lemnly consecrated for the service of Almighty God, and for the comfort, instruction, and edification of his church, to exalt and enliven the beauties of holiness therein. And, had it not been for the noble and heroic stand, which the Puritans and their successors have constantly made against this rite-making spint, there is no reason to doubt that the church of England, by this time, had fallen little short in these holy decorations and additional splendours, of the church of Moscow or of Rome.

I have dwelt longer upon this point, because it is undoubtedly the capital and fundamental one on which the debate between the church and the dissenters entirely turns. Prove your church Sir, to have this power and authority from God which she exercises and claims,---a power to decree new rites and ceremonies in christian worship, to make new terms of communion, and to determine controversies of faith,---and you need give yourself no farther trouble; all other things in controversy, sponsors, absolution, the sacramental test, and every thing else shall be immediately given up. Make good but this one point, and, if your church commands us to sign ourselves all over with a significant and instructive cross, we will reverently do it. If it bids us worship towards the East, and to think the omnipresent. Deity to be more there than in the West, and to bow at the name of Jesus, we will humbly submit: or, if it requires us to believe that an amorous devil was forced away from his beloved maid, by the fumes of a fish's liver; or, that the most profligate wretch that lives, if the king gives him a post, has a right to eat at the Lord's table, and that when he dies, he rests in Christ, and is taken to God in mercy,we will cordially believe it all. There is nothing your church can enjoin or decree, but you shall find the dissenters will dutifully submit to it, when you have once clearly

shewn it to have this power from God; and have told us plainly, and without reserve, what you mean by the church; and distinctly pointed out who the persons are in whom this power resides.

It is, indeed, consummately ridiculous in you, Sir, to talk of the "Church's jurisdiction and au"thority over Dissenters,---of the subjection we "owe it,---of the damnableness of the sin of ié"fusing obedience to it," when you have not yet told us, and cannot openly and plainly tell us, who and what it is you mean by the church: or, who the persons are to whom God hath committed this high and important trust? Is it the king and parliament; or, is it not? Is it the clergy met in convocation; or, is it not? Is it each bishop in his respective diocese, by himself alone, or in conjunction with his clergy; or, is it not. Is it the whole body of christian people, the congregation of the faithful; or, is it not? Open yourself freely, Sir, and be not afraid of truth. Truth will never hurt you. It is a most innocent and lovely thing: it may rob you of some emoluments and possessions of a worldly nature; but be assured, it will give you something more substantial in their stead. Be ingenuous then, and tell Dissenters in whom God hath lodged this power, to which you say they owe subjection; and by revolting from which, they are guilty of a dangerous and damnable sin. If you write again, but will not explain yourself distinctly on this point you yield the cause to us before the world. You make it evident that you write neither for our conviction nor your own, but that you have something else in view besides finding out the truth. That something, perhaps, you may find, but it will continue with you but for a moment; whereas, if you find and do the will of God, it will give you a possession that will endure for ever!

SECT. II.

Of the Sacramental Test.

THAT the law called the Test is not, as you suggest, the innocent occasion only, but the plain, the notorious, the culpable cause of those prostitutions of the holy sacrament which, you say, you see with concern, what room can there be for any rational doubt? For, does not the very design and intent of that law, at least as it is now applied, prostitute and pervert the sacrament to an use not only different from, but directly repugnant to that for which it was instituted and designed by Jesus Christ? The christian law enjoins it as a mean, and with intent to unite and coalesce christians. The Test law enjoins it as a mean, and with intent to discriminate and divide them. For the ministers of Jesus Christ then, to be advocates for a law which prostitutes and perverts a holy sacrament of his religion; yea, a law which makes themselves the very instruments and tools of this shameful prostitution, is such a violation of their character, such a prostitution of their sacred office, such a betraying the solemn trust committed to them by God, for which they must give an account to the chief pastor at his coming, as cannot but greatly shock an attentive beholder, and ought, in my opinion, to give the most painful apprehensions to themselves.

"These prostitutions (you assure us) you do

see with concern, but yet cannot be for the re"peal, because you think it inconsistent with the "preservation of the church."* What church, alas! must that be, which cannot be preserved

II. Defence, page 8.

but by an acknowledged prostitution and perversion of a holy sacrament! Surely it cannot be the church of Christ! Let not christians do evil that good may come: such carnal and corrupt policy ever defeats itself; and its condemnation is just.*

You correct me for saying, that, by the force of this law, multitudes of needy persons are compelled to come to the Lord's table, and cry, "God "forbid that the temptations even of poverty and "want should be esteemed to have the nature of "force and compulsion; for, in that case, they "would have no guilt at all upon their conscien"ces." So then, you can bring off, I find, the young adulterer from any guilt with the lewd woman, Prov. ii. 21. because with the flattery of her lips she forced him. I thought I had written to a bachelor of divinity, to a gentleman who was no stranger to scripture language, and who knew what it meant when the King commands his servants to compel the guests to come in. Luke xiv. 23. For the like use of the word compel, you may consult Galat. ii. 14, vi. 12. See also Luke xiv. 18. 20. in the original.

That the priest has no power to refuse the Lord's supper to the vilest person, that demands it as a qualification for a post, you care not to admit, and ask, "Is there any law which forbids "the curate to repel him from the Lord's table?"+ Yes, by the equitable construction of the law called the Test, most certainly there is; for, the same law, which requires under severe penalties all persons in posts to receive the Lord's supper according to the usage of the church of England, does, by indisputable consequence, require some one to give it. If it must be received by them, it must surely be given to them. To suppose the

Rom. iii. 8.

+ II. Defence, p. 31.

legislature to have obliged them under heavy pains to partake of the holy sacrament, but to have obliged none, upon their demand, to administer it to them, is to suppose it acting a most absurd and unjustifiable part, which is not to be imagined. Who then is the person to whom, according to law, a man that wants the sacramental qualification is to apply for that service? Undoubtedly his parish priest, who is appointed and paid by law for the performance of the several offices which the state requires of him, of which this is plainly one. Whatever power therefore the rubric gave the curate to repel open evil livers from the table of the Lord, before the Test-act took place, it is now, in cases of qualification, unquestionably superseded, and the rubric virtually repealed. For, when a new law enjoins what is repugnant to an old one, that old law is to be considered as so far set aside. And, as for the "Damages to which the priest is liable to be con"demned for refusing the sacrament," these the law, it is presumed, will give according to the loss which the person can make appear he hath sustained by that refusal, which, in many cases, may be great,--more perhaps than the priest is worth. The oath of abjuration you esteem quite a parallel to the sacramental test, and urge that, "if one should be repealed because it lays men "under violent temptations to prostitute their "consciences, so also ought the other.* No. The cases, if duly weighed, will be found to differ widely. An oath of fidelity to the government that employs us in posts of influence and power, is a security, or pledge, evidently founded in the reason of things: it has been the practice immemorial of all civilized nations: its necessity, or great expediency, manifestly arises from the nature of civil government: it is therefore reason

66

Defence, page 6.