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    terms , an undue love of ease and worldly enjoyment , the paragraph which inculcates the salutary caution I have already noticed , says ,- * We believe , however , and Tfae are glad in believing , that there are numbers ' who act upon sounder principles than these ; who knowing , as saith the apostle , that * the fashion of this world passeth away , ' are really desirous of using

    this world as not abusing it . These \ v % would encourage to hold on in the way cast up before them , trusting in the- Lord , who hath declared that all things necessary will be given to those who seek first His kingdom /' The declaration of Christ , here alluded to , is not truly stated . Both the evangelists who have recorded it , Mat . vi . 33 , and Luke xii . 31 , say the promise related to those who seek first the kingdom of God ? Whereas the Epistle represents it as referring to those who seek first the kingdom of Christ * which is no less

    than to substitute one person for another : the Son for God the Father . If such liberties as these may be taken with texts of scripture , it may be made apparently to countenance any set of notions , however contradictory they may be to the genuine sense of the passages which are imagined to sup * port them , and to the general tenor of scripture doctrine .

    It may perhaps be said , that the variation in this instance is rather verbal than real , that the sense of the passage is preserved , although the terms in which it is expressed are changed ; that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Christ are substantially the same . In a certain qualified sense I admit they are , but not entirely

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    permanentl y * For when the end cometh , Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to God , even the Father . 1 Cor . xiii . 24 . In like manner c < the Gospel of God , " although it came originally from the Father , as the apostle Paul asserts / Horn . i . 1 , 2 . is nevertheless called" in the' l' 6 th verse of the same chapter , and elsewhere , in an inferior sense u the Gospel of Christ *' The apostle even calls it his Gospel ^ according to the received text in the next chap * ter , v . 16 . and again in the xvi . chapter of thesame Epistle , v . 25 ,

    But in both places he emphatically asserts the unrivalled power of God , whether he speaks of it , as acting by the agency of Jesus Christ , or otherwise .

    To return to the Epistle . Immediately after the above extract , which , without any authority from the Text , substitutes Christ in the place of God the Father , it goes on in the following manner :

    c * Thus trusting , and endeavouring to apply to him , " Christ , u in secret supplication ^ in the difficulties that must in a state of probation be the lot of all , we may humbly hope that in our several proportions , we shall grow in the truth . " In reflecting on so palpable a perversion of a declaration of the lip of truth , and on the

    unscriptural injunction which seems to have been founded thereon , I cannot but feel strongly persuaded , that a more assiduous study of the New Testament , would more effectually promote a real growth in Christian truth , than aiiy

    endeavours to apply to Christ m secret or open supplication , both of which are in direct opposition to his uniform command * to his followers , to look up to his

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    4 ^ 2 Remarks on the Quakers' Yearly Epistle .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1810, page 492, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2409/page/20/