Sure it must be a melancholly Reflection to thefe Gentlemen, in Point of Credit and Reputation (for I say nothing of Confcience) that, whilft they thus diftinguish themselves from LowChurchmen, whofe great Crime confifts in not mocking God, and leaping over Confcience and Oaths; they do, at the fame time, diftinguish themselves from Chriftianity it felf, which, above all other Religions, difclaims Power, and more than all other Religions abhors Infincevity and falfe Swearing.

Can you, Gentlemen, reconcile their Behaviour, fince the Revolution, to the Understanding of the People, or to any Man's Confcience but their own? If the Doctrine of Hereditary Right is true, as many of them eternally and fiercely contend, how could they fwear to Prin ces made by Act of Parliament? And if the Doctrine of Paffive Obedience is true,

true, how came they to fwear to a Government founded upon open and evident Refiftance, and to be inftrumental themselves in that Refiftance? Their particular Behaviour to His prefent Majefty, cannot yet be forgot. Be fo good to let us know, what Security He found from their Oaths; or what Affiftance the High Clergy gave Him against the late Rebellion, in purfuance of thefe Oaths? Can Men, who fhew, by glaring Actions, that they value not their own Souls, do any Good to the Souls of other Men?

If you would clear your felves from the Imputation of supporting or favouring fuch monftrous Principles, you must do it openly and avowedly, in full and exprefs Words, free from that Equivocation which fome of your Order are much fufpected of, upon the moft solemn and facred Occafions.

You have

been ready enough to cenfure many good Books, and many worthy Propofitions: Be ingenuous for this once, Gentlemen; expofe the Blafphemies of thofe of your own Body, and brand the Authors of them with those Names of Infamy which they deserve, and which you never want whenever you think fit to call Names. And if you fairly renounce ill Company, you will not be cenfur'd, as you have been, for not cenfuring their Impieties. The Convocation at Oxford, in the Days of Tyranny, were fufficiently forward and explicite in damning, by their deteftable Decree, fince worthily burnt by the proper Hand of the common Hangman, by Order of the Legislature; I fay, that black Affembly were forward and clear enough in damning all those Principles of Liberty, which ever have been and ever will be the Principles of Wife Men and Free Men. Confult your own Repu

Reputation and the Welfare of Mankind, by treading Antipodes to that wicked Affembly.

I cannot pafs over in Silence, that shameful want of Charity found amongst too many of you, and every Day complain'd of to no purpose. Allowing Charity to be a Chriftian Grace (and the Apostle calls it the highest) I would be glad to know in what Inftance you practise that Grace your felves, or promote it in others. As to fuch who deny the regular Means of Salvation to all Communions, except their own and that of Rome, they bring this Charge home to their own Door; fince their Courtesy to those of the fame Spirit with themselves, and their good Opinion of them, is not Charity, but Selflove and Faction. Highwaymen, no doubt, call one another honeft Fellows, as frequently and habitually as other b 4

Men

Men do; whereas their Honefty is only

a wicked Fidelity to a Neft and Confederacy of Rogues, and they are only honeft to their Fellow-Thieves: But true Honefty is the fame to all Men, and to all Men alike.

The like may be faid of Charity; it is tried and exercised upon those who are of a Perfuafion different from ours. But to flatter and be complaifant to those of the fame Imaginations, or the fame Craft with our felves, merely because they are of the fame Craft, is such a new-fangled Charity, as would beat the old Chriftian Charity of St. Paul quite out of the World: And yet that this is the true Caufe, and the true State of modern Orthodox Charity, appears abundantly from hence, that the moft wicked good Churchman has more Complement paid him, and more Favour fhewn him, than the most righte

ous