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endure such, as would not agree with me in my partiality for him. This was of great disservice to me,* as instead of getting forward in my inqui ry after truth, I was thereby furnished with more ingenuous and specious arguments, wherewith to defend my mis

takes.

But I read one book at this time, because mentioned with approbation by Mr. Locke, that was of singular use, namely, "Bishop Burnet's Pastoral Care." Therein I found but little, that offended my prejudices, and many things, which came home to my conscience, respecting my ministerial obligations. A few short extracts I shall lay before the reader, that were most affecting to my own mind. Page 111,

After having spoken so freely of Mr. Locke's divinity, which I once so highly esteemed, it seems a piece of justice to acknowledge the very great obligations, which the whole religious world is under to this great man, for his treatise on toleration, and his an swers to those, who wrote against it. The grounds of religious liberty, and the reasons why every one should be left to his own choice, to worship God according to his conscience, were perhaps never generally understood since the foundation of the world, until by these publications Mr. Locke unanswerably made them manifest.

And

having mentioned the question proposto those who are about to be ordained Deacons: "Do you trust, that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office to serve God, for promoting his glory, and the edify, ing of his people?" He adds, " Certainly the answer that is made to this ought to be well considered; for if any one says, 'I trust so,' that yet knows nothing of any such motion, and can give no account of it, he lies to the Holy Ghost, and makes his first approach to the altar with a lie in his mouth, and that not to men, but to God." again,page112,"Shall not he,(God,)reckon with those who dare to run without his mission, pretending that they trust they have it, when perhaps they understand not the importance of it; nay, and perhaps some laugh at it as an enthusiastical question, who yet will go through with the office! They come to Christ for the loaves; they hope to live by the altar and the gospel, how little soever they serve at the one, or preach at the other; therefore they will say any thing, that is necessary for qualifying them to this. whether true or false,"

Again, page 122, having interwoven a great part of the excellent office of the ordination of priests, into his argument concerning the importance of the work, and weight of the ministry; he adds, "Upon the whole matter, either this is all a piece of gross and impudent pageantry, dressed up in grave and lofty expressions, to strike upon the weaker part of mankind, and to furnish the rest with matter to their profane and impious scorn; or it must be confessed, that priests come under the most formal, and express engagements to constant and diligent labor, that can be possibly contrived, or set forth in words." He concludes this subject of the ordination offices, with exhorting all candidates for orders, to read them frequently and attentively during their season of preparation; that they may be aware, before hand, of the obligations they are about so solemnly to enter into; and to peruse them, at least four times in the year ever after their ordination, to keep in their minds a continual remembrance of their important engagements. How necessary this counsel is, every minister

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or candidate for the ministry, must de termine for themselves: for my part I had never read the office over once,when I was ordained, and was in great measure a stranger to the obligations I was about to enter into, until the very season; nor did I ever afterwards attend thereto, till this advice put me upon it. The shameful negligence and extreme absurdity of my conduct in this respect, are too glaring not to be understood, and applied by every one, who hath been guilty of a similar omission. I would, therefore, only just mention that hearty, earnest prayer to God, for his guidance, help, and blessing, may be suitably recommended as a proper attendant on such perusal of our obligations.

Again, page 147, he thus speaks of a wicked clergyman: "His whole life has been a course of hypocrisy in the strictest sense of the word, which is the acting of a part, and the counterfeiting of another person. His sins have in them all possible aggravations; they are against knowledge, and against vows, and contrary to his character;

they carry in them a deliberate contempt of all the truths and obligations of religion; and if he perishes, he doth not perish alone, but carries a shoal down with him,either of those who have perished in ignorance through his neglect, or of those who have been hardened in their sins through his ill example." Again, page 183, having copiously discoursed of the studies befitting minis ters, especially the study of the Scriptures, he adds, "But to give all these their full effect, a priest that is much in his study, ought to employ a great part of his time in secret and fervent prayer, for the direction and blessing of God in his labors; for the constant assistance of his Holy Spirit, and for a lively sense of divine matters; that so he may feel the impressions of them grow deep and strong upon his thoughts; this, and this only, will make him go on with his work without wearying, and be always rejoicing in it."

But the chief benefit, which accrued to me from the perusal of this book, was this: I was excited by it to an attentive consideration of those Scrip

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