Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

TO THE

Right Rev. EDMUND LAW, D. D.

LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE.

MY LORD,

HAD

AD the obligations which I owe to your Lordship's kindness been much less, or much fewer, than they are; had personal gratitude left any place in my mind for deliberation or for inquiry; in felecting a name which every reader might confess to be prefixed, with propriety, to a work, that, in many of its parts, bears no obfcure relation to the general principles of natural and revealed religion, I fhould have found myself directed by many confiderations to that of the Bishop of Carlisle. A long life, fpent in the most interest

1

ing of all human purfuits, the inveftigation of moral and religious truth, in conftant and unwearied endeavours to advance the discovery, communication, and fuccefs of both; a life fo occupied, and arrived at that period which renders every life venerable, commands refpect by a title, which no virtuous mind will difpute, which no mind fenfible of the importance of these ftudies to the fupreme concernments of mankind will not rejoice to fee acknowledged. Whatever difference, or whatever oppofition, some, who peruse your Lordship's writings, may perceive between your conclufions and their own, the good and wife of all perfuafions will revere that induftry, which has for its object the illuftration or defence of our common chriftianity. Your Lordship's researches have never loft fight loft fight of one purpose, namely, to recover the fimplicity of the gofpel

gofpel from beneath that load of unauthorized additions, which the ignorance of fome ages, and the learning of others, the fuperftition of weak, and the craft of defigning men, have (unhappily for its intereft) heaped upon it. And this purpose, I am convinced, was dictated by the pureft motive; by a firm, and I think, a juft opinion, that whatever renders religion more rational, renders it more credible; that he, who, by a diligent and faithful examination of the original records, difmiffes from the fyftem one article, which contradicts the apprehenfion, the experience, or the reafoning of mankind, does more towards recommending the belief, and, with the belief, the influence of Chriftianity, to the understandings and confciences of ferious inquirers, and through them to univerfal reception and authority, than can be effected by a thousand conA 2 tenders

tenders for creeds and ordinances of hu

man establishment.

When the doctrine of tranfubftantiation had taken poffeffion of the Chriftian world, it was not without the industry of learned men that it came at length to be discovered, that no fuch doctrine was contained in the New Teftament. But had thofe excellent perfons done nothing more by their discovery, than a bolished an innocent fuperftition, or changed fome directions in the ceremonial of public worship, they had merited little of that veneration, with which the gratitude of proteftant churches remembers their fervices. What they did for mankind was this, they exonerated Chriftianity of a weight which funk it. If indolence or timidity had checked these exertions, or fuppreffed the fruit and publication of these inquiries, is it too much to affirm, that infidelity would at this day have been univerfal?

I do

I do not mean, my Lord, by the mention of this example, to infinuate, that any popular opinion which your Lordship may have encountered, ought to be compared with transubstantiation, or that the affurance with which we reject that extravagant abfurdity, is attainable in the controverfies in which your Lordship has been engaged: but I mean, by calling to mind thofe great reformers of the public faith, to observe or rather to express my own persuasion, that to reftore the purity, is most effectually to promote the progress of Christianity; and that the fame virtuous motive, which hath fanctified their labours, fuggested yours. At a time when fome men appear not to perceive any good, and others to suspect an evil tendency, in that spirit of examination and research which is gone forth in Christian countries, this teftimony is become due not only to the probity of your Lordship's views, but to A 3

the

« AnteriorContinuar »