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13

To the READER.

T

HE Chriftian Religion is best known and distinguished by the God propofed in it, as the object of our faith and obedience : and as there is no true religion, but the religion of Chriftians, fo is there no true God, but the God of Chrif tians.

Before the coming of Christ, and the fulfilling of the Law, God was known by the name of Jehovah, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. The Ifraelites, who were the feed of Abraham, and drew their whole religion from a divine revelation, had the knowlege of the true God; and the people of every other nation, who were aliens from the commonwealth of Ifrael, and ftrangers from the covenants of pro

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mife,

mife, were also, without God in the world. Though they talked much of God, and wrote much of him, and offered him many facrifices, yet they knew him not: the Being they served, was not God, but another in the place of him, falsely called by his name. And though fome modern Chriftians have forgot there was any difference, yet the very heathens themselves, upon fome occafions, were ready enough to allow it. Naaman the Syrian, when he was cured of his leprofy by the Prophet Elifha, made a publick confeffion of it Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Ifrael'. The fame is affirmed by the infpired Pfalmift All the Gods of the heathen are idols; and God himself declares them all to have been vanities.

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The cafe is now with the Chriftians under the Gospel, as it anciently was with the Jews under the Law: they believe in the only true God; while the

a Eph. II. 12. d Jer. XIV. 22.

b 2 Kings V. 15.

c Pfal. XCVI. 5.

unchrif

unchriftian part of mankind, who are by far the majority, either know him not, or wilfully deny him; as Pharaoh did the God of the Hebrews when he was told of him. And we are now got to such a pitch of indevotion and ignorance, that among those who profess and call themselves Chriftians, there are too many who are almost come to be Heathens without knowing it. For there is a fashionable notion, propagated by most of our moral writers, and readily fubscribed to by those who say their prayers but feldom, and can never find time to read their Bible, that all who worship any God, worship the fame God; as if we worshiped the three Letters of the word God, inftead of the Being meant and understood by it. The univerfal Prayer of Mr. A—————— P—— was composed upon this plan; wherein the supreme Being is addreffed as a common Father of all, under the names, Jebovab, Jove, and Lord. And this humour of confounding things, which ought to be distinguished at the peril of

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our Souls, and of comprehending Believers and Idolaters under one and the fame religion, is called a catholic Spirit, that shews the very exaltation of Chriftian Charity. But God, it is to be feared, will require an account of it under another name; and though the Poet could fee no difference, but has mistaken Jove or Jupiter for the fame Father of all with the Lord Jehovah; yet the Apostle has inftructed us better; who, when the Priest of Jupiter came to offer facrifice, exhorted him very paffionately to turn from thofe vanities unto the living God; well knowing that he whom the Priest adored under the name of Jupiter, was not the living God, but a creature, a nothing, a vanity. Yet the catholic Spirit of a moralift can discern no difference; and while it pretends fome zeal for a fort of universal religion, common to believers and infidels, betrays a fad indifference for the Chriftian religion in particular. This error is fo monstrous in a land enlightened by the Gof

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