epifcopal chapel, a gentleman of learning, and great merit. And I am also informed, that many distinguished characters in that part of the world, to whom the plan was communicated, before it was put in practice, expreffed their intire approbation of it. They confidered it as a revival of the fentiments which prevailed in the churches of that country, at its first fettlement. In the New England platform of church difcipline, published by a fynod, in the year 1684, it is faid; Ordination, we account nothing *elfe, but the folemn putting of a man into "his place and office in the church, where"unto he had right before by election;

being like the installing of a magistrate "in the common wealth. In fuch churches "where there are no elders, imposition of "hands may be performed by fome of

the brethren orderly chofen thereunto. "For if the people may elect officers which "is the greater, and wherein the fubftance. "of

D 2

duty with fidelity, he laid one hand upon him, and with the other delivered him the bible, injoining him to make < that facred book the rule of his faith and conduct. Then <followed prayer and a bleffing.'

"of the office doth confift, they may much.

more (occafion and need fo requiring) 'impofe hands in ordination, which is lefs, "and but the accomplishment of the "other."

Every lover of learning, piety, and truth, will rife at the name of Locke, the honour of our country, and of your university in particular, ye fons of Ifis! however unjustly expelled from his place among you, in trying times, by arbitrary power.

In your ftudious, fhady walks, and groves, oft vifited and made facred by him, he meditated and planned his firft immortal work; in which, with thought profound, he explored and delineated, the principles, and elements of human knowlege, and how beft to conduct the mind in the fearch and attainment of truth.

Nor did he more excell in thus investigating, and teaching the ufe of our natural reafoning powers, than in defcrying, and pointing out the proper application of them, to the

right understanding of the written records of divine revelation, of which he was a firm believer. Of his admirable fkill herein, his preface to fome of St. Paul's epiftles, and commentaries and notes upon them, are a noble monument.

In religious opinion he was ftrictly unitarian; holding the fupreme, omnipotent Father to be God alone, and no other perfon befides him.

What he thought at large, concerning the impofition of creeds, and articles of faith, by human authority, is feen in his "Letters on toleration ;" and you may gather it particularly, from his " Reasonable"nefs of chriftianity, as contained in the fcriptures." In which admirable tract, he advances and proves this point, viz. that Chrift and his apostles, did not propound any article as necessarily to be believed to make a man a chriftian, but this; that JESUS IS THE CHRIST, or the Meffias. therefore hath any right or title to impose the belief of any other article as neceffary to christian communion, or man's final falvation, than Chrift required.

No one

In this treatise alfo, amidst other things, Mr. Locke afferts and demonstrates, that the phrafe, Son of God, in the New Testament, applied to our Saviour, fignifies nothing more than the Chrift, or the Meffiah,

And this I would obferve by the way, may teach you, what judgment to form of those very learned perfons, who will have Christ to be the Son of God, as Dr. Clarke says, (Serm. vol. v. p. 30, 8vo.) “on ac

count of deriving his being from the "Father, in a fingular and incompre"henfible manner, before the world was :" or, as Bp. Pearson on the creed, (p. 142. 1683) and others maintain, that Chrift was the Son of God, " by a communication of "the divine effence to him, which was a

proper generation; and that by this his "natural and eternal generation, Christ is "of the fame fubftance, and confequently "of the fame power and dignity with "God." Common sense rejects the idea of a Son of God, (that is, one, who, by the very terms, derives his being from him) becoming equal in power and dignity to

HIM, from whom he received his being. And the holy fcriptures acknowlege no fuch Son of God as this, fo derived; nor happily do they deal in fuch dark unintelligible language, as proper generations, eternal generations and communications of the divine effence, as the way, ftrange to fpeak, in the which perfons are made Gods, equal to the fupreme Father of all.

Great allowance should be made for those, who by taking up a wrong fyftem concerning Jefus Chrift, or through the illufions of science falfely fo called, involve themselves in a cloud of words without meaning. But do ye always keep fight of fcripture, and use no words but fuch as you, and every plowman, and drayman, can equally understand! For most affsuredly, Christ and his apostles, intended to be understood by fuch, as well as by Cambridge and Oxford scholars.

How far foever the famous Rector of St. James's, the virtuous, learned, and able Dr. Clarke, mifled by fome of the early chriftian writers,

D 4