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ficult and dangerous circumftances, it is not impoffible, but that the light of that great reformer had remained hidden under the bushel of monkery. However, it

pleafed GOD to order it otherwife, and, in his gracious providence, to over-rule Luther's fituation, for the investigation and promulgation of the faith once delivered to the faints. Jude 3. This extraordinary

man was led to fearch, think, and judge for himself; and (drawing his artillery from the inexhaustible arsenal of the holy fcriptures) first to attack, and then to overthrow, errors, which had been received as the most facred truths for ages, and which had been maintained, by every fupport, which the credulity and fuperftition of mankind, aided by laws and powers ecclefiaftical and civil, could give them.

From whence I would infer, that no opinions or doctrines whatsoever, receive any conclufive proof of their truth, from the

*Matth. v. 15.

† I would obferve, that John Wickliffe, an Englishman, educated at Oxford in the reign of Edward III. has the honour of being the firft perfon in Europe who publickly called in queftion, and boldly refuted, thofe doctrines, which had paffed for certain during fo many ages. Guth. Gram. vol. i. 247. For this he was forely perfecuted during his life; and after his death, his bones, which had been buried forty-one years, were dug up and burned. This by a folemn decree of the council of Conftance. See Fox's Martyrs, vol. i. 529.

B 2

fuffrages

fuffrages of men, however wife, learned, or however supported by human maxims, cuftoms, or laws. To take it for granted, that truth must be where there are these fupports, is at once to give up our privilege of enquiring and judging for ourfelves; and, if fo, we might as well have been born without reafon and judgment as with them. Upon fuch a principle as this, a Mohammedan has as good * a reason for the truth of the Koran, as we have for the truth of the Bible; for the former hath as much the customs and laws of Turkey for its fupport, as the latter has those of England.

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Idolatry at Pekin (fays a late writer) Mohammedifm at Conftantinople, Popery at "Rome, and orthodoxy at Westminster, will "be all equally right. The earth will "turn round in England, and stand still

So had the antient Heathen for the truth of their fyftems. Many of the philofophers actually refolve all moral obligations into merely human laws and conftitutions; making them the only measure of right and wrong, good and evil: fo that if the people had a mind to be inftructed what they fhould do or forbear, they fent them to the laws of their feveral countries, and allowed them to do whatfoever was not forbidden by thofe laws. Leland, vol. ii. 81, 82. Plato is for people's "worfhipping the gods appointed by the laws

of the ftate, and in the manner there prescribed." Ib. p. 119. note p. So before him Pythagoras, ̓Αθαναίες μεν πρώτα Θεος ΝΟΜΩ ΩΣ ΔΙΑΚΕΙΤΑΙ. Σεβα

First the immortal gods, as is by law ordain'd,
Worship.

" in Italy; and our holy religion will be "true in Europe, but an arrant falfehood

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throughout all the continent of Afia.” Humanum eft errare, is too true refpecting every man and all men, as fallible creatures. Churches and councils, as well as other communities*, are therefore liable to be mistaken, as is modeftly confeffed by the Church of England in her 21ft article, “ Of "General Councils."

"When they be gathered together (for"afmuch as they be an affembly of men "whereof all be not governed by the

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Spirit and word of God) they may err, "and fometimes have erred in things per

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taining to God. Wherefore things or"dained by them as neceffary to falvation, "have neither ftrength nor authority, "unless it may be declared that they are "taken out of the Holy Scriptures."

By paying little deference to general councils, "few inconveniences arife, compared with those "which inevitably follow a blind and tame fubmif"fion, in points of faith, to human decifions, and to public wisdom, as fome of our controverfial doctors "have loved to call it, which may be public folly.

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"Public wifdom is a mere Proteus; and, not to con"fider it in Pagan or Mahometan countries, amongst "the Jews it once was the wisdom of Abab and Jeze"bel, and afterwards of Annas and Caiaphas. It fets "out with a great fhew of religion, it begins with

the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and it often "ends in the gospel according to Mr. Hobbes." Jortin Rem. vol. ii. p. 193-4.

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The writer of the following pages would humbly hope, that, having fo venerable an authority for calling in queftion the truth of certain matters, which are most affuredly believed amongst us, he shall not be deemed impertinently contentious, if, touching fome points, he differs from the generality of his countrymen, who, contenting themselves with notions and opinions received by tradition from their fathers, have never thought of looking after the foundations on which they are grounded, and have therefore mistaken the fallible authority of men like themselves, for the divine and infallible authority of truth itSelf.

That our brothels are filled with harlots, our streets with prostitutes, and our land with impurity, is too dreadfully true. Magdalens, Afylums, and all the kind and benevolent interpofitions of public charities, however we may fuppofe them, with refpect to fome few individuals, to answer their benevolent defigns, are inadequate to the cure of so crying an evil. A tree is not to be destroyed by plucking off a few leaves, or by cutting away here and there a branch; nor can fo general an evil, as we have fpoken of, be reformed by fo partial, fo precarious a remedy, as, from the nature of things, it is in the power

of

of the best difpofed, as matters are now conftituted amongst us, to administer.

The ax must be laid to the root-this is the divine wifdom. The truth is, that the evil above mentioned, as all others, arifes from the neglect and contempt of the divine law, and the fubftitution of human laws in its ftead. The wisdom and goodness of GOD, which He has fhewn in the provifion graciously made for the protection and defence of the weaker sex, from the villainy, treachery, and cruelty of the stronger, are difregarded. GoD's laws are laid afide, for that fyftem of basenefs and barbarity, which permits men, with impunity, firft to feduce, and then to betray, to infamy, want, mifery, disease, and even death itself in many inftances, thousands and tens of thousands of unhappy women, who (were the laws of Heaven. regarded, as they ought to be, and made the foundation of our municipal laws) inftead of becoming nuifances, and reduced to the

*This practice exactly harmonizes with the principles of Lord Bolingbroke, who concludes a very horrid fentiment on the commerce of men and women, with these words :-" Increafe and multiply is the law "of nature. The manner in which this shall be "executed, with the greatest advantage to fociety, is "the law of man." Here this matter is left wholly to political confiderations and human laws, without any divine law to reftrain or regulate it.

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