to all that fee with their bodily eyes, and have denounced damnation upon all that are blind; the latter being as likely to be a meffage from God, as the former. However, let it be remembered, to the comfort of all thofe honest minds who cannot attain to fuch faith as the Methodists pretend to boast of, that St. Peter hath (and, it is to be hoped, very justly) excluded both faith and infidelity out of the cafe; and hath made, or rather declared, the plain honest fear of God and a right behaviour to ourfelves and fellowcreatures, to be the true and only ground of divine acceptance. And, not only the Methodifts,but also their most violent oppofers,thofe who treat them with great contempt, make loud complaints against them and blame them much for exceeding the bounds or standard of enthusiasm,that hath been fixed by their fuperiors; I fay, that even these staunch opposers of Methodism have not failed to act their parts in this religious farce. Our creed-makers and creed-defenders fpare not to declare, in the face of God and of his church, or people, that whofoever doth not come up to that standard of orthodoxy that hath been fixed, and who doth not believe faithfully that creed which our holy mother the

church hath adopted and, thereby, in a manner, made facred, he cannot be saved; and that, without doubt, fuch deficient and unfound believers, who fail herein, will perifh everlastingly. Thefe are the damning, and, therefore, I think, damnable doctrines taught by fome, at least, of our foul-faving divines, who would fain make the world believe, that they, and they only, have obtained a patent from God, to fhew to men the true way to falvation. Moreover, thofe licensed foul-favers, those pretended lights of the world, in their pulpit harangues, and likewife in their writings, have been too apt to abuse and vilify thofe who will not submit to their dictates; and would fain represent them to be as odious to God, as they endeavour to make them to their neighbours. Whoever dares call in question the judgments and determinations of these fallible men, who affume a dominion over the faith of their brethren, he is presently ftigmatized, and loaded with characters that are deemed terms of reproach; he is a Freethinker, a Deift, an Infidel, and what not! Yea, even Atheism is fometimes made part of his character; and he is placed among thofe fcorners who feek wisdom and find it

not Proverbs xiv. 6. However, these are

the ways of men, who, though they cover themselves with religious diffimulation as with a cloak, and pretend that the things of God and of another world are their main concern; yet, notwithstanding these pretences, by their works they may be known, as a tree by its fruit; their haughtiness and pride, their avarice, ambition and tyranny, and a full gratification of their appetites and paffions, plainly bespeak them to be men of, from, and for this world. Nevertheless, God's ways are not as man's ways, with him there is no respect of perfons; but, in every nation under heaven, he who fears God and works righteousness is accepted with him, whether he be a believer, or an infidel, with regard to the religion in vogue; or whatever reproaches he may fall under on account of thefe. Infidelity is likewife confidered to be fuch a great and crying fin as brings. down God's judgments upon a nation; and, in particular, the prefent rebellion in Scotland, and the evils that have attended it, are placed to the account of infidelity. So that (it feems) it is infidelity which hath brought a popish pretender from Italy, and which fent a body of Highlanders from

Scotland,

Scotland, to afflict this orthodox nation. Hard and unequal providence indeed! that God should correct a nation of found believers, a church (if our clergy do not carry their compliment too high) the purest and most primitive of any church in the world, upon account, and for the fake of a few infidels who refide among them; but this is not the cafe, if St. Peter has judged rightly of this matter. I am fenfible, that many passages may be collected from the books of the New Testament, and made to fpeak juft the reverse to what St. Peter has concluded, as mentioned above; but then, this will not in the least weaken or invalidate that conclufion, but only render those writings lefs valuable, by making them to be a nursery of confufion and contradiction.