of which dissenters are deprived: for the fellow'subjects you refer to are not disqualified as to these offices, upon the account of conscience and religion, (which is the hard case of the dissenters, for acting as they think they are indispensibly obliged to do by the authority and laws of God!) nor, finally, can the persons you mention be properly said to have a natural right to sustain, at the same time, two different characters, and to execute two offices, which are not allowed to be united in the same person, because they are generally inconsistent, and interfere with each other. So that the cases are not parallel. Besides, why are we represented as turning the world upside down? Have we ever kindled tumults, raised mobs, demolished houses, threatened courts of law, (as you know, Sir, who have done,) under a seditious ery, that our churches were in danger? We appeal to the impartial world for the loyalty and peaceableness with which we behave.

You pass over, by your own confession, almost half my pamphlet * unremarked, in which the onstitution of the church of England is compared with that of the church of Christ, and the societies shewn to be of a quite different, and even opposite nature; so that a person's separation from the one, does by no means imply his separation from the other. Your replying nothing to this, you will give me leave to impute to some other cause than your not observing any thing in it which pretends to refute or contradict any position advanced in your letter." Is not the charge of schism your favourite and constant topic! But, if I prove the two societies so entirely different in their constitution and frame, s that my not communicating in the former, does in no wise break me off from, nor in the

* Defence, p. 37.

least interrupt my communion in the latter, is not this a refutation of one of the principal and most interesting parts of your letters? and did not justice to your argument demand a proper reply, if it had been in your power to have given

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"It is growing mighty modish (you complain) "with our people to laugh at all notions of "church communion, and to make nothing of "the most unnecessary separations."* Yes, I thank God the loud peals you were wont to ring us upon the head of schism, are generally treated with much neglect, not only among our people, but even among your own. For, when we see the clergy setting themselves up for rulers and governors, claiming power in the name of the Lord, to forgive sins, to decree ceremonies, to make laws, and to determine points of faith; and then thundering out their anathemas upon such as refuse submission to their authority;--you must not wonder if it provoke, in all sensible spectators, either contempt, indignation, or mirth!

Can these spiritual fathers, in their consciences believe our schism to be so horrid and damning, and yet have no solicitude to remove those stones of stumbling, at which we so grievously and wickedly fall? What! will they harden themselves against the cries of so many weak and perishing christians, and destroy the souls for which Christ died? Forgive me, Sir, I cannot think that you believe schism to be really so damnable a sin as you represent it, but that it is only used as an ecclesiastical scare-crow to keep the simple in awe, and to establish a sacerdotal empire over weak and ductile minds.

All christians (you affirm) living within the f church of England, which is co-extended with "the kingdom, may be truly said to owe it obe

*Defence, page 25.

"dienée and submission ; and are, de jure, whe"ther they will be or not de facto, true members "and subjects of it."* But, pray tell me, is not the church of Scotland equally co-extended with that kingdom, as the church of England is with this? And do not all who live within its pale, owe it the like submission? Is not the Presbyterian discipline and worship, as much established there as the episcopal is here? If it be schism then, and a grievous sin for Dissenters to withdraw from the established church in South Britain, is it not alike schismatical and wicked in your episcopal brethren, to withdraw from the Presbyterian church, established in the North? Whence is it we never hear from you any solemn admonitions to your brethren beyond the Tweed, of the detestable sin of schism; warning them of its damning, nature, and exhorting them speedily to unite with the established church Here your grave lectures may possibly have a good effect; and, if you really thought schism so grievous an offence as you affect to represent it, it is strange you never try the power of your persuasions with your brethren in the North. This would be a noble proof that you were in earnest and sincere. But whilst, amidst your warmest harangues against the English separation, you encourage and support the dissent from the Scottish church, what can be thought of your outcries against schism, but that they deserve a name more severe, than I am willing here to give them.

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Your notion of our being "true members of "the church of England, de jure, though we are "not, and will not be, de facto," is a refinement indeed, and quite surpasses my comprehension. I thought it entered essentially into the idea of a church, that it is a society of volunteers, à com

*Defence, page 29.

pany joined together in certain acts and profes sions by common consent; and, that without, anuch less against his own agreement and consent, no man could with truth, be stiled a member of any church. All persons living in Christendom, may be said to owe Jesus Christ obedience and submission with infinitely greater reason than all the people of England can be said to owe it to the church: but does it therefore fol-low that they are all de jure, if they will not be de facto, true members of the church of Christ? What, those who openly renounce Christ, declare him an impostor, and utterly disavow obedience and subjection to him, can such, with any truth or propriety, be stiled true members of his church? Strange divinity indeed! Christ's church then, instead of a congregation of faithful persons, may now be defined a society of impious blasphemers, of infidels and profane persons, who neither fear God, nor believe in Jesus Christ, these all may be declared and treated as true members of his church. If this indeed, be right then, with some pretence it might be said, that those who openly renounce and disclaim the church of England, and declare they will not live in any subjection to it, may yet be considered as true members of it.

I owe allegiance to the King of England, because I receive under him the protection of the laws, and enjoy innumerable civil blessings by means of the government in which he presides, and under which I consent to live. But it does not thence, follow, that I owe subjection to the church of England, (as you argue, page 29,) from whom I receive no protection, enjoy no benefit nor advantage, and in communion with which I by no means consent to live. Consent, Sir, is indispensibly necessary to form the relation between pastors and people; and without this consent, no church, in any christian or scriptural

sense, can possibly be formed. Dissenters, therefore, cannot with any justness or propriety, be stiled true members of Your sochurch. your lemnly excommunicating them, which is casting those out of it who never were in it, would be an absurdity deserving only of contempt, if the censures of your ecclesiastical courts respected only their religious interests; but, when we consider the cruel penalties, and the deprivations of a civil nature, with which excommunication is attended, we are justified in asserting that a power is assumed, with which the civil magistrate was never intrusted, and which can never be thus executed without violating our natural rights.

As to our posture of receiving the Lord's supper, instead of ingenuously owing your great misrepresentation, you endeavour to conceal it by proposing some quaint and frivolous questions, as, "what meaneth this informant by some of "their churches, which have admitted kneeling? "What by some in their churches? If there 66 were any considerable number, &c."* Their number, give me leave to tell you, Sir, is nothing to the purpose. It is the liberty they have to do it, is the only point in debate. If all have this liberty, though not one in five thousand should actually use it, my point is established, yours overthrown; and you stand convicted before the world of having given a very wrong and injurious account of us. You rashly asserted that sitting among us was never allowed to be departed from: that our ministers insisted upon, and refused to abate it. This from my own certain knowledge, from the information of others, from Baxter's reformed Liturgy, I proved to be a false representation. In the second edition of my letter, (page 21,) I added a passage from Dr. Calamy's brief account of the German Divines, which

* Defence, page 34.