Freedom of animadverfion created licentioufnefs of opinion; and one fect was followed by another, until Chriftianity instead of being the bond of peace and union, feemed to be the very apple of contention, about which (to ufe Dr. Aikin's expreffion) men were made to differ. Hence has originated that mixture of capable and incapable preachers among us, by which the Spirit and principles of the Gofpel bave been adulterated. From the fame caufe fprung allo that union of politics and religion, which has fet the pulpits of Diffenters in battle array against the pulpits of the established church. Preachers of this defcription have always a view to the overthrow of the church of England; they are worldly-minded enough to long for a fecond tafte of thofe good things, that sweet prey, that palatable thievery, from which they were obliged to recede fo reluctantly in the days of Yore. Their affections are set on things below; they wish to revenge that privation which they have never forgiven; and hence comes caballing and intriguing for power. A natural confequence of the oppofition, thus conftantly made to the doctrines of the established church; a natural, confequence of fchifm, organised in ten thousand fhapes, and ramified into diftinctions that are numberless, is, that the people at large grow every day more ignorant, and, as they grow ignorant, they become corrupt. Many times, indeed, we fee them attending conventicles, where, from the manifeft ignorance of the preachers, nothing can be learned and if they abandon thefe for meeting-houses of a higher defcription, they enter them to hear of the hardships and injuries of non-conformifts, inftead of the fufferings of their Saviour.

The reformation of the church of England, William Turner informs us, was at first little more than popery in an Englifb drefs. That is, it did not spring suddenly from one extreme to the other ; it did not affect purity which was impoffible, and precifion which was minutely ridiculous. It did not, like the Puritan, abandon its Saint's day; nor, like the philofopher, abolish its Sabbath. It did not, like the puritan, annihilate its form of prayer, but correct and reform it it did not, like the philofopher, condemn its whole code of regulations to the flames, but fuch parts only as more mature reflection had taught it to explode. May we not very juftly fay of fuch conduct, in the words of the old fong, Ob! what wonderful moderation! while, in the words of the fame fong, we may as justly ridicule the intemperate fpirit of innovation which belongs to the puritan and philofopher, by exclaiming alteration, alteration, Ob what wonderful alteration!

Speaking of fupremacy in matters of religion, William Turner actually denies that the Pope has a title to it. But why does he add, that NO MAN can have the smallest right to exercife fuch fupremacy over the religious belief or profeffion of the meanest of mankind? See, Mr. Editor, the bleffed confequences of republicanism in religion. It seems, that to be a leveller in church, naturally difpofes a man to be a leveller in state. He who maintains that there thould be no bifhops, will of courfe fhortly vote the reft of the Houfe of

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Lords to be ufelefs. He who acknowledges no ecclefiaftical fupreme, will foon doubt whether there be occafion for a civil fupreme. And here, perhaps, William Turner has furnished us with the means of accounting for the martydom of Charles I. If the Diffenters, even at that time, held that the king had no right to be esteemed the head of the church; it did not require any very great ftretch of confcience to maintain that he had as little right to be bead of the ftate.

But though the reformation of Harry VIII. amounted to little more, in the estimation of William Turner, than Popery in an Englisb drefs, he allows that some excellent tranflations of the Scriptures were made in bis reign; which, in many inftances (continues he) are far from having been improved upon, by the fubftitution of that which we now ufe. This fentiment could not fail to please Critical Reviewers, who love to fee a bolt fhot at the establishment. Our prefent tranflation of the Scriptures, Mr. Editor, is only offenfive to Diffenters, because it was executed by clergymen of the church of England. Had we ftill retained what was called the Bishop's bible, which was the work of fourteen Bishops, it would doubtless have been a version fill more exceptionable. Our bible, in its prefent form, is despised, by Diffenters, for the reafon above mentioned; and also because it profeffed to follow the Bifbops' verfion where it was worthy of being followed, and to reject the fine spun puritanical gloffes of Geneva. Nevertheless, by fuch means was a tranflation of very great excellence obtained. I ask pardon of the fhades of Lowth and New comb, I claim living forgiveness of Blaney and Wintle, when I affert that I am far from being perfuaded, that their feveral tranflations, united, would be preferable to the good old version which they have been fo ftudious to improve; and which they have undoubtedly in many refpects illuftrated.

