SERMON I. 2 TIM. iii. 14. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. THAT no investigations are more important than those which Religion points out, is a truth admitted indeed by all, but felt only by the wise and good. Other enquiries we may pursue or omit, as individual inclination prompts us, while with respect to our future existence we prosecute them without profit, or neglect them without danger; but the case of Religion permits no alternative. Here not inclination but duty and interest are to be consulted. This is a subject upon the cultivation of which depends the welfare of our being beyond the grave; which it is the extreme of folly to forget, and of madness to despise. Educated in a Christian community, with a reverence for the precepts of the Gospel, B we imbibe in early years an habitual predilection for its doctrines. When the faculties of the soul expand, and reason approaches maturity, this predilection becomes augmented, in proportion as we weigh with more or less accuracy the irrefragable arguments, which have been repeatedly urged in its defence since the happy æra of the Reformation. For it is the pride of Englishmen to reflect, that the principles of Christianity have been no where discussed with more candour and ability, or with more clearness, solidity, and force of conviction, than in their own country. But every good is attended with a correspondent evil. The Reformation, which in order to expose error encouraged freedom of enquiry, unavoidably occasioned an almost infinite variety of opinions, as the points of view became different, under which the same objects were contemplated. One system however only could be established; and to that, which was at first adopted, we still adhere. Hence it happens, that we find ourselves not merely Christians, but Protestants, and not Protestants only, but members of a particular Church, the distinguishing tenets of which, if we choose to preserve our connexion with it, we seem bound without dissimulation to profess, and in our consciences to believe. If such be the obligation even of the Laity, the Clergy surely ought to be sensible of one more strict, as well as extensive ; they should consider themselves as appointed not simply to teach Religion by precept, and adorn it by example, but at all times to support the faith of that Church, to which they belong, without lukewarmness and without inconstancy. The humblest attempt therefore to elucidate any controverted points of our national Creed cannot perhaps prove totally uninteresting in this place, where its value is duly appreciated, and where all, it is presumed, feel equally influenced by deliberate choice, as by consistency of character, to protect it from injury and insult. When the nature of academical institutions and their close connexion with the Church are considered, no public discordance of sentiment can here be expected to prevail; here can we approve and teach only authorized opinions; and here a sense of honour no less than of duty prevents the most forward from attempting to subvert, by concealed and insidious stratagems, what none can openly attack. But as soon as we go abroad into the world, and converse with Christians of different persuasions, with some, who feel as proud a distinction in being without, as we do in being within, the pale of our Establishment, the unanimity, which before we witnessed, disappears a scene of discord succeeds; and perhaps upon topics where we expected immediate concession, we are surprised by a pertinacious opposition; where we supposed liberality to exist, we sometimes find prejudice; and where prejudice, sometimes liberality; where we looked for indifference, we are encountered with zeal; and where we could conceive nothing but weakness, if we do not always discover wisdom, we often admire address and applaud ingenuity. It may not therefore appear foreign to the design of these Lectures, if I direct your attention to those particular Doctrines of our Church, which Dissenters of every denomination, how widely soever they differ from each other, agree to object against us, as Doctrines, which either we do not understand, or understanding, choose not to believe. In the standard of Faith, which our Articles exhibit, a peculiar class of opinions is to be found, which seem to have been va riously argued at various periods, and which during more than one century interested in the highest degree, and interesting disunited, the Christian world; those I mean, which are usually supposed to be more or less allied to the Predestinarian controversy. Interpreting them accord ing to the modern meaning of certain expressions, and disregarding the characteristical notions of the times in which they were first established, the Socinian and the Calvinist combine in giving them a sense, which they were not originally intended to convey; and then accuse us of departing from the creed of our ancestors, of disbelieving that, to which in this place at least we have all subscribed. Thus, to whichsoever side we turn, we perceive each party in array against us; the one preferring the charge with sarcastical contempt; the other with a mingled sensation of anger and pity; and both with apparently a confident persuasion of our apostasy. To the Articles, which embrace these particular points, I propose to restrict my enquiries. In the pursuit however of this object it will not be necessary to explore those endless labyrinths, in which the century subsequent to the Reformation, one not unproductive ei |