of my parishioners, for two or three of them to take in, at their joint expence, your Magazine, as I wish to fee it as commonly in the houses of Churchmen, as the Methodift's Magazine is to be seen in the houses of the members of that denomination.

Shall you, gentlemen, who are the editors of this Mifcellany. be offended, if I propofe a Query for your confideration?-- Should there not be, generally, tranflations of the paffages, in the ancient and modern languages, which occur in your Magazine?

You perceive, gentlemen, that I am defirous of having this publication as much as poffible, adapted for the perufal of fuch of my Fellow-Chriftians, as only understand the vulgar tongue.

3. Refpecting the third Query, I muft obferve, that I was lately informed of feveral Clubs, or Friendly Societies, in this neighbourhood, which have been broken up in confequence of dividing part of the money, and not leaving a fufficient fum in the club-box to defray their expences. -Perhaps the focieties here are nearly upon the fame plan, as those in other parts of the kingdom. The members pay each, every month, one fhilling to the box, and two-pence to be spent. They allow feven shillings per week to the fick; but if deemed incurable, only five fhillings. And forty fhillings towards the funeral expences of a member who has been entered two years; and five pounds to his widow, or relation. When the stock amounts to one hundred pounds, they draw out fixty pounds, and each receives a proportionable fhare, according to the time that he has been entered.-Some focieties divide annually the whole of the money excepting ten or twenty pounds.

Would it not be better to increase the weekly allowance, when the ftock amounts to one hundred pounds, as seven fhillings is not more than one third part of the money which many men here earn in a week; and when the stock is two hundred pounds, then to divide half of it?

I will only now mention the occafion of my propofing this fubject to your confideration, and to the confideration of your intelligent correfpondents. There are in this parith feveral men, who are deprived of five thillings per week, in confequence of the diffolution of their fociety, and who are too old to be admitted into any other Friendly Society! They confider it as a great hardship, that they can no longer have recourfe to that fund, to which they, for many years, contributed; but must be obliged to atk for the paltry pittance of parochial relief, which is given with reluctance, if not with reproaches!

July 17th, 1802.

AGE OF REASON.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE. GENTLEMEN,

THE

HE wretched Paine denied, in his "Age of Reafon," that the Holy Scripture is the word of God, and referred us to the works of Creation as his only authentic word. I have not yet feen this audacious folly ́treated exactly as I could with; and therefore I would afk the inebriated traitor, who has blafphemed God and the King," where we are to look for inftruction in righteousness, or for moral direction in the works of creation? Will the orbits of the planets coincide with the circle of focial duties Will the eccentricities of comets explain to us the dreadful confe

quences

quences of aberration from virtue? Will the attraction of the fenfible regulate the affections of the intellectual world? Will the way in which plant lies folded up within plant, and feed inclosed within feed, teach us our duty towards the rifing generation? Will the examination of the animalcules that fport in a drop of water, or the gay motes that people the fun-beam," inftru&t us how to diftinguish between virtues and vices, when they abut upon, or are nearly blended with each other; and to mark where the former cease, and the latter begin? Then ought we to ftudy the virtues through a Spying glass; and the differential characters of right and wrong by means of a microfcope; then ought our way through human life, like the course of a veffel through the waves of the ocean, to be determined by the polarity of a magnetized needle. Need I add a word more? Not a word; except that I am,

Sept. 4, 1802.

Gentlemen, your's faithfully,

A LONDON CURATE.

POPISH ARTIFICES AND DISSENTERS TOOLS OF THE

PAPISTS.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE. GENTLEMEN,

THE

HERE is a part of the Ecclefiaftical History of England which, in my opinion, has not had that attention paid to it which it deferves: there can be no doubt, however, that the Puritanical Party in the reigns of Elizabeth and the firft James, was industriously supported, if not first fet up by the Papifts. Our Church has always been honoured with the peculiar hatred of that of Rome. Having laid afide the errors, the foppery, and the frippery of the Romish Church; and having retained the primitive doctrine and difcipline; our " adversaries are athamed, having no evil thing to fay of us." They cannot deny that our glorious Church is formed upon the very model of that of the apoftolic age: the believes in the HOLY TRINITY; he has a LITURGY which exemplifies all "the beauty of holinefs;" and the has EPISCOPACY, and a clear fucceffion of those who alone have power to "fend labourers into the vineyard" of our LORD, continued from the Apostles themselves. Whilft her bulwarks remained unsapped, and her towers without a breach, the Papifts knew she was impregnable. Our retaining of Epifcopacy, fo neceffary to the form and effence of a church, particularly moved their fpleen. Cardinal Barberini, as Bishop Stillingfleet (then Dean of St. Paul's,) tells us, in the Preface to his Book, intituled "The Unreafonableness of Separation," faid, in the hearing of a gentleman, who told it the Bishop, that "he could be content there were no Priefts in England, fo there were no Bishops :"-an horrible expreffion :-in order to fecure a chance of regaining to the Pope that power he had loft in this country, the Cardinal could be content that we fhould not have even the form of a Church; that we should not have either Sacraments or Clergy! Where there is no Priest there can be no Sacraments. The Papifts finding themselves unequal to an open attack, (how completely did the English Fathers of the Reformation difcomfit them!) went craftily to work: they endeavoured to fow diffention within the Church, and to raise a mutiny within the facred garrifon of our Sion. And thus, "while Harding, Sanders, and others, attacked our Church on one fide," and in one way, Coleman, Button, Hallingham, Ben

