relating to fuch matters being become common, I cannot prevail with myself so much to revife and improve them, as they ought to be before they are fit for publication; fo that I do not give any further account of them in this place. The prefent duke of Argyle took a copy of them long ago, when he had gone through our courfe, and I fuppofe has it ftill by him. In the fame year, 1707, I preached eight fermons at the cathedral church of St. Paul, at the lecture founded by the Hon. Robert Boyle, Efq; upon the Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies; with an Appendix to the fame purpose: to which is fubjoined, a Differtation to prove that our Saviour afcended into heaven on the evening after his refurrection. 8vo. N. B. Upon any future edition, thefe lectures are to be printed from that corrected and improved copy which is inferted into the collection made 1736, of all the fermons that had then been preached at that lecture. N. B. I made mention in these fermons, 1707, of the modern French prophets, who, at that time, made a great noife amongst us, with plain difapprobation of their pretences: and, about the year 1713, I held a conference at my houfe, (they are my words, pag. 68. of the first edition of my life of Dr. Clarke,) with Mr. Lacy, and several other of thofe prophets; wherein I gave my reasons why, upon fuppofition of their agitations and impulfes being fupernatural, I thought they were evil and not good fpirits that were the authors of thofe agitations and impulfes where I alfo add, that the heads of the reafons I infifted on are still preserved: I fhall here therefore add thofe heads in this place, as follows. Reasons against the new prophets; (1.) They (1.) They father ridiculous things upon God. (2.) They are lying prophets, by foretelling events that have not come to pass. (3.) They falfely pretend to miracles. (4.) They permit fin; as in Mr. Lacy's adultery with Eliz. Grey. (5.) They mifinterpret fcripture. (6.) They think the fcripture the rule of faith, contrary to all antiquity. (7.) They reject the ufe of reafon. (8.) They make it impoffible to discover false prophets. (9.) The quakers, &c. have equal pretences with them. (10.) Tho' fome true prophets might not work miracles, nor foretel future events, yet they never then pretend to them, as these have done; fo none were condemned for rejecting John the Baptift, because he wrought no miracles; and our Saviour fays, If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not bad fin. (11.) Wild agitations are rather figns of dæmoniacal poffeffions, than of a prophetick afflatus. (12.) They are unable to explain any difficult fcripture prophecies. (13.) They entertain vulgar untrue notions in divinity; fuch as the Athanafian trinity; the imperfect canon of fcripture, &c.. (14.) The old prophets were owned for true, by their very enemies; and fo had either certain credentials of their own, or were attefted to by others that had fuch credentials, &c. But 'tis not fo here. At laft I took Mr. Lacy by the hand, and faid to him, and his companions, I hope you are honeft; but I am fatisfied you are very weak: which is what I would fay to our prefent enthufiafts alfo. Nor Nor was the great bishop Lloyd's opinion of the French prophets to be defpifed, who called this pretence of theirs, the devil's banter; by their folly to bring the true fcripture prophecies into contempt. N. B. Mr. John Weftley, one among the prefent Methodists, having already freed himself from the folly of Calvinifm; having written for the obfervation of the old Wednesday and Friday stations, in which I gave him my affiftance long ago; having alfo preached and printed an excellent fermon before the university of Oxford, and having lately fhewed fomewhat of a true christian temper, in unsaying what he had heard about Mr. Emlyn. I hope he will, at laft, leave off his athanafian follies, and come intirely into old chriftianity. About August, in the year 1708, as is noted in my Hiftorical Preface, pag. 55, 56, I drew up a fmall imperfect Efay upon the Apoftolical Conftitutions, and offered it to Dr. Lany, our vice-chancellor, for his licence, to be printed at Cambridge, but he refused to licence it. In this year, 1708, my great friend Mr. Pierce, near whom I had formerly lived in intimate friendfhip at Cambridge, and who was really the most learned of all the diffenting teachers that I had known; but was at this time a preacher at Newberry in Berkshire, heard that I was become an heretical Eufebian, or Arian; fo he wrote me the following letter, in the way of a true friend, and a good fcholar, but a zealous Athanafian. Dear Sir, IN Newberry, July 10, 1798. N feveral companies in London, (from whence I returned last week) I met with a most displeas ing account of you; but it being from perfons al together 1 together unacquainted with you, I thought it the part of a friend not to give credit to it; and therefore did endeavour to quafh that kind of discourse, and alledg'd, what I thought rendered it improbable but cafually meeting with a common friend of ours, I was forc'd to believe, what was fo much against my inclination. I need not apologize to you, that I ufe this liberty of writing to you upon that fubject. It is the part of friends to deal freely with one another; and, especially, when any thing is obferved, that allays the pleasant remembrance of former conversation. If I fhould urge you with the circumstances which the unhappy notions you have lately entertained are like to bring you into, I could not promife myself that it would have any great influence upon you for a generous mind will not be swayed thereby, contrary to its own apprehenfions. Leav-. ing then the confideration of worldly emoluments, which, tho' they may excite us to caution and deliberation, yet ought not to rule us, let me mind you of what I always judged to be your great aim and defign, the doing good in the world: which, I conceive, will be much prejudiced thereby and of this we on our fide have had a very melancholy inftance, in a perfon of great accomplishments for fervice, but now by fuch notions become wholly uselefs; [I fuppofe he meant my great friend Mr. Tho. Emlyn] and it really grieves me to think, how much people will be prejudiced against your other writings, and particularly thofe on the Apocalypfe, by this means. Bear with the freedom of a friend, who loves you as a brother. It is really amazing to me, that you should ever fall in with the Unitarians; I fhould have thought you were most effectually fecured against danger from that corner, by that one notion, which you formerly entertained, and which I think Dr. Scot has well established, that the God of Ifrael, Ifrael, of whom fo many and great things are fpoken in the Old Teftament, is no other than the λólos, who afterward became incarnate: I cannot apprehend how an Unitarian can hold this; and it is plain that those, who in these later ages have oppofed the deity of Chrift, have much infifted upon our producing fuch great things fpoken of Chrift, as are in the Old Testament fpoken of the God of Irael; wherein they have, in my apprehenfions, betrayed their own weakness. But you, my dear friend, that have been throughly convinced of that truth, let me afk you, how have you got off it? or, how can you make it confift with your present scheme? I understand you lay great ftrefs upon the fathers of the two firft centuries; but why fhould you leave the fure rule for a fallible one? I own a deference due to them; but it feems unreasonable to me, to form our notions first from them, and then to ftrain the fcriptures to fpeak their fenfe. Not that I think they favour your cause. I think it a plain end, that, as all the christian churches in the world do now, fo they did then worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I will mention two places in Juftin Martyr's Apology, both to the fame purpose, but the one clearing the other from the popish glofs that would eftablish the worshipping of angels. In the third page of his fecond Apology we have these words, as an account of all chriftians. Illum (Patrem) ipfiufq; Filium venientem et nos et exercitum bonorum angelorum fui fequacium et fimilium docentem, et Spiritum propheticum adoramus et colimus. About two pages after he exprefly fays, they worshipped the Father in the firft, the Son in the fecond, and the spirit of Prophecy in the third place. Now in my apprehenfion, this declaration of the object of worship has great weight, and is of much greater force than any paffages which may feem rather to exprefs |