homilies, common prayer, and offices of ordination, is agreeable to the word of God? when in all ordinary cases, he has never seriously and attentively read either one or another of them? How is it likely, that a boy, raw from school, should be competent to such a task? And if he is to subscribe upon the faith of others, on the same principle he may subscribe to the mass-book, the koran, or any other book whatever.

"After a careful examination, I am constrained to object, pede et manu, to several things in the 141 canons, and consider the requirement, on oath, of canonical obedience to the bishop of the diocese where we officiate, as one of the most detestable instances of antichristian imposition, that ever was exercised over a body of clergy.*

*The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 38th, 58th, 72d, 139th, 140th, and 141st canons, are most of them peculiarly objectionable. Prior to experience, it would appear highly

And yet, after we have gotten our education, at a considerable expence, possibly at the expence of our whole fortune, we must take this abhorred oath, or renounce the profession to which we have been trained, after our fortune, with which we should have begun business, is gone, and the proper time of life expired. These things ought not to be so.-This is not the fault of the bishops, but of the constitution. It is one of the existing laws of the establishment, and cannot be dispensed with as

incredible, that conscientious and liberal minded clergymen should be able to swear such kind of obedi ence. The good Lord pardon his servants, for we surely consider not what we do.

Let any man seriously read, and soberly consider these several canons, and then judge of their tendency. They contain the very worst species of popery, that is, a spirit of infallibility. They proceed, at least, upon the infallibility of our own church, while we disavow that infallibility, and condemn the pretension in the church of Rome.

things now stand; the bishops are as much bound to administer the oath, as we are to take it.

"There are others who object to the baptismal office-the office of confirmationthe office for the sick-the communion office-the ordination office-the burial office-the common prayer-the litanyAthanasius's creed-the calendar-our cathedral worship-our spiritual courts*

* Burnet, who was well acquainted with these matters, says, "And be it remembered, that every bishop in England and Ireland, has a court of this description; and that the less a true religion prevails in any diocese, the greater and more frequent are the abuses of these courts.-As for the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it has been the burden of my life, to see how it was administered: our courts are managed under the rules of the canon law dilatory and expensive; and as their constitution is bad, so their business is small; and therefore all possible contrivances are used to make the most of those causes which come before them; so they are universally dreaded and hated,"

the management of our briefs-the test and corporation acts-and our tithe laws.

"There are some who earnestly deplore our total want of discipline, and our incomplete toleration that our church holds out other terms of communion than the scripture hath enjoined and that she is a mighty encourager of ambition among the superior orders of the clergy, by the several ranks, degrees, honours, and emoluments, which prevail among us. The people of every age and country have an inalienable right to choose their own ministers; and no king, no ruler, no bishop, no lord, no gentleman, no man, or body of men upon earth, has any just claim whatever, to dictate, who shall administer to them in the concerns of their salvation; or to say-You shall think this, believe that, worship here, or abstain from worshipping there.

"For much more than a thousand years, the Christian world was a stranger to religious liberty. Toleration was unknown

till about a century ago. The clergy have always been unfriendly to religious liberty : when the act of toleration was obtained in king William's time, great numbers of them were much against it :-but both the name and thing are inconsistent with the very nature of the gospel of Christ. For, have not I as much right to controul you in your religious concerns, as you have to controul me? To talk of tolerating, implies an authority! He is a tyrant, a very pope, who pretends to any such thing—These matters will be better understood by and by. The whole Christian world lay in darkness, upon this subject, for many ages. Dr. Owen was the first who wrote in favour of it, in the year 1648.--Milton followed him about the year 1658, in his Treatise of the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. And the immortal Locke succeeded with his golden Treatise on Toleration, in 1689. But notwithstanding these, and many other works which have since been written on the same