fon,

fon, and others, were as bufy on the other; and under the pretence of a purer reformation, opposed the Difcipline, Liturgy, and Calling of our Bishops, as approaching too near to that of Rome." And thus it appears that our first Sectaries were but the tools of the Papists; who, if they did not fuggeft, cherished attentively all their abfurd fcruples; and were ever on the watch to foment divifions in the Church of England.

The Rev. T. Lewis, author of "THE SCOURGE, in Vindication of the Church of England, gives " a remarkable hiftory of one Faithful Cummin, a Romith Divine, who came over into England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was generally reputed as a very zealous Proteftant. His feeming piety procured him a very great character with the inferior people, who were more particularly pleased with him for his fevere raillery against the Church of Rome, and his bitter invectives against the Pope himself: this impoftor was at last detected; but by an escape avoided the hands of juftice, and returned to Rome. The Pope immediately imprifoned him for the abufes he had spread about him in England; but Cummin writ to his Holiness, and acquainted him that he had fomething of importance to communicate to him, if he could have the honour to be admitted into his prefence. The Pope fent for him next day; and as soon as he saw him, Sir," faid he, I have heard the character you have beftowed upon me, and my predeceffors, among your hereticks in England, by reviling my perfon, and expofing my Church:-Cummin replied, "I confefs my lips have uttered what my heart never thought; but your Holiness little imagines the confiderable fervice I have done you :"-to which the Pope returned, "How, in the name of Jefus, Mary, and all the Saints, haft thou done fo?-Sir, faid Cummin, "I preached against fet forms of prayer, and I called the English Liturgy a tranflation of the Mass-book; and I have made the people fond of extempore prayer; and by that means the Church of England is become as odious to my profelytes, as mafs is to the Church of England, AND THIS WILL BE A STUMBLING BLOCK TO THAT CHURCH WHILE IT IS A CHURCH. Upon which the Pope commended him, and gave him a reward of two thousand ducats for his good fervice.

Let the Separatist now with confufion blush, and no more ftretch his mouth with the outcries of Popery against the ceremonies of our Church; let him obferve how this arrow originally came out of the Romish quiver, and be ashamed to fharpen his fword at the forges of the Philijiines." Scourge, No. 31, pp. 195-6.

I wish fome of my brother Churchmen, who are bleffed with literatum otium, would turn over the leaves of the writers of the Elizabethan æra; and throw together the fcattered ftories of fimilar artifices which were practifed with melancholy fuccess against one of the pureft Churches which the world ever faw.

As to The Scourge, I have just been favoured with the loan of a copy of that fcarce book. Almoft every fyllable it contains, relative to the dangers which threatened the established Church from the artifices of the Diffenters in the beginning of the reign of George I. is applicable to the hazard it is now put in by the practices of the methodifts under Geo. III. But, non defperandum eft de Ecclefiâ. Great is truth, and will prevail over trick. If I, ο ελαχίσοτερος παντων των ἁγιων, might prefume to give advice to my brethren, I would exhort them to urge upon their congregations points of Difcipline as well as Doctrine. The preachers under the Wefleian connection have but Prefbyterian ordination, and the self

conftituted

conftituted minifters of the Whitfieldian faction, have nothing; nor have the moft fubtle of their apologists any thing to urge againft the neceflity for epifcopal ordination, and fubmiflion to the authority of our Apoftolic Church. The doctrines of the Methodifts are the doctrines of the Church, carried perhaps to a dangerous extreme; but their difcipline is fchifmatical, and therefore finful, in a very high degree. The Methodists have not the plaufible plea for feparation which the Diffenters had.

Sept. 7, 1802.

I am, gentlemen, your's faithfully,

A LONDON CURATE.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S Magazine. GENTLEMEN, PURCHASED, upon your recommendation, Dr. Rennel's Difcourfes, even though there was in one of your extracts from them, a claufe, which, in my eyes, did not look well. That claufe compared with a note annexed to the Difcourfe (Difcourfe IV.) which contains it, gives me, I must say, no favourable opinion of the Doctor's principles with regard to Church government. In other respects I readily allow, that he is beyond all praife; but here he appears to me to err exceedingly my reasons for thinking fo, I fhall ftate as briefly as poflible.

