must win the field. When a learned Paul was converted, and undertook the ministry, it stopped the mouths of those that said, "None but poor weak fishermen preached Christianity;" and so his learning silenced the scandal, as well as strengthened the Church. Religion placed in a soul of exquisite knowledge and abilities, as in a castle, finds not only habitation but defence. And what a learned foreign divine said of the English preaching, may be said of all, Plus est in Artifice quàm in Arte. So much of moment is there in the professors of any thing to depress or raise the profession. What is it that kept the Church of Rome strong, athletic, and flourishing for so many centuries, but the happy succession of the choicest wits engaged to her service by suitable preferments? And what strength, do we think, would that give to the true religion, that is able thus to establish a false? Religion,

in

a great measure, stands or falls according to the abilities of those that assert it. And, if, as some observe, men's desires are usually as large as their abilities, what course have we took to allure the former, that we might engage the latter to our assistance? But we have took all ways to affright and discourage scholars from looking towards this sacred calling. For will men lay out their wit and judgment upon that employment, for the undertaking of which both will be questioned? Would men, not long since, have spent toilsome days, and watchful nights, in the laborious quest of knowledge, preparative to this work, at length to come and dance attendance for approbation upon a junto of a Gaspar Streso.

petty tyrants, acted by party and prejudice, who denied fitness from learning, and grace from morality? Will a man exhaust his livelihood upon books, and his health, the best part of his life, upon study, to be at length thrust into a poor village, where he shall have his due precariously, and entreat for his own, and when he has it, live poorly and contemptibly upon it, while the same, or less labour, bestowed upon any other calling, would bring not only comfort, but splendour, not only maintenance, but abundance? It is, I confess, the duty of ministers to endure this condition: but neither religion nor reason does oblige either them to approve, or others to choose it. Doubtless parents will not throw away the towardness of a child, and the expense of education, upon a profession, the labour of which is increased, and the rewards of which are vanished. To condemn promising lively parts to contempt and penury in a despised calling, what is it else but the casting of a Moses into the mud, or the offering a son upon the altar; and instead of a priest to make him a sacrifice? Neither let any here reply, that it becomes not a ministerial spirit to undertake such a calling for reward; for they must know, that it is one thing to undertake it for a reward, and not to be willing to undertake it without one. It is one thing to perform good works, only that we may receive the recompence of them in heaven, and another thing not to be willing to follow Christ and forsake the world if there were no such recompence. But besides, suppose it were the duty of scholars to choose this calling in the midst of all its discouragements: yet a prudent governor, who knows it to be his wisdom, as well

as his duty, to take the best course to advance religion, will not consider men's duty, but their practice; not what they ought to do, but what they use to do; and therefore draw over the best qualified to this service, by such ways as are most apt to persuade and induce men. Solomon built his temple with the tallest cedars; and surely, when God refused the defective and the maimed for sacrifice, we cannot think that he requires them for the priesthood. When learning, abilities, and what is excellent in the world, forsake the Church, we may easily foretel its ruin without the gift of prophecy. And when ignorance succeeds in the place of learning, weakness in the room of judgment, we may be sure heresy and confusion will quickly come in the room of religion. For undoubtedly there is no way so effectual to betray the truth as to procure it a weak defender.

Well, now; instead of raising any particular uses from the point that has been delivered, let us make a brief recapitulation of the whole. Government, we see, depends upon religion, and religion upon the encouragement of those that are to dispense and assert it. For the farther evidence of which truths we need not travel beyond our own borders; but leave it to every one impartially to judge, whether from the very first day that our religion was unsettled, and Church government flung out of doors, the civil government has ever been able to fix upon a sure foundation. We have been changing even to a proverb. The indignation of Heaven has been rolling and turning us from one form to another, till at length such a giddiness seized upon government, that it fell into the very dregs of sectaries

who threatened an equal ruin both to minister and magistrate. And how the State has sympathised with the Church is apparent. For have not our princes as well as our priests been of the lowest of the lowest of the people? Have not cobblers, draymen, mechanics, governed as well as preached? Nay, have they not by preaching come to govern? Was ever that of Solomon more verified, "That servants have rid, while princes and nobles have gone on foot?" But God has been pleased, by a miracle of mercy, to dissipate this confusion and chaos, and to give us some openings, some dawnings of liberty and settlement. But now let not those who are to rebuild our Jerusalem think that the temple must be built last. For if there be such a thing as a God and religion, as, whether men believe it or no, they will one day find and feel, assuredly he will stop our liberty, till we restore him his worship. Besides, it is a senseless thing in reason, to think that one of these interests can stand without the other, when, in the very order of natural causes, government is preserved by religion. But to return to Jeroboam, with whom we first began. He laid the foundation of his government in destroying, though, doubtless, he coloured it with the name of reforming, God's worship: but see the issue. Consider him cursed by God; maintaining his usurped title by continual vexatious wars against the kings of Judah; smote in his posterity, which was made like the dung upon the face of the earth, as low and vile as those priests whom he had employed. Consider him branded, and made odious to all after ages. And now, when his kingdom and glory were at an end, and he and his

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terity rotting under ground, and his name stinking above it; judge what a worthy prize he made in getting of a kingdom, by destroying the Church. Wherefore the sum of all this is: to advise and desire those whom it may concern, to consider Jeroboam's punishment, and then they will have little heart to Jeroboam's sin.