tinguishes us from them. Most unjust charge upon our holy religion! A religion, which enlarges our rational faculties, filling the mind with an astonishing idea of an eternal duration, and thereby giving us a contempt of the mean, transient pleasures of this life, and which we and the brutes enjoy in common: a religion that requires only the highest degree of reverence towards the MOST HIGH, the most refined purity of heart and mind, and the most noble and diffusive charity towards all mankind. In short, that establishes righteousness upon earth, and intire obedience to the will of God; that so having put the oil into our lamp, according to the gospel parable, it may not only measure the course of time, but light us beyond it, to the coming of the bridegroom, and the morning of eternity.

But this will not do for the Doctors, they must have established Credenda for judgments of all sizes, they must have a formulary of dogmatic theology, an Athanasian Jumble, to support the Holy Church; though their creed burlesques mathematical certainty, and renders their ecclesiastical Christianity inferior to the antient pagan religion. A trinity is the ecclesiastical God; but whether three distinct conscious beings of co-ordinate power, equal independency, and unorigination, and so three proper Deities; or, only three symbols of na

tural powers. In this the Doctors are not agreed; but the majority are for the three proper Deities : this heresy of three Gods we must subscribe to, or the priests will number us with the infidels, and do us all the mischief they can. Hence it comes to pass, that humanity, sweetness of temper, and moderation, are banished from society; religion, like a cloak, is made use of to authorise hatred, violence, and injustice; and the Christian religion, as the priests have forged it, and shew it off, that is, upon its present footing, as an establishment, is pernicious to mankind, and ought to go, that the people may be restored again to Christ's religion, and be led to attend to the command of God; which is to believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and to love one another.

FAITH.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;" Hebrews, ch. xi. v. 1. that is, faith is such a firm persuasion as gives, as it were, a substance or present existence to the good things which we hope for, and which are not yet in being, and as engages us to depend upon the truth of unseen things, as really, as upon ocular demon

stration.

"He endured, as seeing him who is invisible;"

ver. 27, that is, Moses as really believed the being and attributes of the invisible God, as if he had seen him with his eyes; and fully depended upon his conduct and assistance.

The better thing provided for Christians.

"And these all having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect; Hebrews, ch. xi. v. 39. 40, that is, Though the upright under the law have a good character in Scripture, and of consequence were accepted of God upon the account of their faith in the divine power and goodness, yet they received not the promised reward of another life, immediately on their leaving this world: God provided this better thing for us Christians, that we should be made happy immediately, as soon as we leave this world, that so they might not be made happy in heaven, till Christianity commenced, and Christians should be there received to happiness with them.

Note 1. It is plain from what the Apostle says before, that the thing promised is the better and more enduring substance in heaven.

2. The better thing provided for Christians, cannot be the resurrection from the dead, and the

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being, after that, received into the heavenly Jerusalem; since herein we shall have nothing better than the good people who lived under the law: therefore better things can only mean our enjoyment of God immediately upon our leaving this world.

It is strange then that Bishop Fell, and Whitby say, the better thing means the Messias, or the heavenly country to be fully possessed at the end of the world.

Of the same opinion is Pyle. He says, our pious ancestors under the law, though in a state of rest and happiness, after death, yet received not the full and complete enjoyment of celestial glory, that being deferred till the last and great dispensation of the Messiah be past, that so they and sincere Christians, may be all rewarded and crowned together, with the happiness both of body and soul, at the final day of judgment: but if so, tell me Mr. Pyle, where is the better thing provided for us Christians?

3. Besides, if the Apostle may be his own interpreter, the word perfect means the intermediate state of good souls in paradise, and not the complete state after the resurrection. In the next chapter, he speaks of the spirits of the just made perfect, by which he means undoubtedly the separate souls now in glory.

In a word, the design of the Apostle was to prove that, since God has provided some better thing for us, we appear to be more in his favour; and therefore the argument from their being justified to our being justified by faith, is stronger, that is, such a faith as has an operative influence, by rendering our lives a comment upon the blessed nature of God.

And that this was the meaning of the Apostle in the something better provided for us Christians, appears yet plainer from the consequence drawn by the inspired writer, to wit, that we ought with the greater patience and courage to endure persecution, since God has provided something better for us than for them. If the ancient believers held out, who expected but a state of sleep, till the time of the general resurrection: much more should we patiently suffer affliction, and even death itself, for the sake of truth, and of the gospel, when we know, that God has promised us something better; to wit, that we shall be conducted to paradise immediately after death, and be there spirits of just men made perfect, and be with Christ, which is far better than either to sleep after death, or to live longer in this world.

Let us lay aside then every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with