a kingdom, city or house divided against itself_ (saith
Christ) _cannot stand._ And yet some will say, That toleration is a good
thing, for by it people may live as good as they please. I answer, It is
true, but they may also live as bad as they please, and that we have
liberty and freedom to serve God in his own appointed way, we have him
primarily to thank for it, as for all his other mercies and goodness
toward us.

[13] Witness the Quebec act, establishing popery in Canada, 1774.--The
Catholic bills granting a toleration to Papists in England and Ireland,
1778, with the gloomy aspect that affairs bear to Scotland since that
time.

[14] This doctrine of original sin is plainly evinced from scripture,
canonical and apocryphal, Job xiv. 4. Psal. li. 5. Rom. v. 12. _etc._ 1
Cor xv. 21. John iii. 6. Apocrypha Eccles. xxv. {illegible}6; asserted
in our church standards, illustrated and defended by many able divines
(both ancient and modern) and by our British poets excellently
described: Thus,

Adam, now ope thine eyes, and first behold
Th' effects which thy original crime hath wrought
In some, to spring from thee, who never touch'd
Th' excepted tree, nor with the snake conspir'd,
Nor sinn'd thy sin; yet from that sin derive
Corruption to bring forth more violent deeds.

PARADISE LOST. Lib. ix.

Conceiv'd in sin, (O wretched state!)
before we draw our breath:
The first young pulse begins to beat
iniquity and death.

Dr WATTS.

[15] However much these leading articles in the Arminian and Pelagian
scheme be now taught and applauded yet sure they are God-dishonouring
and soul-ruining tenets, contrary to scripture, God's covenant, and
eversive of man's salvation. For,

(1.) They are contrary to scripture, which teaches us that we are no
less dependant in working than in being, and no more capable to act from
a principle of life of ourselves, than to exist. _The way of man is not
in himself, neither is it in man that walketh to direct his steps. What
hast thou, O man, but what thou hast received? How to perform that which
is good I find not_, Jer. x. 23. 1 Cor. iv. 7. Rom. vii. 18. _So that a
man can do nothing, except it be given him from above; and no man can
come unto me except the Father draw him_, saith Christ, John iii, 27.
vi. 44. See Con. ch. ix. Sec. 3. Article of the church of England 10.
And for good works, however far they may be acceptable to God in