what is he but a negociator for his partizans abroad? What does he but fow the feeds of Popery in the very foil of the Reformation?

But if we are to watch against the filent tide of Popery in the small rivulets at home; much more against its inundation and deluge from abroad which always meditates and now threatens to overwhelm us. If foreign Popery once return, and regain all the provinces that it loft at the Reformation; O the terrible storm of perfecution at its first regress! O the dark profpect of flavery and ignorance for the ages behind! In tract of time, it will rife again to as full a measure of ufurped hierarchy, as when the hero Luther first proclaimed war against it. For then was Popery in its meridian height: it was not raised up all at once, but by the flow work of many centuries. In all the steps and advances of its progrefs, the good men of the feveral ages oppofed it, but in vain; they were overborne by a majority; were filenced by the strong arguments of proceffes and prifons: for it firft fubdued its own priests, before it brought the laity under its yoke. Good letters became a crime even in the clergy. Or herefy or magic, according to the different turn of men's ftudies, was a certain imputation upon all that dared to excel. And though Popery, fince the Reformation, has even in its own quarters per

mitted learning and humanity, and prudently withdrawn fome of its moft fcandalous trumpery; yet if once again it fees itself univerfal, the whole warehouse, now kept under key, will again be fet wide open: the old tyranny will ride triumphant upon the necks of enflaved mankind, with certain provision against a future revolt. The two inftruments, the two parents of the Reformation, ancient learning, and the art of printing, both coming providentially at one juncture of time, will be made the first martyrs, the earliest sacrifice to Popish politic. The dead languages, as they are now called, will then die in good earnest. All the old authors of Greece and Italy, as the conveyers of hurtful knowledge, as inspirers of dangerous liberty, will be condemned to the flames: an enterprise of no difficulty, when the Pope shall once again be the general dictator. All these writings must then perish together: no old records fhall furvive, to bear witness against Popery; nor any new be permitted, to give it disturbance. The prefs will then be kept under custody in a citadel, like the mint and the coinage: nothing but massbooks and rofaries, nothing but dry postills and fabulous legends, shall then be the staple commodities, even in an university.

For the double feftivity therefore of this candid and joyful day; for the double deli

!

A

SERMON

UPON

POPERY,

PREACHED AT CAMBRIDGE,

November 5, 1715.

2 Cor. ii. 17.

For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of fincerity, but as of God, in the fight of God, fpeak we in Chrift.

OUR text, as it exhibits to us two contrary characters, of many that corrupt the word of God, and of fome that handle it in fincerity, may fitly represent the two different views of the Church under Popery and the Reformation; and may furnish a proper discourse for the folemnity of this day: when we are met to commemorate the public deliverance from one of the most impious and bloody attempts, that even Popish pravity and corruption either contrived or favoured.

But the text will be ftill more proper to this anniversary occafion, when we have attained to the true and full sense of it, as it lies in the original. For our English translators have not been very happy in their version of this paffage. We are not, fays the Apostle, καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ : which our tranflators have rendered, we do not corrupt, or (as in the margin) deal deceitfully with the word of God. They were led to this by the parallel place, ch. iv. of this Epistle, ver. 2. not walking in craftinefs, μηδὲ δολοῦντες τὸν λόYou To Oε, nor handling the word of God deceitfully they took xanλevovтes and doλvres in the fame adequate notion; as the vulgar Latin had done before them, which expreffes both by the fame word, ADULTERANTES verbum Dei: and fo likewife Hesychius makes them fynonyms, ἐκκαπηλεύειν, δολῶν. Δολῶν indeed is fitly rendered, adulterare: fo doλy ↑ χρυσὸν, * οἶνον, to adulterate gold or wine, by mixing worse ingredients with the metal or liquor. And our tranflators had done well if they had rendered the latter paffage, un doλsvδολάνTEST Xoyov, not adulterating, not fophifticating the word. But xanλεvovтes in our text has a complex idea, and a wider fignification: xαλεύειν always comprehends δολον, but δολον never extends to xanλεÚε: which, befides the fense of adulterating, has an additional notion

of