rits in the common caufe of Proteftant Chriftianity. Men were at that time in fome measure new to the fubject of Church-Establishments; they had not formed juft notions of Religious Liberty; and Toleration was neither understood or practifed. These topics have been fince difcuffed with freedom and ability; religious prejudices have worn off, and the prefent modes of thinking are become more liberal and tolerant. They did as much as could be expected from them; and if their Syftem be compared with thofe of other Reformers in the fame age, the comparison would probably turn out much to their advantage; but this is no reafon, why their work fhould not be corrected and improved at a subsequent period, when we are poffeffed of great advantages, and furnished with confiderable means of improvement.

Such a Revifion, my Lord, both of our Articles and Forms, undertaken at a proper time, when the public fituation of our country will admit of attention to thefe internal concerns of it, under the authority of the State, by the Governors of our Church, the Succeffors of these venerable Reformers, and conducted as it would then be with fobriety and good fenfe, would much contribute to her interefts and honour; the eafe of her own Ministers would be confulted by it, many objections removed, and the good opinion of reasonable and moderate men of all parties conciliated.

Might I prefume, my Lord, to ftate, what appears to me the proper ground for forming a Confeffion of Faith, for drawing the line of Separation between one Chriftian Society and another? Every Church will, as he has a right, judge for herself with respect to her own Opinions. But whatever thofe Opinions are, the leading and most important only, what the judges effential to True Chriftianity, fhould be felected and brought forth for Public Ufe; where to dif tinguish and fubdivide is unfit and pernicious. Speculative men in private may do this as they please; in public it only marks out and multiplies differences. The Bafis of every Establishment should be made as broad as poffible, that all, who agree in great points, may be comprehended in it. These ftriking features, thefe leading principles of our Religion are all that should be expreffed in Forms of Public Worship; they comprise all the neceffary Subjects of Public Inftruction.

Now as the reafon of requiring from Minifters an approbation of the Opinions of their Church, is to obtain affurance from them, of their being qualified to officiate in the prescribed Forms of Public Worship, and of their conforming to thofe Opinions in their Public Inftruction; whatever makes no part either of the one or the other, fhould alfo make no part of a Confeffion of Faith; it has nothing to do with the object of it. The Forms indeed of Public Worship will neceffarily contain in them, either expreffed or implied, all the Doctrines, which are meant to be the fubjects of Public Inftruction. The Confeffion of Faith therefore and the Liturgy of a Church fhould be Counter-parts to each other; their relation is mutual; if the former contain lefs than the latter, it is deficient; if more, it is redundant; and it is from this redundancy, that reasonable objections are most likely to arise.

If therefore that Form of Public Worship be the best, which, confiftently with the Opinions of the Church who prefcribes it, is the moft fimple, the most intelligible, the most comprehenfive; that Confeffion of Faith, which most exactly correfponds to this Form, will be the beft likewife.'

In regard to our forms, a revifion of them by authority would, he acknowledges, do honour to our Church; would give it the true merit of being really more perfect, at the expence only of parting with an imaginary notion of perfection. If ever fuch a revifion fhould take place, many alterations, he thinks, throughout the whole of our Liturgy would offer themfelves, which would undoubtedly render it more perfect, more approved by the judicious members of our own Church, and lefs exceptionable to those who are difpofed to cenfure it.

It would give us pleasure to accompany Mr. Sturges through the remaining part of his work; but we have faid enough to afford our Readers an idea of the rational entertainment they will meet with in his Letters, which do no fmall credit both to his good fenfe and to his moderation. We fhall conclude, therefore, with the following paffage from his laft Letter:

I am not more defirous, fays he, that candid, liberal, and intelligent readers fhould be fatisfied with those parts of our ChurchEftablishment, which appear to me good and unexceptionable, than I am, that their attention fhould be directed to thofe parts, which are capable of improvement, and which call for it. Though it must be expected, that all Human Inftitutions will have their defects; this is no reafon, why endeavours fhould not be used to leffen and correct them; to render their proportion to what is good as fmall as poffible. Length of time and change of circumflances produce of themfelves unforeseen inconveniences in things, which were planned at first with the greatest wifdom; they make what was originally well adapted to the purpofes intended, unfit and inapplicable; they produce improvements in knowledge, which in justice to ourselves we should adopt; fo that Human Inflitutions of every kind with grow, from thefe caufes only, lefs perfect and lefs useful, except they are from time to time refitted and re-adjusted.

