Law, or the Prophets, but on Christianity in the Heart. I know of no Law, befides the Revelation of God's Covenant of Redemption; besides the Revelation of God's Method of Salvation by Christ, i. e. the Doctrine of Salvation from the Power of Sin. If a Man lives really under this Power of the Gofpel, and be really in this faved Condition, what Ufe is there then for a Law, otherwise than as a Doctrine to direct him? And, indeed, Law and Doctrine is the fame Thing, as I intended to fhew, but have not Room left. is its Root, which the Reader may examine if he pleafes By this Doctrine, I am taught to give up myself to the Will of my Redeemer, to have no Will of my own Godward. It is the Will and Doctrine of the Redeemer that I should believe in, and truft him for my Body and Soul. It is his Will, by his Spirit, to affift me, and to give me this Faith and Truft in himself; which, if he does, and I believe in him with all my Heart, I fhall be faved. If I don't, I fhall not; be my Morality never fo extenfive. With this Faith comes a Difpofition, a new Nature, productive of Repentance and all good Works; so that I turn to him, I grieve at, and am ashamed of my fhort coming before him; hence I am inclined to Charity, i. e. Love, Good-will, &c. to open my Hand wide to the Poor, Deut. xv. 8. to love my Enemies, &c. a Leffon never to be learn'd or practised, by Virtue of any Sanction of Law; a Leffon never taught nor learn'd by the Heathens, for Diogenes Laertius directs us not to let our Friends out-do us in a good Turn, nor our Enemies in an Evil one. This, he fays, was the Doctrine they all taught. I remember one of them, in an Epiftle to his Enemy, tells him, I have had Succefs in my Battles by Sea; I have beat

my

my Enemies by Land; I have had Success in my Horfe-Races, and in my Cockfightings, &c. I fend you this Glutt of good News all at once, in Hopes it will kill you. If there be a Law of Nature, here it is in Perfection. If any one thinks this is abufing the Law of Nature, and that he has a Right to abuse me for it, he is at Liberty. I shall only observe here, that I am not fuch a Fool as to expect a general Subscription to my Endeavours; every Man's Placit is not the fame with mine: But I have done thus much, and he that would overthrow it, muft know, in the firft Place, it is his Tafk to do more. There is one Point I can justly bind an Adversary to, that he shall not oppose Man to the Elahim; Heathen Romances to Divine Scriptures: He that would foil me, must use fuch Weapons as I do; for I have not fed my Readers with Straw, neither will I be confuted with Stubble.

THE

பபடு

THE

APPENDIX.

I

Had pursued or traced thefe Things a little farther, had not the wonderful Dr. Foster's late Performance juft now fallen into my Hands. A Book wherein all that is good, or intelligible, is ftolen from Revelation, i. e. Christianity, and yet wrote in Defiance of it. Our Author hath acted, in this Inftance, like an unfaithful Servant, who, having stolen his Capital from his Master, avers it to be his own, and with it fets up against him. But he has many Companions, dignify'd ones too; fo may think himfelf the lefs culpable. But whether robbing the Scripture, and treating it thus, among a Banditti of Infidels, be lefs criminal than to do it alone, I leave him to judge. I have not Time to trace the wild Romance throughout; but fhall, notwithstanding, take the Liberty to say, that either I never saw such a Heap of unmeaning Stuff, fuch an empty Harangue, fuch an Attack up

on the Religion of his Country, Chriftianity, and common Senfe, put into Print before; or, that all I have wrote, or can write, ought to be deftroy'd, and the Author treated as a Fool. Our Author, or myself, must have made Miftakes more egre

gious

gious than Don Quixote, when he mistook the Windmil for a Giant, the Bafon for a Helmet ; nay, Sydrophil and his Man Whachum must have been Connoiffeurs, in comparison of one of us; for our Author has mistaken Custom and Education for Nature, or I have all along mistaken Nature for Cuftom and Education; or rather, he has attributed that to a Power implanted in the Soul of every Individual of the human Race, which I attribute to an original Revelation; or he has confidered Reafon as diftinct from, and independant of Revelation; whereas, I fay, it was given to us, and implanted in our Souls to understand it, [Revelation] and that notwithstanding we are now able to reason, in a low Degree, about the temporal Concerns and Conveniences of Life that even this had not been the Cafe with us, if our Reason had not been originally excited, guided, and fet a-going by God's Revelation.

[Here, good Reader, paufe a little; take no Man's Word; and, be fure, not to conclude on either Side, without indubitable Data; and remember that these are not to be had from the Heathen, nor from the Imaginations of Men.

There is no Medium between us; one of us must be quite wrong: Notwithstanding, I have no Refentment against him, but as an Author, and would go as far, and do as much to ferve him, as a Man and my Fellow-creature, as he would to ferve the best Friend he has, and with as much pleasure too. Therefore the Reader is not to conftrue my Treatment of him, into Ill-nature or Hatred; for I have none against him, or any one else: But when I complain of his un-ideal Pages, and that I think

their Senfe is often as dark and concealed, as the Mystic's Tincture and Turba, he may lay the Blame on the Weakness of my Understanding; for the mystic Definition he has given of Creation, Vol. I. p. 25, 26, I confefs, I do not understand. And as every Man measures other Mens Understandings by his own, (and there is no other way of doing it,) this makes me always fufpect, that where I can't understand an Author, (an English one I mean,) it is because he did not understand himself when he wrote. I have given the Meafure of my own Conceit; dear Reader, take care, for it is contageous' But to be ingenuous, I own I understand but very little of the first Part of his firft Book; and, therefore, fhall leave it to the Gypfies; while I endeavour to separate only a few of the visible Ingredients in his Olla Podrida, the Branches of Hemlock, &c. and leave the reft till hereafter. And, indeed, without this, I have been doing nothing; for if what ourAuthor fays, Vol. I. p. 107, be true, all I have been saying is falfe. He fays there, "The confummate Wifdom of "God is further confpicuous in the universal moral "Sense, or natural Confcience of Good and Evil. "For though all Morality be, in my Opinion, "capable of the strictest Demonftration of Rea"fon, yet this is not the general Talent of Man"kind; they are unused to argue; they are a"verfe to it; they feem, through Excefs of In"dolence, and by being immersed deeply in the "Gratifications of animal Life, to loath it. This "the Creator probably forefaw; and therefore, "that there would be but few moral Sentiments

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preferved amongst Mankind, if a kind of In"stinct did not urge to what Reason was not likely to fupport; He therefore, with most il"luftrious and admirable Wisdom, implanted a

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"Principle