most fervent in their devotions, and offering up their common prayers with sighs and tears. I have known several Dissenters most passionately affected with the Church-prayers upon their sick and death-beds, when sickness made them truly devout, and helped to purge their minds now intent upon heaven, from preconceited opinions against forms of prayer.

10. The gift of extemporary prayer is an acquired gift, or habit got by art and exercise, as the gift of extemporary preaching, pleading, declaiming, or making verses is; and, like those gifts, it is common to good and bad, to the hypocrite and sincere, to the worst as well as the best men. Major Weire of Edinburgh (not to mention others) who was as bad as a man could be, indeed little better than a Devil, had it in greater perfection than any man was ever yet known to have it. may see an account of him in Ravillac Redivivus.

You

11. They were Popish priests in the time of Q. Elizabeth who first magnified extemporary prayer in opposition to the Church's Liturgy, calling it Spiritual Prayer, or Praying by the Spirit, as you may see proved in a little book called Foxes and Firebrands, with which the Papists being charged in the late controversy could not tell what to reply.

12. Almost all the Reformed Churches worship God by prescribed forms as well as ours, and particularly the Lutheran, French, and Helvetian Protestants.

IV. Of Conscience, and the Holy Scriptures.

1. Whoever pleads conscience against the commands of his lawful superiors, ought to try his conscience by the adequate rule of conscience, which is the will of God manifested to us by the light of nature, and the light of revelation in the holy Scriptures.

2. As to the holy Scriptures, it is not the words in which they are written; but the sense of those words which is Scripture; and therefore every man that pretends to govern his conscience by the Scriptures, ought to use all diligence to understand them in the true sense. I have instanced in two texts of Scripture under the head of prayer, whose words are usually urged without the sense to justify the preference of extemporary prayer above forms, and I shall now instance in one or two more; the first of which the Dissenters usually urge against the observation of Holy-days, Gal. iv. 9, 10.

But

But the days and months there meant are the new moons, and sabbaths, and fasts, and festivals of the Jewish Church, which the Galatians observed out of an erroneous opinion that it was necessary to the salvation of Christians to keep the law of Moses as the Jews did, the ritual part of whose religion the Apostle calls weak and beggarly elements, because they were utterly useless to those who had attained to the knowlege of Christ. The other text in which I shall instance, is in 1. Cor. ii. 4, where the Apostle saith, "my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in de monstration of the Spirit, and of power." This text is usually applied by the Dissenters in favour of extemporary preaching, or preaching without book, in opposi tion to preaching within book, especially if preaching extemporary be accompanied with much voice and action but in reality it is not applicable to any sort of preaching now a-days; the demonstration of the Spirit being to be understood of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as speaking with strange tongues, &c.; and Power signifies the power of doing miracles, as healing the sick, &c. which attended the preaching of the Apostles, as it is written of them, Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem till ye shall be endued with power from on high; and ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost.

V. Of holy Orders and Church Government.

1. In the holy primitive Church wheresoever dispersed over the whole world, there were Bishops distinct from, and superior to, Presbyters.

2. These Bishops were ever esteemed to be the successors of the Apostles, and the chief ministers in their respective jurisdictions next under Christ, who is King and Governor, as well as Priest.

3. As the Presbyters were inferior to them, so they were ordained by them, and it was held altogether unlawful for any to ordain a Presbyter or Priest except he were himself a Bishop; and no one approved example of such ordination can be shewn for the space of above 1400 years.

4: Nay 'twas the general belief of the best and purest Of the Church, as it appears from the writers of

ages

those

those ages, that Bishops are necessary to the constitution of the Church, insomuch that the ancient heretics and schismatics, that they might have the appearance of Churches still, endeavoured to get a Bishop for their head in their several separations.

5. And as our Church is conformable to the Primitive Catholic Church in doctrine; so by the special providence o God, it hath the happiness above most other reformed Churches to be conformed to it in Government, in that it hath Bishops by a continual succession from the Apostles, as well as Presbyters and Deacons in a decent subordination; and for this blessing the people, of: this nation are bound to be thankful to God, and so to account of their Bishops as ministers of Christ, and to submit themselves unto them as unto their chief Pastors and Spiritual Magistrates under Christ, and conscientiously to obey all such orders, as they being lawfully assembled have made for order and discipline, according to God's word and the canons and customs of the Catholic Church.

