way of comparison or similitude, for the illustration of spiritual things: but especially as it serves to expose the vain pretensions of a false philosophy, by which many labour insidiously to undermine the foundations of our faith.

Men are apt to run into an extreme, either in magnifying or in depreciating the use of philosophy, from their obstinate attachment to favourite errors. When the Metaphysicks of Suarez, a Popish writer, were published, the Arminians read them with great avidity, and were continually extolling and repeating the subtilties of that author about the scientia media, free will, sufficient grace, and the like topicks, relative to the opinions which they themselves maintained in opposition to the doctrine of the reformed churches. But when the judicious defenders of that doctrine had sufficiently exposed the false Metaphysicks of Suarez; the Arminians changed their note; and exclaimed, that their opponents were forsaking the simpli city of Christian doctrine, and dealing in the jargon of Metaphysicks, in the quiddities and hicceities of Aristotle. Meanwhile, their own controversial writings abounded with metaphysical notions and distinctions, which, as employed in support of their peculiar tenets, were either false or misapplied. ` It was a stratagem, to induce the Calvinistick writers to make no more use of metaphysical reasoning, which the Arminians, had found too solid to be refuted; in order that their own false metaphysicks, which they obtruded upon the world for true philosophy, might pass unexamined. The apostate emperor Julian used a similar artifice in forbidding the Christians to be instructed in the Grecian literature; because he found that by means of it they were enabled to expose the vain pretences upon which he and his philosophers attempted to palliate the enormous wickedness of the Pagan idolatry.

schemes of church-communion. There is no particu lar church which has not some articles of revealed truth, which have been solemnly acknowledged as belonging to her profession and to the bond of her communion. When the office-bearers of a particular church admit the known deniers and opposers of such articles, they are chargeable with gross dishonesty, and with a flagrant contempt of the charge, that Christ hath given his people, to hold fast what they have attained. It is a vain excuse, that the truths denied are less fundamental; while they belong to the bond of the church's communion; while they bear the same stamp of Divine authority with those which are deemed more fundamental; and while there is such a connexion among the truths revealed in God's word, that the denial of the less fundamental leads to the denial of those which are more so; and while the authority of God speaking in his word may be no less despised by the denial of the former, than by that of the latter. Thus the Papists trample as much upon his authority in withholding the cup from the people in the Lord's Supper, as in denying the imputation of Christ's righteousness to believers for their justification. For though the matter of duty reJected in the former case may be deemed less important, it is no less clearly revealed than the matter of faith denied in the latter. Besides, they who hold the grossest errors, will often profess adherence to the essentials of Christianity, and will make frequent use of the very expressions of scripture, which plainly contain the truths which they obstinately deny. A Socinian will say, I believe in the Holy Spirit; but then he adds, that the Holy Spirit is not a person, but only an attribute or operation of the Deity. Again, I believe, says he, the resurrection of the body; adding,

however, that he does not mean the resurrection of the same body. An Arminian will say, there is an election, of Christians to salvation; but then it is such an election, that the execution of it is suspended upon man's free-will by which it may be frustrated. Thus

persons may profess adherence to the essensials of Christianity, and to many scriptural propositions expressing the articles of our faith; and yet they could not be honestly admitted to church-communion by the office-bearers of the reformed churches; while they are well known to understand the said propositions in a heretical sense; and to deny the truth really contained in them. That such admissions, however, often take place in the Protestant churches at this day, is too evident, from the prevailing contempt of Confessions of Faith*; from the loose casuistry of many about the

* The practise of the Protestant churches in requiring their ministers and other members to make a solemn profession of adherence to their publick Formulas or confessions of faith is warranted by all those passages of scripture in which we are enjoined to confess Christ before men; to hold fast the form of sound words; to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints; to strive together with one mind for the faith of the gospel. It is, indeed necessary to contend for the words of the scripture as the very words of God. But this is not enough. For many, who, in profession, held the words of scripture, wrest them to their own destruction, 1 Peter iii. 16. In the time of Christ and his apostles, the Sadducees and the Judaizing teachers professed their belief of the Old Testament scriptures; whilst in various points they denied the true sense of these scriptures. Thus, our Lord maintained not only the words which God spoke to Moses out of the bush, but also the true sense of these words in opposition to the error of the Sadducees, Luke xx. 37, 381 In like manner, the apostle Paul declares the sense of various words of the Old Testament in opposition to the legal doctrine of the Judaizing teachers, Gal. 8, 11, 16, 21, 22. Now as there were false teachers and hereticks in the times of the apostles, so our Lord warned us of the rise and spread of such in the last times, 2 Tim. iii. 1. iv. 3, 4, 1 Corinth. xi. 19. 1 John iv. 3. 2 Peter ii. 1 Such, in the present day, are the Socinians, the Arminians and others and it is the duty of