the Arian, the Socinian, the Papist, the Mahometan, would all equally find their account in it, and therefore have equal reason to urge it for the present turn; though the world knows there is not one denomination of them that would grant what they now demand, could they once get the church to themselves. Indeed they ought not; for with what conscience could a Popish church admit such men for teachers as they esteem heretics? Or how could an Arian or a Socinian church admit into the ministry a set of men, who, they are sensible, would teach the people the co-equality of the three Persons in the Trinity, which they regard as a most pernicious doctrine? Sure I am, if they did, they must be very unfaithful to the most awful trust that ever was reposed in man.

It will not, I hope, be denied, that some care ought to be taken by those who have any authority (howsoever they come by it) in any church, that the members of that church be taught Christianity, and not any other religion or superstition, such as Mahometism, Manicheism, Paganism, &c. If they do not take this care, how can they answer for the trust they conceive to be reposed in them, on the strength of which they meddle with the affairs of religion?

But they can in no sort shew themselves thus careful, without a strict inquiry into the principles, the morals, the capacities, and the knowledge, of such as they permit and appoint to be teachers of the people. If there is no inquiry into their principles, the people may have instructors who shall teach them to trust in Mahomet, or worship the devil. If there is no inquiry into their morals, the sheep may have goats and wolves for pastors. If there is no inquiry into their capacity and knowledge, the blind must be led by the blind; or the ignorant must be set up to teach those who have more understanding than themselves; which can tend to nothing but the utter contempt of the ministry, and, through that, of religion.

If, then, they who are already in authority may, or rather ought, thus to inquire, it follows, that they ought by the most effectual methods they can think of, to sound the capacities of such as sue for the ministry, to examine their skill in Scripture, to demand ample certificates of their good behaviour; and, as no man is morally good but on principle,

nor fit to be the guide of others, if he hath not somewhat to guide himself, they ought, above all things, to ask the candidates what their principles are; and to receive their answers, with the most solemn protestations of sincerity, either in the words of the candidates themselves, or by forms prepared and authorized in the church for that purpose, or by both; for it is impossible to be too careful in an affair of this consequence. But, as it is perfectly equal to the honest candidate, whether he discovers his religious sentiments in the words of the church, or his own; and as there is less danger of equivocal terms in a form warily prepared by the church; so the use of such forms is chiefly to be depended on. And, to answer the important end proposed by them, they cannot be too full, too express, too explicit; or, in case of prevarication, too severely damnatory. If, on the application of these means, the present governors of the church should judge the candidates to be, either in principle or practice, no Christians, I hope I may be allowed to say, they ought to reject them.

Now, although these governors should be ever so really heterodox in themselves, yet, as they think their principles right, they cannot judge the candidates to be Christians, if they find their sentiments essentially opposite to their own; or, even if they find them to be indifferent to what they take to be essential, they cannot think them fit instructors for the people. The Athanasian cannot, as an honest man, admit the Arian, nor the Arian the Athanasian; the Protestant cannot, without doing violence to his conscience, admit the Papist; nor the Papist, without the like violence, ordain the Protestant, any more than he could the Mahometan, knowing him to be such. Now it is no objection to this method, that the candidate, after all, may have prevaricated, because the governors of the church are not obliged to search the heart; but they are certainly obliged to do, in this behalf, the best they can; and when they have done it, but not till then, they have discharged their consciences in the sight of God.

That it is the indispensable duty of church-governors, especially in times like these, to take this method, is so very obvious to common sense, that, I own, my being particular on this subject might give this Discourse an air of puerility,

were not all I have said disputed by a numerous party among us, and that so gravely, as to satisfy the unwary they are in good earnest.

But if I stand in need of an apology to men of reason, in thus taking up their time by the proof of positions so indisputable; how shall I excuse myself to the honest part of my audience for the descant I am going to give on the necessity of sincerity in those who subscribe, and solemnly declare for, such forms as I have been recommending? Surely, you will say, it must be as needless to expatiate on such a point, as to prove, that sacrilege or perjury is a crime. Is it possible for the most abandoned of mankind to prevaricate, on so solemn an occasion, with the governors of the church, with the all-seeing God, even while the holy mysteries are in view? How am I overwhelmed with shame and sorrow, when I tell you, that numbers have not only the baseness of soul thus to prevaricate, but even the impudence of face to defend it when it is done! O tell it not, my brethren, at Edinburgh, publish it not in the streets of Rome; lest the disciples of Knox rejoice, lest the bigots of Hildebrand triumph!

