* eateth: for God hath received him.”* Again, "one man efteemeth one day above

another; another esteemeth every day "alike." And the apostle then adds, with a dignity and decifive emphasis, "Let every "man be fully perfuaded in his own mind."

There have not, however, been wanting, amidst the variety of interpreters, fome who have industriously laboured to prove that this perfuafion was intended to be confined to things called indifferent. But it may be

remarked, once for all, that where there is a law, trangreffion cannot be indifferent, even in things not otherwife material; no fuch limitation appears upon the face of the apoftle's reasoning, or is fairly deducible from it, nor could it be made confiftent with any part of his writings.

And in behalf of the free exercise of our own judgment, formed in confequence of fuch perfuafion, the apostle Paul writes, "Who art thou that judgeft another's fer"vant? to his own maiter he standeth or "falleth:" and that we may have further confidence in fuch our liberty and our duty,

Rom. xiv. 1-3.

he

he goes on to fay, "Yea, he fhall be holden

up: for God is able to make him stand.”* Nor does he omit affectionately to caution. and exhort us "not to put a stumbling"block, or an occafion to fall in our bro"ther's way:" and this with a view, as is most probable, to the declaration of Chrift, that it must needs be that offences "come: but wo to that man by whom the "offence cometh."‡

In the account which Paul gives the Athenians of his own converfion, and in his speech before Agrippa, he prefaces the hiftory with the ingenuous avowal of his having been of the fect of the Pharifees; || he recites his having perfecuted the chriftians; and even § confeffes the fhare he had in the murder of Stephen. ** And thefe, when before Agrippa, he very juftly reckons among those things which he did "contrary "to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." So far the general direction in my text is ap

proved by the apostle's confeffion in regard to his own conduct. For, as perfecution implies compulfion, fo perfuafion implies previous examination, and the voluntary ac of the mind. Nor fhould it be unobserved that perfuafion in all cafes precedes willing obedience, and, therefore, belongs to the man himfelf; forbearance of judgment is the duty of others.

As fellow-difciples and followers of our common master, we have many obligations to mutual indulgence and charity. But the apostle Paul, in the paffage before us, extends his exhortation to a tolerating fpirit towards the gentile, as well as the jewish converts; or, to speak in a language adapted to our own day, and to bring the divine precept into a fuitable application to our own cafes, candor and charity, meekness and moderation, to which his precept evidently has especial refpect, are to be extended to all the human race, whether they reject the glad-tidings of our meffiah, or receiving them, should in fome degree corrupt the word of God. " and make it of none effect, through their tradition.”*

* Mark vii. 13.

An

An exhortation in the written word of the infallible God will never be found inconfiftent with itself, or contradictory to any of the component parts, or the general principle of the whole; and, if of moral obligation, will never be found limited or partial in its

extent.

Now, when we confider this exhortation before us, let every man be fully perfuaded "in his own mind," as it refpects an independent individual, we must neceffarily prefuppofe the duty of fair and full inquiry, whether things are fo or no. And when we find fuch individual, a member of a chriftian society, we must take in the reciprocal duty of the rulers of the people, whether the helm of government is guided by one or by many, by the civil magiftrate, or a fovereign pontiff.

It has, however, been the unhappy fate of chriftianity, under its feveral modes of public teaching and profeffing, to be restrained in its progrefs and cramped in its benevolent operations upon the human mind. From the end of the third to the fifteenth century of the christian æra, the gospel of the bleffed Jefus

of that "faith which was once delivered to "the faints"* to be filenced and convinced? It will be of little avail to object to the additions to the scriptures, and the requisition of implicit faith in the decifions of the holy fee, when it may be replied to the objector, that by imposing interpretations and conceits of human device, and establishing consent to thefe, as the terms of admiffion to our ministry, we do the fame thing under another name. The fuppofed truth or falsehood

* Jude 3.

of

prefixed to Sir R. Steele's

+ With as great truth as wit, it has been obferved by that excellent prelate, bishop Benjamin Hoadly, in his dedication to Pope Clement XI. Account of the state of the (vol. i. p. 535, of the bishop's works in folio) "That

roman catholic religion

you cannot err in any thing you determine, and we "never do that is, in other words, that you are infal"lible, and we always in the right. We cannot but "efteem the advantage to be exceedingly on our fide, in "this cafe, because we have all the benefits of infallibility, "without the abfurdity of pretending to it; and without "the uneafy task of maintaining a point so shocking to the "understanding of mankind. And you must pardon us, "if we cannot help thinking it to be as great and as "glorious a privilege in us, to be always in the right, with" out the pretence to infallibility, as it can be in you to be

"always