an attribute of the Almighty, and endow with it what spot of earth they please. Will these insolent deceivers say, that God Almighty cannot hear as well and as favourable, a prayer put up from a ship as from a chapel? Or in what part of scripture are we told that he will be rather worshiped at St. Peter's, than upon the Alps; or at Loretto, or any other consecrated place, rather than in a booth, or a barn; provided the worship be performed with equal piety? Or does e'er a text in the New Testament inform us, that one piece of earth is holier than another; or that any man or society of men can make it so ?

If consecrated ground have no more holiness in it than other ground, how is divine worship more acceptable in it than in other ground? And if it have some uncommon sanctity in it; let those concerned tell us what it is, how it is, and by what certain signs we shall know it? And whether it keep all the said holiness to itself, and amongst its own inanimate heap of stones, timber, and nails and then what are we the better for it? Or whether the religious bricks and mortar do in good earnest communicate part of their piety to the people? And, if so; in what manner do they perform this; and how does it appear first, and operate afterwards? But if all this be a mystery, let them shew us where it is revealed in scripture, wherein all other mysteries are revealed.

If by consecration any change be made, the same must be either visible, or only mystical. If the change be visible, then it comes under the test and examination of our senses, and must be evident to all men: but if the change be purely mystical, it must be revealed to all. So that we must either have the evidence of sense or the evidence of God's word and authority, which is as good. But where neither of these proofs appear, our faith and assent ought neither to be demanded; nor given, if demanded.

If prayers be more prevailing with God, and divine service more welcome to him, when they come from consecrated ground; then all. worship and devotion ought to be performed only at church; and family religion ought either to be neglected, (as lame and insufficient) or every private house should be consecrated; and then every house would be a chapel, and every such chapel a church. I would be glad to know, why only one house in a parish should be consecrated, that is, made fit to pray in; and why not every house, for the same reason? For, nothing that helps devotion ought to be omitted, such omission being doubtless a great sin.

But if it be allowed that people may pray to as good purpose out of consecrated ground as in it; how are prayers at church better than in a chamber or the fields? Or, why should the prayers of five hundred have more need of consecrated ground, than the prayers of one, two, or three? Or, if a place become holy by the devotions performed in it, then every place where devotions are performed, is as holy as another; and if so, pray what use of a form of words, and a particular office for that purpose?

Suppose a church to be consecrated, and yet never after used; is it. for all this, holy? Or, suppose that it has been used for all the purposes of a church, and yet was never formerly consecrated; is it, for all that, not holy?

Either the scripture is not a sufficient rule of worship, or this business of consecration in popish and pagan countries, is a needless, empty, superstitious foppery, an evident trick of priestcraft; as if the priests could change the nature of things, and confer the grace which they have not themselves upon stocks and stones, that have not, nor can have, the least moral goodness, or pravity, in them. A general of an army may as modestly and rationally contend, that the ground, on which his pavilion stands, is valiant ground; and that the ticking, of which it is made, is courageous ticking. And, according to the same way of reasoning, there is prodigious policy in the boards that compose the council-table; the carpet is a long-headed carpet, and the wainscot and chairs understand wonderfully well the interest of Christendom.

If devotion communicate a tincture of itself to wood and walls; the pravity of ill actions must, by the same rule, diffuse itself, and taint all the house or fields where such ill actions are committed. A jobb of lewdness must needs debauch the curtains greatly, and the bed-clothes must partake of the iniquity; and were justly punished by fire in Herefordshire for that reason: at which execution, I am told, a certain deyout person now living, was a very zealous and useful assistant. Every counter and shop-board in the city must, for the like reason, be guilty of unpardonable tricking and lying; and for falsehood and dissimulation Heaven have mercy upon some great buildings at the court-end of the town!"

I would here be glad to know the precise extent of the influence which holiness and vice have upon the inanimate creation. Is a thick church-wali as quickly and fully impregnated with them as a thin one? And do they never extend an inch beyond the church and churchyard? Or, is the church equally holy, whether much devotion, or little, be performed in it? Or have the popish priests set bounds to the godliness of the ground, and the building; and said-Thus far, or thus deep, O ground! shall thy holiness extend, and no farther.