VI. Of Tradition.

1. By Tradition the writers of the Church of England always understand written tradition, in opposition to the Popish writers, who not being able to defend their innovations and corruptions by written tradition, set up, I know not what, oral traditions, contrary to the writings of the ancient Fathers in the best and purest ages, as well as to the Holy Scriptures.

2. As there are true and false scriptures, so there are true and false written traditions.

3. The true written traditions are such as are to be found in the undoubted writings of the Fathers, by which we come to understand what was the consentient belief and practice of the ancient Catholic Church.

4. This tradition is not to be despised or lightly esteemed by any sober man, because it is of mighty use for the clearing of many things, which out of the Scripture alone cannot be so clearly and satisfactorily proved. As first, That the books of the New Testament were written by those whose names they bear, and that they were written by divine in piration, 2dly. That these books collected together in the New Testament, and none other, are the rule of the Christian faith, to which I may add many other things; as the Lord's day is to be ob served, infants to be baptized; that the institution of the

two

two Sacraments was not a temporary institution, which was to expire after the mysteries of the Christian religion were sufficiently revealed and understood. In these and many other like instances tradition is of great use against false teachers, to help us to the true and clear sense of the Scriptures, because where the sense of the Scriptures is controverted, the consentient testimony of antiquity is the best judge,

5. The Bishops and Presbyters of the Church of England have given the people the true Scriptures, and therefore they need not doubt but that in all controversies they have given, and will give, the true tradition. But if any person who is less learned doubt the authority of any one or more particular Ministers, he may consult learned laymen, to know whether the traditions which his Minister tells him of in private, be so or no.

VII. Of Sermons and Preaching.

1. As men formerly wrote, so they spoke by divine inspiration, witness the Holy Scriptures.

2. If there were any ground now to pretend to divine inspiration, those Ministers who, out of reverence to God, and respect to their auditors, and great regard to people's souls, do carefully write their Sermons, that they may be more sure to feed them with sound and substantial truths; those, I say, who for such weighty considerations write their Sermons, have a better pretence to divine inspiration, than those who are not careful to write, nor, it may be, to premeditate their Sermons, let their elocution be never so good.

3. It is much more easy to move the affections than to convince the consciences and reason of men. The circumstantial parts of Preaching, as tone and action, can do much towards that with a little Divinity in a Sermon ; but he is the most powerful preacher that can, by the bare force of what he delivers, convince the reason and conscience of a man, and captivate his judgment with the truth of what he preaches. To begin here is to begin at the upper and right part of the man, and what reformation is made in any man by such preaching, is generally more sincere and lasting; whereas the reformation begun at the other part, by raising the affections, is usually no better than a morning cloud, or the early dew that goeth

away.

4. Wherefore the care of every Preacher ought to be,

in the first place, To inform and convince the reason; and, in the second place, to move the affections; and of the two 'tis better to be deficient in this than in that.

5. All judicious and wise auditors will attend more to what is spoken in a sermon, than to the elocution and manner of speaking, and mind the preacher's doctrine more than his manner or behaviour.

Now

6. Some people talk much of profiting by sermons, and of hearing those by whom they can profit most; and under that pretence neglect to hear their own Parish Minister, and by degrees learn to despise him who by the laws of God and man is over them in the Lord. there are but two ways of profiting by sermons, whether they be read or heard; the first is profiting in the knowlege, and the second is of profiting in the practice of the Christian religion. I pray you to apply this distinction seriously to your own heart, and to tell me sincerely after due consideration, whether you are better instructed in the doctrines of the Christian religion, or the true understanding of the Scriptures, at the Meetings, or at Church? And if you say, at Church, as you have confessed to me, tell me then how you can profit more in the practice of Christianity by hearing the Congregational Preachers? But if you think you can, before you finally conclude, I pray consider again seriously, whether you and your brethren of the Separation are more humble, chaste, charitable, just, peaceable, merciful, or sober, than the people of our communion? Is there more sincerity or candour, or more honest and fair dealing between man and man among them? Or less backbiting and censoriousness and lying, than there is among us? Or, in short, do you or they understand or practise the Christian religion better than we do?

VIII. Of the Catholic, or Universal Church.

1. The Catholic or Universal Church is the whole society of Christians distributed under rightful and lawful Bishops and their Presbyters into particular Churches holding communion with one another; and of this Catholic, or Universal Church, Christ is the Supreme Head.

2. The Catholic Church at first was one single Church at Jerusalem, and there it is plain that whosoever separated from that particular Church separated from the Catholic Church.

Vol. XI. Churchm. Mag. July 1806. H S. The