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and other Jewish cities merited not the feverer judgments threatened them by our Saviour for rejecting the mighty works done among them; nor had we heard fuch a declaration to the world in general as the following, he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he, that believeth not, shall be damned. Mark, xvi. 16.

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THE third is to comply with the inftitutions of religion, according to the established modes of particular visible churches, where there is nothing directly finful and unfcriptural in the terms of communion. By this means, we shall at once guard against the encroachments of error, and join the peaceful temper of the citizen to chriftian virtues. Though the kingdom of Chrift is not of this world, though it has a miniftry and ordinances of higher original and appointment, yet it came not to disturb the repofe of the earth in unneceffary indifferent cafes.

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IT is indeed ever to be wifhed, that a fpirit of enquiry may be kept up in the world. The interefts of truth require it in a supine unenquiring state, mankind might fink into, and fall asleep under, the groffest errors. Enquiry will produce difference of fentiments, fometimes eager and violent contentions. And this brings on a neceffity for a spirit of mutual charity, forbearance, and toleration. *

BUT under these unhappy circumstances, he certainly chooses the better part, who confults the peace and order of the christian ftate where he lives. Parties and divifions naturally engender ftrifes, jealoufies, and doubtful difputations. No good man, without fome valuable end in view, ever encouraged or fomented this

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*SEE Bp. Warburton's Alliance between church and ftate, where the respective rights of the church and of civil fociety are reconciled with fuch folidity and precifion; that, I think, it never has, nor can be refuted.

this neceffary evil, this honour and difgrace of human nature, this moral hurricane, which, though it purifies the air, yet marks its courfe with mischief and devaftation. x

BUT to return to our first point, which is of general and acknowledged importance. To be a chriftian is neceffary to falvation. Eternal life is the gift of GOD through Jefus Chrift: by his religion it is to be obtained; and the prefages and faint hopes, which he gives us in nature, tend to lead us to this great and ultimate good.

WHAT is there here below, to interfere with this noble purfuit? We are here in a world of vanity: many things tempt us, but nothing fills and fatisfies our defires. After ransacking every earthly good, the fever of paffion being once over, we find nothing but vexation, diftafte, and difappointment. Our defire after happiness is eager, ardent, and infatiable. To fatisfy it,

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we plunge in the muddy ftream of fenfual delights, we feek honour after honour, add lands to lands, and pile up wealth without measure. In vain: the defire ftill burns unfatisfied, and ftill finds fomething in thefe, inadequate to its taste and capacity. We vary and diverfify our purfuits: the fame emptinefs and diftafte purfues us. At last we are obliged to fit down weary and exhaufted, chagrined and difappointed, and have but one poor maxim to confole us, that all human purfuits are equally vain. A few wifer men, in the experience of grey hairs, fall a moralizing, and discourage the rifing generation from following the mad example. But this too is in vain: the rifing generation have their paffions, and will have the furer instruction of their own experience. They renew the chace; until at last too they are tired, and find, when it is too late, that the decay of paffion, which brings on grey hairs, is M 2

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the season of true wisdom and reflection. Thus the circle of folly goes on; and, while generation is improving upon generation in other things, here all run on in one fervile track, which all find equally delufive.

FOR my part, I am no enemy to the inftructions of nature: they lead to the Gospel nature, disfigured as it is by fin, has not wholly loft her happier tendencies. Follow her here, and she will lead you to everlasting life. She here tells us that we are in an orphan ftate, banished from our true happiness. You see our emblem in the young of animals, fnatched away from parental tenderness. They mistake, in the blind direction of instinct, every kind courteous object for their parent; they folicit from it the natural debt of relief. Thus we, under the bias of corruption, court happiness in things around us. Let us learn from the disappointment, which we univerfally find here, that

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