thusiasts impose upon themselves and others, in the description of their spiritual condition; but, at the fame time, not to deny that comfortable experience, which pious and fober Christians feel, in confequence of the effect produced on the powers and difpofitions of their minds by the doctrines of Chriftianity rightly appreciated. My language applied exclusively to the cafe of Enthufiafts. Whether, or in what degree, it applied to thofe Evangelical minifters for whom Mr. O. pleads, was not the point in question. The confideration of the over-ruling Providence of an All-Wife and All-Gracious God; the reliance on his promises; the contemplation of his ftupendous mercy in CHRIST; the acknowledgment of his abundant grace in the miffion of his Holy Spirit; the confequent expectation and ardent defire of eternal happinefs; fuch fentiments and difpofitions, produced by the knowledge of religion, are matters of experience. And though these fentiments and difpofitions cannot prove the truth of our religion, for this evident reafon, because we cannot have the evidence of experience either for the paft facts, or the future effects, of Chriftianity; yet they certainly fhew the reality and fincerity of our belief of it, and more than this no experience can poffibly afford. "We can know, (fays Mr. LUDLAM, in his moft excellent Effay on this fubject) from our own experience, what degree of credit we have given to the evidences of Christianity; what degree of regard

we do pay to the fcriptures; what quantity of knowledge we receive from them; what effect this knowledge has upon our affections; what influence it has upon our conduct. This is the proper and the only province of experience; this is the true and only use we can make of it in religion, whatever elfe may be pretended." At the fame time, it is carefully to be kept in mind, that experience in religion furnishes conviction but to the party concerned in it; and even to him, it is a proof only of the fincerity of his belief, but neither is nor can be a proof of the reality of the thing believed. And as the imagination is often known to take place of actual experience, in affections which immediately respect the body, it may be supposed to act with ftill greater force, when confined folely to the operations of the mind; and, therefore, must be confidered as conftituting that ground for judgment, on which no fure dependence should be built. As it was not my defign, nor would be a work for which I am qualified, to enter into this part of Mr. O.'s publication, further than it bears immediately on myself, I pafs on to the winding-up of this Chapter.

Mr. O., in p. 126, admits, that the divines, against whom he is writing, speak of repentance, faith, and obedience, as the conditions of justification, and actual falvation. This (fays he) it is not our business to reconcile with their prefent language." Should the divines in queftion be really fo inconfiftent

with themselves as they are here reprefented, their cafe is a desperate one, and it certainly is not incumbent on Mr. O. to undertake it.

But as a brother

clergyman, I may take leave to remind Mr. O. of what it is incumbent on charity, which " thinketh no evil," to do in this cafe; namely, to attribute any conclufion to that effect, which particular paffages in their writings may appear to justify, to fome misconception of their language, or inattention to the fubject on the part of their readers, rather than to any dereliction of principle in the writers.

The paffages brought from my writings for the purpose of substantiating Mr. O.'s charge, my reader has feen to be quite foreign to the fubject under confideration, and confequently proving nothing to his point. That the writings of others have not been more honourably dealt with, must be admitted to be, at least, a fair prefumption. But though Mr. O. appears to have no reserve upon his mind, when engaged in denouncing fentence against his clerical brethren, ftill he does not appear to have equally made up his mind with refpect to the charge brought against them. It contains, indeed, at all times what is fufficiently difgraceful to their character, and contradictory to their profeffion; but, from an apparent zeal to fill up the measure of their iniquity, Mr. O. has put together a charge which carries the principle of its own confutation along with it; because it is a charge made up of fuch heterogeneous parts, as

cannot poffibly meet together in the fame perfons; and of which the reader, fhould he give himself the trouble to analize it, will probably fay, what the poet applied to another subject,

"Quodcunque oftendis mihi fic, incredulus odi."

The divines, for instance, under sentence, in which number I am placed by name, who, in p. 126, are admitted to "fpeak of repentance, faith, and obedience, as the conditions of justification and actual falvation;" language, which if it means any thing, must mean that without repentance, faith, and obedience, no Christian can be faved; it is the purpose of the prefent Chapter to reprefent as maintaining the very oppofite doctrine, namely, that all perfons admitted into the Church by Baptifm, in confequence of their having been thereby placed in a state of falvation, will be faved, let them live how they may; or, in Mr. O.'s words, "whatever be their characters.' And by thus" treating all as real Chriftians who affume the Christian name, and comply with the external forms of our religion," p. 107, thefe divines are represented to be oppofers of all practical Christianity. But in page 113, these fame divines, by the application to them of a quotation from Bishop HORSLEY'S charge, (whom Mr. O. has made to speak in a much more unqualified manner than he Bishop has spoken, or would think himself justified in fpeaking, of the great body of the Clergy) are at

leaft given credit for inculcating practical Christianity, though not on the right principle." It is an established maxim among the Clergy, Bifhop HORSLEY informs us, (as Mr. O. thinks proper to ftate the Bishop's language) "that it is more the office of a Christian teacher to prefs the practice of religion upon the confciences of his hearers, than to inculcate and affert its doctrines."* To press the

* The Bishop's own words are subjoined, that the reader may fee in what manner the Bishop has been pressed into Mr. O.'s fervice. "A juft abhorrence of those virulent animofities which in all ages, fince external perfecution ceased, have prevailed among Chriftians; efpecially fince the Reformation, among Proteftants of the different denominations, upon the pretence at least of certain differences of opinion, in points of nice and doubtful disputation; hath introduced and given a general currency to a maxim, which seemed to promise peace and unity, by difmiffing the cause, or rather the pretence, of difcuffion; namely, that the Laity, the more illiterate especially, have little concern with the myfteries of revealed religion, provided they be attentive to its duties. Whence it hath feemed a safe and certain conclufion, that it is more the office of a Chriftian teacher to press the practice of religion upon the confciences of his hearers, than to inculcate and affert its doctrines." Charge, p. 5, 6. The above general remark, to be applied by the reader in a greater or lefs extent, according to his own judgment and obfervation; by fubftituting for the Bishop's words, "it hath feemed a fafe and certain conclufion," the words, “it is an eftablished maxim among the Clergy," Mr. O. has converted into a direct and indifcriminate charge against the Clergy as a body. "It is an established maxim among the Clergy, Bishop HORSLEY informs us." So writes Mr. O. But Bifhop HORSLEY, as my reader has feen, gives no fuch information. This practice, which fome controverfialifts do not fcruple to adopt, of exchanging the words of the author quoted, for words of their own, with the view of bringing the passage more close to their purpose, is among those petty arts of controverfy, not more unneceffary to the cause of truth, than they are difgraceful to the party who employs them.