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doctrines above mentioned. Miracles can only prove that to be true which in its own nature may be so, and not that which is abfurd and contradictory either to reason, or the fcriptures. For we must take it for granted that God will not contradict himself.

I do not mean to trouble you with an account of every thing that is evidently contradictory to reason and the fcriptures in your Articles, but I could not help dwelling a little upon such as appear to me to be of particular importance, and such, you must agree with me, are those above mentioned. They are not, however, errors peculiar to your church, but errors of former ages, as I have abundantly fhewn in my History of the Corruptions of Christianity, which if you look into, you will see at what time they were introduced, and by what steps they prevailed. But having been received many centuries, it could not be supposed that the reformers from popery would be able to detect them all at once. Luther, and his noble cotemporaries, did a great deal, and we have reafon to blefs God for their labours. But, instead of acquiefcing in them, we should feel ourselves animated with the fame fpirit, and go on to finish what they only began.

That fome things, which are at leaft very like to what you yourselves would now call popish doctrines, are retained in the articles and fervices of the church of England, a flight degree of reflection will convince you. One of the capital doctrines of the church of Rome is that of the change made of the bread and wine in the Lord's fupper into the real body and blood of Chrift. The reformers faw that this was an abfurdity, and not countenanced either by reafon or the genuine sense of scripture; but fuch were the prejudices of the common people, and their own too, in favour of a long received doctrine, that the framers of your articles and liturgy have retained too much of it. In the Lord's fupper your twenty-ninth article fays, "the body of Chrift is given, "taken, and eaten, after an heavenly and fpiritual manner; and in your Catechifm you are taught to say, that "the body " and

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"and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and re"ceived by the faithful in the Lord's fupper."

Now, if this language have any meaning at all, it cannot differ much from that of the Catholics; for they do not say that this bread and wine has the taste of flesh and blood. In common sense, these elements can be nothing more than a fign, emblem, or memorial, of the body of Chrift, and not the body itself, which therefore, verily and indeed, is not eaten, at all, not even in a heavenly, or spiritual, or any other conceivable, manner.

To the receiving of these elements such a virtue is ascribed by your church as no experience will justify. For in the twenty-fifth article they are faid to be "fure witneffes, and "effectual figns, of grace, and God's good-will towards us, "by the which he doth work invifibly in us, and does not "only quicken, but also ftrengthen, and confirm our faith "in him." Now there is nothing in the fcriptures to authorize our ascribing so much to this, or to any other inftitution. All that our Saviour faid upon the occafion was that we should eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of him; and being inftituted immediately after the celebration of the paffover, which was appointed in commemoration of the deliverance of the Ifraelites from Egypt, there can be no doubt of its having the fame fimple and obvious meaning. It was defigned to remind us of Chrift, and of our obligations to him. There is no invisible agency of God upon the mind, either expreffed or implied, in either of the fervices.

The superstition and abuses of former times with respect to the ordinance of baptism, are also retained in the articles and offices of your church, from which they ought long ago to have been expunged. In your twenty-seventh article, baptifm is faid to be "a fign of regeneration, or the new "birth, whereby, as by an inftrument, they that receive "baptifm rightly are grafted into the church, the promises "of forgiveness of fin, and of adoption to be the sons of "God by the Holy Ghoft, are vifibly figned and fealed,

"faith

"faith is confirmed, and grace increased, by virtue of (C prayer unto God.”

This is afferted concerning baptifm univerfally. But how can it apply to the cafe of infants? And yet persons who are baptized in their infancy, are made to say in your catechifm, that by baptifm they are "made members of "Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom "of heaven." This is, furely, afcribing a great deal too much to a mere ceremony, in which also a child is intirely paffive. Will not this doctrine fully authorize the fuperftition of the church of Rome, the priests of which communion often boast that, in heathen countries, they have privately, and unknown to their parents, baptized fuch young children as they met with, and particularly those that were upon the point of death, thinking thereby to fecure their salvation?

