In this, view, when a minister of the Church of England is either directly by controversy, or indirectly by secretly-invidious imputations, called upon to declare and vindicate his sentiments; to all the members of the same church with himself, he has a right to quote her authority as a sufficient justification of the tenets he inculcates; and has an equal right to expect, that an unequivocal appeal to her discriminating doctrines ought to be considered as an indirect evidence, at least, of the uprightness of his intentions, if not of the orthodoxy of his sentiments. He thinks himself authorized to expect too, that he should be reputed an honest man, as long as he professes to advance nothing but in subserviency to the scheme of doctrine which he solemnly subscribed at his ordination. And should he happen to err, yet candor should acknowledge, that he is mistaken with the Church of England, since her sentiments he avows as his own. And in such venerable company he is not, and cannot be supposed to be ashamed to declare them, that all may judge for themselves of the inconsistency or validity of his pretensions. And, when interrogated, he might think it a sufficient apology to say, “If you wish to know my sentiments, from any secret supposition of their heterodoxy, I refer you to the 39 articles of that church, of which we are both members. I subscribed to those articles with hand and heart. My assent and consent to them were sincere and unequivocal. I firmly believe them to be agreeable to the word of God; and, while they epitomize the sentiments of the church, they speak my own. As such I believe them, and I preach them. Read over those articles, therefore, and you may then know, what are the leading topics of my ministrations.” Such an answer a minister of the gospel might esteem a reasonable and a sufficient one, to cavillers of every description, when either ignorance censures, or malevolence detracts. But lest, upon the present occasion, such an appeal should be thought to carry too much the appearance of indolence and evasion, I will endeavour, with all the faithfulness and precision in my power, to state the outlines of that system of doctrine, which I verily believe to be according to truth and godliness, and upon which I build my own hopes and prospects for eternity.