virtue, or virtue, vice. On the contrary, our unqualified obligation to obey HIM supposes this to be impossible, because it supposes Him to be infinitely good and great: and to suppose otherwise is absurd and self-contradictory; it is supposing Him not to be that which He really is.

Neither is it true, that positive duties arise from the mere arbitrary will of the prescriber. They are understood to be founded upon as wise and good reasons as moral laws; reasons, known to God, and ultimately resolvable into His infinite wisdom and goodness, whether revealed to us, or not: and though they may, in their circumstances, be local, occa sional, or personal only, yet are they, according to those circumstances, no less obligatory upon those who are required to observe them, than duties of the most general and universal obligation. Where ever, and for whatever period or extent of time and place, a positive law is in force, "obedience is indis"pensably necessary; and nothing can remove it but "the same authority that gave it."

Our author pursues the subject, through the different windings and perplexities traced out by his opponent; nor does he omit some severe, but just, reprehensions of the high and presumptuous tone in which Dr. S. had descanted upon the absolute perfection of human virtues, insisting that they stand in no need of expiation to render them saving, and to ensure their acceptance with God. The question respecting the special obligation and efficacy of the Christian sacraments is not resumed at any considerable length; probably because it was evident that the author of the Defence had made this part

of the subject to depend chiefly, if not entirely, upon the previous question concerning the comparative value of moral and positive duties; to which, therefore, Waterland deemed it expedient almost exclusively to direct his attention in this particular controversy.

Dr. Sykes was not slow in his Reply to the Supplement. It was published in the same year, 1730, and entitled, The true Foundations of natural and revealed Religion asserted. But of this publication Waterland took no notice till the following year, when he made it the subject of some animadversions in a postscript to his second part of Scripture vindicated, of which some account has already been given in the preceding section.

Not long after this debate was closed, another was stirred up, by the publication of Bishop Hoadley's Plain Account of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; a tract which lowers the importance of that sacrament more perhaps than had ever been done before, except by Socinian writers; reducing it to a bare memorial of our Lord's death and sufferings, an act of pious gratitude and obedience on our part, but unattended by any special benefits on his; discarding from it all mystical signification, and all efficacy as the means of conveying pardon or sanctification; and not even requiring, on the part of the communicant, any recognition of that atonement and propitiation made for sin, which Christians in general have conceived to be the main object of the institution itself.

This work excited great dissatisfaction, and was almost instantly attacked by several distinguished

writers. The celebrity which the author had gained by his writings against church-authority, and his high station in that church whose pretensions he had so underrated, could not but excite public attention to any fresh topic he might be inclined to agitate: and the popularity of his sentiments among those who bore no good-will either to the church or to religion, ensured an extensive circulation to his performances. It were uncharitable, however, not to believe him to have been sincerely persuaded that he was rendering good service to Christianity, in simplifying (as he conceived) a rite which had, in some cases, been rendered instrumental to the grossest superstition and idolatry; in others, had been invested with more of a mysterious character than really belonged to it; and in others, represented with an aspect of severity and harshness, which tended rather to terrify men from its observance, than to invite them to it as a source of rational satisfaction and improvement.

On scarcely any subject, perhaps, has the Christian world been more divided, than on that of the Eucharist. Between the high ground (the perilous height, indeed) of papal transubstantiation, and the low and contracted views taken by Socinian interpreters, an indefinite variety of opinions may be traced, difficult either to be enumerated or explained. And although it is exceedingly desirable, that, on a subject of such deep interest, the utmost possible accuracy should be attained; yet, within these extremes, a considerable latitude of opinion may, perhaps, be taken, without the abandonment of any es

sential principle. But in the work of Bishop Hoadley, it was the opinion certainly of many among the most distinguished and approved members of our church, that the spirit and intent of this sacred ordinance were compromised by the view in which he placed it; and that the very doctrines which gave it its chief force and signification were studiously cast into the shade. It was also but too evident, that this work would soon become a standard of doctrine upon the Sacrament among a considerable party in the Church. All who had any bias towards Socinianism or Arianism, all who were indisposed to receive the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice and expiation for guilt, all who were sceptical as to the gifts and operations of the Holy Spirit, and their necessity in the work of salvation; would readily fall in with a scheme, which did not depend upon the truth of any of these articles of faith for its support; but might be adapted to a Creed, in which neither the Divinity of the Saviour, nor his all-sufficient merits, nor his mediation and intercession, nor the influence of the Spirit of grace, formed any of its component parts. This laxity of sentiment appeared to have been gaining ground, for a considerable time, both among Clergy and laity. It had been much fostered by the labours of those who took part with Dr. Clarke in his endeavours to lower the doctrine of the Church of England to the standard of his own opinions; and who upheld Bishop Hoadley in the Bangorian controversy. The authority of two persons so distinguished could not but give currency to their tenets among many who had neither leisure nor ability

to investigate such subjects, nor were disposed to yield that deference to the collective judgment of the Church, which they paid implicitly to individual opinion.

These considerations gave additional importance to Hoadley's treatise on the Sacrament: and the solicitude it awakened was proportionate to the impression it was thus calculated to make upon the public mind, rather than to any extraordinary pretensions of the work itself. It was controverted by a host of eminent writers; among whom were Warren, Wheatly, Whiston, Ridley, Leslie, Law, Brett, Johnson, and Stebbing; besides others of less notoriety. The strength on Hoadley's side was far inferior.

Dr. Waterland's exertions were not therefore wanted to counteract the effect of this work. Nor did he come forward as the controversialist of Hoadley. It appears, from his correspondence with Dr. Grey and Mr. Loveday, that he had been expected, and perhaps pressed, so to do: but as far as any immediate consequences were to be apprehended from this attempt to depreciate the Sacrament, he was well satisfied with the answers and animadversions which it had called forth; particularly with those of Dr. Warren, Dr. Stebbing, and Mr. Wheatly, which he notices in strong terms of commendation. His own opinion of the work is briefly, but impressively stated in one of his letters above-mentioned, where he describes it as Socinianizing the doctrine of the Sacrament, by divesting it of its reference either to the Divinity of our Lord, or to his suffering as a propitiatory sacrifice. In this, he conceived, lay the main