66 66 66 66 66 ligion. Properly it denotes some kind of excess in matters of religion, and particularly any false religion and "they who admit no religion as true, make superstition the common name for all." "The "contrary extreme to excess, is defect, or want of religion, and is called irreligion, profaneness, impiety, apostasy, Atheism, according to its respec❝tive circumstances and degrees. The due mean "between the two extremes, is true and sound religion. Upon this ground we contend that Christianity is properly religion, and not superstition: " and that the disbelief of it is irreligion, profaneness, "madness." Nor are its opponents, he observes, so free perhaps from superstition as they imagine. Infidelity and superstition may proceed from a similar kind of weakness and of corruption. Guilty fears and apprehensions drive men to one or to the other, according to their respective tempers and constitutional propensities; and there have been proofs that none are more apt to become superstitious in a time of danger, than they who at other times have been most profane. The same is also observed of the term enthusiasm, so often charged upon believers in Christianity. For, who are the visionaries? they who imagine that the world was converted to the Christian faith by lunatics and madmen; or they who see the impossibility that any such effect could be produced but by rational conviction grounded on evidence irresistible? "There may be an irreligious phrensy, as "well as a religious one; and the imagination may "as soon be heated with a spirit of profanenoss, as "with the fervours of piety." Cudworth has de scribed enthusiastical or fanatical Atheists, and shewn that even those among them who pretended most to reason and philosophy might be justly so entitled. Nor are even the deistical notions, that virtue is independent of hopes and fears, rewards and punishments, altogether free from this imputation. Still more nearly allied to enthusiasm is their practice of dignifying each man's individual reason with the character and the titles of inspiration, internal revelation, inward light, infallibility, and terms of similar import; claims, which when "brought "to exclude Scripture, are enthusiastic and fanati"cal, false and vain." Statecraft and Priestcraft are moreover favourite topics with the Deists, when they endeavour to prejudice men's minds against religion. These calumnies, however, seem to be directed against our Lord himself and his Apostles, rather than against the rulers or the priests of after-times. For if no false facts or false doctrines can be imputed to the Gospel historians, it is futile to charge craft and deceit upon those who maintain them as truths. Either those facts and doctrines must be refuted, or both priests and statesmen stand acquitted of any guile or craft in upholding them. In the mean while, they who bring these accusations "are labouring to impose 66 false facts, false doctrines, and false claims upon "the world, under the name of religion, for their "own humour, ambition, or advantage." Many acute observations are urged by our author upon this popular subject of declamation. 66 On the general imputation of imposture;-“ a ' compendious calumny, all reproaches in one;" 66 66 66 Dr. Waterland observes, "That there is an imposture somewhere, is very certain: and the "only question is, who are the impostors? Reckon up the marks and characters of an imposture: apply them first to Christ, and his doctrine and "followers, and see whether they will fit; and "next apply them to Hobbs, Spinosa, &c. and see "whether they will not fit." What is the doctrine of these men, but a fraud and imposition on the public? The strength of their cause lies in "falsifi"cation, stratagem, and wile. It cannot be pleaded "for decently, without disowning it, verbally, at "the same time, and making it pass for the very reverse of what it really is.” 66 It will be seen, by reference to the author's notes upon this Charge, that most of these observations were levelled at Tindal's mischievous work, Christianity as old as the Creation; against which, together with his former Charge, and his Scripture vindicated, it afforded a most seasonable and powerful antidote. The next Charge, comprising the substance of two which had been delivered in 1734 and 1735, forms a complete and very valuable dissertation upon a subject of high importance; the discussion of which was more especially called for by the laxity of religious opinions then too generally prevalent. That laxity may for the most part be ascribed to a want of clear and accurate conception of what constitutes (to adopt an expression of Cranmer's) "the necessary "doctrine of a Christian man." Where this knowledge is wanting; where vague and indefinite notions are entertained of the relative importance of different articles of faith; no fixed or consistent principles can be laid down of Church-communion, nor can any certain criterion be established, by which to weigh the pretensions of different sects and parties. The obtrusion of certain heterodox tenets into the Church, by some who lay under the most sacred obligations to maintain its faith unimpaired; and the unblushing attempts made even by infidel writers to identify their own systems with Christianity, and thence to assume to themselves the appellation of Christian Deists;-rendered it still more necessary to guard the faith against such perversion, and to draw the line of demarcation betwixt truth and error, with as much clearness and precision as the nature of the case would admit. With this view Dr. Waterland's Charge, entitled, A Discourse of Fundamentals, was professedly undertaken. Several distinguished writers had before treated upon this subject; among whom were Bacon, Mede, Chillingworth, Hammond, Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Clagett, and others of our own Church, besides Hoornbeck, Spanheim, Puffendorf, Witsius, Turretin, and Buddeus, of the Lutheran and other foreign reformed Churches. The importance therefore of the subject had been generally acknowledged; but so much diversity still prevailed as to the mode of determining the points in question, as to render a more distinct and satisfactory view of it exceedingly desirable. Our author clears the ground for this difficult undertaking with his usual ability. The term fundamental, as applied to articles of faith, he observes, 66 "is supposed to mean something essential to religion or Christianity; so necessary to its being, or "at least to its well-being, that it could not subsist, "or maintain itself tolerably without it." The distinction between things thus essential, and those which are less so, is shewn to be recognised in Scripture, and to have been acted upon by St. Paul, in making converts to the faith. The primitive Churches carefully attended to this principle. Certain articles were invariably insisted upon as terms of Church-communion; and a departure from these was regarded as a renunciation of Christianity itself. But as parties multiplied in the Church, different rules of this kind were, from time to time, set up, by sects, or by individuals, desirous of advancing their own particular tenets. Under such circumstances, the hope of perfect union could hardly, perhaps, be entertained. But to disentangle the subject, as far as might be, from the perplexity in which it had thus been involved, was certainly a laudable purpose, tending in some degree, at least, to prevent the increase of error and disunion. Dr. W. sets aside the distinction between natural and revealed religion, so far as this subject is concerned, because revealed he considers as including both; nor does he dwell upon the distinctions between faith, worship, and morality, "these being all “essential to Christianity, and equally to be insisted "on as terms of Christian communion." "But," he observes, "it may be needful to distinguish be"tween fundamentals considered in an abstract "view, as essentials of the Christian fabric or sys"tem, and fundamentals considered in a relative |