For if the reprefentations of their accufers be juft, it is not to clergymen of this clafs that we are to look for any inftrumentality that shall leffen public evils; their operation, on the contrary, is to be confidered as one of the evils we have to remove and being one which refides and acts within the very bowels of the commonwealth, it claims extraordinary attention. If, therefore, I fhould be a little prolix in this enquiry, let my reader remember the importance of afcertaining in a time of danger, whether we have got a friend, or an enemy, in our quarters.

Of my competency to this enquiry, I have only this prefumptive argument to offer; that my intercourfe has lain much, though not exclufively, among clergymen of this defcription. I hereby conceive inyfelf better qualified to speak to the fentiments and habits prevailing among them, than they can be, who keep aloof from their fociety. Nor am I anxious to conceal, that, though far from approving of many things found among them, though no member of any of their affociations, and confidered by fome of them as ftanding at rather a low point in the fcale of orthodoxy, I am one who might probably be claffed with them by many. To hold forth the Saviour as the only hope of fallen man-to fhew the neceffity of a much higher degree of holiness than that which fatisfies the bulk of Chriftian profeffors-and the

impoffibility of attaining this, without the influence of the Holy Spirit, being in my view duties of the first confequence in the discharge of the facred function, the importance I attach to them may be difcerned in my humble ministry. On this account, the clergy of whom I am about to speak admit me into their pulpits; and fome of them, poffeffing in an eminent degree the excellencies of their profeffion unmixed with any appearance of fectarian peculiarity, I rejoice to fee in that which I have in charge.

To them who conceive, that from this acknowledgment, they must prepare to receive the partial representation of a friend, I only make one request: which is, that they would fufpend their judgment till they arrive at the end of the account. I have a hope, that the record will be found to have fome internal marks, of its having been written by an honeft and candid mind. All that in this place I can bring myself to offer, to encourage the expectation of an impartial statement, is to give the reader this short draught of his author's mind;

Though he accounts found knowledge in religion a bleffing to every individual who has it, and a quality of great importance in a religious inftructor; he has not fo circumfcribed a conception of true Christianity, as to look for it only among a few

perfons, who more, perhaps, from being in the habit of anatomizing religious opinions, than from uncommon parts or piety, have learned to think with extraordinary exa&nefs on theological fubjects. He believes, that many whofe way of expreffing themselves on thefe fubjects is lefs accurate, poffefs the vital fpirit of that religion, which others may know how to ftate in precifer terms: and that they are not a whit inferior to them, in devotednefs to God, in pure reliance on the mediation of Chrift, in humility of mind, in defires of increafing holiness, and whatever elfe is effential to Christian character; though from want of living in fociety more on the alert in the detection of religious errors, their language does not, on every particular, indicate clearness of ideas.

On this account, he detefts the affumption of all appellatives, intended to define a certain class of clergymen, as alone worthy of honour, and to degrade all the rest of their profeffion: fuch as, The Serious Clergy, The Evangelical Clergy, The True Churchmen, &c. Serioufnefs, indeed, evangelical doctrine, true churchmanship, he allows to be terms that fignify things of high importance: far, therefore, is he from thinking, that they exprefs unneceffary points of enquiry respecting an Ecclefiaftic. It is only to their being made to ferve the purposes of difunion, and invidious preference, as

they are when exclufively affumed by a clafs of men, that he has an objection to make.

of

But what above all he would with his reader to know, is, that he is not fo loft to a sense of the majefty of Christianity, as to identify its interests with those of a party in the Chriftian world. Far therefore is he from thinking, that to take a fide in the brawls of rival religionists, is the best way ferving that GREAT CAUSE. He could not thus blend perfection with imperfection, in behalf of any Church on the face of the earth; not even of that which he prefers to all others, the Church of England; much less in behalf of any particular clafs of men in a Church; and efpecially of fuch a clafs as cannot be contemplated with entire fatisfaction.

Such to his apprehenfion, is the cafe with respect to the clafs of clergymen in queftion. Taking it in the grofs, he does not think that the perfons of whom it confifts, can be justly said to have made up by the perfection of their character, what they wanted of importance through the fmallness of their number, and the inferiority of their station. Some of them appear to him to deferve a place among the brighteft ornaments of their profeffion. But truth obliges him to acknowledge, that there are many, who have fo little beyond honeft intention to entitle them to commendation, that all

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claim in their behalf to honourable diftinction must be waved. Their cause must be referred to that charity, which "thinketh no evil" either of men, or things, wherever it can confift with a due regard to truth and goodness to think otherwife.

SECTION I.

On their being confidered as univerfally Calvinifts.

THERE

HERE does not feem to exift in the religious world a more opprobrious term than Calvinifm. How a fyftem, which was favoured by many of our moft eminent divines of former days, fhould have become fo generally odious, as it now is to the members of the Church of England, may be deemed rather extraordinary; but the history of our country will enable us to account for this change.

The fentiments of our Reformers on the fubject of the divine decrees, (the main point of differ ence between the Calvinifts and the Arminians) feem to have been of the moft moderate complexion. Thofe venerable men appear to have had a fear of wading too far into so profound a