his religion to offer his throat to an affaffin, and his property to the first plunderer; or that a fociety of Christians may not repel, in the best manner they are able, the unjuft affaults of hostile invasion.

I know of no precepts in the gofpel, which debar a man from the poffeffion of domestic comforts, or deaden the activity of his private friendships, or prohibit the exertion of his utmost ability in the fervice of the publick; thenifi quietum nihil beatum — is no part of the Chriftian's Creed; his virtue, is an active virtue; and we juftly refer to the fchool of Epicurus, the doctrines concerning abftinence from marriage, H

from

from the cultivation of friendship, from the management of publick affairs, as fuited to that felfifh indolence, which was the favourite tenet of his philofophy.

I am, Sir,

LET

LETTER FIFTH.

SIR,

T

HE union and the dif "cipline of the Chri"ftian church," or, as

you are pleased to stile it, of the Christian republic, is the laft of the five fecondary causes, to which you have referred the rapid and extensive spread of Christianity. It must be acknowledged, that union effentially contributes to the trength of every affociation, civil, mili

H 2

military, and religious; but unfortunately for your argument, and much to the reproach of Chriftians, nothing has been more wanting amongst them, from the apoftolic age to our own, than union. I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Chrift, are expreffions of difunion, which we meet with in the earliest period of church hiftory; and we cannot look into the writings of any, either friend or foe to Chriftianity, but we find the one of them lamenting, and the other exulting in an immenfe catalogue of fectaries; and both of them thereby furnishing us with great reason to believe, that the divifions with refpect to doctrine, worship, and discipline, which

have ever fubfifted in the church, must have greatly tended to hurt the credit of Christianity, and to alienate the minds of the Gentiles from the reception of fuch a various and difcordant faith.

I readily grant, that there was a certain community of doctrine, an intercourse of hospitality, and a .confederacy of difcipline established amongst the individuals of every church; fo that none could be admitted into any assembly of Chriftians, without undergoing a previous examination into his manner of life*, (which shews by the bye, H 3

that

*Nonnulli præpofiti funt, qui in vitam et mores eorum, qui admittuntur, in quirant, ut non conceffa facientes candidatos religionis arceant a fuis conventibus. Orig. Con. Cel. Lib. 2.