gious abuse of both must needs cover' us with confufion.

The inftruction, then, from what has been faid, is this: That, fince, as St. James obferves, all our wars and fightings with each other proceed only from our lufts, and fince these have even prevailed to that degree as to corrupt the two beft gifts, which God, in his mercy, ever bestowed on mankind, that is, to make Religion and Law fubfervient to our bitter animofities fince all this, I say, has been made appear in the preceding comment on the facred text, it becomes us, feverally, to confider what our part has been in the disordered scene, now fet before us: what care we have taken to check those unruly paffions, which are so apt, by indulgence, to tyrannize over us; and, if this care has been lefs than it ought to have been, what may be the confequence of our neglect. We fhould, in a word, take heed, how we bite and devour one another; not only, as the

Apostle admonishes, that we be not confumed one of another, but left, in the end, we incur the chastisement of that Law, we have fo induftriously perverted, and the ftill forer chastisement of that RELIGION, we have fo impiously abused.

SER

SERMON VIII Preached April 29, 1770.

I TIM. i. 5.

The end of the Commandment is Charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good confcience, and of faith unfeigned.

T

HE Apostle, in the preceding verfe, had warned Timothy against giving heed to fables and endless genealogies: by FABLES, meaning certain Jewish fictions and traditions applied to the explication of theological questions, and not unlike the tales of the pagan mythologists, contrived by them to cover the monstrous ftories of their Gods; and, by GENEALOGIES, the derivation of Angelic and Spiritual

Spiritual natures, according to a fantastic fyftem, invented by the Oriental philofophers, and thence adopted by fome of the Grecian Sects. These fables and genealogies (by which the Jewish and Pagan converts to Christianity had much adulterated the faith of the Gospel) the Apostle fets himself to expofe and reprobate, as producing nothing but curious and fruitlefs difputations; being indeed, as he calls them, endless, or interminable; because, having no foundation in the revealed word of God, they were drawn out, varied, and multiplied at pleasure by thofe, who delighted in fuch fanatical vifions.

Then follows the text.-The end of the Commandment, is CHARITY: out of a PURE HEART: and of a GOOD CONSCIENCE; and of FAITH UNFEIGNED-As if the Apoftle had faid, "I have cautioned you against this pernicious folly: but, if ye muft needs deal in the way of Mythology

9 Called ones. See Grotius in loc.

and Genealogy, I will tell you how ye may employ your ingenuity to more advantage. Take Christian Charity, for your theme: mythologize that capital Grace of your profeffion; or, deduce the parentage of it, according to the fteps, which I will point out to you. For it fprings immediately out of a pure beart; which, itself, is derived from a good confcience; as that, again, is the genuine offspring or emanation of faith unfeigned. In this way, ye may gratify your mythologic or genealogical vein, innocently and ufefully; for ye may learn yourselves, and teach others, how to acquire and perfect that character, which is the great object of your religion, and the end of the Commandment.”

Let us, then, if you pleafe, attend to this genealogical deduction of the learned Apoftle; and fee, if the defcent of Chriftian charity be not truly and properly investigated by him.

• Dat nobis et Paulus brevem yevaλoyíav, fed perutilem. GROTIUS, I. CHARITY,