44 AN HUMBLE ATTEMPT, &C. lives, than any of us from whom you separate." What a cut, ting thought will this be to our consciences in a serious hour, or on a dying bed ? What inward reproaches, what agonies will it raise in our own souls, wheresoever we havegiven just occasion for such a censure of our character, and such scandals to be cast upon our profession ? III. You profess to maintain and vindicate cltristian liberty by your dissent from the established. church ; youprofess to bear up and support the freedom of conscience in opposition to all the inventions and impositions of men: this is certainly one ground of your separation, nor can I say it is an unjust or an unreason- able one ; for when the bleseed God has freed mankind from the burden of ceremonies which himself had invented and prescribed to all the world before the coming of Christ ; when he has de- livered all the nations from the bloody rites of sacrifice which he appointed to Noah and all his sons ; when lie had released the Jews' from their variety of bondage, their yokes of servitude, their weak and beggarly elements and carnal ordinances, wble/e neither they nor their fathers could bear, certainly he requires all the world, in the language of the apostle ; Gal. v. 1. tostand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free, and not beagain entangled with the yokes of bondage: And if they must not dare to return to the various forms and rites of the worship which God himself had once prescribed, and has now abolished, surely we cannot think it lawful for us to subject our- selves to the rites which men invent, and to take up new forms and ceremonies which are not pretended to be of divine institu- tion, but to be mere appointments of men. But it is not my work here nor my design to enter into the controversy any further than just to remember what our profession is. We declare for liberty in the things of God, and that no man has authority to bind us to such ceremonies as God has not appointed. This, my friends, is your profession, to assert your own freedom, and to *indicate the liberty of mankind and of the gospel of Christ. And now my question addresses you in the words of my text, What do you snore than others, who give themselves up as sub- jects to the authority of men in matters of conscience ? Since you stand upfor liberty, ask yourselves the two important questions : I. how do you manage the liberty which you vindicate ? Do you turn your freedom from the imposed rules of men into a release of your conscience and practice from any of the laws of God ? Do you make your discharge from human ceremonies an occasion to tempt you to discharge yourselves from any of the divine commands ? Do you take the liberty of not practising different modes of worship which God and your rulers have given you, and under that pretence indulge a neglect of public worship, or a course of laziness and sloth in matters of religion ?
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