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LETTER XVII.

From JAMES BROWN, Esq.

OBJECTIONS TO THE CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE SALVATION.

REVEREND SIR,

1 AM too much taken up myself with the present subject of your letters, willingly, to interrupt the continuation of them: but some of the Gentlemen who frequent New Cottage, having communicated your three last to a learned dignitary, who is upon a visit in our neighbourhood, and he having made certain remarks upon them, I have been solicited by those Gentlemen to forward them to you. The terms of our correspondence render an apology from me unnecessary, and still more the conviction that I believe you entertain of my being, with sincere respect and regard,

Rev. Sir, &c

JAMES BROWN.

Extract of a Letter from the Rev. N. N. Prebendary of N. to Mr. N.

IT is well known to many Roman Catholic Gentlemen, with whom I have lived in habits of social intercourse, that I was always a warm advocate for their Emancipation, and that, so far from having any objections to their religion, I considered their hopes of future bliss as well founded as my own. In return, I thought I saw in them a corresponding liberality and charity. But these letters which you have sent me from

dressed in black, and some in white, and some in blue; that some of them live on meat, and some on fish, and some on herbs: they have also disputes in their schools, as Dr. Porteus also remarks; but they both omit to mention, that these disputes are not about articles of Faith.

the correspondent of your Society at Winchester, have quite disgusted me with their bigotry and uncharitableness. In opposition to the Chrysostomes and Augustins, whom he quotes so copiously, for his doctrine of exclusive salvation, I will place a modern Bishop of my Church, no way inferior to them, Dr. Watson, who says, 'Shall we never be freed from the narrow-mind'ed contentions of bigots, and from the insults of men who know not what Spirit they are of, when they stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven against 6 every sect but their own? Shall we never learn to think more humbly of ourselves and less despicably of others; to believe that the Father of the Universe accommodates not his judgments 'to the wretched wranglings of pedantic theologues; but that every one, who, with an honest intention, and to the best of his abilities, seeketh truth, whether he findeth it or not, and 'worketh righteousness, will be accepted of by him:'(1) These, Sir, are exactly my sentiments, as they were those of the illustrious Hoadley in his celebrated Sermon, which had the effect of stifling most of the remaining bigotry in the Established Church. (2) There is not any prayer which I more frequently or fervently repeat, than that of the liberal-minded Poet, who himself passed for a Roman Catholic, particularly the following stanza of it:

'Let not this weak and erring hand
'Presume thy bolts to throw,

'And deal damnation round the land
'On each I judge thy fae.'(3)

(1) Bishop Watson's Theolog. Tracts, Pref. p. 17.

(2) Bishop Hoadley's Sermon On the Kingdom of Christ. This made the choice of religion a thing indifferent, and subjected the whole business of Religion to the Civil Power. Hence sprung the famous Bangorian Controversy, which was on the point of ending in a censure upon Hoadley from the Convocation, when the latter was interdicted by Ministry, and has never since, in the course of a hundred years, been allowed to meet again.

(3) Pope's Universal Prayer.

I hope your Society will require its Popish correspondent, before he writes any more letters to it on other subjects, to answer what our Prelate and his own Poet have advanced against the bigotry and uncharitableness, of excluding Christians, of any denomination, from the mercies of God and everlasting happiness. He may assign whatever marks he pleases of the True Church, but I, for my part, shall ever consider charity as the only sure mark of this, conformably with what Christ says, By this shall all know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John xiii. 35.

LETTER XVIII.

To JAMES BROWN, Esq. &c.

DEAR SIR,

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

IN answer to the objections of the Reverend Prebentary, to my letters on the mark of Unity in the True Church, and the necessity of being incorporated in this Church, I must observe, in the first place, that nothing disgusts a reasoning Divine more than vague charges of bigotry and intolerance; inasmuch as they have no distinct meaning, and are equally applied to all sects and individuals, by others whose religious opinions are more lax than their own. These odious accusations which your Churchmen bring against Catholics, the Dissenters bring against you, who are equally loaded with them by the Deists, as these are, in their turn, by the Atheists and Materialists. Let us then, Dear Sir, in the serious discussions of Religion, confine ourselves to language of a defined meaning, leaving vague and tinsel terms to poets and novelists.

It seems then, that Bishop Watson, with the Rev. N. N. and other fashionable Latitudinarians

of the day, are indignant at the idea of 'stinting 'the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, 'and barring the doors of heaven against any sect,' however heterodox or impious. Nevertheless in the very passage, which I have quoted, they themselves stint this mercy to those who 'work righteousness,' which implies a restraint on men's passions. Methinks I now hear some epicure Dives or elegant libertine, retorting on these liberal, charitable Divines, in their own words, Pedantic Theologues, narrow-minded bigots, who stint the Omnipotent in the exercise of his mercy, and bar the doors of heaven, against me, 'for following the impulse which he himself has planted in me!'-The same language might, with equal justice, be put into the mouth of Nero, Judas Iscariot, and of the very demons themselves. Thus, in pretending to magnify God's mercy, these men would annihilate his justice, his sanctity, and his veracity!

Our business then is, not to form arbitrary theories concerning the Divine attributes, but to attend to what God himself has revealed concerning them and the exercise of them. What words can be more express than those of Christ on this point: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned! Mark, xvi. 16.? or than those of St. Paul: Without faith it is impossible to please God, Heb. xi. 6. Conformably with this doctrine, the same Apostle classes heresies with murder and adultery; concerning which he says, they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, Gal. v. 20, 21. Accordingly he orders that a man, who is a heretic, shall be rejected, Tit. iii. 10; and the Apostle of Charity, St. John, forbids the faithful to receive him into their houses; or even to bid him God speed who bringeth not this doctrine of Christ. 2 John, i. 10. This Apostle acted up to his rule, with respect to the treatment of per

sons out of the Church, when he hastily withdrew from a public building, in which he met the heretic Cerinthus, lest,' as he said, it should "fall down upon him.' (1)

I have given, in a former letter, some of the numberless passages, in which the Holy Fathers speak home to the present point; and, as these are far more expressive and emphatical than what I myself have said upon it, I presume they have chiefly contributed to excite the bile of the Rev. Prebendary. However he may slight these venerable authorities, yet as I am sure that you Sir, reverence them, I will, on account of their peculiar appositeness to the point in question, add two more similar quotations from the great Doctor of the fifth century, St. Augustin. He says, All the assemblies, or rather divisions, who call 'themselves Churches of Christ, but which, in 'fact, have separated themselves from the congregation of Unity, do not belong to the true 'Church. They might indeed belong to her, if 'the Holy Ghost could be divided against him'self; but as this is impossible, they do not belong to her.'(2) In like manner, addressing himself to certain sectaries of his time, he says, If our communion is the Church of Christ, yours ' is not so; for the Church of Christ is one, whichso6 ever she is; since it is said of her, My dove, my " undefiled is one; she is the only one of her mother.' Cantic. vi. 9.

But setting aside Scripture and Tradition, let us consider this matter, as Bishop Watson and his associates affect to consider it, on the side of natural reason alone. These modern philosophers think it absurd to suppose, that the Creator of the Universe concerns himself about what we poor mortals do or do not believe, or, as the Bishop expresses himself, that he accommo

(1) S. Iren. 1. iii. Euseb. Hist. 1. iii.

(2) De Verb, Dom, Serm, ii.