by public authority: as Chillingworth, Hales, Taylor, Hammond, Tillotfon, Stillingfleet,cum multis aliis.

5. There are propofitions contained in our Liturgy and Articles, which no man of common fense amongst us believes.-No one believes that all the members of the Greek church are damned, because they admit not the proceffion of the Holy Ghost from the Son: Yet the Athanafian Creed, according to the ufual and obvious fenfe of the words, teacheth this. No one believes himself obliged to keep the Sabbath Day: yet the Liturgy, ftrictly interpreted, requires it.

6. It is evident, beyond a doubt, that the whole body of the Clergy, and of the learned Laity, depart, fome more, fome lefs, from the religious opinions of their ancestors in the days when the Articles were established by law, and from the rigid and literal fenfe of them. This univerfal consent of a nation, to deviate thus in fome points from the old doctrines, amounts to an abrogation of fuch rigid interpretations of the Articles, and to a permiffion of a latitude in fubscribing.

If we will not allow thus much, we must fuppofe that in an age,-and an age not perhaps the moft learned,-an Affembly of fallible men may determine

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determine concerning all points of faith and prac tice for themselves, and for their heirs; and entail bondage and darkness, worse than Ægyptian, upon their pofterity for ever and ever.

They who fubfcribe in a loofer fenfe, would be obliged to declare it, if any perfon had a right to demand it, and to judge of it. But, fince no fuchauthority is vefted in any perfon, it would be to no purpose to fay in what fense we receive the Articles. It would only give an handle to fome oppreffors to ufe a power, which they could not exercife without great iniquity; fince they themfelves either took fome latitude in interpreting the Articles, when they fubfcribed to them; or fwallowed them with an implicit faith, and without any clear notions about them.

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Subfcriptions and Tefts are fuppofed to be admirable methods to keep out the heterodox. But what faid the philofopher to the jealous hufband? "Thou mayeft bar thy windows, and lock thy doors; but a cat and a whoremafter will find the way in."

Amanti aut indigenti difficile eft nibil.

Hooker

Hooker is of opinion, "That civil government arifeth from compact and confent, and is of human inftitution; that arbitrary empire is good. for nothing; and he well obferves, that To live by one man's will, is the cause of all men's mifery." B. I. p. 22.

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But, when he talks of the utility of General Coun cils, he feems not to be The judicious Hooker. In difputing with the fanaticks of his own time, he is very rational and fkilful: but as to antient Ecclefiaftical History, he had a fuperficial notion of it, and was not emancipated from the common prejudices of his times. What can you expect from General Councils?

As to Articles of faith, we want no general or national council to tell us, that our Lord is the Chrift, the only-begotten Son of God; and that we ought to acquaint ourselves with his Gofpel, and to live foberly, righteously, and godly; expecting a resurrection, and a future judgment. As to matters of difcipline, there are in all Chriftian nations ecclefiaftical courts, furnished with as much jurifdiction as is neceffary, and with more than is ufually employed to any good purpose.

The Bishops and Divines of the Council of Trent were greatly perplexed and divided in their fentiments concerning Original Sin and Justification: yet none of them had the sense, or the courage, to draw the manifeft inference ;-" That fuch points fhould be left undecided, and every Christian at liberty to form his own judgment about them."

The mysterious and incomprehenfible nature of Divine Prescience, as it is declared to be in the Holy Scriptures, affords us a convincing proof of human liberty, or free agency. For, if man were doomed and predeftinated by God's eternal Decrees, and impelled by a fatal neceffity to good or evil, there would be nothing fo utterly inconceivable in this Fore-knowledge. Far from it: If God hath fixed the future behaviour of men, and tied it with an adamantine chain, which nothing can pull afunder, it is eafy to conceive that he must know his own appointments;-even as a fkilful artist, when he hath made a movement, and fet it a going, knows how it will work, and when it will stop. It is our free choice, our liberty of acting, which creates the difficulty to our conception, and makes the divine forefight unfathomable by the human understanding.

The

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The Church of England makes no Articles of Faith, but fuch as have the teftimony of the whole Chriftian world: In other things fhe requires Subfcription to them, not as Articles of Faith, but as inferior truths, to which fhe expects a fubmiffion, in order to her peace and tranquillity. So the late learned Lord Primate of Ireland (Bramhall) often expreffeth the fenfe of the Church of England, as to her Thirty-nine Articles. "Neither doth the Church of England," faith he, "define any of these questions, as ne"ceffary to be believed, either neceffitate medii, or neceffitate præcepti, which is much less; but

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only bindeth her fons, for peace fake, not to "oppose them," And in other places, more fully: "We do not fuffer any man to reject the

Thirty-nine Articles at his pleafure; yet nei"ther do we look upon them as effentials of fav❝ing faith, or legacies of Chrift and his Apof"tles; but, in a Mean, as pious opinions, fitted "for the preservation of unity. Neither do we "oblige any man to believe them, but only not "to contradict them." See STILLINGFLEET, Grounds of Proteftant Religion. Vol. IV. p. 53.