indeed even indifferent things are imposed on the mass of inhabitants in any country, and enforced by pénal statutes; and when they are considered as paramount1 to God's commandments, they become antiscriptural. "Full well ye reject the "commandments of God, that ye may keep your " own traditions." But, when considered merely as circumstances; when required of none but those who voluntarily belong to that part of the church, while others have unrestricted toleration; and while kept in entire subordination to the commands and doctrines of scripture; they may be unscriptural and yet not antiscriptural. This will appear as we proceed.

What then ought the question to be? It may be put in this manner: Ought we to continue in a church, or among a company of worshippers, where we individually are required to do what we judge antiscriptural; or where things indifferent are imposed in an antiscriptural manner?

Even the regulations adopted in Mr. Haldane's societies, which are not expressly contained in the words of scripture, are as really unscriptural as the forms and ceremonies of our church; and are imposed, or required, in the very same manner; namely, You must comply with them, if you choose to belong to our company; but you are at liberty to go elsewhere.

We ought by no means to join in worship, which after careful examination, made with modesty and fervent prayer, and with deference to the judgment of wise and good men, we are con

vinced requires of us things antiscriptural. On this ground, I must separate from the church of Rome; and I own, on this ground I should think it right to separate from any church, which imposed even unscriptural observances, or any observances, by the antiscriptural weapon of persecution. But I cannot for a moment, concede, that in present circumstances the same reason exists for leaving the church of England.

There seems to be no difficulty as to private worshippers, and what is individually required of them: unless a liturgy, or our liturgy, be antiscriptural.-In the subscriptions, and engagements required of ministers, at ordination, and institution, and on other occasions, there may be some particulars rather more difficult to conscientious or scrupulous persons: yet nothing, so far as I can see, which can render it needful to leave the church, unless we could find a company in which all things were perfectly right. Much is often spoken with great confidence, as if acknowledged and undoubted facts were referred to, concerning the oaths required of us: but, except subscriptions as in the presence of God, and 'assent and consent,' be considered as oaths, (I would they were more generally regarded as such ;) no oath is, I think, required at any time, to which a peaceable subject and a steady protestant can well object; and I would challenge those who persevere in asserting the contrary, to prove the assertion by any quotation from our authorized books, or any other authentic document.

In some of the higher stations of the church indeed, and in matters in which private Christians

and ordinary ministers are not required to take any share, there are regulations and customs more liable to objection; which, as I would not justify, so I do not think it needful at present to particularize. For, as we are not called to concur in them, or by any direct act to sanction them; they do not seem to involve us in the decision which may be made concerning them.

In the days of John the Baptist, many grievous deviations from the Mosaic law had been introduced; and especially the high priesthood, and its dependent dignities and emoluments, were disposed of in the most rapacious, ambitious, and worldly manner imaginable: yet, while John protested against all prevailing iniquities, with the boldness of Elijah; he neither deemed it unlawful for himself to continue in communion with the Jewish church, even as then administered, nor did he exhort others to renounce it. Our Lord himself, also, while he protested against the corruptions which prevailed, and the traditions of the elders; yet continued to adhere to the worship at the temple, and even at the synagogue; and taught his disciples to do the same. Nor is there the least intimation, that they, or other pious worshippers, were answerable for the crimes of the scribes and priests, which they could not prevent, in which they did not concur, and over which they lamented.

It may be said, that the Mosaic law was of divine appointment and authority so long as it was intended to exist; and it must therefore be complied with but the church of England is not of divine authority. To this it may be answered, that

Christian worship and ordinances, and the work of the Christian ministry, are of divine authority: that it is not possible to join any body of Christians, as to these things, in which some of us at least would not be required either to do, or to witness and bear with, what we decidedly disapproved : that the parallel is not supposed to hold further, than to shew that we are not answerable for the crimes or faults of that whole company to which we belong, provided we be not required to join in them, or by any direct means to sanction them: and that, while this does not prove that we are bound to continue in the church of England, it shews that we may lawfully do so, especially till we know where to mend ourselves: unless indeed the church of England be Babylon, and we cannot continue in her without "partaking" of Babylon's crimes and punishment; which I cannot possibly think to be the case. For it is impossible to worship or exercise the ministry in the church of Rome, without partaking of her idolatries; but, whatever real or supposed faults there may be in some things connected with our establishment, we may continue to worship and to exercise our ministry within it, and not at all partake of them: for they relate chiefly to the ecclesiastical courts, and the patronage of rich preferments, and other things connected with a sphere of life, from which a man, if he please, at least, may keep at a distance.

If it had pleased God that the Christian church should be, in all countries and ages, uniform in its government, discipline, and external administration; we should have had some thing in the New Testament analogous to the book of Leviticus in

the old: but it is plain, even from the different opinions contended for on these points, that it is not so. For, as it appears to me, the Lord saw good to leave matters of this kind with only general regulations, to be accommodated to circumstances, in different parts of the church; and under different providential dispensations, as countenanced or opposed by the existing powers.

When I published 'The Force of Truth,' (1779,) I was far from partial to the church of England : but I judged that, as the Lord had met and called me there, I ought to continue in my station, till I had determined, after due deliberation and prayer, whether I ought to remove, and what body of Christians to join: for I have always considered it as a sound maxim, that a man has a good reason for continuing in his present place, except he has a stronger reason for leaving it. I therefore set about inquiring after the most scriptural church, in the same manner as I had before searched for scriptural truth. In this inquiry, I was retarded a while by the baptists, or antipedobaptists, with many of whom I was acquainted. A few months, however, led me to a satisfactory conclusion, that infant baptism is scriptural, though often attended by unscriptural appendages: and that pouring water is as much baptism, if duly performed “ in "the name of the Father, and of the Son, and "of the Holy Ghost," as immersion in water. Sprinkling, though continually spoken of, on both sides in the controversy, is not the term used in our offices.

Connected with this, and after this was for the