Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"If he continues to read the prescribed liturgies, if he avoids to preach forbidden tenets, if he teaches in the public temples nothing but the religion of the state, he is still obedient to the magistrate, and performs the coutract for which his salary was set apart by government. What reason is there for his renouncing it? If, in his official capacity of priest, he does not swerve from his original agreement, why may he not continue to avail himself of the benefice attached to that public office?

"When a blind man hires a scholar to read to him, must the latter decline reading aloud Hume's Essay on Miracles, if he happens to dissent from the doctrine therein contained? Let him read his task, and if he has a certain rank of intellect, let him make his objections. So a minister, surely, in his private capacity of citizen, may, with propriety, recommend an alteration in the very liturgies he is employed to read aloud to a blind and ignorant multitude? The rights of the individual do not merge in those of the priest he may, in his personal capacity, conscientiously and fully advise the public to consult those interpreters of Scripture, who have combated the religion which the country has instituted, and urge a modification of the tenure of the ecclesiastic office: else the reformers had no right to propose their change.

"No one takes it amiss in a civil magistrate, in a justice of the peace, for instance, the subscribing of a petition for the repeal of a law which he continues to execute, or the writing of a pamphlet, or the calling of a meeting against it. Exactly parallel is the duty and obligation of the religious magistrate: the priest is to continue executing the appointed task while it remains appointed; but surely he may complain, and loudly too, of the established service; and may write books to induce the lawgiver to innovate, and may petition the legislature for relief, and, any where but in his church, may call the people together, and exhort them to combine for an alteration in the rubric. Where could there be in such conduct any thing inconsistent with his duty? The charge of hypocrisy is only applicable to silent acquiescence."

Such is the reasoning set up to defend temporal interest against conscience. But it deserves observation, that in all this chicanery not a word is said of that duty which is paramount to all others, I mean the obedience due to God. The nonsense about a "scholar's reading to

a blind

a blind man," and "the magistrate's right of petitioning and writing against laws which he is obliged to enforce," would merit only silent contempt, were it not that the juggle tends to dangerous consequences. According to Mr. Fellowes, or his apologist, the Christian priest is merely hired to read his lesson as a task, without being required to believe a tittle of the formulary he delivers aloud to the people. So then, when in the desk, he invokes "God the Son, the Redeemer of the World;" and when he solemnly, at the altar, declares on the bes half of the peopled assembled, a sincere belief, that the same Son was "begotten of his Father before all worlds, and is God of God, Light of Light, and very God of very God," the whole means nothing; and in his private capacity of citizen, he may despise the Litany and Creeds as mere mummery.

In the public celebration of divine worship, the priest may declare before God and the congregation, a belief in the doctrines of the TRINITY, ORIGINAL SIN, and ATONEMENT, while in his heart he considers them as corruptions of the truth; and the services founded upon them, as erroneous and injurious to morality.

What a monstrous species of casuistry is this; and how directly does it strike at the root of that moral rectitude, which these rational believers, as they term themselves, so much affect to admire !

Were such principles as this justifiable, then the primitive martyrs, as well as the reformers of later times, were foolish enthusiasts. If continuance in a church, professing erroneous doctrines, and such as are diametrically opposite to scriptural truth, be defensible, then the separation from the church of Rome was wrong; and those persons who suffered death rather than subscribe her tenets, must be considered as, at least, men of very weak minds. Indeed, according to this flexible doctrine, those martyrs to conscience are deserving of censure, because they should have continued in communion with the Roman church, for the purpose of promoting a reform. This might be proper enough in civil concerns; and a man would be very silly, indeed, if he resigned his senatorial or magistratial character, merely because every statute did not meet with his approbation. But we have here a concern of a very different nature. The matter at issue lies between God and our souls, and the souls of those who either hear us, or upon whom our principles

principles and conduct may have an influence. If to be lieve we know not what, and to worship we know not whom, be culpable indifference and ignorance; how much more sinful is it to profess publicly a belief of doctrines which we privately deny and ridicule, and direct the highest acts of religious worship to a being whom, in reality, we regard as only a creature! This is uniting hypocrisy and idolatry at once, and opening the door widely to the worst species of infidelity.

The author of the "Case of Casuistry," carries his infamous principle so far as to give the priest a right to call his people together any where but in church, and exhort them to combine together against the rubric, "that is, against the doctrines and the formularies of the church." But why this ridiculous exemption with respect to the place of assembly? If the priest may not only privately instruct and exhort his people against the Liturgy, but may also call them together to unite their efforts to produce a change, he may as well do so in the church, openly from the pulpit. The difference of place is nothing, if the act itself be just.

