at all times and in all places. Positive duties cannot have the same sort of obligation, because they are changeable at the pleasure of the institutor. Consequently, when they interfere with each other, the latter must give way to the former. Dr. S. affirms also, that it is not a Divine law, or the will of God, that constitutes moral good or evil; but something antecedent to any Divine law, even the relations of things to one another, which were the same in the Divine mind before moral agents were created, as they are now. Waterland had said, that obligation antecedent to all law is a contradiction and absurdity. Dr. S. replies, that, if so, the arbitrary will of God might have made vice equally acceptable to him as virtue; and if he had commanded men to be unjust or ungrateful, it would have been morally good to be unjust and ungrateful : but this he could no more do, than he could have made two and two equal to ten. 66 66 In reply to Waterland's observation, that "there may be as great virtue, or greater, in obeying positive precepts, as in obeying moral ones," he contends, that the obedience to positive commands (such as those which had been instanced in Abraham) is merely "a proof, or evidence of virtue;" the virtue, or good disposition, being already inherent, as a moral quality, in the person who obeys the precept, and only manifested, or called into action, by the opportunity thus afforded. This and similar arguments are drawn out to considerable length, and are intended to prove, that the positive duties enjoined in Scripture derive all their weight and value from their being intended to promote mo ral duties, or from their calling forth the exercise of moral virtues. The objection, that "moral performances, if out"ward only and hypocritical, are as worthless" as positive duties, unworthily performed, is put aside, by observing that such performances are not moral, but immoral; because to constitute them moral, in the true sense of the word, there must be the internal virtuous disposition: whereas positive duties, depending upon the will of the prescriber, and being changeable," must all consist of outward acts;" and that, therefore, to distinguish betwixt outward acts and positive duties, is to confound positive with moral duties, and to render them the same. Upon these several assumptions, that positive duties are nothing more than means to virtue; that they are mere external acts, with no internal worth to recommend them; and that, on the other hand, moral duties necessarily imply and include those internal qualities which render them perfect in their kind; the author grounds his whole theory. Admitting these positions, there could be no great difficulty in overthrowing what his opponent had advanced. But upon these very points the disputants were decidedly at variance; and an impartial reader will hardly allow that Dr. Sykes has either satisfactorily vindicated his own principles, or invalidated those of his opponent. In his application of these positions to the sacraments, he chiefly labours to prove that Dr. W. had failed in bringing any clear and decisive proofs from Scripture, of their efficacy as means of conveying spiritual graces or benefits. Discarding all authori ties, either of Churches or of individuals, upon this point, he insists that, respecting the Eucharist, in particular, no text of Scripture, rightly and fairly interpreted, warrants any such assertion. The argument from the analogy between this sacrament and Baptism he rejects as irrelevant: and the sixth chapter of St. John he dismisses almost without a comment, as containing "not a word about the sacra"ments." The text of 1 Cor. xii. 13. he understands to mean nothing more than "shewing ourselves members "of that figurative body which is Christ; that we are "admitted into that religious society, the truth of "whose doctrines has been confirmed by the Spirit." St. Paul's expressions, the communion of the body and blood of Christ, are interpreted, in like manner, to denote only our "associating ourselves with "Christ," or being "in friendship with Christ and "with all Christians;" having no reference whatever to any "real participation of the merits and "benefits of the great atonement." The ends of this sacrament, he affirms, are two only; "to put men in mind of Christ who died for them, and to "shew their love and unity to one another as bre"thren." He denies that any of those virtues or good qualities which Dr. W. had stated to be essential to the worthy performance of them, are in Scripture required to accompany the performance. The absolute perfection of moral virtues is here again and again insisted upon; and the notion of any pardon being necessary on account of their imperfection is ridiculed, as confounding virtue with vice, good with evil, moral excellence with actual guilt. The author's sentiments upon this point are ex 66 pressed with a degree of confidence, not to say of arrogance, difficult to reconcile with Christian humility. 66 The Appendix is intended to rebut what had been said of the advantage given to Deism by undervaluing the efficacy of the sacraments. Natural religion (Dr. S. contends) is, in itself, true and perfect religion; and the sole or chief purpose of revealed religion is to supply additional motives, incitements, encouragements, and assistances, to perform what the religion of nature requires. "By the religion of nature, men may know that God is, and what he "is, and how God is to be worshipped: it will shew "how men, beings placed in the circumstances they "are, full of passion, full of infirmities, and sur"rounded with variety of temptations of all sorts, "may be reconciled to and accepted by God: it "will shew a future state of rewards or punish"ments and it will shew the duties we are to "practise one to another." Thus even reconciliation and acceptance are ascribed to the all-sufficiency of natural religion; nor does the author drop a hint of the necessity of any atonement, intercession, or sanctification, to give efficacy to this imaginary scheme of perfection. Thus to magnify the work of human reason, is, he maintains, the surest way to impress the Deist with a more favourable opinion of the truth of a divine Revelation. To this tract, still more adventurous and unguarded than the preceding Answer to the Remarks, Dr. Waterland replied, in A Supplement to the Treatise on the Nature, Obligation, and Efficacy of the Christian Sacraments, printed in 1730; being the third tract he had published on the subject in the course of the same year. To an author so thoroughly conversant with the matter in debate, it was no very laborious undertaking to expose the sophistries, or to overthrow the untenable positions, on which his adversary had relied. All, indeed, which he proposed, in this Supplement, was to notice more particularly some few points urged by the author of the Defence, which seemed to be "capable of further il"lustration, and important enough to deserve it." 66 66 66 On Dr. Sykes's position, that moral virtue is “ob ligatory to all intelligent beings, even previous to any laws, or commands, or injunctions, divine or "human," Dr. W. remarks, that this is "setting up a "system of morality without God at the head of it:" and "supposing obligation without law, a religion "of nature without a Deity, and duty without a superior to whom it is owing:" in which, he observes, there seems to be the like fallacy and mistake, as in the argument à priori for the existence of a God; for "as well might we suppose a cause prior to the first, as a lawgiver higher than the highest, or a law without a lawgiver, or obligation "without law." Again; whatever notion we may form of moral duties as arising out of the abstract fitnesses and reasons of things, "if God be at the "head of them, he obliges, and not they; and if 66 66 66 you abstract the Deity, you abstract the obliga "tion:" nor is it virtue or duty to conform to them upon any other principle; but mere policy, inclination, or interest. Yet this by no means warrants the inference Dr. S. would draw from it, that, in that case, the arbitrary will of God might make vice, |