Edward VI. meets with more mercy than his father from the pen of William Turner, for having made fome attempts to fimplify the forms of public worship. The fimplifiers of public worship were, however, obliged to fly at the acceffion of his Roman Catholic fifter; and had now an opportunity of being struck with the greater · fimplicity of the worship of their Proteftant brethren abroad. Said fimplicity, at Mary's death, fome wished to import into England; and were defirous to reduce the forms of their own church to a fimilar Atandard. Others, being not yet childish enough to be in love with foreign fimplicity, retained (Oh! fhocking propenfity to popery!) their predilection to the ceremonies and veftments to which they had been accustomed. And Elizabeth (a filly queen, not to love the fimplifiers) warmly fided with the latter party. Yes-fhe bad ber father's fpirit-fbe exercifed the very feverities fhe bad efcaped- -fhe oppreffed a body of me, who were fo exemplary in their conduct, as to obtain from their lefs fcrupulous (that is, lefs fimplified) neighbours, the appellation of Puritans. William Turner is right. Queen Befs hated a Puritan. She feverely reproved an Oxford doctor, publickly, for being fo ftrait-laced. To her averfion from Puritans, we are perhaps to afcribe that freedom in her conduct, which could prompt

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prompt her to be at a play on a Sunday evening, when he had ab fented herself from the fermon in the morning. That she had good reafon to be difpleased with the Puritans, William Turner himself has accidentally informed us, when he says, that the Puritans had NATURALLY proceeded from indulging a greater freedom of enquiry on religious fubjects, to form at the fame time MORE ENLARGED NOTIONS OF CIVIL LIBERTY. In fact, Mr. Editor, they mixed politics with religion, like their defcendants of the present day; and this conduct William Turner allows to have been natural. I moft heartily maintain the fame, and plead that he has confirmed my pofition, that a republican in church becomes of courfe a republican in ftate. When David Hume afferts that the Spark of liberty was kindled, and preferved by the Puritans (a felt whofe principles appear to bim fo frivolous and their babits fo ridiculous) he acknowledges (and it is Scottish teftimony) that they ever had a wish to fimplify us in ftate as well as in church: when, however, that author maintains, that to the Puritans we owe the whole freedom of our conftitution, I am of William Turner's opinion that be pays them a very overftrained compliment. As well may we attribute to the Whig Club, to the Correfponding Society, or to the minority of a certain legislative affembly, our present independence. That they have negatively preferved us, I grant; for they have not fuffered the true patriot to fleep at his poft. But if we have hitherto been admirably piloted, and if our veffel is yet water-tight, and may bid defiance to the tempeft that impends, the chief merit is due to the skill of our Palinuri. Not a tittle of it can belong to those, who have wifhed only to run us aground, and to turn us from the right course, by for ever shouting breakers-a-bead; though their officious impertinence has ferved to promote a good look out, and prevented us from being ship-wrecked through fupineness.

The Puritans of the reign of Elizabeth, William Turner informs us, were the ancestors of the prefent British non-conformifts. At that time, he tells us, they differed in form rather than in fubftance from their epifcopal brethren-they wished rather to SIMPLIFY the public worship of the church, and to form its government on a more POPULAR and EQUAL plan, than to alter the doctrines beld forth in its articles. I am afraid, Mr. Editor, this is no juft picture of their defcendants. They feem now to differ from us more in fubftance than in form; and fuch their zeal to fimplify us, that they wish for a plan more popular and equal in our civil as well as in our ecclefiaftical departments. Nor would they be content with an alteration of our articles, but they would require us to fimplify even our creeds and our liturgy, to make them digeftible by the cold Puritan ftomach.

EQUAL religious liberty, continues William Turner, had not yet emerged from the darkness of corrupted Chriftianity. If, Sir, all who oppofe Puritans, are to be confidered as buried in the darkness of corrupted Chriftianity, there never can exift equal religious liberty under a Puritan government. Indeed the author is candid enough to allow, that the Puritans, when in power, were equally ftrangers

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to the just principles of toleration, with those whom they had fupplanted. If a Diffenter acknowledge them to have been at least equally, we may venture to pronounce that they were more than equally, ftrangers to toleration.

The ufurper Cromwell is next appealed to, by William Turner, for his enlarged nations of religious liberty. I agree with him that Oliver's is curious authority; and it is equally curious, that a writer who questions the pope's and the king's right of fupremacy, fhould at once fubfcribe to the fupremacy of Cromwell, and treat his opinion as infallible. In matters of religion,' fays this pope of the Puritans, all men have an equal right to think and act for themselves. While they live in peace with the rest of mankind, they are free to diffent from the magiftrate and the priest.' Such, Mr. Editor, is Pope Oliver's bull; and we may confider it as the Puritan's thirty-nine articles" fidei et religionis," to which no Diffenter has any objection to subscribe. If, after the publication of fuch doctrine, the temper of the times was fuch, that even Oliver could not entirely prevent the different fects from biting and devouring each other if each in its turn vented its malice against the reft, and against the fallen epifcopal church, to what was fuch conduct owing but to the Arch-puritan's having himself thus publickly maintained the facred right of infurrection? For if men are inftructed that they have a right to act as well as to think; if they are declared to be at liberty to diffent from the magiftrate as well as from the prieft; it will avail nothing to add that they must live at peace withal, for peace is abfolutely incompatible with such a state of warfare. Opinions are armed against each other, the shout of onfet is given, and the conflict of anarchy is begun.

