to be swayed by the customs of a corrupt world, but strictly follow truth and the revealed-will of heaven, will lose many advantages, if not suffer much injurious usage; and have contempt poured upon him by those who count every thing folly and enthusiasm that happens not to serve their schemes of pleasure, of covetousness, and ambition.

This confessing of Christ then, implying an open profession of what we are persuaded to be the truth of the gospel, whatever we may suffer by it in our temporal interests; the very solemn manner in which our Lord here binds it upon all his followers, no less than his apostles, cannot but excite us to inquire how far we ourselves comply with his command.

II.

Now the difficulty of acting our part faithfully and uprightly as the disciples of Christ, ariseth at present, as it did at first, from the contrariety that there is between the maxims of the world and those of the gospel ; and from the strict unswerving adherence to virtue and integrity, which the latter demandeth of us.

Sometimes those to whom we are much at

tached,

tached, and whose friendship is useful and agreeable to us, may happen to be disbelievers of the gospel, and think lightly of those who profess any regard for it. Such characters are by no means uncommon, especially in the upper ranks of life, who, too often having no knowledge or sense of true religion instilled into them in their early youth, the only season almost in which the seeds of it or of any thing good can be sowed, so as to come up and bear fruit; and hearing the Bible on all sides made the subject of ridicule; it is hardly possible they should have any esteem or value for it, but the contrary. And this is a snare to many. In such society they are drawn to suppress or disguise their own inward sentiments, and to speak and act as others do; than which nothing can be more mean or unworthy.

At other times, where, upon serious inquiry and conviction, you entertain opinions different from those which are commonly received on the subject of Christ's religion, and where it might hurt your estimation or fortunes to act agreeably to them, it becomes a strong temptation to dissemble, and to make public profession of the contrary to that which you are inwardly persuaded to be the truth.

I may here instance, in that which is pecu liar to this our christian society, the principle on which we are united, and which our public service holds forth; namely, that not Christ, nor any other person, is God; but the person of the Father only, the Father and Creator of the universe, who alone we believe to hear the prayers of his creatures that call upon him. For any, who are thus convinced, to join in prayers offered up to Christ, it behoves us se riously to consider, whether it would not be that being ashamed of him and his truth, which he here so severely condemns: whether we shall be reckoned innocent before him at the great day of account, who were satisfied from his own words, that he never directed any to pray to himself, but to the heavenly Father, whom he constantly prayed to and worshiped.

It may be justly feared that in the different parts of Christendom, where the established systems of religion, formed in dark and ignorant ages, require a submission to religious acts and idolatrous practices, wholly irreconcileable with reason and the truth of scripture, a slavish silence and compliance with what

VOL. II.

what they wholly disapprove, and to which men are commonly induced by the allurements of ease and worldly reputation, by degrees, sap and undermine every moral principle, and lead many into the wilds of atheism, or total irreligion. It also is one great means of preventing all reformation. For, why make any change, or alteration, where men make no difficulty in conforming?

III.

There have been, and are, not a few, who are thus ashamed of Christ, and can continue in a worship of him, which is to them idolatrous, out of a supposed regard to peace and the public good, and a necessary submission to the authority of the civil powers.

But such pleas as these are too commonly the effects of indolence, and pretexts to shift off from themselves irksome duty, and cannot need a serious refutation before a christian audience.

For what greater reflection can there be made on the all-wise and righteous Governor of the world, than to imagine that the peace and public repose of this globe of ours can

not

not be preserved and maintained, otherwise than by your insincerity and dissimulation, and that he requires it of you?

No: God, our Maker, has laid us under no such necessity in promoting the public good. He has prescribed his own way of effecting it, by doing always what is right, and just, and true, and honest; and after this, we are to leave the consequences to him, who will take all proper care of the world he has made.

Had a deference to the magistrate in the things of religion been a duty, our Saviour and his apostles must have been silent, and the gospel never preached. For the Jewish rulers and Heathen governors, all the authority that was in the world, were against it.

Disturbances, indeed, then followed the preaching of the gospel, and have, at other times since, been the consequences of the publication of men's honest testimony to it. But these have arisen entirely from the fault of the civil magistrate, in interfering by his authority in what regarded the consciences of men, and belonged to God alone; and in neglecting his proper office, by not affording equal security and protection to all quiet inoffensive subjects, however different and contrary

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