attempt to defend what you know to be indefensible, but to let the forms lie under the imputations charged upon them, till God shall put it into the hearts of those who have it in their power to wipe these unhappy blemishes from the face of the church.

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But, as to these and some other of your additional splendours, (doing reverence towards the east, and bowing at the name of Jesus, which also, you do not so much as pretend to either justify or explain,) you observe,---"That these are things with which, as a layman, I have no 66 concern. As to the form of absolution what "has he, for God's sake to do with it? If he "does not design to take orders in the church, " and so subscribe to the use of the liturgy, it is no concern of his whether that form be defen"sible or not."* But have not I, dear Sir, as much to do with your ministerial conformity as you have with my lay-dissent? Are you not as much obliged to vindicate before the world your subscription to and use of these offices in your church, as I am to justify my separation from

it?

Yes, and I now publicly call upon you, and charge it upon your most serious deliberate reflections, as you will soon answer it at a supreme and impartial tribunal, to remember and consider,--

That you have solemnly, and in the presence of God, who searcheth the heart, and abhors all prevarication, hypocrisy, and deceit, especially in religious concerns; in the presence of this God, I say, and in the face of his church, you have declared your "UNFEIGNED assent and "consent to all and every thing contained in and "prescribed by the book of Common Prayer, "&c." If then there be any one thing contained in that book, any one office or form, which is ir

* II. Defence, page 133.

rational, unfit or repugnant to the gospel scheme, and which no well-instructed christian can heartily assent to or unfeignedly approve, I appeal to your own conscience, I appeal to the whole world, where is the honour, where the christian simplicity and godly sincerity of this solemn declaration! What! shall a man, a minister, in God's presence, and appealing to him as the searcher of hearts, declare his unfeigned assent to things he does not approve; and promise his unfeigned consent to use forms in God's worship which he heartily dislikes! This is a most grievous yoke upon the necks of christian ministers, beheld by unbelievers with the greatest ridicule and contempt, and which every friend to the christian name would heartily wish to see removed. And,

This, as before observed, most fully justified' that separation from your church, to which our fathers were compelled, (and which we at present continue,) when, in a most unrighteous and schismatical manner, she cast out above two thousand of her ministers, for not subscribing and declaring this unfeigned assent and consent. These ministers were by this deprived of what they had not forfeited;---deprived of acting as ministers. by those who had no right nor authority to deprive them of it. The pastoral relation, therefore, undoubtedly remained between them and. their respective flocks, and they acted a lawful, a worthy part, in continuing their ministerial services though thus.cruelly cast out.

"No, (you reply,) they ought to have con"formed as laymen, as some of them did; much "less will this justify the laity of those times; "less still the ministers and laity of the present "in their separation."* To their immortal praise be it recorded, they better understood their rights as men, and their duty as subjects of Christ, the

* II. Defence, page 131.

only king and head of the church; and, therefore, with great suffering and worldly loss, entered boldly their protest against this presumptuous invasion of his throne, this schismatical intrusion of new terms of the christian ministry and communion into his church. The conditions of exercising the christian ministry, which the Act of Uniformity imposed upon our fathers, were such as no power upon earth had a right to impose upon them; they were such as, if complied with, opened a wide way by which innumerable corruptions, superstitions, and persecutions, might enter and lay waste the church. Their subscription was required to new articles of faith, which Christ had never made, and their unfeigned assent and consent to new rites and forms of worship which neither Christ nor his apostles had ever appointed or enjoined: yea, it obliged them schismatically to confine christian communion to those only, who would submit to these inventions of men in the worship of God, and to deny baptism and the Lord's supper to those, who by the constitution and the laws of Christ's kingdom, were duly qualified for these ordinances, and who had therefore an absolute right to receive them.

Among others, there are two ever memorable circumstances from which the flagrant oppression and tyranny of those proceedings most strongly appear; 1. That the time fixed for the minister's subscribing and assenting to the alterations in the Common Prayer was so short, that not one in a hundred of those who lived remote from London, saw, or could be supposed to see them, before their assent and consent were, under so severe a penalty, to be solemnly given. It is a known and certain truth, says one, that the li

Tong of Schifm, page 150.