They say, our articles and creeds do not set forth the doctrines of the Trinity, of the satisfaction of eternal punishments, &c. in terms so strict, but that he who believes the contrary may honestly subscribe them all. They say, a man may solemnly declare before God his unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the book of Common Prayer; may solemnly undertake, when he is ordained, to teach its doctrines, and no other; may solemnly repeat its prayers, though he utterly disbelieves the doctrines just now mentioned, and teaches the very reverse; and yet -amazing! may be an-honest man; for no other reason, that I can find, but because, by so doing, he may acquire a place wherein to make his abilities useful, and a power to do good, that is, to disabuse the people in relation to these very doctrines, thus solemnly assented to. However, as such men cannot help looking on this practice as a sort of indecorum, they are ever scheming the repeal of these subscriptions and declarations. I may say on this, as Tertullian did on a different occasion: "How miserably is the conduct of these men confounded, and rendered inconsistent with

itself, by necessity!" They subscribe the articles as orthodox, and solicit the repeal of them as unsound. They publicly declare for them as consonant to Scripture, and privately undermine them as contrary thereunto. And this they do, that they may have it in their power to serve the God of truth in his vineyard, by pruning away those branches, as mere excrescences, which they promised to support with all their skill. Are we, in such a service, 'to do evil, that good may come of it? God forbid.' Let those who defend the practice of subscribing forms directly repugnant to their real sentiments, on the pretence of thereby acquiring an opportunity to insinuate sounder principles than those contained in the forms, by the aid of double meanings supposed in the forms, or of secret reservations conceived in their own minds, consider seriously, how such a scheme, with its excuse, would have sounded in the ears of our blessed Saviour. Suppose one of his disciples, Judas, for instance, none of the rest being capable of the thing, should have thus addressed him:

"O divine Master, I have with concern observed, that mankind are averse to the truths of thy holy religion, when openly and nakedly proposed; and still more unwilling to receive a system of morality so pure and severe, if it is not recommended to them by the appearance of somewhat more indulgent. They will not, I foresee, be persuaded to quit their pleasing prepossessions, for a set of principles that are as disagreeable as they are new to them. Wilt thou, therefore, permit me to declare myself a worshipper of the heathen gods, that I may, by this expedient, insinuate myself into the priesthood of Baal or Jupiter, and, in that situation, artfully pass thy religion and worship on the people, under the mask of their own? In taking this course, I intend to graft on the minds of the Pagans such unsuspected principles, in the disguise of other philosophical opinions which they favour, and by the assistance of ambiguous terms, as may serve for the seeds of truth, and be afterward so effectually urged, as to procure a total admission of our religion. They will not receive the first principles of a system they are so averse to, while they are aware of the tendency; but if these principles are once admitted, which, by prudently concealing the consequences, they may; we can, at our leisure, teach

them to draw the conclusion, and hold them to it, till they are wholly ours."

Let the Socinian and Arian subscribers of our articles consider how Christ would have received such a proposal. And let them not presume to vindicate themselves by saying, their conduct is different from that in the supposition. That in the supposition, which would have stirred the indignation of Christ, is the base profession of Paganism, and the actual worship of its gods, against the conviction of him who was to do it, in order to insinuate an ingenuous system of truths, and promote the credit of a Master who could not but disdain such a service. Now the same idolatrous disingenuity, with a notable aggravation, is found in the conduct of an Arian or Socinian, who subscribes our articles, declares for our creeds, and repeats the liturgy as a solemn act of worship to Christ and the Holy Ghost, whom he believes to be creatures. Is he not as truly an idolater, or at least a prevaricator, as Judas could have been in the first case? Nay, does he not act rather a viler part; since there was no form of heathen principles so strict and explicit as the Athanasian creed, tendered to the candidates for the Pagan priesthood?

Dr. Clarke, who, although a Semi-arian, was, by virtue of the subscriptions and declarations we are speaking of, possessed of the rectory of St. James's, to apologize in this behalf for himself, and others alike circumstanced, hath in a most elaborate work, endeavoured to reconcile his principles, first with the holy Scriptures, and then with the liturgy, and even the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. If he hath succeeded in this attempt to the satisfaction of his admirers, they need not, surely, wish for the abolition of these creeds. But I will venture to say, it is as easy to accommodate the first article of either to Atheism or Polytheism, as the subsequent ones to Socinianism, Arianism, or Semi-arianism. Otherwise the framers of these forms were certainly the most unhappy of all men in expressing themselves. They intended, I believe, to be very precise in their terms, very strong and close in their propositions, and thereby to anathematize the Arian opinion among others. The abettors of those opinions thought so, and complained. But behold the strange mistake of both! Those creeds either maintain the contrary principles agitated at the councils of Nice and Constanti