I am happy to find that you think it a confiderable advantage to you that fo great a part of the world is Chriftian, rather than Heathen, and that you live among people who respect your fcriptures as much as you do yourselves. This advantage you would not have had among the Mahometans, who, though they allow the infpiration of your prophets, as well as that of Jesus Christ, think that all former revelations were fuperfeded by their. prophet Mahomet; so that they make no use of your fcriptures, or ours, but treat these facred books with great contempt. In time, I doubt not, you will find yourselves ftill more indebted to Chriftians than you have hitherto been, and that the unspeakable obligations we are under to you will be repaid by our fervices, in your converfion to Christianity. We owe you much indeed, but we live in the hope of discharging the debt. In the mean time we must content ourselves with fhewing our gratitude and good-will; reflecting on the important articles in which we agree with you, and which we derived from you.

The great object of our worship, and all the great articles of our faith, will then be the fame. We agree in the belief of one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that this God is gracious and merciful to all the truly penitent,

as

as no doubt he will be to you, when you shall turn to him with your whole hearts. "Believe

"in the Lord your God, fo fhall you be estab"lished, believe his prophets, so thall you prof"per." 2 Chron. xx. 20. Mofes, speaking of your prefent calamitous state, dispersed among all the nations of the world, fays, Deut. iv. 29, "But if from thence thou fhalt seek the Lord "thy God, thou fhalt find him, if thou seek " him with all thy heart, and with all thy foul, "When thou art in tribulation, and all these "things" (viz. the curfes he had mentioned)

are come upon thee, even in the latter days, "if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and be obe"dient to his voice (for the Lord thy God is a " merciful God) he will not forfake thee, neither destroy thee, neither forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he sware unto thee."

This God of your fathers feems now to be preparing the way, in the course of his unfearchable providence, for your restoration to his favour, and to your own country. Let nothing be wanting on your part to render yourselves the proper objects of fuch great favour. Of all nations you alone have been diftinguished by a particular providence, fo that your outward profperity has ever kept pace with your faith and obeDd4 dience;

dience; and this I doubt not will be the cafe to the end of time.

All your perfecutions have arifen fron trinitarian, i. e. idolatrous Chriftians, but all unitarians will naturally love and refpect you, acknowledging their unspeakable obligations to you, as the antient depofitories of the great article of their faith. As one of them, and fecond to none in love and respect for you, I entreat your attention to this discourse; and with my earnest prayers for your happiness, temporal and eternal, I fubfcribe myself, as before,

Your brother in the fole worship of

Birmingham,

May 20, 1791.

the one living and true God,

J. PRIESTLEY,

No. III.

The Preface to the Difcourfe containing a
View of Revealed Religion.

THOL

HOUGH publications of the nature of this have feldom any extenfive circulation, yet as fome per

fons into whose hands it may fall, may want in

formation

formation concerning the idea of ordination that prevails among Diffenters, I fhall obferve that we (at least many of us) do not now mean by it the giving of orders, without which a perfon could not be confidered as properly qualified to exercise the office of minifter in a Chriftian fociety. As all our focieties are independent of each other, the members of each of them are, of course, the sole judges of the qualifications of the person whom they chufe to be their minifter. Confequently their appointment is his proper orders, or title to officiate among them; and all that is done by the minifters who bear any part in what is ufually called the ordination fervice (befides thereby virtually expreffing their approbation of the choice of the congregation, and giving their minister the right hand of fellowship) is to recommend him and his labours to the divine bleffing by prayer, and to give him and the people proper advice.

On this idea it is now cuftomary with many Diffenters, especially those who are called Prefbyterians, for the minister to discharge all the functions of his office, baptizing and administering the Lord's fupper, as well as preaching and praying, before ordination, in order more effectually to remove the prejudices which still remain with many, founded on the idea that some powers are conferred on this occafion, powers which qualify

him

him to do after this ceremony what he could not

do before.

The proper ordination fervice, therefore, confifts in the prayer over the candidate, and the charge. But the congregation, and alfo many ftrangers, being ufually affembled on the occafion, and especially a number of ministers being prefent, it has been ufual for one of them to deliver a difcourse, or fermon, on fome fubject relating to Christianity in general, or the ministry of it in particular; and instead of the particular confession of faith, which was formerly required of all candidates for the miniftry (his foundness in which was then deemed effential) certain questions are put to him, which lead him to give as much as he thinks proper of his views of Christianity and the ministry of it, and the motives and maxims of his own conduct, for the inftruction of the audience.

The ceremony of impofition of hands, which in primitive times accompanied the action of praying for a particular perfon, by which the apoftles communicated fpiritual gifts, and which was afterwards fuppofed to be neceffary to the conferring of proper qualifications for the gospel ministry, is now generally laid afide by us, fince we are conscious that we have nothing to impart, and wish not to encourage fuperftition.

Ordination