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This has appeared very evidently in some late proceedings of the sect. Some of their members having shewn too decided à propensity to what are called the Unitarian tenets, and having followed Dr. Priestley and the Monthly Reviewers in their rejection of parts of Scripture, have been put to silence by their general assembly, even without being allowed to be heard in their defence. The society has in consequence been complained of, and not without reason, as acting contrary to its own principles". Indeed the whole transaction has very plainly exposed the slippery foundation upon which they stand, and makes it probable that that is, or will soon become true which is stated by a late panegyrist of theirs as matter of lamentation, that they are a decreasing sect. To us it can only be matter of satisfaction that there should be such a probability of their being in due time reclaimed from their errors.

I have thus pointed out to your notice that description of dissenters whose differences from

19 See a Narrative of the Proceedings in America of the Society called Quakers in the case of Hannah Barnard, &c. Printed for Johnson, 1804. There have, I think, been other cases of the same sort which excited the attention of the Monthly Reviewer at the time.

10 Clarkson in his Portraiture before cited. As he appears to have written under the patronage of the Quakers, and on their be half, his authority must be taken to be of no small weight upon this point,

us are so essential and fundamental as to leave no prospect of union without a thorough change in their ideas of our common religion. They thus, as I have before observed, stand to us in somewhat the same relation as that in which we stand to the Romanists. The question in both cases is a direct one; namely, on which side the truth lies. It admits of no compromise. As to our doctrine, which is and has been through all ages the general doctrine of the church, it has been so ably defended and supported; more especially in this country, and even among my predecessors in this lecture, there have been found so many pious and learned men prepared and able to put to silence the gainsayers; that perhaps even what little I have said upon the subject might have been spared. I have indeed only treated it incidentally, as having caused and causing one of the main divisions in the church, though of that kind which is distinguishable, and which I was therefore called upon to distinguish from pure schism.

If I have enlarged upon it somewhat more than was strictly necessary, let me be excused by the high importance which every true believer must attach to this above all other points of doctrine. And when I add that a right understanding of the cross of Christ must always be most useful even in promoting that union

which it is the object of these discourses to enforce, I may well be justified by the example and the words of that true and divinely inspired servant of God, who when combating the propensity to schism which he had observed among the Corinthians, declared and laid down as his main principle, that "when he came to them "he was determined to know nothing among "them save Christ Jesus and him crucified*."

* 1 Cor. ii. 2.

SERMON VIII.

JAMES iii. 1.

My Brethren, be not many Masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater Condemnation.

THERE has been a difference of opinion respecting the true sense of this text. To some it has appeared that St. James intended no more than to enforce the strong admonition of our Saviour against the too hasty or rash censuring of our neighbours, to bid us "not to judge lest we "should be judged." The other and, I apprehend, clearly the sounder interpretation, supposes the apostle to express a disapprobation of those men, who, from a too great love of distinction or some other bad motive, set them

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selves up as teachers of the word, without having previously obtained the proper 'qualifications, or duly prepared themselves for the discharge of so important an office. That this is the true meaning of the apostle must sufficiently appear from the word "didaoxaños" here used, and somewhat inaccurately rendered "master, which in every other passage of scripture is applied to men who teach; and not who "judge" in the sense which belongs to the other interpretation. It has also been well observed that the phrase, "be not many," only condemns an improper eagerness to be the thing understood, that it implies that the thing must exist; which cannot be of such improper or unjust judging as we are here supposed to be cautioned against. Lastly, it may be added that the apostle by saying, "we shall receive the greater condem"nation," or rather "the more strict judg86 ment," "includes himself in the number of those who are or may be subject to this judgment; which might with much propriety be said, if the words refer to the pastoral office: but not soproperly if they were pointed against slander or the rash and unmerited censure of others; these being faults of which the apostle neither was, nor would, even for the sake of example, suppose himself to be guilty.

Thus explained, the caution of St. James applies with great force to that error of which I

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