the Baptist, from his tenderest years was taught to believe: for it is against all reason to suppose the father would ever instil any other doctrine into the mind of his child, than what he published to the people himself, when full of the Holy Ghost.

This prophecy I call a system of divinity, because it contains several articles of religion, v which, like the foundation and superstructure, bear to each other the nearest relation, and must stand or fall together.

Zacharias, for instance, teaches, that we are all in the hands of our enemies, and those that hate us. Hence our ruin must be certain, unless some deliverer, more mighty than our foes, undertake our rescue. In the words of the prophecy, the Horn of Salvation raised up to visit and redeem us, must be the Lord himself. And when our guilt and our pollutions are so great, what can inspire men, intimidated on this account, with full confidence in the Horn of Salvation? Nothing less than the promise, covenant, and oath of God, that such trust shall be crowned with final conquest over every foe; or, in the words of Zacharias, that "the people of God being delivered out of the hands of their enemies, shall serve him without fear, in holi

ness and righteousness before him all the days of their life."

Further, it follows from hence, that this plan of salvation provided for fallen man, and displaying every perfection of God in the highest degree, well deserves to be the principal subject of all prophecy, as the knowledge of it is the appointed means of promoting holiness and peace amongst men in every age. Zacharias expressly affirms these several truths, which stand inseparably connected together. So that without any force of interpretation, or human comment, we find the chief articles of the christian faith in these dictates of the Holy Ghost published by the Baptist's father.

Several religious mistakes, besides those exposed in this Essay, might have been justly deduced, I am very sensible, from this distinguished part of scripture. But those selected, had the preference, from long observation of their bad effects, in the course of more than twenty years attendance on the business of my profession, first in London, and its near neighbourhood, afterwards in the large and very populous parish of Huddersfield.

Regular practitioners in the medical art are allowed to have knowledge in the nature

and cure of bodily diseases, from seeing much of both. Can it be just to deny to spiritual physicians the same advantage re specting diseases of the soul, when their appointment is only to study its welfare? Strange indeed! if much thought, joined to much conversation on the grand subject of religion, with young and old, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, devout and profane, should not give sufficient opportunity of discovering with certainty what are the principal mistakes which defeat the end of our in, structions!

Much intercourse in this way, must teach all who are desirous of knowing, what mistakes some fall into by being wise in their own eyes; what sooth others of licentious life into a fatal security :-What fill youthful minds with prejudice even against the Prince of peace; moralists with contempt of Him; formalists with obstinate confidence in their blind devotions, and antinomians with the most detestable presumption.

To create a salutary dread of such pernicious errors, is the design of this work. And very few mistakes stand here exposed, but such as all earnest christians, who ascribe their whole salvation to the grace of God, and the redemption that is in Jesus, will

agree are pernicious; yet I never met with a treatise containing a formal confutation of them.

Should any person of religious sentiments directly opposite to those maintained in this essay, think it worth his while to remark from the press, on what he may call my own gross prejudices, it is proper he should know, that I shall gladly retract any mistake I may have fallen into, with due gratitude to my corrector, but intend no reply in vindication of my principles: because if a book cannot defend itself to the public, it will be in vain for the author to attempt doing it. Besides, how very rare is a controversy in which either respondent or opponent keep from impertinent observations, disdainful irony, mean prevarication, and even personal abuse? So that nothing can be more disgusting to those who love peace, or more hurtful to the cause of Christ, than disputes in divinity, as they are managed almost on every occasion.

The reader of these pages, it is presumed, will not find them written in the spirit of controversy: their sole design being to prove the baneful influence of notions contrary to the doctrine believed by the universal church in every age. This indeed, is of

ten done with some warmth against the mistake, not the person whom it deceives. And those who are ready to take offence at such warmth, seem to forget, that men and their principles are very different things, which ought by no means to be confounded together. Every sentiment of compassion and love is due to their persons, who even "trample under foot the blood of the Son of God," but detestation is no less due to their errors. Were there no power of thus separating ab. horrence of fatal mistakes, from ill-will towards those who hold them, then the best Christians must be deemed most uncharitable, at the instant they prayed for their murderers with all the ardour a tender mother would ask the life of her child. Since at that very instant, the martyrs declared in the most affecting manner, that the mistakes of their persecutors were absolutely fatal; because they suf fered death itself, sooner than give the least countenance to them.

Indeed love to God and man require, that errors of a pernicious nature should be exposed always with warmth, both from the pulpit and press, for the more earnestly conclusive arguments are urged, the more deeply will the cause we plead be impressed. Another objection may be made to this, with all