an high affront to God and to the reason of man, to chatter over words and syllables before the God of heaven, and to address him about the important things of grace and salvation and eternal life, and yet know nothing of our wants or our petitions! How serious, how fervent, how spiritual should our devotion be, in comparison of theirs who are taught to pronounce a little gibberish in Latin instead of serious devotion? Whenever I read of any instances of religious and devout Papists, and especially if they are persons of the lower rank of life, who have not the advantages of the men of learning among them; and when I reflect to what heights here and there one of them have risen in the spiritual parts of religion, I blush and am ashamed of myself, who enjoy so much superior advantages, and sink so far below them in these divine exercises.

We are not brought up in the superstitions and idolatries of the church of Rome; we are not taught to worship saints and angels, nor required to bow down before a piece of bread in the hand of a priest, nor to pay religious honours to images of wood and stone, of gold and silver; we are not taught to address ourselves to departed saints and angels for mediators, to apply to the Virgin mother instead of Christ her Son, nor to address the apostles, instead of their Master: we are directed only to the one Medi ator, Christ the Son of God, who is all sufficient, to reconcile us to God, and to make our persons and our prayers acceptable before the throne; whereas the disciples of the Pope distribute the care of their best interests amongst many mediators, and recommend themselves to the protection of many saints and sayiours. Well, let us enquire then, are our hearts united in the faith and love of Jesus, the only Mediator, more than theirs? Are we better acquainted with Jesus the Son of God, to whom we have committed all our immortal concerns, since our thoughts and hopes, our wishes and prayers, are not divided amongst many intercessors? Do we pay more honour to Jesus our only Saviour than they do, who have so many objects of their trust and worship to divide their hearts and devotion into slender streams?

What shall I say for our own excuse, if I should find some papists exceeding us in their love to God, in their devotion to Christ, and in their benevolence to men? I believe indeed their number is but small, but methinks it is a shame and reproach to us under our superior advantages, if there should be found any of that corrupt and superstitious church practising the christian religion, in the substantial duties of it, better than we. When I read Thomas a Kempis resigning himself to his Lord and Saviour in such pious language, Give me what thou wilt, and as much or little as thou wilt, and when thou wilt. Deal with me as thou knowest to be most proper, and as may bring thee most

glory; place me where thou pleasest, I am in thy hand, turn me and toss me from side to side: behold thy servant ready to be and bear every thing, for my desire is not to live to myself, but to thee. When I hear that excellent man the Archbishop of Cambray lifting up his devout heart thus to heaven, in the same strains of pious resignation, I am for thee, O my God, against myself; none could have thus divided me from myself but thy hand only. I leave myself in thy hand, O my God, mould this clay of mine, and turn it up, and turn it down again, give it a form, then break it and new mould it; it is entirely thine, it has nothing to reply, it is enough for me that this being of mine serves thy purposes and thy good pleasure; command, appoint, forbid, what I shall do, or what I shall not do: elevated, abased, comforted, suffering, I for ever adore thee in sacrificing all my own will to thine: when I hear this language of a papist, how am I ashamed of my own restive and unpliable heart? How much do I want of such an entire resignedness to my Maker's will? With what pleasure do I read Monsieur de Renty in the zeal of his inward piety running counter to the practices of his own communion, and declaring that, If we know not our own devotion rather by the mortification and denial of ourselves, than by the multiplication of our devout exercises, it is to be feared they will be rather practices of condemnation than of sanctification and yet we see the work of Jesus Christ is almost reduced to this pass among the spiritual persons of our times. But it is with a sacred regret and self-displicency I would look upon myself, while I review other parts of his life, where he took upon him all the mean and laborious figures of service to his fellowcreatures, and conformed himself to all inconveniences for the good of his neighbour: Methinks, says he, my soul is all charity, and I am not able to express with what ardency and strange expansion I find my heart to be renewed in the divine life of my new-born Saviour, burning all in love towards mankind. How do I wish that I could repeat from my heart the words of that poor servant maid Armelle Nicholas in France in the last century, God has not sent me into this world but to love him, and by his great mercy I have loved him so much, that I cannot do it more in the way of mortal creatures; I must go to him, that I may love him in the way of the blessed.

But before I dismiss this head entirely, I would take notice of one advantage more which the protestants of Great-Britain enjoy toward the practice of charity and love to their fellowcreatures, above and beyond what the papists generally enjoy; and yet even in this very grace of charity there have been instances, as you see, wherein some of them exceed us. remember that we are not educated in such a cruel and bloody religion as the papists, which cruelty, though it is not practised

