no exiflence, and to deceive yourselves with a de lufion, which is of all others moft dangerous.

So that you may obferve with great pleasure, that the Religion of Chrift propofeth, with the moft winning benevolence, confolation to finners the most afflicted, and to fouls the moft depreffed; while it encourageth not the leaft appearance of iniquity; but recommends the most folid and rational piety in a fyftem of laws, the moft pure and the most perfect that the earth ever faw; upon motives, the moft Works. When St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans,chap. iv, ver. 6. fpeaks of Righteoufnefs without Works, it is evident to any man, who understands the language in which he writes, or who attends to the context, that he means only justification or pardon of paft fins, upon Faith and Repentance. For in the 7th verfe he fays, (quoting the Pfalmift) Bleed are they whofe iniquities are forgiven, and whofe fins are covered. Ainaison Δικαιοσύν fhould properly have been rendered juftification, in agreement with dindian, &c. which our tranflators have ren dered juftified, justifieth, &c.in ver. 2, 5, &c. And it is much to be wifhed, that this accuracy had been preferved throughout our Tranflation; that the fame word in the original always had been rendered by the fame word in the English. By this means many objections and controverfies agitated with no fmall fury, had been prevented. Righteouf nefs without works, is a contradiction in terms, in our language; for Righteousness is only a complex word for all moral virtues, or good works. To fay that it means the Righteoufness of Chrift in this place betrays great inattention; fince the apoftle is evidently fpeaking only of justification or pardon of paft offences, through faith; and Faith, fays he, was reckoned to Abraham for righteoufnefs, ver. 9. slogion τῷ Αβρααμ η πιςις εις Δικαιοσύνην. that is, he was looked upon by God as a juftified perfon, as in a state of pardon, on ac count of that Faith, which the Apoftle defcribes in the following verfes: See alfo ver. 5 and 22.

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affecting

57

affecting and perfuafive; and under fanctions, the most holy, awful, and formidable.

This may, fuffice to fhew the end, and the excellence of the Chriftian inftitution: which might indeed be confider'd in various other inimitable parts, did not the time, and the defign we are met to encourage, render it the lefs feasonable. I cannot however fail to obferve, that fo ftriking is the beauty of the Religion we profefs, that it hath extorted, as it were, unwilling praifes from the pen of a late noble writer, who applied all his wit and his parts to oppofe and degrade it. For HE acknowledgeth that it is a most amiable, and useful inftitution; whose natural tendency is directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind; that it contains all the duties of natural Religion, and teacheth them in the most plain and fimple manner; that it is one continued lesson of the strictest Morality, of Justice, of Benevolence, and of univerfal charity: That, as its moral precepts are excellent; fo its pofitive inftitutions are not only innocent but profitable, and extremely proper to keep up the fpirit of Religion; that it is a moft fimple and intelligible rule of belief, worship, and prac fice, &c.

Lord Bolingbroke, from different parts of the fourth volume of whofe works the paffages following are extracted.

Now'

Now if even an enemy could bear fuch a teftimony to it, how much doth it behove us to bear a more ufeful teftimony to it, by the integrity of our lives, and the exemplariness of our practice?

II. And you, worthy hearers, are ready to bear that teftimony, I am perfuaded, by your appearance in this place for the promotion of a charitable defign, furely, of all others moft conformable to the nature and end of the Christian Religion.

That end, you have heard from the mouth of the benevolent author of this religion himself, is

the falvation of finners:" that falvation, you perceive is to be effected," by bringing finners to repentance:" and your great lord and mafter hath fhewn you a pattern, and left you to imitate an example of the most tender compaffion and unwearied benevolence in this important work. Your prefent laudable Defign is a noble copy after his example: Tender compaffion, and the most difinterested benevolence have mov'd you to provide the means of repentance, and fo the means of falvation for many miferable fouis, who, without this provifion, must perish in inevitable destruction. Thus are you happy in treading in the fteps, and being fellow-workers together with the God of your falvation.

'Tis true, that to common and fuperficial obfervers of things, nothing feems a more deteftable object, more worthy our hatred and fcorn, than a common and peftilent Prostitute. And indeed were thofe in that miferable condition, either plac'd in it by their own choice, or detained in it, by their own free-will: had a vicious inclination at firft introduced, or did the fame vicious inclination continue them in it, amidft repeated opportunities to retrieve and return: we would then grant, they were utterly unworthy the leaft compaffion, and more beneath humanity, than the beaft that perifheth. But when we are fully convinc'd, that different, far different is the truth of the cafe; then compaffion pleads their caufe, and humanity urgeth us to their fuccour and fedrefs.

For though the great author of our being hath, for wife and good ends, implanted the fame paffions in either fex, and therefore tranfgreffion is as poffible, and of confequence as excufeable on the weaker fide, as it is on the ftronger; yet fact abundantly demonftrates to us, that men for the most part, are the Seducers; and the generality of thofe, who now claim our aid, have been introduced to their misery, by the complicated arts of feduction, and by every unjuftifiable method, which cruel and brutish luft fuggefts to the crafty feducer.

And

And it is well known, how much harder that cafe in this particular, is with the female fex, than with our own.-One falfe ftep for ever ruins their fair fame, blafts the fragrance of virgin innocence, and configns them to contempt and difgrace! while the author of their diftrefs. may triumph in his villainy! and-fhame to hu man nature-not be branded with one mark of reproach for the ruin of a fellow-creature!

And when once, by whatever unhappy means undone, the wretched outcaft hath no refource, no redress: but must fall from fhame to shame: from forrow to forrow: fall lower and lower in the pit of foul mifery, and drudge in the labour of odious proftitution, to preferve a burthenfome Being from famine and from death.

Thus foul and body are loft at once; and an ufeful member is cut off from the community in early youth, having done no good, nay, having diffufed much evil amongst her fellowcreatures. In early youth indeed; very many of the unhappy objects now in the house, being under fourteen years of age, and a great part debauch'd and introduc'd into this wretched way of life, before that age*, and of course, before

In a paper of our worthy Treasurer's now before me, and written fome time fince, I read," Out of an hundred girls, now in the Magdalen House, above a feventh part have not yet feen their fifteenth year; several are under fourteen ; and one third of the whole have been betray'd before that age."

nature