If consecration signify any thing more than a declaration, that such a place is set aside for the worship of God, I wish it could be explained and proved; and the rather, because things of the most simple and obvious nature have, by the guile or superstition of designing church-men, been rendered to the credulous gaping multituded, mysterious and tremendous; the natural enthusiasm which resides in the mind of man, having always made him the prey and property of delusion and deluders.

Happy, thrice happy, are we, who live in a country where all this pagan idolatry and these monkish fooleries receive no countenance from our laws; but, on the contrary, are forbid and punishable by them. The laity at the reformation had seen what use the priests made of this dark juggling, and of these hocus pocus tricks : and, therefore, would not suffer them to be played over again, to deceive superstitious and enchanted bigots, by making them pay great prices to be buried in consecrated ground, which rose, like the value of jewels, as they ap proached nearer to the bodies of saints, or the altar, where it seems the devil could not come at them; with many other advantageous frauds, which I shall hereafter expose to the world, when I treat again upor this prolifick subject.

G.

NUMBER 26.

Of Faith and Morality.

RELIGION, and virtue consist in doing good actions, or in a disposition to do them. These being in our power, as we perform or neglect them, we merit praise or blame. But in matters of speculation, or doubt, or such as are not necessarily attended with some consequences, it is of no moment on which side of the question we stand. Where there is no certainty, or significancy, there can be no duty. Faith without works, in scripture, has but a very indifferent character; it is said to be dead; and we all know that what is dead is useless.

If you would know any man's affections towards God, consult his behaviour towards men. Though his professions be ever so voluminous; though his zeal be ever so noisy; though he believe by the Jump and swallow creeds by dozens; yet if he be immoral he is worse than an infidel. What is the use of belief, but to govern our practice, and beget good deeds? We all see the necessity of living well; but to believe well and do no more, is the same thing, with regard to others, as not to believe at all; and, with regard to ourselves,

worse.

A worthy life infers worthy principles; but a base behaviour contradicts and dishonours an honest profession. Will any one tell me, that a virtuous heathen is not a better man, and more in the favour of God, than a profligate Christian? A pagan, who violates not the laws of truth and peace, is, in my eyes, an infinitely more religious person, than a turbulent and forsworn Christian Priest, though he wear a mitre.

Socrates, Plato, Cato, and Brutus were excellent persons, though they were only governed by the simple dictates of human reason, and were utter strangers to creeds and fathers, and our present orthodox notions established by law. Who, that has any care for his soul, any honour for his God, or any love for mankind, would not rather choose to be animated by the rational and beneficent sentiments of these righteous gentiles, than be possessed with the fierce and inhuman spirit of father Laud, friar Francis, or doctor Bungy, though they were all sound believers? I would have mentioned Aristotle here with the other ancients; but I find, that though he was very orthodox, and a great enemy to Dr. Clark's Arian principles*, yet this true believer was a very wicked liver. However, as a true friend to the church, he died the death of the righteous, and 'tis said enjoys everlasting life.†

Besides, saying is not proving. If we would be thought Christians, we ought to shew ourselves Christians. Living well is the best and on

Emanuel de Moura, and some other orthodox writers say, that Aristotle was a steady believer in the trinity.

This is the opinion of Sepulveda, a learned man in the 16th century.

The whole article of Aristotle, in Mr. Bayle's dictionary, is well worth reading.

ly evidence we can give that we believe well. If a man profess his faith in Jesus Christ with one breath, and swear falsely by his name with another, why should I give credit to one who so effectually contradicts himself? We do not credit the propositions of mathematicians till they have gained our assent by demonstration: And why should we trust any man's professions of faith and morality, before he has, by works of faith and morality, proved them sincere? If we hear a man full of the praises of loyalty, and yet see him every day rebelling, would we not take him for a madman or a deceiver? A good life is beneficial both to ourselves and others, but a good belief without it is neither.

But besides, this same belief is perhaps the necessary consequence of evidence; and if so, what is unavoidable, is not virtuous. Where is the praise or merit of feeling the heat of the sun, or the severity of the winter? Or, of hearing sounds when our ears are open? To believe in Christ was and is inevitable : His miracles command assent. But to do his will, is a trial of our piety and virtue. And for our Saviour himself, would his law have been ever received, or his doctrine believed, had he contradicted both by his example? Or could the apostles, without leading the lives of Christians, have gained converts to Christianity?

