duties of the ministry;-that would betray an illiberal and selfish regard. Not, surely, from the community of public worship, if they are willing to receive our rites;—that would savour of pharisaical pride, and unchristian prejudice. Why such an universal abhorrence of sectaries? Does the name of a Presbyterian, imply an immoral man, a pestilent citizen, or a disloyal subject? Prove that; and I will abhor him too.-What if our Universities, by the removal of subscription, should become fuller; and the dissenting academies be less frequented? What if there should be more labourers brought into the vineyard of Christ? Are not those whose lot it is to bear the heat and burthen of the day, to do the chief work of the ministry, greatly wanted in every Diocese in the kingdom? Nay, what if the higher dig nities of the church should be exposed to the pretensions of a greater number of learned men; how would either learning or religion be injured by the competition? -I would not be misunderstood, as if I suspected

I suspected that selfish considerations, slavish fears lest the beneficial emoluments of the church should be reft from them, induced any members of the Church of England to oppose the Petition. Such insinuations indeed have been frequently thrown out; but always illiberally, uncandidly; and, I firmly believe, untruly. No-The apprehensions of the wisest and best amongst the Clergy upon this occasion, have no respect to self; they are altogether of a public nature, and grounded upon a maxim, which has been sanctified by the experience of ages-That all innovations are dangerous. True; they are not only dangerous to, but in their full extent destructive of, the Establishments they are designed to amend. It was the innovating spirit of Christ and his Apostles, which overthrew the Jewish polity, demolished the altars of Paganism, and turned the world upside down. It was the innovating spirit of our Ancestors, which extorted Magna Charta from king John, plucked the triple crown from the head of the pope,

and

and wrested an arbitrary sceptre from the hands of a Stuart. The innovations introduced into our religious Establishment at the Reformation, and into our civil Constitution at the Revolution, were great and glorious, for those times: but some further innovations are yet wanting (would to God they may be quietly made!) to bring them both to perfection. There is always more of caution than prudence, more of timidity than fortitude, in the maxim itself: in the case before us, however, the operation of it's influence need not be dreaded. Would you then have the doors of our churches thrown open; and the crude conceptions of every crazy enthusiast substituted in the room of the rational exhortations of our Clergy? Would you have the order of our public worship subverted, and the extemporary incoherent effusions of puling hypocrites take place of the best forms of prayer that ever were composed? NoI am as far from having a wish of that kind as yourself. Let the Clergy be bound, as they are at present, to the constant use of C

VOL. II.

an

1

an established Liturgy, by the strongest ties of parliamentary authority; and by a much stronger authority than that of Parliament, even by the hopes of their eternal salvation (surely no small pledge to the State for their good conduct!) they will ever remain bound, subscribers or not subscribers, to teach nothing but what they think agreeable to the Word of God, as contained in the Old and New Testament. No door can be opened for Papists; the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy will exclude them: No admission for Sectaries, unless they receive an established Liturgy, submit to an established Episcopacy. When to these considerations we add the caution and care used by the Bishops, in ordaining none but persons of approved morals, and competent learning, I cannot think that the Established Church will be in the least danger. Every thing will go on quietly and uniformly in the old channel: the alteration in the Constitution will be unfelt. We shall have the same stated Forms of Prayer, the same Administration

of

of Sacraments, the same Rites and Ceremonies in every part of our Public Worship; and, was trifling in so serious a matter allowable, I should say, that it is odds but we have the same Sermons too. However, if during the first fervours attending religious emancipation, a new composition or two should happen to be made, the Laity will have no great reason to regret the alteration. The doctrines of our Articles no longer influence any part of our Clergy, either in their belief or their composition, farther than as each individual finds them conformable to his own interpretation of Scripture. Many look upon them as obsolete, and the subscription to them as a matter of form; and the Methodists are the only disputants, who in controversy quote the Articles in their defence.

But erroneous doctrines will dishonour -whom? but their promulgator?-will destroy-what? but that infallibility of the Church, to which as men we cannot submit, to which as Protestants we cannot