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25.

DISCOURSE

ON

Mistakes concerning Religion,
ENTHUSIASM, EXPERIENCES, &c.

BY

THOMAS HARTLEY. A. M.

Rector of WINWICK in Northamptonshire.

LONDON Printed.

GERMANTOWN reprinted by CHRISTOPHER

SOWER. 1759.

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HE main Design of the Sacred Writings is to bring us accquainted with our loft State, under the Corruption and Apoftacy of the Human Nature by the Fall, and with our Redemption by Jefus Christ. The Rules and Precepts laid down both in the Law and the Gospel were given primarily to reftrain us from Sin, as it was the Occafion of our Ruin, fo, if continued in, will be the certain Hindrance of our Recovery: And the Doctrines therein contained instruct us in the Nature of that Grace which bringeth Salvation, and teach us to turn to it as our only Help and Remedy: Thus in refraining from Evil, and being fubject to Grace, we are in the way of practical and acceptable Obedience to all God's Commands. To deny that Man is by Nature wretched and finful, argues extreme Ignorance or Perverfenefs, and to affirm that he came fuch out of the Hands of his Creator, is to contradict the Teftimony of the Scriptures, and to charge God both foolishly and impioufly: To deny therefore Original Sin, in the Senfe of our Church, is the most complicated of Herefies, as it makes void the Covenant of Grace, and faps the Foundation of revealed Religion. Every one carries in his own Bofom a Witness to the Truth of this Doctrine, as every one finds in himself, in a greater or lefs degree, a want of due Love both to God and his Neighbour.

The Gospel of Chrift is a Difpenfation of Peace, graciously calculated to reconcile us both to God and one another, but how it has failed in general of these blefled Effects, through the prevailing Power of Corruption and Sin, let the Annals of Church History testify, which inform us how often Christendom has been turned into a Field of Blood, and reprefent the horrid Barbarities of Chriftians, fo called, towards their Brethren, as equalling, and in fome Inftances exceeding, the tyran

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