TO THE

READER.

THE HE Chriftian religion is best known and diftinguished by the God, propofed in it, as the object of our faith and obedience and as there is no true religion, but the religion of Chriftians, fo is there no true God, but the God of Chriftians.

Before the coming of Chrift, and the fulfilling of the Law, God was known by the name of Jehovah, the God of Abraham, `and of Ifaac, and of Jacob. The Ifraelites, who were the feed of Abraham, and drew their whole religion from a divine revelation, had the knowledge of the true God; and the people of every other nation, who were "aliens from the commonwealth of Ifrael, "and strangers from the covenants of promife," were also "without God in the world'." Though they talked much of God, and wrote much of him, and offered him many facrifices, yet they knew him not; the being they ferved, was not God, but another in the place of him, falfely called by his name. And though fome modern Chriftians have forgot there was any difference, yet the very heathens themselves, upon fome occasions, were ready enough to allow it. Naaman the Syrian, when he was cured of his leprofy by the prophet Elisha, made a public confeffion of it." Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Ifrael." The fame is affirmed by the infpired Pfalmift-" All the gods of the heathens are idols3;" and God himself declares them all to have been vanities*

The cafe is now with the Chriftians under the Gospel, as it antiently was with the Jews under the Law: they believe in the only true God; while the unchriftian part of mankind, who are by far the majority, either know him not, or wilfully deny him; as Pharaoh did the God of the Hebrews when he was told of him. And we are now got to fuch a pitch of indevotion and ignorance, that among those who profefs and call themfelves Chriftians, there 3 Pfal. xcvi. 5. 4 Jer. xiv. 22.

Eph. ii, 12. 2 2 Kings v. 15

are too many who are almost come to be Heathens without knowing it. For there is a fashionable notion propagated by most of our moral writers, and readily fubfcribed to by thofe who fay their prayers but feldom, and can never find time to read their Bible, that all who worship any God, worship the fame God; as if we worthipped the three letters of the word God, inftead of the Being meant and understood by it. The Univerfal Prayer of Mr. Alexander Pope was compofed upon this plan; wherein the Supreme Being is addreffed as a common Father of all, under the names, Jehovah, Jove, and Lord. And this humour of confounding things, which ought to be diftinguished at the peril of our fouls, and of comprehending believers and idolators under one and the fame religion, is called a catholic fpirit, that fhews the very exaltation of Chriftian charity. But God, it is to be feared, will require an account of it under another name; and though the poet could fee no difference, but has mistaken Jove or Jupiter for the fame Father of all with the Lord Jehovah; yet the Apostle has instructed us better; who, when the Priest of Jupiter came to offer facrifice, exhorted him very paffionately to "turn from those va"nities unto the living God';" well knowing that he whom the Priest adored under the name of Jupiter, was not the living God, but a creature, a nothing, a vanity. Yet the catholic spirit of a moralift can discern no difference; and while it pretends fome zeal for a fort of univerfal religion, common to believers and infidels, betrays a fad indifference for the Chriftian religion in particular. This error is fo monstrous in a land enlightened by the Gospel, and yet fo very common amongst us at present, that I may be pardoned for fpeaking of it in the manner it deferves, And let me befeech every serious perfon, who is willing to have his prayers heard, to confider this matter a little better, and ufe a more correct form; for God, who is jealous of his honour, and has no communion with idols, will certainly reject the petition that fets him upon a level with Baal and Jupiter.

The true God is He that was "in Christ reconciling the world to himself;" there is none other but He; and if this great characteristic be denied, or any other affumed in its stead, a man is left without God; after which, he may call himself a Deift, if he will, but his God is a mere idol of the imagination, and has no corresponding reality in the whole univerfe of beings,

■ Afts xiv. 15.

The modern Jews, by denying their God to have been manifeft in the flesh, are as effectually departed from the true God, as their forefathers were, when they danced before the golden calf, and called their idolatrous fervice "a fealt to the Lord." For the being of God is not an object of fight, but of faith; it enters first into the heart; and if it be wrong there, the firft commandment is broken: if a figure of it be fet up before the eyes, then the fecond is broken likewife. The first forbids us to have any other God; the fecond, to make any graven image of him. Now though we make no image, yet if with the heart we believe in any God different from the true, the idolatry indeed may be less, but the apoftacy is the fame. And this feems to be the cafe of the few.

The Mahometans are another fet of infidels, who abhor idols, but have in exprefs terms denied the Son of God, and fet up an idol of the imagination, a God in one Perfon. They inveigh bitterly against the Chriftians for worshipping three Gods; for so they ftate the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity, as some others have done befide them.

In answer to all these abominations of the Deift, the Jew, and the Mahometan, and to fhew that no unbeliever of any denomination can be a fervant of the true God, it is written-" whofoever "denieth the Son, the fame hath not the Father1:" and again— "whofoever tranfgreffeth and abideth not in the doctrine of "Chrift, hath not GOD"." And let the Socinians, who have not only vindicated the religion of Mahomet, but preferred it to the Christianity of the church of England, which with them is " no better nor other than a fort of Paganism and Heathenifm*,” let them confider what a share they have in this condemnation.