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by all of them, yet is taught by their leaders. Their religion encourages and inspires men to murder and destroy their fellowcreatures for God's sake, as our Saviour himself foretold; John xvi. 2. They first call us heretics, and then condemn, torment and murder us, and blindly imagine they are doing God service. O bless the name of the Lord for your freedom from the hand and power of those whose religion it is to do mischief in the name of God, and to destroy those that the priests and the inquisitors shall pronounce guilty of any opinions which they are pleased to call heresy! How often do they dress up a protestant as it were in a wolf's or a bear's skin, and send out all their dogs to devour him? Bless God with all the powers of your souls that you are not bred up in these barbarous sentiments; nor should you think yourself worthy of the name of a protestant, if you do not make the bible the rule of your faith and practice, and give others leave to find out their duty also in that holy book, according to their own best sense of it, as well as yourselves. But if you reproach and persecute the sincere enquiries after the truth, if you bite and devour those who differ from you in their religious sentiments, who are humble and sincere enquirers, What do you more than others? What are you better than the bloody papists ? And indeed how much worse are you than some few of them whose souls abhor this cruel anti-christian tyranny? This barbarous temper of yours would run all the lengths of persecution even to blood and burning, if the sword and the fire were entrusted in your hands. Shew therefore that you live in a land of protestant principles and an age of liberty, and that the spirit of the gospel, the spirit of charity and love, dwells in you, by allowing to all men the freedom of their own opinions, while they maintain the public peace and as you profess to follow the divine rule of scripture, and the dictates of your own consciences with honesty and sincere zeal, believe charitably that your fellow.christians of a different party may seek after the truth with as much zeal and with equal sincerity, though they may not happen to see all things in the same light, nor embrace the same principles. Let not your accusations and censures grieve their spirits. Make it appear that you love your neighbours, your fellow-christians, and even the enemies of your person and your religion better than the papists, from whom you would distinguish yourselves with honour. But this shall suffice for the general distinction between papists and protestant.

HII. We are come in the next place to consider ourselves as protestant dissenters: hereby we are distinguished from our fellow-christians who belong to the national church of England, in our choice of different modes of worship and ministrations of holy things. Permit me here to address you who are my hearers under this character, and enquire what do you more than others?

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You who attend upon the worship of God in separate assemblies, and sit under the ministrations of those, who have no commission from the spiritual guides of the nation and rulers of the church; you who in this respect are placed under such a sort of providence as to be imitators of the disciples of Christ when he maintained separate assemblies, and preached to the people without receiving any public authority, or so much as countenance and approbation from the rulers of the national church in his day. Surely this is a question of very awful importance, and very necessary, while we continue our separation, what higher degrees of piety or virtue do we practise? What sublimer advances in religion are we arrived at? Wherein are we better by all our nonconformity than those who constantly conform to the church of England as by law established? What do all our pretences to separation mean, if we ascend to no, superior degrees of godliness?

But before I enter into so nice a subject as a comparison between the advantages and obligations to strict religion, which are found amongst the dissenters, or amongst the church of England, and their different improvements under them, I desire to lay down this one caution, viz. That nothing which I am going to speak should be construed to relate to any of those holy souls who are of the first rank in the school of Christ, who are the most pious and the most strictly religious, either among the members of the church of England, or among protestant dissenters; for I am not going to speak to or of these persons, nor would I make comparison between them: I would set them all before me as examples for my humble imitation and yours, and not for the subjects of my comparison. I am verily persuaded there are many persons of both communities who are dear to God, whose names have an honourable place in the book of life, who walk humbly and closely with God in all the known duties of the christian state, whose sobriety in what relates to themselves, whose justice and charity in what relates to their neighbours, and whose devotion in what belongs to God, is glorious and exemplary indeed; who are taught and led by the same spirit of holiness, and are largely interested in the favour of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. To those holy souls on both sides I would only ask leave to say, Go on in your illustrious course of christianity; rival each other in the swiftness of your race, in your pious and divine progress toward heaven; and may each of you run so far, as to obtain one of the larger and fairer crowns of righteousness that shall never fade away. Yet I can hardly withhold myself from pronouncing this one word of justice, That if any of the members of the established church in this most pious rank of men, are superior to those of our dissenting churches, I think they ought to have the honour

of this superiority; and some degree of shame will belong to the best of us, if we are found inferior to them either in virtue towards men, or piety towards God, because of our superior advantages and obligations.

Having laid down this caution, I come to declare that the persons whom I would at this time compare together, are the common professors of religion in the church of England, and the common professors among the dissenters, the bulk of the people both on the one side and on the other; and I would fain excite you who hear me this day, who are professors of religion, and call yourselves protestant dissenters, to bethink yourselves a little concerning the sensible decay of real goodness that is found amongst you, in order to awaken you to the warmest zeal and utmost endeavours to revive languishing and dying religion. Give me leave, while I have the honour to be a preacher amongst you in this congregation, to address you in the words of our blessed Saviour, who was in his day a divine teacher to a con、 gregation meeting upon a mountain, and in the pathetic language of admonition and love I would say to my hearers as he did to his disciples, What do you more than others? What is there of duty to God or man, wherein you separatists from the public establishment, exceed the rest of the nation? And to enforce this exhortation, I shall here consider:

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I. What real advantages for religion you enjoy above your brethren of the church of England, according to your own common sense of things. II. What superior obligations lie upon you, by your particular profession of religion in a separate way. And under each of these two general heads, I shall run through various particulars.

SECT. III.-The Advantages of Protestant Dissenters in matters of Religion.

The first question that offers itself to our consideration is this, What are the real and special advantages for improvement in religion which you protestant dissenters enjoy, or suppose you enjoy, above your brethren of the church of England? And here I desire my readers to observe, that I neither design to begin nor maintain any controversy with my brethren of the established church in these papers, which are written purely to revive practical godliness amongst us; nor would I willingly give them any offence. I confess indeed, that it may not be improper in some parts of our ministrations, to enter into the merits of the cause, and modestly to give our people an account of the reasons why we separate from the public worship of the parish; and yet this we have almost universally declined for many years out of respect to the church, nor is this my present business or intent in this place; nor shall I stand to enumerate all our differences,'