Befides, how does this doctrine of baptism making perfons "members of Chrift, children of God, and inheritors. "of the kingdom of heaven," agree with the doctrine of predeftination above mentioned? Are all perfons who are regularly baptized of course predeftinated to everlasting life? Does the eternal decree of God depend upon the will of man? And yet, as if this was really the cafe, whenever you bury any person who has been baptized (and if they have not, you do not think them entitled to what you call chriftian burial) the minifter is made to "thank God that "it has pleased him to take to himself the foul of his dear "brother, or fifter," and the body is committed to the grave "in fure and certain hope of its resurrection to eter"nal life." Though the deceased have been ever so notorious a bad liver, and even a defpifer of all religion, yet if he have been baptized, and have christian burial, the fame confidence is expreffed of his future falvation. Surely, my friends, these things ought not fo to be. Men can never become heirs of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven by mere baptifm, nor do all who have your christian burial go to heaven.

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The popish priests, you know, pretend to a power of giving men absolution, when they have confeffed their fins to them; which is certainly an ufurpation of the rights of Almighty God, who alone knows the hearts of men, and has the power of forgiving fin; and yet this very offensive part of popery is retained in your office for the vifitation of the fick. For there the priest is directed to say to the fick perfon, who has profeffed his belief of the apostle's creed, "Our Lord Jefus Chrift, who hath left power to his church "to abfolve all finners who truly repent and believe in him, "of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences. And by "his authority committed to me, I abfolve thee from all "thy fins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and "of the Holy Ghost." If these words have any meaning at all, they must imply that something relating to the forgiveness of fins depends upon the priest. For if repentance alone was fufficient, his absolution could fignify nothing.

That these things, and many others of a fimilar nature, which I might point out to you, should pass uncorrected at the time of the Reformation, near three hundred years ago, is not to be wondered at. Those reformers are not to be blamed for doing no more, but to be commended for doing So much as they did. But furely those who came after them are to be blamed, those who have shut their own eyes, and have endeavoured to fhut yours too, from that time to the prefent day; as if Luther and his brethren had been men divinely inspired and exempt from all error, and as if all wisdom was born and died with them; whereas they only fet an example, which those who came after them ought to have followed.

I am, &c.

LETTER

LETTER XV.

Of Subsciption to the Articles, &c. of the Church of England.

My Friends and Neighbours,

YOU will naturally fay, If there be these ftrange abfur

dities in the articles and public fervices of our church, why are not our bithops and clergy fenfible of them; and, as they are men of fenfe and education, how can they, as we know they are required, willingly and ex animo, subscribe to the truth of them. This is a question that I cannot anfwer. You must apply to them yourselves, and perhaps they may be able to give you fatisfaction. However, when any man declares his unfeigned belief of any thing, I am not apt to question his veracity, as Mr. Madan does mine. I have a much better opinion of him than he has of me. And if he can, in so peculiarly folemn a manner, declare his belief of the Diffenters in general being difaffected to government, and that their declarations of loyalty are not to be trusted; if this opinion of his be "the fettled princi"ple and conviction of his heart, as he hopes for mercy "from the God of truth," he must certainly have fubfcribed the thirty-nine articles with the fame ferious conviction of their truth. For he must know that God is a witness to that fubfcription, as well as to his compofing, delivering, and printing his Sermon.

It well known, however, that the generality of his brethren do not believe thefe articles, in that ftrict and grammatical fenfe in which their fubfcription to them is required. They publicly preach, and even print, what is directly contrary to them. They will even be offended if you say that they are Calvinists, though the diftinguishing doctrines of calvinism are no other than thofe of original fin, predeftination, and other doctrines neceffarily depending upon them, which I have fhewn to be contained in the thirty-nine articles. This is fo well known, that the late Lord Chatham (who was a very different man from his fon, our present prime

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