I have placed faith and practice in this light, to shew how little valuable the pretence of believing well makes men, unless they also live well. I would therefore bring our high clergy to be tried by this test. If they be more zealous for orthodoxy than piety; if they abhor a virtuous man, who prefers the dictates of his own conscience, before those of their ambition and authority; and openly court and honour any person, who is observant of the priesthood, though he live at mauifest defiance with heaven; if they treat unbelievers and debauchees as pure churchmen, and devout Christians as schismaticks, hereticks, and the Lord knows what; their faith is selfish and vain, and such religion is false and absurd.

Conformity is the word! it is the mother of all virtues, and the sanctifier of all crimes. It is, in fine, all in all. And yet, so weak and blind am I, that I take this same applauded conformity to be in some cases a very great sin. If a man for instance, in the worship of God, follow the authority of any church whatsoever, and dissent at the same time from the suggestions and persuasions of his own conscience; it is certain, that he does not worship God at all, but mocks him, adores men, and condemns himself. If, on the other hand, he think ..his soul in danger, or in no way of being edified in any church, though ever so orthodox; he ought to desert it, and join with that which appears to him better. If I should thwart or disturb my conscience, by bowing fashionably to the altar, I would ask the clergy, whether ought the altar or my conscience to be first or most regarded? He who believes at random, and obeys blindly, may give great satisfaction to churchmen; but he neither knows the gospel of truth, nor obeys the precepts of the Holy Ghost.

It is a surprising thing, the selfishness and pride of man! What priest is there that (in disputes of the most trivial nature) does not grow hot and eager for victory, and angry if his opinion does not prevail? In spiritul affairs, this spirit of levelling all men to our own

We

conceits, is still fiercer; and religion, which was given and intended to subdue the passions, is turned into an engine to raise them. are much more zealous that men should conform to us, than to holiness, and would rather have them obedient than godly. How many highchurch parsons would not rather see their parishioners drunken churchmen, than sober dissenters ?

Laymen are at least as capable of judging of errour as the clergy, and more proper, as having no interest on either side of the question. However, the latter have usurped this privilege wholly to themselves, and with good policy; for it has wonderfully answered their great ends of power and wealth. We are not therefore to wonder that many of them give much more countenance and quarter to the most heinous immoralities, which are only sins against God; than to the least variation from an orthodox opinion, which is an unpardonable sin against themselves. The greatest mistakes, when involuntary, are innocent in the sight of God; but in the eyes of the priests, the smallest are often damnable. Nay, many a man has been pronounced a heretick, and delivered to hell and the devil, for his pious searches after truth and his devout adherence to it.

Thus we see that God may be pleased, and some of the clergy provoked, by one and the same action. From hence it wofully happens, that weak men and profligates, who will do and say as they are bid, without any bias from reason and conscience, are caressed, encouraged and promoted; while the wise and virtuous, who cannot abandon truth and the fear of God, to promote the craft, and humour the pride of assuming men, are brow-beaten, reproached and persecuted. Mr. Whiston, and the parson of his parish,* are known instances of this shameful truth.

I know several, who, notwithstanaing their avowed disbelief of the gospel and all revealed religion, are in high esteem with the highclergy; because, though they deny our Saviour, they reverence his successors; and are zealous for the hierarchy, though they laugh at religion. The truth is, if a man be but a hearty churchman, it is never asked whether he be a Christian. Profligates, void of common honesty, and common sense, have been, and are still reckoned true friends to the church, and courted by the ecclesiasticks, as their patrons and defenders. And indeed, where religion is turned into faction, such measures and alliances are natural and necessary.

But in the opinion of us Christians, a wicked liver, whether he be a believer or no, is an enemy to religion, which is propagated and supported by example; and to human society, which is maintained by the bonds of morality. Whereas a good man, though a heretick, is a friend to religion, virtue and his country. To conclude: be who is a rebel to the king of kings, is like to prove but an ill subject to his vicegerant; and as bad a pattern to his fellow subjects.

G.

*St. Andrew's, Holbourn, where the late Dr. Sacheverell was then Rec