In the restoration, fays William Turner, the Prefbyterians, weary of the diftractions which had fo long prevailed, joined EQUALLY with the members of the Epifcopal church. It might have been hoped, proceeds he, that both parties would have learned wifdom by past experience, and mutually agreed to bury in oblivion the injuries they had. inflicted on each other. This, Sir, is the ufual outcry of the van quifhed; who, having run their career of cruelty, no sooner find the tide of fuccefs turned against them, than they preach up th beauty of moderation and forgiveness, although in their profperity they forgot to be exemplary in the practice of either. But the minds of men, fays the author, were not yet fufficiently expanded. The fufferings of the clergy were returned with tenfold vengeance upon the non-conformists. And how were they returned, Mr. Editor? What unheard of cruelties did the church of England practise, when restored to her former poffeffions? Did the tie the Diffenters to the ftake? did fhe fet up a guillotine? did fhe condemn them to the axe? to the halter ? or even send them into exile for the wrongs fhe had fuftained? No. Of what, then, did her tenfold vengeance confift? Hear William Turner. She re-established (oh horrible to relate!) the BOOK of COMMON PRAYER, and the ancient EPISCOPAL FORMS, with feueral ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS. What the author implies by additional reftrictions we need not enquire, fince

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the expreffion manifeftly covers the leffer grievances of the Dif fenters a long et cætera of hardships, of inferior cruelty to the reeftablishment of bishops and the common prayer-book. If, at the restoration of the bishops and the common prayer, two thoufand puritanical minifters refigned the means of their fubfiflence; that is, gave up the livings they held, rather than violate the dilates of their confciences? without inquiring into the means by which they obtained them, and their right of holding them, I will pronounce this part of their conduct to be honourable. But if tenderness of conference alone was the cause of this original feparation from the church of England, which has fubfifted ever fince in the perfons of those Diffenters whofe caufe William Turner has undertaken to plead; how is it that their defcendants are become fo loofely laced as the preacher has represented? Whatever may be their own fentiments, fays he, the miniflers of this clafs endeavour, in their respective congregations, to render it eafy for Chriftians of all denominations to attend them without offence. It is their wifh to confider perfons there affembled, not as Epif copalians, Prefbyterians, Independents, Calvinists, Arminians, Trinitarians, Unitarians, Baptifts, or Padobaptifts, but as fo many individual Chriflians. On this principle it is their endeavour to model their devotional fervices; without the most diftant wish to impofe their own fentiments upon any fingle hearer. How changed, therefore, how fallen from the tenets of their rigid forefathers, are these compromifing preachers of our days! How are their narrow consciences expanded, and enlarged without meafure! They who could formerly refufe to worship God, according to the fentiments of the great majority of the nation, and the wifdom of her representatives in parliament affembled, can, in more modern times, fervilely bow with the utmost respect to the opinions of any fect, however fenfible they may be of its errors. They are no longer, Mr. Editor, to be deemed non-conformifts, fave only as that title regards the better doctrines and wifer regulations of the church of England. With refpeft to every thing that is fectarian, be it however fond and abfurd, they are conformists. They are ANYTHINGARIANS; they are EVERYTHINGARIANS and coalefce with all Chriftians freely but the church of England. And why do they thus meanly latter the weaknels of every feƐtary, and forbear to reprove him for his errors? Why do they wish to combine all fectaries in a maís, and to make one united body of all the Diffenters in the kingdom? It proceeds, Mr. Editor, from a hope of being fome day able to affail parliament in fuch numbers, that it fhall not dare to deny to them the repeal of the tell-act, and the removal of other obftacles which ftand in the way of their ambition. For it is an hereditary opinion of these men, that they have always been haraffed with fevere laws and vindictive perfecutions (I use William Turner's words); though, in my opinion, the restrictions impofed upon them have ever been mild and falutary, and extremely forry fhall I be to see them removed.

It is to provide successors in the ministry of this class (a class which avowedly has NO CREED as a term of communion) that William

Turner