these observations may serve to shew, so far at least as to introduce quotations from two Prelates of the Established Church, whose acknowledged piety and profound learning will invest their sentiments with a representative character, as the organs of those who deny the connexion. These are Taylor and Beveridge-Taylor, (p) who, in the language of Dr. Rust, is described as having had the humour of a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a schoolmaster, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a chancellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the piety of a saint.(4) Beveridge, whose labours in the ministry were crowned with so great success, that he was styled, "the great reviver and restorer of primitive piety," and whose writings received from Doctor Henry Felton the testimony of "being written in that plainness and solemnity of style, that gravity and simplicity, which give authority to the sacred truths he teacheth, and unanswerable evidence to the doctrines he defendeth. That there is something so great, primitive, and apostolical, in his writings, that it creates an awe and veneration in our mind." (r) (p) His (Taylor's) excellent treatises are highly valued for the exactness of wit, profoundness of judgment, richness of fancy, copiousness of invention, and general usefulness to all the purposes of a Christian. After the Restoration he was made Bishop of Down and Connor, where he further displayed his mighty talents, and shewed with an unbounded imagination all the eloquence of orators, all the flights of poetry, together with all the strictness and regularity of the deepest casuists."Echard's Hist. England. (g) Preface to Holy Living, London Ed. 1810. (r) Life prefixed to Private Thoughts, London Ed. 1803. Names which need only to be mentioned to command respect.-Quotations from them are deemed sufficient for the object in view: but were it necessary to confirm the position by authorities, with what abundant evidence could it be established. The following extracts from Taylor will not, we imagine, extenuate the fidelity of these lofty characters, nor disappoint the expectations of their readers. "Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and final interest, that at first it cannot move one step towards God, unless God, by his preventing grace, puts it into a new possibility. We were born heirs of death, which death came upon us from God's anger for the sin of our first parents, or by nature;-our nature of itself is a state of opposition to the Spirit of Grace; it is privately opposed, that is, that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity; nothing but an obediential capacity; our flesh can become sanctified, as the stones can become children unto Abraham, or as dead seed can become living corn. And so it is with us, that it is necessary God should make us a new creation if he means to save us; he must take our hearts of stone away, and give us hearts of flesh; he must purge the old leaven, and make us a new conspersion; he must destroy the flesh, and must breathe into us the celestial breath of life, without which we can neither live, nor move, nor have our being. "No man can come unto me, said Christ, unless my Father draw him." The divine love must come upon us, and snatch us from our imperfection, enlighten our understanding, move and stir our affections, open the gates of heaven, turn our nature into grace, entirely forgive our former prevarications, take us by the hand and lead us along; and we only contribute our assent unto it, just as a child when he is tempted to learn to go, and called upon, and guided, and upheld, and constrained to put his feet to the ground, lest he feel the danger by the smart of a fall; just so is our nature and our state of flesh. God teaches us, and invites us; he makes us willing, and then makes us able; he lends us helps, and guides our hands and feet, and all the way constrains us; but yet so as a reasonable creature can be constrained that is, made willing with arguments and new inducements, by a state of circumstances and conditional necessities. And as this is a great glorification of the free grace of God, and declares our manner of co-operation, so it represents our nature to be weak as a child, ignorant as infancy, helpless as an orphan, averse as an uninstructed person, in so great degrees, that God is forced to bring us to a holy life by arts, great and many, as the power and principles of the creation; with this only difference, that the subject matter, and object of this new creation, is a free agent. In the first, it was purely obediential and passive; and, as the passion of the first was an effect of the same power that reduced it to act, so the freedom of the second is given us in our nature by him that only can reduce it to act; for it is a freedom that cannot therefore choose, because it does not understand, nor taste, nor perceive the things of God; and therefore must, by God's grace, be reduced to action, as, at first, the whole matter of the world was by God's almightiness— for so God" worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure."(s) "The natural man and the natural child are not the same thing in true divinity. The natural child, indeed, can do (s) The Flesh and the Spirit, Vol. i. pp. 178, 179, 180, London Edit. 1807. no good, but the natural man cannot choose but do evil; but it is because he will do so, he is not born in the second birth, and renewed in the baptism of the spirit." (t) As in the state of nature, no good thing dwells within us; so when Christ rules in us, no evil thing can abide-" For every plant, that my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," and cast away into the fires of consumption or purification. But how shall this come to pass, since we all find ourselves so infinitely weak and foolish? I shall tell you: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven," saith Christ. It is impossible to nature-it is impossible to them that are given to vanity-it is impossible for them that delight in the evil snare: but Christ adds, "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." What we cannot do for ourselves, God can do for us and with us. What nature cannot do, the grace of God can-So that the thing may be done, not indeed of ourselves, but gratia Dei mecum, saith Saint Paul; God and man together can do it.”(u) "Natural corruption can make us criminal, but not innocent for though by him that willingly abides in the state of mere nature, sin cannot be avoided, yet no man is in that state longer than he loves to be so; for the grace of God came to rescue us from this evil portion, and is always present to give us a new nature, and create us over again; and, therefore, though sin is made necessary to the natural man, by his impotency and fond loves, that is, by his unregenerate nature, yet, in the whole constitution of affairs, God hath more than (t) The Christian's Conquest over the Body of Sin, Vol. iii. p. 34, London Edit. 1807. (u) Ibid. pp. 36, 37. made it up, by his grace, if we will make use of it."(x)" Christ freely died for us; God pardons us freely in our first access to him: we could never deserve pardon, because when we need pardon, we are enemies, and have no good thing in us, and he freely gives us of his spirit, and freely he enables us to obey him, and for our little imperfect services, he freely and bountifully will give us eternal life; here is free grace all the way, and he overvalues his pitiful services, who thinks he deserves Heaven by them, and that if he does his duty tolerably, eternal life is not a free gift to him, but a deserved reward."(y)But of absolute decrees, he writes, "We are taught to believe, that the events of things do not depend upon our crucifying our evil and corrupt affections, but upon eternal and unalterable counsels; that the promises are not the rewards of obedience, but graces pertaining only to a few Predestinates-and yet men are saints for all that; and that the laws of God are of the race of the giants, not to be observed by any grace, or by any industry. This is the catechism of the ignorant and the profane."() Beveridge's sentiments are next subjoined. Of • original sin he writes, "Not only the worst of my sins, but the best of my duties, speak me the child of Adam, insomuch, that whensoever I reflect upon my past actions, methinks I cannot but look upon my whole life, from the time of my conception to this very moment, to be but as one continued act of sin. And whence can such a continued stream of corruption flow, but from the corrupt cistern of my heart? And whence can that corrupt cistern of my heart be filled, but from the corrupt fountain of my nature? Cease, (x) Conquest over the Body of Sin, Vol. iii, p. 33. |