Hence, also, it appears, that what you offer in mitigation of the Jacobitism and rebellion of the Episcopalians in Scotland, (pages 16, 17) has one material flaw, which is, that it is not founded upon truth. For, you represent the loss of their establishment as being the cause of their disaffection; whereas, the very reverse is exactly the case; and they lost their establishment because they were disaffected, because they rejected the revolution, and firmly adhered to King James. King William would have preserved them if they would have acknowledged his government: this they obstinately refused, and therefore they fell a just sacrifice to their blind attachment to a tyrannical and popish prince.

As to the present loyalty of the two parties in that kingdom, the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, which you have drawn into comparison, you have done one of them great wrong in representing them both as having been, perhaps, alike deeply engaged in the late impious rebellion there. If, from the disposition of the elergy, that of the laity may be reasonably presumed, there are two important facts, to omit many others, which will dispose every impartial person, I believe, to view that affair in a very different light: one is the letter of the royal com→ mander, the Duke of Cumberland, to the general assembly at Edinburgh, in which he expresses a strong sense "of the very steady and laudable "conduct of the clergy of that church, through "the whole course of that wicked and unnatural "rebellion;" and says, "I owe it to them in jus"tice to testify, that upon all occasions, I have "received from them professions of the most

* Defence, page 15:

+ This part of thefe Letters was first published two years after the rebellion in 1745.

"inviolable attachment to his majesty's person " and government, and have always found them ready and forward to act in their several stati66 ons in all such affairs as they could be useful "in, though often to their own great hazard.” ---Upon an impartial account, I believe, the balance will be found, by every disinterested person to stand thus of the PRESBYTERIAN ESTABLISHED CLERGY there was not one in fifty, in the whole body, but heartily wished success to the arms of his majesty King George: of the EPISCOPAL DISSENTING CLERGY, not one in fifty of the whole body but heartily wished success to the arms of those Frenchmen and Italians who came over to invade us, and to unite with the rebels in overthrowing our constitution, and establishing an abjured and popish pretender to the throne..

*.

The other fact is, the necessity which the legislature have found themselves under, by new acts of parliament, in two different sessions, more narrowly to watch,and to lay under fresh restraints, the episcopal churches in Scotland. These are well known to be fruitful and fatal sources of jȧcobitism and disaffection; dangerous seminaries, where men are formed and nourished up in allegiance to a popish prince, and in avowed aversion and disloyalty to their rightful, sovereign King George. Though it be too true, then, that there were some of the laity of the established church, by some occasional resentment or unhappy occurrence, hurried into that black affair, they herein departed from their settled and professed principles; whereas the Episcopalians acted quite in character, agreeably to the fixed sentiments and affections of their party, when they prayed and fought heartily for the destruction of our happy government, and for the advancement of a popish pretender to the throne. To say then, "that the Scottish Presbyterians

were, perhaps, as deeply engaged in the late "odious rebellion, as the Episcopal Dissenters "there," is to scatter censures at random, to confront the plainest evidence, and to represent, in a very partial and injurious manner, their conduct, as you have repeatedly done that of your dissenting brethren in England.

SECT. XIII.

Of the church's AUTHORITY in controversies of Faith.

THIS is a claim, which to the grief of its real

friends, and to the triumphs of its foes, your church hath set up, and obliges all its clergy solemnly to subscribe. For, it is really no other than an invasion of the divine prerogative; and in the language of the Holy Spirit, a sitting in the temple of God shewing itself that it is God.* It is claiming an honour as due to a few frail and fallible men, which is, in fact, due only to the omniscient and infallible God, who has appointed Jesus Christ to be the sole lawgiver and King in the church. It is the very root of antichristianism, the prop upon which the whole system of popery rests: it came from the church of Rome, and thither it directly leads; nor can the reformation be ever justified, or the church of England supported, while this claim is admitted.

For if the church hath authority in controversies of faith, the church of Rome, surely, had it before the church of England; yea, had it at the very time when the reformation was made. Cranmer, then, and Ridley, Luther and Calvin, were

* 2 Theff. ii. 4.

guilty of great petulancy and ecclesiastical rebellion in refusing to submit to the church's solemn determinations concerning image-worship, transubstantiation, &c. and in proudly setting up their own private opinion against the authoritative decisions of their ecclesiastical superiors, to whom they owed submission, and whom they ought to have obeyed! This claim of your church, Sir, (I must again assert it) is an unanswerable argument in favour of popery, which hath already drawn thousands, no doubt, and is continually perverting multitudes from your church to that of Rome. Nor can all the learning or wit of the whole clergy of the land withstand the force of a single Jesuit, let him be armed with and skilfully wield this dangerous weapon, the XXth article of your church.

It was the fatal influence of this article, I observed, that seduced King James II. and the great Chillingworth into the Romish tenets. These instances you contest with me. But, as to the first, you are guilty of an unhappy oversight, in confounding two things, in the quotation from Burnet's History, and considering them as one when they are most apparently distinct. The authority of the church, and the tradition from the apostles in support of episcopacy, are, in the bishop's account of King James's perversion, most manifestly two several and different things; whereas, you artfully endeavour to represent it, "that "by the authority of the church, is meant only, "the authority of its traditions, or testimony, "concerning episcopacy." But do you not know, and did not the king know, that the authority of the church is one thing, and its tradition in sup port of episcopacy another? Does not the church besides this tradition, claim to itself also an authority in controversies of faith? And did not.

* II Defence, page 137.

the king wisely and rightly judge, "that there 66 was more reason to submit to the catholic church "than to one particular church?"---That, if the church of England had its authority, the church of Rome had it long before her, and upon better grounds than she:---that, if the church of England by its authority might solemnly determine that Christ went down into hell, and that Arians and Socinians are undoubtedly damned when they die, and perish everlastingly, but yet there is hope, when they die, that they rest in Christ, and are taken to God in mercy, the church of Rome, by the same authority, might solemnly determine that images are to be worshipped, and that a piece of bread is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, there being nothing in the one at all more incredible or absurd than in the other? I own I see not but upon this principle, the king acted right; and that every one that believes this XXth article of your church, ought to follow his example, to immediately forsake it, and go over to the church of Rome."

Thus acted the renowned Chillingworth. He thought there was a necessity of an infallible living Judge of controversy; or, that there always was, and must be, some church upon earth that could not err; which, in other words is, that had authority in controversies of faith: finding, therefore, the church of Rome claiming it with a better grace, and upon fairer and stronger grounds,

* In a debate on a bill against blafphemy, &c. brought into the house of lords, anno 1721, the Earl of Peterborough frankly faid-Though he was for a parliamentary king, yet he did not defire to have a parliamentary God, or a parliamentary religion; and, if the house were for fuch an one, he would go to Rome, and endeavour to be chofen Cardinal; for, he had rather fit in the conclave, than with their lordships upon thofe terms. Tindal's Hift. Eng. Vol. IV. page 647.

Dr. Wm. Tindal was alfo, by the fame principles, perverted to the church of Rome. Vide Second Defence of the Rights, &c. p. 79.