This must be the cafe of every National Church, which has long fubfifted; and it feems reasonable to use the fame conduct with refpect to that, as all wife nations do in other parts of legislation; to make fuch alterations and amendments in Ecclefiaftical regulations, as any improvements in religious knowledge, or change of circumftances may require. That this fhould be done not wantonly or unneceffarily, will readily be admitted; but we furely feem too tender, too much afraid of moving a stone of our Church, as if on being touched, though ever fo gently, the whole fabric would fall to pieces I trust there is in it more ftrength and folidity. There might be reafon for this exceffive caution, if the Church were now, as it once was, an inftrument of party, and the very name of it fufficient to fet half the nation in a flame; but now, my Lord, bad confequences are very little to be apprehended on account of any wife

and

and ufeful alterations, which fhould be recommended to the Legiflature by the Governors of our Church; they would be well received by the moderation and good fenfe of the better part of the pation, to the inattention and indifference of most others they would be uninterefting. Such improvements may be made, without affecting the great principles, on which our Eftablishment is founded, or changing its effential parts; by being fo improved, its virtues would be more acknowledged, its utility more apparent.'

ART. II. The Church of England vindicated; or, a Defence of the Vifible Church of Chrift, as eftablished by the Legislative Authority of this Realm: In Answer to all Objections, which have been offered by Diffidents of every Denomination. With a prefatory Addrefs to the Pious and Learned Prelates of Great Britain and Ireland. 8vo. 5 s. Boards. Exeter, printed by Thorn; and fold by Wallis in London. 1779.

WE

E have here an advocate for the church of England, of a very different temper and character indeed from Mr. Sturges, whofe Letters we reviewed in the preceding article. Mr. Sturges is a candid, liberal, judicious writer; the Author of this Defence of our religious eftablishment, is a moft illiberal intolerant.But, as the old Juftice in the play fays, we won't put ourselves in a paffion.The objects of this Gentleman's abufe are, the Proteftant Diffenters, the Author of the Confeffional, Dr. Prieftley, Dr. Price, Mr. Lindsey, &c. &c. and he does little elfe but rail at them from the beginning of his Defence to the end. But our Readers fhall judge for themselves.

His Defence is introduced with a long addrefs, of eightyfeven pages, to the Prelates of Great Britain and Ireland, all of whom, we are perfuaded, will look upon the cause which he undertakes to defend, as but little honoured by fuch an advocate. In this addrefs, we have the following obfervations on the fubject of licentiousness.

The Monthly Reviewers,' fays this Writer, for we, too, are honoured with a fhare of his notice, with the whole body of proteftant diffenters, may be faid to be fully represented at prefent, and to have been fo for many years pait, by a logarithmetical Price, and a chimerical Prieftley, who are the perpetual fitting members of our diffenting congrefs.

When the legislative authority of this realm had declared the Americans to be in a state of rebellion, one Price was permitted tọ write a book, in which, in a comparative view of the moral and literary deferts of the inhabitants of America and of Great-Britain, he gives the preference to the former, and obferves, that they are more deferving of the highest honours, dignity, and emoluments of government, than any on whom they are legally conferred in this our mixed monarchial state of royalty: This was not only one of the highest poffible infults to the determining powers of legiflation,

but

but to his country at large; and, in any other part of the globe inftead of being honoured with a freedom and a gold box, it had been justly compenfated with an halter or a dungeon. In this book it is alfo rebelliously written, that the Americans are, and ought to be, difpofed to facrifice their heart's blood, rather than live in a ftate of fubjection to the legislative authority of this realm; but to a cool-headed politician what is the great difference between the heart, head, or finger blood of an American. And whatever opinion fome people may be inclined to entertain of this man's recondite erudition, he is abundantly more adroit in the unprofitable business of rhapsody and enthusiasm, than in the useful arts of found reasoning and jult philofophy.

