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the Gospel faithfully apply their time and their talents to the instruction and edification of those, who have thus called for their assistance, so as to deserve the name of workmen and labourers, their claim to a maintenance is here clear and incontestable; I say to a maintenance only; for that is all, that the principle, of which we have been speaking, or the reasoning of the apostle requires. No one thinks, that he is bound to make the labourer, the benefit of whose services he enjoys, rich: if he furnish him with the means of comfortable subsistence, he thinks he has discharged his duty; there is no more that he can justly claim. If any one should object to applying the common principles of equity observed in the affairs of life to the business of religion, we can appeal, as the apostle does, to the law of Moses, where those, who served the altar, partook of the altar, and were allowed a subsistence from it; or to the decision of Jesus Christ himself, who, he tells us, has ordained, that they, who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. Such high authority it is impossible that any one should withstand. I have been led to insist upon this subject at this time, because it is the day appointed for making a collection for the support of dissenting ministers in this and a neighbouring county. You will easily see, how what has been said applies to their case, and shows the propriety of making a provision for their If the employment of instructing mankind in the principles of religion be useful, which

support.

no Christian will deny, and if they devote so much of their time to it as to prevent them from engaging in the usual occupations of life, they have a claim to a maintenance some other way. But that they do not receive this assistance from the societies which they serve, is well known. The amount

of their income from this source falls short in many instances of the gains of the common mechanic, while their expenses, on account of the station which they hold in society, are much greater. It may be said, indeed, that every society of Christians, which chooses to have a minister, and which has invited one to fill that office, ought to provide for him; and it must be acknowledged, that they are. bound to do it, so far as they are able; but if they be so few in number, or so destitute in point of property, as not to be able to raise a sufficient sum for the purpose, and if without it they cannot enjoy the full benefit of religious instruction, it is surely a proper object of Christian benevolence to assist them, that the people may ot suffer the evils which arisefrom ignorance, or the ministers those which spring from a scanty subsistence. The churches of Macedonia contributed toward the support of the apostle Paul, and he commends them for it, at a time when they received no benefit from his labours, and when he served another society, from whom he would accept of no pay. What you are required to do in the present instance is not so much as this: you are requested to assist those, who have exerted them

selves already as far as their ability reaches, and in some instances beyond their power.

I have often recommended this institution to your support on past occasions, and if any change have taken place in the circumstances of the times, it is such as renders that support more necessary now than on former occasions. If the cause of protestant dissenters lie under peculiar odium at present, if the rich and great be ashamed of their former connections and ready to withdraw their assistance these are circumstances, which call for peculiar attention from those who remain, and who deem the cause in which they are engaged the cause of Christian truth and liberty. If it be not zealously supported when thus attacked by enemies and deserted by friends, it must necessarily fall to the ground. I hope better things of you, my brethren, than to suppose, that you will withhold your assistance in such circumstances. I trust, that your contributions, on the present occasion, will be in proportion to the increased exigency of the case.

SERMON XXXV..

"AGAINST PERSECUTION FOR RELIGIOUS OPINION,

LUKE XIV, 23.

And the Lord said unto the Servant, Go out into the Highways and Hedges, and compel them to come in, that my House may be filled.

UNDER the similitude of a feast, Christ represents to us the offers, which were made of the Gospel to the Jewish nation. Those who were first bidden, refusing upon various pretences to come, the Lord of the house sends forth his servants into the highways and hedges, to the outcasts of mankind, the gentile world, who had hitherto seemed to be abandoned by God, with orders to compel them to come in, i. e. to set before them such powerful evidence, and to urge it with so much importunity, that they should not be able to resist the force of their arguments. That the compulsion here mentioned cannot mean any external violence is evident from the nature of the parable: for no man attempts to force guests to his table, although he may think it right to employ earnest entreaties and pressing invitations; which his friends may not know how to In the same manner as men compel friends

-resist.

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to their houses, whom they earnestly desire to see, were the disciples of Christ to compel converts into the kingdom of their master. They were, as one of them, expresses it on another occasion, to be instant in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with all long suffering and doctrine. In this sense Christ is said to have constrained or compelled his disciples to go into a ship, where no one supposes that he either drove or dragged them into it; but that he exerted his authority over them for this purpose. Peter also compelled the Gentiles to the observance of the Jewish law, although he employed nothing more than the authority of his example to influence their conduct. Indeed the use of the word compel in common language to signify irresistible arguments is so very frequent and familiar,' as scarcely to need any illustration. Yet upon this easy figure an argument has been founded for employing force and violence to convert men to the truth; and Christ has been represented as authorising his apostles in the first commission, which he gave them to preach his Gospel to the world, to use such means. I shall, therefore, take occasion from this passage to show, that to employ force for the defence of truth or for restraining errour is unjust ; that it cannot answer the purposes expected from it; and that it is productive of great evils to mankind, and inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel.

I. In the first place it is unjust: for men's opinions in religion are formed upon the arguments

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