HEARTS: Whence we gather, adds he, that he who offered a burnt-offering meant to purge away the stains of his mind, A WICKED OPINION, or A WRONG THOUGHT, and to say to himself, return unto thy rest my soul. That the burnt-offering referred chiefly to the rational soul, which is the chief part of the man, he farther proves by Lev. i. 3. he shall offer it of his voluntary will before the Lord, and, says he, he that offers the sacrifice confesses that all the powers of his body, and all the operations of his mind, ought to be devoted to venerate and worship his creator, that this only he should desire, this only study, to unite himself to God; and, like the victim, to ascend on his altar. The sum is, that the burnt-offering was designed to attract and accustom men to love and study divine things, and to expiate their guilt when they had not done it. If the Jews believe the divine legation of Moses; if they receive the doctrine of burnt-offerings as their Rabbies teach, they throw a lustre over their ceremonial law by harmonizing it with the law of nature, they claim a right of private judging from the magistrate, and with christians reserve conscience only for God: Nor can a Jew allowing all this, force conscience without manifest sophistry.

Are not the roman catholics in the same predicament with the rest of mankind on this article? Do not they also reason well till their own turn is served, and then turn sophisters? That famous Jesuit Bourdaloue, in the xvi vol. of his works, on the faith that conquers the world speaks thus.

"To support persecution is one of the most dif"ficult things in the world. A man groans under "his bondage, and a fund of equity, rectitude, " and conscience in his soul, makes him a hundred "times desire to shake off the yoke, and to free "himself from such a tyranny, but his courage "fails, and when he would execute his design, all "his resolutions are fled. Now what can deter"mine, confirm, and render him superior to every "trial? RELIGION. With the arms of the faith, "he wards off every blow, he resists all attacks, "he is invincible. There is not a friendship but "he breaks, nor a society but he flies, nor a threa-、 tening but he contemns; neither hopes, nor interest, nor advantage but he sacrificeth to God "and his duty. Such are the dispositions of a man animated with the SPIRIT of christianity, " and supported by the faith which he professes. "Thus he thinks, and thus he acts. The reason

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is, BEING A CHRISTIAN, HE ACKNOWLEDGETH, "properly speaking, NO OTHER MASTER BUT GOD:

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... .

or, acknowledging other powers, he considers "them only as subordinate to the Almighty, rightly elevating him above all without exception. How many inferior people and domestics "have there been whom NO AUTHORITY could corrupt, nor divert from the path of exact probity? What torments have millions of martyrs "endured? Nothing has alarmed them, ni les ar "rets des magistrats, nor the fury of tyrants, "nor the rage of executioners, nor the obscurity

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* Neither the decrees of magistrates.

"of prisons, neither racks, nor wheels, nor fire, "nor sword. Now whence did these glorious sol"diers of Jesus Christ derive this immoveable constancy, but from that RELIGION which was so deeply imprinted in their hearts ?" How, is Saul "also among the prophets;

It is not father Bourdaloue alone that talks thus, topics of this kind make half the panegyrics of all the martyrs in the church of Rome. Bossuet and Flechier, Massillon the Cicero, and Fenelon the Longinus of France, all agree here. Is it not ten thousand pities that such men should change sides, and deny all they have advanced when protestants make the same claim? How easy would it be in such a case to entangle the whole roman catholic and apostolic church in a sophism !

Does the established church of England claim authority over men's consciences, or not? If she does not, why require subscription? If she does, why disown the spirit of persecution? Do the several sects of dissenters require this authority, or do they not? They cannot claim it by law, nor do they pretend to derive it from scripture. Why then are they not unanimous in humbly petitioning for an abolition of what themselves call an unjust claim? Do the people called methodists claim this authority? Whatever some clergymen so called may have pleaded for, most certainly their founder did not claim it for himself or for others. The reverend compiler of the late Mr. Whitefield's life relates an attempt of the two Erskines, and the associate presbytery, to make Mr. Whitefield

subscribe the solemn league and covenant. Among other proposals they offered to send two of their brethren with him to England, and two more into America to settle presbytery in each. Suppose, said Mr. Whitefield, a number of independents should come, and declare, that after the greatest search, they were convinced that independency was the right church government, and would disturb nobody if tolerated, should they be tolerated? No, replied these compassionate christians. And here very properly ended a conference, which Mr. Whitefield considered as an insult on the rights of mankind. When Mr. Ralph Erskine, to engage Mr. Whitefield to preach only for them, urged, we are the Lord's people. If others, replied Mr. Whitefield be the devil's people, they have more need to be preached to. For my part. added he, all places are alike to me, and if the Pope himself would lend me his pulpit, I would gladly proclaim in it the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the professed, original spirit of genuine methodism, and if the people denominated methodists now, embrace other spirits, they have forgotten their founder's original plan, they have deserted the grand principle of CATHOLICISM taught them by the reverend Messieurs Whitefield, Wesleys, and others of their first ministers, they deprive their cause of its glory, and all their zeal for universal benevolence, professed for forty years, unmasks at last, or, to speak more favourably, at last degenerates into zeal for a party. Such gentlemen, as plead for intolerance, of this name,

are humbly requested to remember a just and sensible remark of the late Mr. Whitefield's on a sermon preached by a minister of the associate presbytery at the close of the conference above mentioned. "The good man so spent himself in the former part of his sermon, in talking against prelacy, the common prayer book, the surplice, the rose in the hat, and such like externals; that when he came to the latter part of his text, to invite poor sinners to Jesus Christ, his breath was so gone, that he could scarce be heard." And this will always be the case; that learning, eloquence, strength, and zeal, which should be spent on enforcing the weightier matters of the law, judgment, faith and mercy, will be unprofitably wasted on the tithing of mint. anise, and cummin, on discarding or defending a bow to the east, or a rose in the hat. But let who will trifle thus, the bare idea of such a mission, and such a doctrine, as the people called methodists profess, is totally unintelligible, and intirely indefensible without the prior notion of universal toleration. In what city? In what village? In what church? In what barn have not the methodists cried EXAMINE YOURSELVES whether ye be in the faith?

In short, whoever looks attentively will find that the leading principles of the petitioners, as far as they relate to the subject in question, are the allowed or professed principles of all mankind, and it will be easy from hence to infer that universal toleration, when thoroughly understood, will meet with less opposition than may at first seem