one thing, and practife another; if they, with whatever warmth and ftrength of argument, recommend and injoin the prayerful and devotional life, while they mind neither clofet nor family religion themselves ;-recommend the simplicity and godly fincerity, fo effential to true religion, while they themselves indulge a political, difcover an intriguing fpirit;-the equity and juftice which muft run through the whole Chriftian practice, while impofition and fraud are the diftinguifhing characteristics of their own conduct among men;-the temperance and fobriety for which holy perfons are fo remarkable, while luxury and profufion, gluttony and drunkennefs, are like gray hairs here and there upon themselves ;-in a word, if they recommend and injoin neceffary retiredness from the world, while they are perpetually mingled with the idle croud;-and exclaim against courses of life, which are purfued by themfelves with greedinefs and pleasure if their words and works are fo different, fo oppofite, fo glaringly inconfiftent; what-fay, what authority, what influence, can they have? what evil can they be fuppofed to reftrain? what virtue to promote? what finner can their way be a mean of converting? or faint, of edifying in love?-If they pull down, by their converfations, fafter than they can build, by the difcharge of their offices;-the fpiritual temple, which they should rear up, fuffers, in its progrefs and profperity, through their unhallowed hands.

Sinful compliances with unholy men, and conformity to their way, may pass for prudence and difcretion; but, in church officers, they are criminal, they are ruining, to the higheft degree: for, inftead of recommending, by these means, their labours to fuch perfons, they draw down contempt upon themselves, and their labours both.

Let

Let us only, for once, fuppofe, fo many fons of riot and debauch, hearing an elaborate, a pathetical declamation, upon the beauties and advantages of chastity and temperance ;-fuppofe them, admiring an accuracy of method, and elegance of fpeech;-a juftnefs of fentiment, strength of reasoning, neatness of compofition, propriety of gefture, a fymmetry and gracefulness, running through the whole addrefs;-and fuppofe them on the very point of yielding to that united alluring force; -until-oh!" tell it not in Gath"-they recollect, that the orator himself was a companion once with them, in fuch a foolish ramble, or midnight debauch;-perhaps, that he has oftener-much oftener than once, been equally rakifh, and diffo-lute with themselves: when how fhocking the thought! loofed from the bands which juft now constrained and overcame them, they haftily conclude, that all was prieftcraft, on the one hand; and revery, on the other whence, to the honour of the orator! they return, they return, not only with the dog to his vomit again, but, returnmore-hardened in wickedness,-much more the children of the devil than they were.

The cafe, however, may be ftated in a milder, a lefs forbidding point of light; and yet, finful compliances, in church officers, with the world, appear moft fhameful and pernicious.

Let the gay and the fashionable be fuppofed to hear the redemption and improvement of time recommended,--with all the combined energy of language, argument, manner, and addrefs; let the prefent influence of the harangue be intirely to your wifh;-one refolves, to quite the gaudy ring;--another, to relinquish the entertainments of the ftage; and a third, to abandon the bewitching amufements of game :-all-all is done in refolu

tion; but,-unhappily for them! difgracefully for him!the preacher, the preacher, is no fooner remembered, than, like a bowing wall, and tottering fence, their lofty pile of refolved amendments, -cracks, fhakes, and falls. Is not this he, fays the first, by whofe melody the fportive confort is often fwelled? this the man, fays the fecond, who kills fo many hours at routs and cards ?--and this the very perfon, fays the third, generally to be found in the gallery or box?Yes, fay they all; the cheat is detected; the spell broken; and our liberty to live like ourselves, at once reftored :-For, was there any truth in the doctrine, would the doctor, himself, venture to facrifice fo much time, as he does, to the purpofcs of fashionable gaiety, and polite amufements?

To all this we may add, that office-bearers, re markable for one, or other, or all of the things reprefented, will, very readily, trouble the church, by the wrong application of their talents and learning; and the more pregnant the one, or extensive the other, their capacity, of hurting the interests of the gospel, muft be the greater. Though the truths of Chriftianity have never fhone with more fplendour and glory, than under the ftrongeft oppofition they may have met with; yet, fuch oppofers, whether Chriftians or Deifts; whether of the clergy or laity, have, according to the degrees of their natural and acquired abilities, been troublers of the church of Chrift. The voluminous works of a Bellarmine; the loquent performances of

his

ROBERT BELLARMINE, a Tufcanite, entered into the fociety of Jefuits in 1560, and was made a cardinal by Clement VIII. in 1599. He wrote a body of controverfies, and compofed commentaries upon the Pfalms, fermons, and feveral moral and devotional tracts, See Dupin's church hift. vol. IV. p. 273,

his co-temporary du Perron *; the writings of a Shafts bury +, a Bayle ‡, a Bolingbroke §, a Tindal, a Taylor, and numberlefs others, foreign and domestic, antient and modern, fhow to what wretched purposes parts and erudition both may be employed; and fhow, that, in proportion to fuch proftitution of their talents, men trouble the church, and run the awful rifk of bearing their judgment.-Which brings me to the

II. Thing in our method, To fhew, namely, in what views, the excifion of fuch office bearers may be wifhed and prayed for by Chriftians.

Under the Old Teftament difpenfation, excifion was a penalty annexed to various crimes, and executed with fuch rigour, that the apostle counted

the

* JAMES DAVI DU PERRON, a Frenchman, not inferior to Bellarinine for learning, greatly before him for eloquence. He was an apoftate from the reformed religion, and became the more bigotted for popery, Henry IV. made him bishop of Evreux, and he was made cardinal in 1604. He wrote a large controverfial treatise concerning the Eucharift, and several French poems. See Dupin's church hift. vol. IV. p. 273.

ANTHONY Lord SHAFTSBURY, famous for the Characteristics which go by his name.

Monfieur BAYLE, author of a large historical dictionary.

Lord BOLINGBROKE, author of letters on the ftudy of history.

Mr. TINDAL, author of Chriftianity as old as the

creation.

Dr. TAYLOR, of Norwich, author of a commentary upon the Romans, etc.

The laft a Socinian; the other four most probably Deifts.

the ceremonial law an unbearable yoke, Acts xv. 10. The famous Selden informs us, that the Jews reckoned up thirty fix different crimes, which were punished by excifion. It is, notwithstanding, difficult, according to that great master of the Jewish learning, to fay precifely what the punishment of excifion among them was; for, though it is agreed, upon all hands, to be the cutting off of a perfon from his people; the Rabbins, fays he, fpeak of three different kinds of excifion, which were inflicted, according to the degrees of a perfon's guilt, or aggravations with which it was attended. One kind of excifion affected the body only, and confifted of an untimely death; another, the foul only, and confifted of its utter extinction; and the third kind of excifion, fay thefe Rabbins, affected both foul and body, being a compound of the former two *. But it is easy to fee, how little regard fuch rabbinical stuff merits, and how little dependance upon these opinions is to be had.

What Paul might here intend by excifion, is neither certain to us; nor, perhaps, would his wish respecting the falfe teachers at Galatia, though never fo well known, be a proper original for our imitation. As an infpired perfon, or under prophetical influence, the apoftle could fay, "He that "troubleth you fhall bear his judgment, whofoe

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ver he be," Gal. v. 10. but did not fay whether it would be temporl, or fpiritual, or eternal: only, from the warmth of his zeal, as well as from his diftinguished conformity to the will of God, he expreffed, in the words of our text, his hearty approbation of the threatened judgment, and defire of its paffing into the execution he expreffed, indeed, that approbation, and this defire, by a term no lefs familiar

:

* See dictionary of the Bible, on the word excifion.