paid off, pensioners must be maintained, and clerks' dues must be discharged. All these things the valet de chambre of a minister of state knows better than I can pretend to.-But there is, 2. A burden which several of his Majesty's subjects are made to couch down under, for which I can see no reason at all-to pay for bread and wine they never taste; to entertain people they have no concern with. This, they say, we are obliged to do by law; at least they threaten us with it, if we refuse to pay. If it be law, it is not justice, to make persons pay for other people's provisions, when they are abundantly able to do it themselves. But why pay for the bread and wine made use of at Easter, and not also for every other month of the year? This is perhaps for the whole. It is far too much for those who do not make use of it. But they may if they will; but why may they not, if they will? Is there any compulsion in matters of religion, in a land of liberty? But they are not compelled to eat and drink, but to pay. And where is the reason for that? If it was charity, it would be due, but where is the righteousness of the demand? I am afraid it savours of a law that was excogitated at Rome many hundred years ago. It is reasonable that every communicant pay; but why impose upon Dissenters ?-especially such as have no freehold. Must every householder pay for what he never has any benefit by? This is surely such a burden as the Scribes and Pharisees laid in old times upon the common people. What law of Christ and his Apostles is this founded upon? It should be founded some where in the New Testament, for it relates to religion. I should pay it for conscience sake, if they will shew me where it's required in the Gospel. It is surely neither decent nor orderly to make a feast, and oblige every one to pay for it, whether they can in conscience do it or not. This is using men like asses with a witness. They ill deserve communion with their Saviour, that are not willing to bear the expence of the outward elements of that communion. Say that it is charity, or prove that it is scriptural, and all good Christians will pay it for conscience sake. It is but reasonable they have some satisfaction for their money. 66 Any people that were not past shame would blush to demand a thing for a religious use they could not produce a warrant for from the word of God. The love of money is the root of all evil;" and the passion for it prevails no where more than near the altar. Ah, ye priests! ye make us pay for all things; ye catch us as soon as we come into the world, and ye never lose sight of us till we return to dust. Our mothers must pay you for bearing of us, our fathers for having us baptized. When we are married, and when we are buried, ye must be paid. When we come into the world, and when we go out of it, ye set a price upon our heads. And did these two demands satisfy you, we might forgive you; but as long as our heads are on our bodies, we must satisfy you every " every year for the use of them we may truly say, all our things are your's. You must taste of all our substance: the tithe of all we have, that is valuable and suitable for you, is your's. You say, tithes were appointed under the law for the tribe of Levi and the sons of the priesthood: but remember, ye Levites, Jesus Christ was not of your tribe; he belonged to a tribe that did not serve at the altar; and he did not institute any priests, nor give any laws concerning tithes. As we are Christians, you can have no just demands upon us: let such as observe the Jewish religion pay tithes, but what have we to do with the sons of Levi under the gospel. Gracious and merciful Saviour, thou camest to set Christians free from bondage and slavery; and to give them deliverance from the law of Moses; but we are still laid under a load of slavery that has no foundation in thy gospel, but is fixed upon us by that law. Thy Apostles received no tithes, for they were Christians, and meek and humble like thee: they loved to set men free, but not to oppress them. They testified against the ceremonial law at the peril of their lives, and told Christians that it did not profit; and to such as observed it Christ did profit them nothing. But circumstances are much altered since their time, and we have reason to believe not at all for the better, but for the worse. It is a hard matter that Christians are still obliged to support a Jewish priesthood under the gospel. Priesthood! I must go far back to find this office: there have been none since Jesus Christ finished transgression, and put an end to sin. It is au Old Testameurt office. Now, under the gospel, all the Lord's people are priests, in the language of the New Testament: "ye are a royal priesthood." But what does it signify what the New Tes tament says? the liturgy of some churches says, We have priests, and they must have tithes. Self-denial is an essential part of our Saviour's religion: "Let d man deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me;" which was once understood to mean, that believers were not to be conformed to the world, nor to seek great things for themselves. But it has been found since to signify the contrary; tlrat it is the highest degree of self-denial to enjoy a living of several thousands á year, and do no mischief with it; that there is more mortification in rich weil-furnished tables, when a man is able to afford them, than in moderation, temperance, and abstinence; that it is a better evi dence of a' true Christian to behave well in the midst of riches than in poverty. It will be owned that it is a rarer thing, but can never be a better evidence of true religion. We have very little reason to challenge such as have their good things in this life, providing they did not live by oppressing others by unjust claims and demands: but when such as make a shew of religion in will-worship make others who are not con cerned with them bear the expence of it, it is but réasonable to put them in mind of what they should be. Must good subjects be loaded like asses by priests, as the Jews were when Jesus D Christ Christ came into the world? When they ask privileges, let them pay if they pay his Majesty's duty, what reason is there to pay for other people's religion, which they are not one grain the better of? When religion is turned into a policy, and made subservient to private interest, it will ever bring tyranny along with it. Oppression is inseparably connected with religion, when it is made the tool of ambilion, and the road of preferment. I cannot easily understand, seeing the New Testament was given as the rule of direction for gospel churches, why providence did not concur to give us an example in what state of preferment the members of the church should be in: for if any of the several establishments of religion be gospel churches, there is no pattern of them in the New Testament. Antiquity makes nothing for this purpose, when the scripture is silent. To affect a state of dignity, riches, power, and splendour, would require some Scripture precept or precedent to authorize the attempt. But circumstances did not permit; the world was heathen, and religion had no magistrate to protect it. That is all true'; but God could