Dr. Rennel owns, what indeed cannot be denied, that the Epifcopal Regimen is a feature of Chriftian antiquity, permanent, unvaried, and uniform from the earliest Apoftolic times, down to the very dawning of the reformation. Yet, in Dean Swift's words, thinking, perhaps, that they would obtain more credit to his affertion, he fays, that the Epifcopal Regimen is not abfolutely necessary to the existence of a Christian Church. The reverfe, however, I am inclined to believe, is the truth; for, to the existence of a Chriftian Church, confidered as a fociety, the Epifcopal Regimen must be abfolutely neceffary, otherwife Chrift appointed in his Church a form of government, which might be changed, as circumftances feemed to require. But where is the evidence that Chrift appointed in his Church, a form of government, subject, in this sense, to the influence of circumstances, and to mutable in its nature as fuch a form of government mut be? The Doctor produces no evidence of this: I will be bold to say he can produce none. In his affirmation, unfupported by any appearance of proof, that the Epifcopal Regimen is not abfolutely neceffary to the exiftence of a Chriftian Church, Dr Rennel's end is to apologize, in the best way he can, for the want of that Regimen in the Kirk of Scotland: then, in a strain of the highest and most affectionate panegyric, he fays, that the Kirk of Scotland is worthy of the highest respect; that the Church of England is proved to profefs the warmest veneration to her; and that the Clergy of the Church of England are moft ready to exprefs the most unqualified regard to her.

The Epifcopal Regimen, for a reafon already given, I maintain to be abfolutely neceffary to the exiftence of a Chriftian Church, confidered under the idea of a fociety. But the Epifcopal Regimen, the Kirk of Scotland, not only wants, but pronounces, in her confeilion of Faith, Antichriftian Tyranny, deferving the abhorrence of all good Chriftians, and calling for their united efforts for its extirpation. And, with a confiftence which ought to teach the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England an obvious leffon, one of the most learned, and in the general opinion, most

candid

candid and moderate Doctors of the Kirk, has, in his Lectures lately pub lithed, held up that apoftolic, and, therefore, divinely inftituted form of Church government, as an object of ridicule, nay, as you have justly obferved, has perverted even the facred text to get rid of it.

The thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England fhould undoubtedly be ever interpreted in a sense which makes them harmonize with the Liturgy. Interpreted in a Calviniftic fenfe, it is evident to every one who is not refolved to be blind, that they do not harmonize with the Liturgy, but contradict it most palpably. On this account, Dr. Rennel, I fuppofe, will not fay that the Church of England is Calvinistic in her doctrines. But that the Kirk of Scotland is fo, is indifputable.

To this I beg leave to add, that the Kirk of Scotland, in the exercise of public worship, has no Creed, no Ten Commandments, no Lord's Prayer, no Doxology, no reading of the Scriptures: nor does the obferve any of the Feftivals, fo admirably calculated to awaken the devotion, and to refreth the mind of every well difpofed Chriftian. In fact, these things are confidered, by the lower ranks of people, downright popery and their minifters care not to rectify their error. There are of them, at the fame time, who abftain intentionally, in their public difcourfes, from explicit Imention of the peculiar doctrines of the gofpel, because they are difputed. Which fact, compared with another, namely, that to ftudents of Theology, the works of Clarke and Priestley are not unfrequently recommended, points out pretty clearly what fide thefe gentlemen favour. In the Kirk of Scotland, to fpeak out the truth, the Unitarians in England, and perfons of lax principles, have more friends than is at prefent generally sufpected. Such is the Kirk of Scotland: and is he worthy of the highest refpect? Is the Church of England indeed proved to profefs the warmest veneration to her? Are the Clergy of the Church of England moft ready to exprefs the most unqualified regard for her? To thefe queftions Dr. Rennel anfwers in the affirmative. But I with the Church of England too well to credit even Dr. Rennel in this. If, befides, the Church of England regard the Kirk of Scotland with all that respect and veneration which Dr. Kennel fays the does, where, I would afk, is the fenfe of the language which the Church of England has always addreffed to the Prefbyterians in England? The Doctor, in the overflowings of his affection for the Kirk, has, in my judgment, made that language fomething worse than nonfenfical; and has put into the mouth of every Prefbyterian Diffenter a plea by which he may juftify his continuance in a state of feparation from the Church. This, I make no doubt, Bifhop Hoadley would have approved; but that it never would have obtained the fanction of Bishop Horne, I am confident.

What Dr. Rennel calls other ftrong marks of excellence in the Kirk of Scotland, have fome of them no existence at all; and the reft he has ftated in such a manner as to go beyond the bounds of truth. May he henceforth avoid the indifcriminate and dangerous praife, which has occafioned the foregoing remarks; and duly confider, that being an Epifcopal Divine, he ought to write as fuch.

July 17,

1802.

A NORTH BRITON.