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and with the advice and opinion of each and every

of my affeffors, the reverend persons beforenamed, do expel the said Thomas Grove from the faid Hall, and hereby pronounce him also expelled.

SUCH, Sir, was the sentence, which you represent to be the most cruel and unjust that ever was passed; and such the reasons on which it was founded. I shall not stay to make any general obfervations on it, but hasten to answer the particular objections you have urged against it, article by article.

But before I proceed, I cannot help observing that under a pretence of greater method and perspicuity you have inverted the order of the charge, even as it stands in your own articles of accusation. The order in which it stood on the examination, and which is most natural, was this — ift, the accusation of some of them being brought up to trade; which would have had no weight, had it not been connected with the second-viz, that they were totally illiterate, and incapable of performing the statutable exercises of the University, and their Hall -- then followed the third — viz. that they had frequented illicit conventicles, in which they had preached, and prayed extempore ; and that one

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of them had officiated as a minister in holy Orders, though a layman; — the 4th was, that they held and maintained tenets contrary to the doctrine of the church of England; however, that I may not be obliged to turn over your book backwards and forwards to reduce it to regularity and method, I shall take it as it stands, and attend you page by page, as nearly as I can, through the whole labyrinth of

a

church of England, at which conventicle there shall be five persons or more assembled together over and besides those of the same houshold, if it be a house where there is a family inhabiting; or if it be in a house, or field, or place where there is no family inhabiting, then, when any five persons or more are so assembled, every one shall be subject to the penalty of five shillings for the first offence, and ten Shillings for the second.

239

Sect. 3. Every person, who shall take upon him to preach or teach in any such meeting, assembly, or conventicle, shall forfeit twenty pounds for the first offence, and forty pounds for the second.

Sect. 4. If any person shall suffer any such conventicle, assembly, or unlawful meeting, as aforefaid, to be held in his house, out-house, barn, yard, or back-lide, shall forfeit twenty pounds.

This act, as the author of the remarks upon Mr. Whitefield's letter observes, is indeed in some degree altered by the toleration-act; by which fome conventicles are permitted under certain restrictions ; but all other conventicles, which come not under the description given of such as are thereby permitted, are still continued to be forbidden by the 22 Car. II.

Thus sect. 19. No congregation, or assembly for religious worship shall be permitted or allowed by this act, until such place of meeting Ihall be cer

tified to the Bishop of the diocese, or Arch-deacon
of the arch-deacoary, or to the Justices of the
peace at their general quarter-sessions for the coun-
ty, city, or place, in which such meetings shall be
held, and registered in the said Bishop's or Arch-
deacon's court, or recorded at the said general quar-
ter-feffions of the peace. Hence all conventicles,
assemblies, or meetings, as described in 22 Car. II.
chap. 1. and not registered or recorded according
the toleration-act, are illicit and prohibited. The
meetings therefore which these gentlemen attended
were certainly conventicles, being “private assem-
blies for the exercise of religion ;” and they were
illicit conventicles, “there being more than five per-
sons asíembled there, besides those of the same hous-
hold.” Nor does the law require proof of
gerous practices carried on at such meetings; it
provides a speedy remedy against the dangers, which
may possibly, and will probably, arise from such
meetings; and forbids them, because sectaries have,
or may, at such meetings, concrive insurrections.

any dan

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Nor being acquainted with the · Kentish story to which you appeal as decisive in this point, I cannot contradict

you with regard to the fact itself, but have

great reason to suppose it did not turn on that hinge, on which you rest it. The conventicle might

, be illicit, and yet the Justice of peace become liable to punishment for having taken unwarrantable and illegal measures to suppress it; he might therefore

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be glad to compound matters, and make them up in the manner you relate ; a case which, I apprehend, frequently happens. And as to the a religious societies in Queen Anne's time ; if they were composed of Lords fpiritual and temporal, &c. I will take upon me to pronounce that they did not permit laymen, barbers, weavers, staymakers, &c. to pray extempore, or to preach, and expound the fcriptures to them - But that members of the church of England may be, and actually have been, censured for frequenting illicit conventicles is very evident from Queen Elizabeth's circular letter to the Bishops throughout England; in which your meetings are exactly described, and the pernicious tendency of them fully set forth – The following is a copy of it, taken from Stripe's life of Archbishop Grindal — Appendix P. 85

The Queen to the Bishops throughout

England for the suppressing the exercise
called prophesying, &c.

RIGHT Reverend Father in God, we greet you well. We hear to our great grief, that in fundry parts of our realm there are no small number of persons presuming to be teachers and preachers of the church (though neither lawfully thereunto called, nor yet fit for the fame) which, contrary to our laws established for the public divine service of