have made his providence concur to have given us an example of the state churches should be in; or, at least, he could easily have told us in his word what he intended should be the highest pitch of church preferment. If he has left it to the discretion of men, we cannot tell when it shall come to its height, nor is there any thing certain about it. As we have an example of gospel churches in the days of the Apostles, and there are no other prescribed in Scripture, one would readily conclude there can be no other. It would be an accusation against the providence of God, to affirm, that the rules for preferment in his church were to settle after he withdrew the spirit of inspiration, without so much as leaving any hint that in the least favours any of these large societies called national churches. If men be to pay for the support of ecclesiastical dignities, it is but reasonable they have some authority given them for it from the New Testament; otherwise, if the magistrate pleased, he might as well require us to support the priests of Jupiter-Ammon, and it would equally bind the conscience of a believer of the New Testament, with the law for paying tithes to bishops and their clergy. To pretend right to demand church dues from Dissenters from the church, more than power gives, is to treat us like asses; both to deprive us of our money and our senses. Though men of any religion at all will not disobey the laws of the magistrate, yet they cannot, unless they give up the use of their reason, believe that the church has any other claim but what the magistrate gives her; and even when they pay dues to such as it is his Majesty's pleasure to honour, yet they cannot help both thinking and saying, they are ill applied, and the King is badly informed. Christians, though they may bear their burdens with patience whep when they can obtain no redress, yet they would be worse than asses to bear them tamely when they may obtain it. And one may venture to say, did the Dissenters from the church of England, in a body, represent their case to the Parlia ment, they should obtain a deliverance from several grievances they couch down under. Could his Majesty, and the great council of the nation, ever see it reasonable for peaceable subjects to bear unreasonable burdens?-who, when they have the expence of their own way of worship to maintain, are also made to pay all the ordinary expences of the establishment. If that part of the subjects called Protestant Dissenters be fit for many purposes for the good of the nation in a civil capacity, why should they not enjoy as extensive religious liberty, as they do civil privileges? Or is there any reason why they should pay equally with the members of the church in the support of the established religion, which they cannot in conscience enjoy any benefit by? Though that part of the subjects be burdened without their consent, as they cannot prevent or hinder the legislator from imposing upon them, as they have none to represent them in the great council of the nation, yet it would be stupidity not to complain of their grievances, and seek redress by all means lawful. It is undoubtedly, however, a burden upon such as do not or cannot in conscience join in the communion of the church of England, to be obliged to pay to support a worship they can see no warrant for from the New Testament. But, after imposing upon men's consciences, we need not think it strange that they impose upon our purses. What a weak religion must it be, that stands in need of any thing to support it, but what proceeds from voluntary consent and good-will? It is strauge that the Christian religion cannot maintain its ground by the same means that it gained it. Perhaps it may be said, that inspiration and the extraordinary providence of God made it gain ground in the world, but when that is ceased there is need of some other security. Truly we may say, we have changed much for the worse, if the legal establishment of religion has come in the place of God's extraordinary assistance. But may it not as well be affirmed, that since the word of God is now completed, and we have all the dictates of the Almighty's will needful to direct us into all truth, and the promise of his Spirit to lead us into it, that this is sufficient to secure religion till the sound of the last trumpet. The most that human laws can do in securing religion, is to make men say they are religious. They never ean reach the conscience, nor make any man believe a doctrine, till he have sufficient evidence for it. Religion is as well'seeured without establishments as with them, though the living, and benefices are not. The promise of God is a sufficient security of religion. The church is built upon the doctrine of "the prophets prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." In the days of the apostles the church of God had not received the New Testament oracles into her possession. The apostles of Christ were sent as well to communicate the mind of the Almighty to the church, as to convert men to the Christian religion. Evangelists, and other teachers, were also given by God, and sent by the apostles to all the several places and churches where religion had taken up her residence. These messengers of the apostles were sent, and continued, till the whole of the sacred oracles were given, and received by the church: they were endowed with the spirit of infallible interpretation, as the apostles were endowed with the spirit of inspiration. These elders, teachers, or evangelists, had not any liberty to depart from the apostolical instructions, but were obliged to hold by "the form of sound words" which they received from the apostles. Their use in the church was to determine what was or was not truly apostolical, By these evangelists the Christian church was preserved from receiving any spurious writings of impostors in the place of, or together with, the dictates of divine inspiration. But when revelation was fully given, and received by the church, then was religion established;-and that word, which from the mouths of the apostles converted so many to Christianity, was left for their establishment in the faith, and for the conversion of others. There is no need of inspiration now, since we have all that the apostles had, in their writings. That armour of God, which the apostles had, that was mighty to pull down strong holds and imaginations, that exalted themselves against the kingdom of God, and which at that time was only in their hands, is now committed to all Christians. The apostle Paul gives a sufficient reason why the Christian churches may stand, and why they do so-they have the whole armour of God, whereby they are able to resist the fiery darts of the wicked one: by this they stand fast in the evil day. That whole passage deserves a place here: Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparations of the gospel of peace: above all things, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Can there be a better establishment of religion than this, or any better security for Christianity than the word of God?. The word of God is unchangeable, and cannot alter; neither is it possible that the gates of hell can prevail against the church, |