**

turgy with its alterations, to which they were un-feignedly to assent, came not out of the press tillBartholomew eve; and the following day was the ultimate time fixed by the act for the minis-ters' subscription; so that all those, throughout the kingdom, who conformed, except a few in London, subscribed to they knew not what. "The "matter was driven on (says bishop Burnet) with so much precipitation, that it seemed expected: "the clergy should subscribe implicity to a book. they had never seen. This was done by too many, as the bishops themselves informed me. "Could any thing be more unrighteous or tyrannical than this? Yes: for,

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2. The unhappy ministers were obliged likewise to declare solemnly, and even to subscribe a most notorious and dangerous untruth, viz. That it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king, or any "commissioned by him:" a position absolutely subversive of the British constitution, and which the nation was soon after (in God's righteous and wise providence) brought openly to acknowledge to be traitorous, detestable, scandalous, and false; ---a position, which if admitted, the glorious revolution, and our present happy government, had never taken place, but tyranny, and popery, with all their dire curses, had been bound eternally upon our necks. But be astonished, O heavens! this false, this base, this scandalous declaration, the ministers were, by the Act of Uniformity, obliged solemnly to make upon pain of losing their livings. OUR FATHERS nobly abhorred such an ignominous surrender of the natural rights of men: they scorned to betray the liberties of their country, and to be tools of arbitrary power.t. Eor this heroic refusal they

*Hiftory of his own Time, Vol. 1. page 212. 8vo. Whilft every enlarged and liberal mind rejoices in the confideration, that the caufe of civil and religious liberty is, in this

were cruelly cast from their churches, and delivered up, with their starving families, to extreme sufferings and distress.*

This Sir, was the shameful, the tyrannical yoke which the Act of Uniformity would have put upon the necks of our illustrious predeces-sors, and to which, as christians and as protes-tants, they bravely scorned to submit. Noble was the stand which they made in defence of christian liberty and truth. Glorious will their names ever shine in the British annals, whilst virtue and integrity are sacred among us. Peace and everlasting honour. be upon the memory of

age, better understood and more generally patronifed than in the times of which 1 am writing, the Proteftant Diffenters are peculiarly entitled to triumph in the recollection that these two most invaluable bleffings have been preserved, and handed down to their fellow-fubjects in confequence of the firm adherence of their forefathers to the cause of liberty and truth, both civil and religious. There is an obfervation in Mr. Hume's Hiftory of England, which is the more important in proof of this afler. tion, as it is inade by an hiftorian who cannot be fufpected of entertaining any prejudices in their favour. He obferves, (when fpeaking of the arbitrary conduct of Elizabeth,) "So abfolute was the authority of the crown, that the precious fpark of liberty had been kindled, and was preferved by the Puritans. "alone, and it was to this fect, whofe principles appear fo fri"volous and habits fo ridiculous, that the English owe the "whole freedom of their conftitution." Hume's Hift. of. England, Vol. V. page 189, 8vo. Edit. 1763.

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By the Act of Uniformity, (fays Mr. Locke) all the clergy of England are obliged to fubfcribe and declare, That "it is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take arms against the king. This they readily complied with. For,. you must know that fort of men are taught rather to obey "than to understand. And yet, that Bartholomew-day was

fatal to our church and religion, by throwing out a very great. "number of worthy, learned, pious, orthodox divines, who "could not come up to this oath, and other things in that Act. "And fo great was the zeal in carrying on this church affair, and "fo blind in the obedience required, that, if you compute the "time of paffing this act, with that allowed for the clergy to "fubfcribe the book of Common Prayer thereby eftablished, you will find it could not be printed and distributed, so as "that one man in forty could have feen and read the book they "did fo perfectly affent and consent to. Maiz. col. page 61.. +O TWO THOUSAND Worthy predeceffors excepted.

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