Character, as well as gratify Her People, by using these gracious Expreffions among others; I owe you hearty Thanks and Commendations for your fingular Good-Will towards Me; not only in your Heart and Thoughts, but which you openly expreffed and declared; whereby You have recovered Me from an Error proceeding from my Ignorance, not my Will. How different an Impreffion muft this generous Acknowledgment of that Great Queen make on the Breaft of every good Subject, from the falfe Grandeur, which one of Her unhappy Succeffors was defperately refolved to maintain? When He had affumed a Power to dispense with the Laws by admitting Papifts into Offices of Truft, and his Parliament humbly remonftrated against it, He had no other Language for Them, than I refolve to be obeyed. was welt for him to be resolved offers are I ran away! What is a Repeal or Explication of an A& away: of Parliament, but in effect a Retractation made by the whole State, when they see Reafon for it, and the Matter amended appears upon farther Light not to have been for the Publick Good, or prejudicial to it?

The main Body of the Beneficed Clergy at the Revolution were a famous Inftance of the neceffity of Retractations; when by fwearing to the Succeffive Governments of King WILLIAM, Queen ANNE, and now of King GEORGE, they have fo clearly deferted the Doctrines, which feemed to be their greatest Favorites and the most usual Themes for employing their Eloquence and Zeal half an Age ago.

And

And may we not hope, that that venerable Body, as well as the Laity, will be ready to fhew the fame Ingenuity, in difcarding any other Principles, which have ftill the the Honour of fuch learned Advocates, and continue to be fet off in the best Colours they are capable of, as foon as the growing Light of this inquifitive Age fhall convince them that they are mistaken?

They know, that Chriftianity itself came in upon this Foot; and that every Man who whe embraced it, either Jew or Gentile, retracted a great number of Opinions and Practices, which he had received by Education. Tho' there is one Dawson among our Clergy, who has thought fit to quote with Approbation that Advice of a Heathen Statefman to Auguftus, That he should follow conftantly the established Religion of his Country: because all Innovations would foment Sedition in the State, and be a means to Subvert his Government; I will never allow myself to believe of any other Chriftian Clergyman, that he will fecond this Doctor in recommending that Advice, till he fhall declare himself as openly as he has done against the only way, by which Chriftianity could have obtained Admiffion into the World.

Nothing brightens the Character of the Great Apoftle St. Paul, more than that entire Change of his Principles, to the full Af fertion of Chriftian Liberty, from the most outragious Bigotry of a blind Perfecutor. He generously owns all his former Delufions, and aggravates them fo as hardly any Chriftian would chufe to do after his full Acknow

ledg

ledgment. And, with all the juft Pretenfion he had afterwards to Infallibility as an Apoftle; yet where he had not a proper Claim to that, no Man was more ready to acknowledge himself mistaken upon Conviction. Whatever he precisely meant, when he said, I wift not, Brethren, that he was the High-Prieft; for it is written, that thou shalt not speak Evil of the Ruler of thy People: It plainly fhews a Readiness in that Great Man to retract any Thing that was amifs, and to correct himfelf even upon the Spot. Immediately in their Prefence, who made him fenfible of it, and that with the moft unfriendly Mind, without any Regard, to the Advantage his. Enemies might make of his Conceffion, he quotes against himself a Place of Scripture, upon Suppofition that, he had offended aagainst it.

None are recorded with more Honour in the Hiftory of the Church, than fuch as retracted their former Opinions upon Evidence. Beryllus, Bishop of Boftra, when he was convinced by Origen, that he had fallen into fome Errors about the Perfon of our Lord Jefus Chrift, frankly acknowledg'd it, and wrote Origen a Letter of Thanks, as the Ancients tell

us.

This Declaration of his honest Mind, conveys his Character to all future Ages much more to his Honour, than his coming to be Orthodox confider'd in itself could do, how bad foever his Errors before were. St. Auftin's Retractations are never to be forgotten upon this Subject. He wrote two Books of them, and revifed them a little before his Death, whereby he has gained as

just

just a Reputation, as by any of his Works. The great Mr. Chillingworth, upon a double

Change of his Sentiments, was equally illufa cors ftrious for Integrity. He was firft a Proteftant; but the Jefuit Fiber taking advantage of fome Scruples he had, brought him over to the Church of Rome. Afterwards he thought himself out of thofe Entanglements,

retracted the Popish Errors, forfook that cold feces, Church; and when he was converted, endeavour'd to ftrengthen his Brethren by his incomparable Book in Defence of the Proteftant Religion; which, as long as Reason, Scripture, Modefty and Confcience have place in the World, must be in high Regard with all that understand it. The Name of a fickle Turn-Coat might be applyed to him by defigning Leaders on either Side, and it might ferve fome Party Purpofes: But I never met with any Man, who gave fuller Evidence of the Sincerity of his Conduct in all the Changes of his Sentiments.

The Reformation from Popery, (which is nothing elfe but a Renunciation of the Corruptions brought into the Church by the Papacy under the Chriftian Name, and a Re turn to the Bible as the only Rule and Meafure of Chriftian Faith and Practice ;) whereever it was admitted, was an undeniable Inftance of Retractation in every one that was engaged in it. Luther and Calvin, Cranmer and Ridley, and all, who firft embraced the Proteftant Religion, had been Papifts before, but upon Conviction retracted what they efteemed the Errors of Popery. The Refor mation was founded upon every Man's Right

to

to enquire into the Sense and Meaning of his Bible, and to judge for himself by that Rule what was the Religion of Jefus Chrift; and then his Obligation thereupon to profefs according to his Sentiments, i. e. to retract and difavow all that in Religion, which he thought not to confift with the Mind of God revealed in Scripture.

This makes it peculiarly fuitable in all Countries, where the Proteftant Profeffion is embraced, that a free Retractation of all Sentiments in Religion, which are thought by any Perfon not to have Chrift's Authority, fhould not only be tolerated, but countenanced and encouraged; because this is the very Basis of the Proteftant Religion. Nothing more contributed to the fudden fpreading of the Reformation among the moft judicious Obfervers of it, than the plain Marks of Honefty which appeared in those who were firft engaged in it, that they gave credible Evidence that they were honeft Enquirers after Truth, and then were frank and open Men to speak their Minds and alter their Practices in Religion, as they thought they found Chrift's Mind in his Gofpel, without and against the Biass of their fecular Interest.

And this being the Principle of the Reformation, it is not to be thought ftrange. that there fhould appear more frequent Instances of People's changing their Opinions in Proteftant Countries than in Popish. In Popish Countries, the main thing inculcated is a blind Obedience to the Church, which naturally fixes Men in a stupid Adherence to

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