which still is more than you enjoy, differs from authority, just as the king's pardon differs from his favour: if your spiritual authority, as ministers of the word and sacraments, is wrongfully called in question, you must bear with the prejudices of a churchman, who, when he reviews the practice of the primitive ages; when he ponders our Saviour's parting promise to be always present with the apostles, the delegated preachers of the gospel, even to the end of the world; when he connects it with the history of the first ordinations, and with the great stress laid upon the Bishop's authority, by Clemens, the fellow-labourer of St Paul, by Ignatius, the disciple of St John, and by the whole church for many ages, allows himself to be easily persuaded, that the authority of the commission, under which he acts, is something more than mere human legislation can convey; and, while he would abhor to enforce civil penalties, may think it his duty occasionally to protest against a spiritual usurpation. Indeed, Sir, when I revolve in my thoughts the various disorders and distractions, which I have seen in my own country, within the compass of my own life, arising from the irregular zeal of self-constituted teachers of religion; when I reflect, how the unity of the church hath been torn, how tender consciences are every day disturbed with groundless scruples, and melancholy tempers driven to insanity; how the simplicity of the vul

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gar hath been first abused, and their principles in the end unsettled; when I recollect, how eminently the state hath been lately endangered, and the Protestant cause disgraced, by a combination of wild fanatics, pretending to associate for the preservation of the reformed religion; when I consider, how by these scandals the true religion hath itself been brought into discredit; how it hath been injured by attempts to inflame devotion on the one hand, and by theories fabricated to reduce the mystery of its doctrines on the other; when I consider, that the root of all these evils hath been the prevalency of a principle, of which you seem disposed to be an advocate, that every man who hath credit enough to collect a congregation, hath a right, over which the magistrate cannot without tyranny exercise controul, to celebrate divine worship according to his own form, and to propagate his own opinions; I am inclined to be jealous of a principle, which hath proved, I had almost said, so ruinous; and I lean the more to the opinion, that the commission of a ministry, perpetuated by regular succession, is something more than a dream of cloistered gownmen, or a tale imposed upon the vulgar, to serve the ends of avarice and ambition.. For whatever confusion human folly may admit, a divine institution must have within itself a provision for harmony and order. And And upon these principles, though I wish

that all indulgence should be shewn to tender consciences, and will ever be an advocate for the largest toleration that may be consistent with political wisdom, being indeed persuaded, that the restraints of human laws must be used with the greatest gentleness and moderation, to be rendered means of strengthening the bands of Christian peace and amity; yet I could wish to plant a principle of severe restraint in the consciences of

I could wish, that the importance of the ministerial office were considered; that the practice of antiquity were regarded; and that it might not seem a matter of perfect indifference to the laity, to what house of worship they resort. I cannot admit, that every assembly of grave and virtuous men, in which grave and virtuous men take upon them to officiate, is to be dignified with the appellation of a church; and for such irregular assemblies, which are not churches, I could wish to find a name of distinction void of opprobrium. As such I used the word conventicle, as expressing great irregularity, (which I must express, wo! is me if I express it not,) but no infamy of the assemblies to which I applied it. If you are still disposed to be indignant about this harmless word, recollect I beseech you, with what respect you have yourself treated the venerable body to which I belong, the clergy of the establishment. You divide it into two classes

only the ignorant, and the insincere.* Have I no share in this opprobrium of my order? Have I no right to be indignant in my turn?

9. Still looking forward to the time, when after all that is past, we shall mutually forgive, and be ourselves forgiven, I remain,

Fulham Palace, June 15th, 1784.

DEAR SIR,

Your very humble Servant, &c.

* Dr Priestley, in his History of Corruptions, vol. i. p. 147, says of the Trinitarians of the present age, under which denomination it is evident he alludes to the clergy of the established church, for he afterwards describes these Trinitarians, as persons" to all of whom the emoluments of the establishment are equally accessible;" he says of these persons, that "they are all reducible to two classes, viz. that of those, who, if they were ingenuous, would rank with Socinians, believing that there is no proper divinity in Christ besides that of the Father; or else with Tritheists, holding three equal and distinct Gods." The first class surely must be insincere, as not believing what they profess; the second ignorant, as not perceiving what it is that they believe. In the conclusion of his History, vol. ii. p. 471, he says, that all that is urged in defence of the present system, by men of the greatest eminence in the church, who have appeared as its advocates, "is so palpably weak, that it is barely possible they should be in earnest-in thinking their arguments have that weight in themselves, which they wish them to have with others." And he speaks of this insincerity of the defenders of the establishment, as a thing so notorious, that it may be reckoned “one of the worst symptoms of the present times." After all this, in his appendix to his Second Letters, he denies that he ever intended to make that division of the whole body

APPENDIX.

No. I.

Gentleman's Magazine, for October, 1783, p. 842.

MR URBAN,

I WAS formerly a pupil of Dr Harwood, and read with my learned and worthy master Thucydides, Sophocles, and the life of Moses, in a magnificent edition of Philo, printed by the learned Mr Bowyer; and wonder that Dr Horsley should assert, as he is represented to do by the learned and ingenious Mr Maty, in his New Review, that TO is spoken of persons only; when it is applied to any thing of which the writer is speaking, that happens to be of the masculine gender. For instance, it is predicated of bread twice in John vi.

of the established clergy, which I ascribe to him, into the two classes of the ignorant and the insincere: he treats the charge as a calumny, from which he justifies himself, by producing a long passage from one of his sermons, in which he professes to hold the church of England in no less estimation than the church of Rome.