sistance for which they contended, were not to the whole Legislature, as Dean Swift, in his Sentiments of a Church of England-man, would have us believe; but to the Monarch who was independent of Parliaments, and even in opposition to them. The former is a wholesome doctrine, and though a man may easily put a case, in which those in whom is the Fee Simple, might justly call the Trustees to an account, yet this is only a supposable thing, and not likely to happen in our times, at least; and being an extreme and improbable case, ought not to be generally descanted on. How true soever the right of resistance may be, as a speculative point, it is of so delicate an application that the discussion of it requires equal delicacy. The tendency of their doctrine however was, either to destroy the freedom of Parliament, by rendering it the mere tool of arbitrary power; or to change the government from a limited, to an absolute Monarchy.-Second. The belief that Episcopacy was absolutely necessary to the very being of a Christian Church. Had they argued for it, as the best mode of Ecclesiastical Government; had they contended for it, as that which certainly prevailed universally in the times nearest to those of the Apostles, and as, therefore, having the best title to be supposed of Apostolical authority; or, had they considered it as of Divine obligation, by founding it on the decisions of Scripture, their conduct would have been fair and irrepre. hensible. The greater part of Presbyterians and Independents claim a Divine constitution for their forms of government; but so far as we know, the most bigoted of the bigots, of either the one or the other, never pleaded for their platform as absolutely necessary to the existence of a Christian Society, and to the validity of the sacramental seals.The moderate advocates for Episcopacy think they

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have sufficient scope, in the writings of the Fathers, in the History of the Churches planted by the Apostles, in the Apostolical directions given to Timothy and to Titus, and in the comparative excellencies and defects of exist ing Churches, to show the advantages of Episcopal government. It becomes not, in their opinion, the advocates of a liberal Church to advance claims which would exclude themselves from charity, and their neighbours from heaven. They think it very possible, that the constitution of the Church of England, and of other Episcopal Churches, may be the most perfect, though they be not the only Churches in the world. The only perfection of Churches, as well as of men, which they know, is compa rative; but this always implies that there are more than one. To the order of Bishops they attach great importance, but to exalt that order to the depression of the great doctrines of Christianity, by representing them as more necessary to the existence of a Church, they think is to exalt them, (as the eagle in the fable elevated the tortoise,) only to dash them to pieces.-It cannot be denied that many Clergymen of this party have been distinguished by eminence in piety, solidity of learning, and the greatest strictness of moral principle.

Those who are called Low Churchmen are now, and have long been, by much the most numerous party in the Church of England. Their political principles are in perfect union with the genuine spirit of the British Constitution. They have always been, and they continue to be, the determined foes of absolute government, and the resolute adherents of limited Monarchy. In them the Brunswick Succession found the most powerful and watchful auxiliaries, before it rose to the throne, and its firmest supports since its accession. During the first two

reigns after the Revolution, this party was, in the great body of the English Clergy, comparatively weak, and those who were called High Churchmen were, in the lower House of Convocation, much more powerful. Providentially the reins of government being in the hands of a bench of Bishops, who were men of moderate principles, and of mild, though firm tempers, the violence of the other party was repressed, and the vessel of the Constitution safely conducted into port, after having escaped a furious storm. As the rage of the High Church party, like the violent paroxysms of a fever, left that body relaxed and feeble, and reduced to a state of languor, from which it never recovered, the temperate heat and manly firmness which invigorated the measures of this party, have given it a tone of health that has not forsaken it to the present day.

With respect to Episcopal Government, they think that, taking the various directions given by St. Paul to Timothy and Titus, with the light thrown upon them by what we know of the constitution of the Jewish Church, and by the History of the Christian Church, in the times nearest to those of the Apostles, they have satisfactory evidence that Episcopacy is of Apostolical authority. They also think that, in a mixed government like ours, its different orders supply to the different ranks in society Ministers of religion, better classified and adapted to their various circumstances, than any other form of Ecclesiastical polity. They are also strongly attached to liturgical worship, in preference to extempore prayer, and particularly to their own admirable Liturgy, as giving a decided superiority to the services of the Church of England, to those of any other Episcopal Church. consider Episcopacy as necessary to the existence of a But they do not

Christian Church; nor even a Liturgy as essential to public prayer; though they contend for them both, as of superior excellence to any other mode of government or devotional service. They allow foreign Churches which are regulated by a discipline different from their own, the Established Church of Scotland, and Dissenters who have preserved the great doctrines of the Gospel, and the practical religion it teaches, to be composed of fellow Christians, and they wish to live with them in the habits of friendly intercourse, knowing that acrimonious disputes can never promote the interests of genuine Christianity. As the doctrines they embrace are favourable to civil, they are equally friendly to religious Liberty. They recognize the Rights of conscience as sacred, and inalienable, and believe that to God alone men are amenable for the exercise of them, so long as they are not destructive to good morals, to the peace of society, or to the reciprocal duties that man owes to man. In the two reigns subsequent to the Revolution, they had to struggle with the party opposed to them in the Church, for those maxims of toleration, which the tranquillity of the State, the security of the Church, and the most sacred rights of men, imperiously require. Their zeal in the same glorious cause has suffered no abatement, and, in our times has succeeded in rendering toleration complete to men of all religious sentiments. The comprehension of such Dissenters as could, by mutual conciliation, be brought into the Church, was long the favourite object of many of its most illustrious leaders, and though in this they failed of success, the attempt reflected honour upon their tempers, upon their principles, and upon their memory.

The doctrines of Arianism were transplanted from a more congenial soil into the Church, by Mr. Whiston, the

celebrated mathematician, in the reign of Queen Anne, and carefully watered by Dr. Samuel Clarke, who was certainly one of the finest classical scholars that this country has produced. Mr. Whiston had the honesty to leave the Church, the doctrines of which he had abandoned, and the religious sentiments of which were in perpetual collision with his own. Dr. Clarke persevered in hostility to the religious system of the Church, but had not the fortitude to be an honest dissenter. In the most solemn services of religion, he continued to address his Maker in language from which his heart revolted, and while he drew up a liturgy which exploded the proper Divinity of the Saviour, he continued in the use of one that ascribes to Him equal glory with the Father. This party claim Sir Isaac Newton, the philosopher of the universe, as an associate, in opposing the Divinity of the Saviour. Upon what evidence this claim rests, we know not; but the presumption, if sufficient evidence of the fact cannot be produced, must certainly be on the other side. He who unfolded all Nature's Laws must have seen lessons of infinite power and wisdom in the book of Creation, which are sealed from the eyes of common men. As, in the latter part of his life, he is said to have studied the Scriptures more than any other book, he could not but know that the creation, as well as the government of all the worlds in the universe, is often ascribed, in the word of God, to the Saviour. To suppose Newton to have seen nothing in the boundless tracts of space, in which ten thousand worlds roll, (and all in harmony,) but what created intelligence, and created power were adequate to produce, would be to degrade him indeed. He always professed the most cordial attachment to the doctrines and Liturgy of the Church of England, which no honest Arian