This writer inveighs bitterly against the Act of Uniformity; and he laments, in that singularity of style which pretty strongly indicates the quarter from whence it comes, "that the priest and parishioners are not left at liberty, by a separate local concert, to vary at pleasure. their liturgies and their rites: here, to replace the pompous pageantry of catholicism; there, to imitate the cheerful festivities of paganism."

This is" root and branch reformation" with a witness; for were the writer's wish carried into effect, then a national religion must cease, and Popery and Paganism, Socinianism and Deism, would share the spoils of the establishment...

This casuist finds fault with those clergymen who have resigned their preferments, on account of their dissent from the doctrines of the Church of England. He says, that in this there was "a display of sincerity and disinterestedness entitled to the appropriate admiration, but not to the merit of facilitating the progress of reform." According to this, a man should continue in any religious establishment, however erroneous, and even sinful, its doctrines and practices may be, merely with a view of producing a reform; that is, in other words, he Vol. XI. Charchm. Mag. August, 1806.

may

may commit evil that good may come of it. Such is the casuistry invented to reconcile, if possible, conscience with dishonesty.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

IOTA.

FOR THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE,

ORIGINAL LETTER OF BISHOP WARBURTON,

SIR,

[ocr errors]

Newarke, Oct. 6th, 1738.

REC'D yours of ye 3d instant. I am far from hav¬ ing a worse opinion of you for your modesty and ingenuity, in owning those deficiencies that are common to all young people. Only some have not the sense to see it, and others are too proud to own it, which makes them blockheads for their whole life.

I am sorry you leave college, because I apprehend, that if you could get a fellowship and a curacy in the neighbourhood, it would be advantageous to you on many accts to reside some years in the university. But this, perhaps, you may contrive hereafter.

Your apprehensions as to your sermons are rightly grounded. This is the method that I would advise you to. Take some of the best approved writers on particular points of morality and divinity, whether in the form of sermons or no. If in that form, then abridge them; if not in that form, cast them into it. This is easily done, and very usefully done, for it will enter you into the method of composing. At the same time, buy a book of Beveridge's in 4 vols. 8vo. which is a synopsis of a great number of Sermons, the skeleton of sermons, in which only the heads of the discourse are methodically given, in order to be filled up. It was published, I think, for the use of young clergymen. This will further instruct you, as you may apprehend, in the method of composing. When you have used these two ways, alternately, as occasion serves for some time, you will have, of course, acquired some notion of composition,

position. Then begin, now and then, though but seldom, to make a sermon entirely your own. And to give you a true taste of these compositions, you can't do better than read over often Swift's Letter to a young Gentleman lately entered into Holy Orders; you will see by this, what a good sermon should be. But the difficulty still remains how to make one. It consists of 3 Pis, the language, the art or method of the discourse, and the subject matter. As to the last, it is the product of much knowledge and reflection. For the language, the three best writers we have to form a stile upon, are Addison, Tillotson, and Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. And as to the art and method of a discourse, I know no book so good as Quintilian; and he who would compose masterly, should perpetually read his institutes.

Leigh's Critica Sacra, is a small book in 4to. of about 4s price. It is a kind of Lexicon to the New Testam1. I did not mean the Collection of Critics, which is not for your use at present. Only I would have you observe, it is in vain to think of making any real progress in letters without books; and a prudent scholar would always contrive to moderate his expences of other kinds, in order to support this. You would certainly save much in buying your books at the best hand. And I believe you can have them no where near so cheap as at Mr. Gyles, against Gray's Inn, a great bookseller in Holborn. If you think fit to employ him, who is my particular friend, the mentioning me as recommending you to him, will, I am sure, engage him to treat you in the best manner; and a letter to him, when you want any books, will be sufficient.

I think the study of the New Test. and of Theology, should be carried on together, as I marked out to you. Classical learning is +. Heb. necessary for understanding the Scriptures; but it is a large extensive study. You must make yourself well acquainted with the best Greek and Latin writers, as Homer, Plato, Xenophon, Herodotus, Thucidides, Plutarch, Lucian, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides, Tully, Livy, Tacitus, Quintilian, Plautus, Terence, Horace, Virgil, Juvenal, and Pliny. These should be studied with the best lexicons and dictionarys; as Stephen's Greek and

Here is a chasin in the original letter.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »