clears them from all fufpicion of unjust prejudice or prevention. And these are,

ift, The immoral and unexemplary lives of the Clergy. And,

2dly, The irrational fyftem of Chrif tianity.

Let us examine both these pretences.

They will not believe the truth of the Christian Religion on account of the unfanctified Lives of its minifters. But what has this to do with the truth or falsehood of a Revelation established upon full evidence, evidence which has nothing to do with the perfonal Character of its minifters? Was irreftible Grace promised, by this Religion, to them, fomething might be faid for so abfurd a conclufion; which infers the falfehood of a Religion from the follies of its Paftors. But fince they continue men, as other men. are, as well after they have devoted themto the service of the altar, as before, and liable to all the common infirmities of humanity, no conclufion can be drawn from their perfonal difcredit, to the difcredit of Dd3

that

that Religion which they fo unworthily ferve.

Again, as to the irrational aud abfurd tenets of the Religion itself. It is certain no fuch could come from God. And if our Religion teaches that fuch did come from him, this were fully fufficient to difcredit it. But our free-thinkers fhould have been affured of what they fay, by a careful study of the Scriptures themfelves, before they advanced fo heavy a charge against the Religion of their Country. And fo doubtlefs they would, had not the prejudices arifing from their Iniquities made them very defirous that Religion fhould be a falfe and fictitious thing; and therefore they received any thing that came to them under the name of Christianity (fo it would ferve their purpose to decry and difhonour it), without examining whether it was the genuine Gospel of Chrift, or no; nay, under a ftrong fufpicion, and fometimes, a fure conviction, that it was not. The truth is, they knowingly give us the doctrines of Men, for the doctrines of God; and then, from the abfurdities of sects and parties, of fums and fyftems, argue against

the

the truth of the Gospel. I faid, knowingly; for, at other times, when they have been disposed to abuse the Clergy, they have produced these very doctrines as their adulterate manufacture; which, when they argued against Religion itself, they called the doctrines of the Gospel. What are we then to conclude from this conduct, both with regard to their objections to the ill lives of the Clergy, and to the abfurdity of the Chrißian tenets, but that they were ashamed to own to others the true cause of their Infidelity, and for their own ease would even endeavour to hide it from themfelves; and, in its ftead, would obtrude upon us other more fpecious causes; which yet are in themselves so inconclufive, that, but for the reason above, they would not have ventured to build upon them fo important an affair as that of their own falvation? If these men therefore would perfuade us that they are, as they fo loudly proclaim themselves, fincere inquirers after truth, let them, by way of experiment only, caft off their vices, reform their lives, and conform a little to the moral precepts Dd 4

of

of the Gospel and if then these formidable objections against Revelation still wear the fame face, and do not fhrink into nothing, we will believe them to be honeft and fincere; which, to believe before, would be an excess of charity, that even the benevolent Genius of the Gofpel would not excufe, or fupport.

The conclufion and inference from the whole is this, that it is infinitely to the difcredit of modern infidelity, and as much to the honour of our holy faith, that it is Iniquity which makes unbelievers. For how miferable must that Cause be, where the true reafon of their rejecting Revelation is one of the marks of its truth, namely, the vengeance of Heaven against vice and immorality! No one can think, had this Religion only offered Rewards for Believers, that ever there would have been fuch a thing as an Unbeliever; and yet this would have been a certain mark of its falfehood, as it is of the Mahometan and other fuperftitions. But as foon as ever it proves its pretenfions from Heaven, by pronouncing mifery to Vice, as well as happinefs

3

piness to Virtue, then the world begins to fwarm with Freethinkers.

On the other hand, what can be more for the honour of a Religion, than that it drives from it all determined wickedness, as not able to bear the fplendor of its visage; especially when we confider that this fame Religion, fo terrible to hardened Vice, bears the most benignant afpect to a repentant finner, whom she invites to her bosom, and to whom the communicates all her comforts and confolations?

Let therefore fuch who have been fo unhappily deluded by their fins as to rivet them into their nature, by a fatal Unbelief, view and contemplate this rejected Religion on this fide, where with fo much pity and campaffion fhe throws out her arms, to recover thefe her deluded Children from final perdition. The frequent contemplation of this would, with the Grace of God (always at hand to affift the honest endeavours of men), at last enable them to break their fetters, recover their liberty, and return again into one fold, under one Shep-. herd, Jefus Chrift the Righteous. Amen.