deprecate the consequences arising from a misguided zeal, I would not be understood to trench for a moment on the sacred principle of toleration. No! God forbid, that, as a Christian minister, I should encourage the most distant idea of persecution. The history of the evils arising from want of Christian forbearance, and charity about difference in religious opinions, most powerfully deter me. As the principle of Tertullian is mine, the language of Tertullian is my motto, "Non est religionis religionem coercere." Let the right of private judgment remain inviolate, let the exercise of public worship, as far as consistent with the safety of the state, be perfectly free. But the bigot will object, the evil is increasing; and toleration, already too far extended, evi. dently makes it the greater. What is to be done? Not persecute. Remember it is easier to rail than to reason; to censure, than confute. That misrepresentation and violence only tend to rouse the fiercer passions, and widen the breach; that we ought to make allowances for our fellow creatures, from the consideration of our own weakness; reflect that few persons view objects in the same light; and that amid the dark and double images of things, it is difficult to separate what is clear from what is obscure, and assign each its proper place in the picture, as to light and shade; that universal orthodoxy or general uniformity were never yet established; that faith is the gift of God, to which the heart must be disposed by divine grace: any attempt therefore to change it, but by persuasion and prayer, is an usurpation of that prerogative, which God has exclusively reserved to himself. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual; let us then, by example as well as precept, persuade them we are in the right, and by the purity of our doctrines, and the fervency of our zeal, prove, that we are of the true faith; and demonstrate both by our holding the truth as well as the lineage of our descent, that we are the genuine successors of the first evangelists, and that the true apostolical succession is preserved without controversy in the episcopal church. Remembering that he approximates nearest the throne of God, who most adorns the doctrines of the Saviour. Let us by forbearance, meekness, and moderation, endeavour to enlist those who are in error under the banners of benevolence; and may ministers, as the delegates of heaven, propose truth in a way calculated to secure its triumph over the heart-not cloud it by rancour and severity, but brighten it by the heavenly rays of humanity and love. Page 3, line 6, for p. Do. 1. 17, p. 82, (Note) -- loyal Bublæum - Myrthis Prætoxium' Warm's Barry no Margam Myrthir p. Do. l. 18, an |