In the next place, the doctrine of the bleffed trinity is fanctioned and established by the legislative authority. So that whoever fhall publish a book, in which our bleffed Saviour's divinity is expressly denied, and in which it is alfo peremptorily declared to have no fan&tion from the Holy Scriptures, is guilty of a licentioufness, which is made punishable by an established ordinance of government. And when any diffenting or monthly reviewing Arian fhall hereafter take up his puritanism, which is not inferior in wonderful achievements to infallibility itself, and shall impiously affirm, as did the old Will Whiston, that Jefus Chrift was a mere man, the son of Jofeph and Mary, in the fame manner as he was the natural product of a male and female Whifton; fince nineteen out of twenty amongst the Diffenters do not qualify according to law, an Archbishop of Canterbury, in a neceffary and juft refentment, should receive informations, and fuffer the law to be executed with severity; and not to do fo is an unjuftifiable pufillanimity. And on this point, let me here inform our Jebbite and Lindseyan abettors of grofs arianism, that three divine perfons in one fpiritual, immenfe, and eternal nature, can make but one fpiritual, immenfe, and eternal God: So that to charge the trinitarian church of England with a tritheistical species of idolatry, is manifeftly untrue; because this our christian doctrine of the bleffed trinity is evidently and perfectly confiftent with the unity of theifm. And whoever will read what the almost unparalleled, towering, and Shakespeare genius of the great Bishop Beveridge has written in proof of the fcriptural rectitude of our trinitarian faith, will be easily inclined to hold the doctrine of old Arius in no higher efteem than the noftrum of a quack, or a fable of the bees. Nature indeed declares, and therefore it must be true, that atheists, deifts, and arians, muft, and can be determined by nothing else than by private opinion and judgment, and have a right to a protection of perfon and property, whilst they behave as peaceable and dutiful fubjects: Yet ftill, if the rights and privileges, liberty and powers, of legislation fhall be allowed an exiftence, thefe gentry have no right from or in nature to any fettled and particular places of religi ous convention, and to public fchools in a christian country, and within the bounds of an established trinitarian church; nor can they have a right to publish and propagate their fentiments in a fpirit of infallibility, declaring every diffentient to be abfolutely in the wrong, that their arguments carry with them an irrefiftible conviction, and of confequence, that theists, chriftians, and trinitarians,

muft

must be wilful and unconfcientious facrificers of the intereft of truth.'

This may serve as a fpecimen of our Author's Chriftian and tolerating fpirit-hear now part of what he farther fays of us Reviewers:

The Monthly Reviewers have wantonly afferted, that any number of diffenting families have a right, by the plain documents of christianity, to choose any perfon to be their minifter. But the Holy scriptures of the New Testament were never understood by thefe lunary fcribes; and in matters of religion, they may juftly be faid to be lunatic fcribes; becaufe, as Mr. Pope has obferved of my Lord Bolingbroke, in things of religious concernment, they are rank triflers; nor during the whole controverfy, have they produced any argument fuperior to the fanciful pomp and fuperftition of a Ruffian

exorcist.'

The Confeffional, the Monthly Reviewers, Lindfey, and Jebb, he fays, are justly entitled to a fufpicion of not poffeffing any of the common fenfes of an human body, nor any of the common qualities of an human understanding.

The doctrine of the Trinity, he tells us, is naturally and pertinently deducible from the reafon and nature of things, and from the Holy Scriptures of the New Teftament. Part of what he advances on this fubject is as follows:

• Whatever is equal to two muit be two, whatever is equal to three must be three, and whatever is equal to four must be four; and the fame may justly be faid of any feries of numerical denominators or reprefentatives. And, in confequence of this pofition, to be conceded from the reafon and nature of things, fince the Holy Scriptures of the New Teftament have declared the Son and Holy Ghoft equal to God, each of them must be God, and therefore we are obliged to believe, acknowledge, and adore, the three different perfons of the holy, bleffed, and glorious trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In another view of things, in whatever perfons fhall be allowed to exift all fuch excellencies or perfections as are commonly afcribed to God, each of them must be God; and the confequence mult naturally return to confirm the truth of the three different perfons of the holy trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Gholt.'

His notion of Original Sin, he gives us in the following words. By original fin, I mean the feed of inclinations, which is fuppofed to commence with the firft period of our existence, to impure and unlawful pleasures, and confidering ourselves as fubjects of the fupreme government of God, in various inftances, to act wickedly and difobediently. And this feed of inclinations, or fuch inclinations themfelves, are declared objects of divine difpleafure and wrath; and in the fenfe of a word which is more harth and fevere, they are declared objects of damnation.'

He concludes his Defence in the following manner.

The learned Mr. Jortin, in his preface to Remarks on Ecclefiaftical History, has honoured the moft literate or scientific part of Diffenters, fuch as a Taylor, Abernethy, Chandler, and a Fofter,