speakable injury to all who are persuaded that you possess such astonishing powers."

A young clerk just invested with the priestly office may well think highly of himself, as he has been assured by no lower authority than that of the first ecclesiastical dignitaries of the land, that the Holy Ghost has been communicated to him, and a power to confer the remission of sins. Those who hear him preach, are in danger of considering what he says in the pulpit as the decision of the Holy Ghost, whom he received by the imposition of the bishop's hands in ordination. Is there not too much reason to fear that poor ignorant creatures on a death-bed, over whom he pronounces the absolution in the service of the visitation of the sick, will conceive that their transgressions are blotted out, because the clergyman, when endowed, received from the bishop power to forgive sins?

Dissenting Ministers have, millions of times, been branded with the degrading appellations of fanatics and enthusiasts. Ours, however, whatever it may be, is rational fanaticism, and sober enthusiasm, compared with this. Did we believe and profess that our ministers could confer the gift of the Holy Ghost; or that, by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, those ordained among us received power to forgive sins, we should deserve the name of archfanatics, and arch-enthusiasts. Certainly the largest portion of the most sublimated essence of fanaticism and enthusiasm, which was ever seen or known upon earth, is concentrated here. Exceedingly culpable, therefore, I should account myself if I were to unite in communion with such a church, and so give the world reason to believe, that I approve her claims. I

conceive it my duty to dissent, and thus bear my testimony against so monstrous an encroachment on the authority of Christ.

How dreadful is it that the service by which a person is ordained to the most solemn office should contain untruths! It is not my wish to offend, but in order to be understood, I must make use of words to convey my ideas, which will really express them. That a venerable bishop should introduce a person into the priest's office by saying what is untrue, and by professing to give what he knows he cannot give, is sufficient to rend the hardest heart with grief. That the person too, who is ordained, should hear untruths solemnly addressed to him in a highly religious act, and profess to believe that he receives what he knows he does not receive, and what neither the bishop, nor archbishop, nor any one else can give, is deeply to be deplored by every friend of truth. Such a commencement of the priestly office augurs ill for its future effects. At the consecration of a bishop there is a repetition of the same unedifying scene. The bishop ordaining addresses an untruth to the bishop ordained: the bishop ordained receives the untruth, and professes to believe it as a sacred verity, and to go forth under such an impression to the

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"Then the archbishops and bishops present shall lay their hands upon the head of the elected bishop, kneeling before them upon his kness, the archbishop saying, Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a bishop in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen. And remember that thou stir up the grace of God which is given thee by this imposition of our hands: for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and soberness.'" Form of consecrating bishops.

execution of his exalted office. Infidels have but too much cause to scoff, and to ridicule what is boasted to be the fairest representation of the religion of Jesus Christ. Tell me, gentlemen, why do you permit things so exceptionable to remain on the pages of your service-book? Why do you leave yourselves so entirely exposed, not only to the objections of dissenters, but to the scoffs of unbelievers? Why have your ecclesiastical leaders never applied to the legislature for an alteration in the form of ordination, which they would, no doubt, concede to you with readiness and pleasure? "We came here, sir, not to be catechised by you, but to hear your reasons of dissent. If you have any thing more to say, go on."

My objections to the entrance of the clergy on their office is not confined to the form of ordination. There are various things besides, which appear equally contrary to Scripture and reason: every thing appears out of place; and matters are so thrown into disorder by human regulations that it is difficult to know where to begin.

The church of England very properly requires that the person to be ordained shall have a congregation where he is to be employed: but when this is said, I have mentioned all that can be added in her favour. The relation between a minister and his people is a relation which is founded on choice. Without mutual choice there can be no mutual obligation. Were a strong man to drag a delicate maiden by force to the altar, and compel her to go through the ceremony of marriage, would she be bound in duty to honour and obey him? or if, instead of this, he chose a damsel, and went to the altar without her,

and the ceremony was so framed, that without ever asking her consent, or even her knowledge of the affair, she was to be told, that she was bound by law, to be his wife, ought she to feel the obligations of a married woman to such a man? The very supposition is absurd. Why should not the same judgment be passed as to the relation between a minister and his congregation, whose union must be equally the result of mutual choice. Among the dissenters this mutual choice always exists; but it has higher authority to recommend it to observance. It was the practice, the universal practice of the church for more than five hundred years after the commencement of the Christian æra the clergy, from the highest to the lowest, were then elected by the people. Nor should it excite surprise in any, that this was the case; for it is founded in the very nature of things, and has reason herself for a support. An ecclesiastical constitution, which excludes the people from the election of their minister, has absurdity written on its face with a sun-beam.

But what are the regulations of the church of England in this respect? The people are nothing. They are in the state of the maiden who was married without her consent being asked; and who knew nothing of the matter, till a man came and said to her, "you are my wife: you must, love, honour and obey me." Like this hapless damsel are the people in most of the parishes in England. A clergyman comes to them with the patron's presentation in his pocket, and thus addresses them: "Dearly beloved brethren, I am your lawful pastor, and you are to listen to my instructions with reverence, to demean yourselves with becoming respect, and to perform every duty to

which a minister of Christ has a claim from his flock." If a preacher were to speak thus to a congregation of dissenters, they would suppose him to be one who had just wrenched open the door of his cell in bedlam, and escaped his keeper's hands. "We never chose you (they would say), we never invited you to be our pastor; and how is it possible for you to say, that we ought in duty to consider and treat you as our spiritual guide. Go whence you came; when we want you for our instructor we will send for you, and call you to the pastoral office among us; but from your present conduct, this is not likely soon to be the case."

In the established church, from long custom these ideas, so congenial to the spirit of Christianity, for so many centuries acted upon by the Christian world, and entering so deeply into the constitution of a Christian church, are entirely lost: the very faintest traces of them are erased from the souls of the people, and of the clergy too. But what supplies the place of the people's choice, and makes a clergyman to be minister of a particular parish? Invention has not been asleep; and not to the honour of mankind, ways have been found out, of which the best Christian antiquity was ignorant. A father may purchase a living in the church for one of his sons, just as he purchases a commission in the army for another. A person with a little management to avoid the charge of simony, can get one procured for him and it is found, in many instances, to be a very profitable way of laying out a young man's patrimony, and to bring in a more ample return than either trade or commerce. Country squires and noble lords have the sole appointment of hundreds