SERMON VII.

I COR. XI. 19.

For there must be alfo herefies among

you.

Otwithstanding the conclufion to which a review of the Doctrines and Establishment of our Church ought to lead us, that they may be juftified to the apprehenfion of all, even unlearned men, a queftion is afked, on which a great stress is commonly laid, Whence is it then that so many people are of a different opinion?

I answer firft, with confidence, for I fpeak under the authority of St. Paul, as well as on the teftimony of general experience, that oppofition to received fentiments, however plausibly

* Matth. xviii. 7. Mark ix. 49, 50. See alfo Luke xii. 49, 51.

and vehemently it be carried on, and embraced by numbers, is never in itself sufficient proof that they deserve to be fufpected by reasonable and honeft men, For if it were, the Apostle's own conftitution of the Corinthian Church would have been justly concluded liable to cenfure, as alfo that of others which he and the rest of the Apoftles established; whofe writings abound with intimations of the doctrines and factions against which they had to contend. From this first epistle which St. Paul addreffed to the Corinthians, we learn that contentions had already arifen among the members of that Church,* who were incited by fome to leffen or reject the authority of the Apostle. This he mentions in the first place, and afterwards notices another inftance of their untractableness; " When ye

come together in the Church, I hear that "there be Divifions among you; and I partly "believe it;" adding, " for there must be alfo "Herefies among you." There was indeed a confiderable one at that time, namely, a denial of the refurrection of the body, which he therefore combats towards the conclufion of the epiftle. This was followed in the Chriftian Church by many others: and, after the Apoftolic times, the history of Chriftianity is unhappily filled with little elfe than the account of opinions See 2 Tim. ii. 17, 18,

* 1 Cor. xiv. 26.

+ XV. 12.

inconfiftent

inconfiftent with common fenfe, the plain tenor of the Scriptures, and with one another, maintained by all degrees and kinds of perfons, which have disturbed the Faith and peace of mankind.

If this be the cafe, there is no neceffity that the question which has been put, should in the leaft perplex us, or create any fuspicion of the lawfulness of our national establishment. It will perhaps conduce to confirm us against such an apprehenfion, if we confider more particularly the reasoning implied in the affertion of my text, It is forcible and plain.

The Apostle had been informed, and it should feem on good authority, of fome divifions in his Church of Corinth; and yet he profeffes to reft his chief affurance that they did exift, on fome internal cause why they would take place, a cause so strong that it amounted to a Neceffity; and this not only of their existence, but farther alfo of the existence of Herefies among them. For the principles and feeds of thefe calamities were implanted in the nature of men and things, and must therefore in time produce their proper effects. To this is alfo fubjoined a concomitant reafon, after the manner not unusual in Holy Scripture,

M 3+

Scripture,* "That they which are approved be manifest among you.

may

What this Neceffity is, and in what particulars it chiefly confifts, it is highly interefting to confider; as it will also, by bringing into view the dangers that are, as it were, within and all around us, incite us to a caution against the fnares to which, together with all other communities, we muft ourfelves likewife be expofed.+

In the first clafs of thefe neceffary causes of error, and above all the reft to which the authority of St. Paul engages our attention, is the narrowness of our intellectual capacity; by reafon of which, those who are not aware of it, are certain of falling into mistake in all refearches that are above the fphere of men. How this is a great immediate cause of error in Theology, has been already reprefented, ‡ and therefore

* Luke ii. 35. Matth. x. 34, &c.

+ It may be proper to advertise the reader that my omission in this argument of the temptation of Evil Spirits among the caufes of Herefy, by no means proceeds from any disbelief or doubt of their agency. I think no point more clearly revealed in Scripture, than this; that as the Holy Spirit does in fome manner influence the human mind to good purposes, fo the great enemy in like manner influences it to bad. Matth. xiii. 39. Joh. viii. 44. Lect. IV. page 86, and at the end.

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