And to bring this matter home to the Arians; it is to be obferved, that every article of the Christian faith depends upon the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity. If that be given up, the other doctrines of our religion must go with it, and fo it has been in fact, that the authors who have written againit the Trinity, have alfo difputed away fome other effential parts of Christianity, particularly the doctrines of the fatisfaction and of original fin,

* See Leflie's Theological Works, Fol. Vol. I. p. 218, where the reader may find a great deal more to the fame purpose; and particularly an Epistle of the Socinians, to the Morocco Embaffador, in the time of Charles II. a great curiofity, wherein their whole scheme is laid open to the bottom by themselves.

The whole Bible treats of little elfe but our creation, redemption, fan&tification, refurrection, and glorification, by the power of Chrift and the Holy Spirit: and the reader will find hereafter, that there is neither name, act, nor attribute of the Godhead, that is not shared in common by all the perfons of the Trinity. If, therefore, the perfons of Chrift and the Spirit are not God in the Unity of the Father, then the prayers and praises we offer to them, as the authors of every bleffing, will not be directed to the fupreme Lord and God, befide whom no other is to be worshipped, but to his creatures and inftruments: which overthrows the sense of our whole religion; and drives us upon a fort of fecond-rate faith and worship, which, befide the blafphemy of it, can be nothing but confufion and contradiction. It is no wonder then, that the Arians and Socinians, with their several under-fects and divifions, who have fallen into this fnare, and departed from the divine Unity, while they pretend to be the only men who affert it, have never yet been able to agree in the forms of religious worship. Some of them allowing that Chrift is to receive divine worship, but always with this referve, that the prayer tend ultimately to the perfon of the Father. So that Chrift is to be worshipped, only he is not to be worshipped: and if your fhould venture, when you are at the point of death, to fay with St. Stephen" Lord Jefus, "receive my fpirit"-and confefs the perfon of Jefus to be "the God of the Spirits of all fleth?," by committing your own fpirit into his hands; you are to take care not to die without throwing in fome qualifying comment, to affure him you do it only in hypocrify, not meaning him but another. Others, again, knowing this diftinction to be vain and indefenfible, and the fame for fubftance with the Latria and Dulia, by which the church of Rome excufes her adoration of the bleed Virgin, &c. have fairly got rid of it, by denying to the perfon of Chrift any divine worship or invocation at all; which is the cafe with our Socinian Unitarians here in England; for those of Poland are quite of another mind.

How far fuch differences as thefe muft needs affect a Liturgy, it is very easy to foresee: and that it will for ever be as impoffible to frame a Creed or a Service to please all those who bear the name of Chriftians, as to make a coat that fhall fit men of all

fizes*, Prayer and divine worship and religious confession, are the fruit and breath of faith; and "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth fpeaketh':" fo that until we are agreed in matters of faith, there is neither hope nor poffibility of our agreeing in any form of worship. God is the fountain-head, and religion the ftream that defcends from it. Our fentiments as to religion, always flow from the opinion we have formed of the divine nature; and will be right or wrong, fweet or bitter, as the fountain is from whence they are derived.. It is the having a different God, that makes a different religion. A true God produces a true religion; a falfe God, a falfe religion, Jews, Turks, Pagans, Deifts, Arians, Socinians, and Chriftians, all differ about a religion, because they differ about a God.

These few obfervations will be fufficient, I hope, to raise the attention of the reader; and perfuade him, that a right faith in God is a much more serious affair than some would make it; that it is of the last concern, and hath a neceffary influence upon the practice and holiness of our lives; that as, no other devotion is acceptable with God, but that which is feafoned with love and charity and uniformity, the very mark and badge whereby his dif ciples are to be known from the men of this world, it is the principal duty of every Chriftian to know in whom he ought to believe, that with one mind and one mouth we may glorify God";" for a right notion of God, will as furely be followed by a found faith and an uniform profeffion in all other points, as a falfe faith and a difcordant worship will grow from every wrong opinion of him.

All that can be known of the true God, is to be known by Revelation. The falfe lights indeed of reafon and nature are fet up and recommended, as neceffary to affift and ratify the evidence. of Revelation: but enquiries of this kind, as they are now managed, generally end in the degradation of Christ, and the Chrif

Matt. xii. 34.

* Hales of Eton, in his farcaftic and malicious Tract upon Schifm, propofes it as a grand expedient for the advancing of Unity, that we should "confider all the Liturgies, "that are and ever have been; and remove from them whatever is fcandalous to any "party, and leave nothing but what all agree on." He should have clofed this fentence a little fooner; and advised us fairly and honeftly to leave nothing; for that will certainly be the event, when the objections of all parties are fuffered to prevail; there being no one page of the Liturgy, wherein all, who pretend worship God as Christians, are agreed.

2

Rom. xv. 6.