our common Chriftianity, which, at this time, is fo warmly attack'd; that, to enable you to accomplish the great Designs of Virtue and Godliness, which your ex " tenfive Mind has conceiv'd, being Lords over God's Heritage, but Enfamples to the Flock: fo that, when the great Shepherd fhall appear, you, together with them, may receive a Crown of Glory, that fadeth not away, is the ardent and inceffant Prayer of, THE PREFACE. 'count of the Scriptu ferred to againft nity. and HAT the Reader may better An AcI understand the Nature of cerve the feveral Controverfies, ral Anticompriz'd in the following Sheets, rins, rewhence they arofe, and by what in this Steps they grew to their prefent ex- Work, ar orbitant Height; he is defired to Attempts · remember, that Infidelity is not pro- Christiaperly the natural Product our Country, but an exotick Weed, which, (however it may thrive beyond the Alps) had no fix'd Rooting in this cold Climate, till the Heat of our civil Distractions gave room for the Leviathan to bring it in, and, in Process of time, for the Oracles of Reason to make it grow. From From these two Fountains or Repofitories, most of the Writers for Infidelity, who were for making Religion a Creature of the State, or for vacating the Neceffity of a divine Revelation, took their Arguments and Materials; till, within lefs than thirty Years ago, a certain Writer, or (as fome imagine) a certain Club and Combination of Writers, under the foam Title of the Rights of the Christian Church, afferted, and in Pretence of oppofing the Encroachments of Popery, laboured to fet afide at once all Chriftian Ordinances, and the very Being of a Chriftian Miniftry, and a Chriftian Church. In a short time after, this Book was follow'd (from the fame Quarter, as is fuppofed) by a Difcourfe of Freethinking, which, under the pretence of the many Divifions, and contradic *Bishop of London's 1ft Paftoral Letter. tory tory Opinions among Divines, the feveral Abuses, Defects, and falfe Doctrines, which were crept into the Church, and the Neceffity thereupon, that every one should judge for himfelf in Matters of Religion, has taken an uncommon Licence in calumniating the Minifters of God, and expafing the Mysteries of our most holy Faith to Contempt and Ridicule. Both thefe Books were written with fome Semblance of Reafon and Argument, but in a different Manner and Stile; the one, proper to affect the Serious, the other, the more light and thoughtless Part of Mankind. They received however, from feveral learned Hands, their respective Answers, wherein the Sophistry of the former, and the Ignorance of the latter, are fufficiently detected though, in afferting the Dignity of the Priesthood, and the Independency of the Church, fome of their Answers |