Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

fneers, p. 14, at a certain lay divine, who only propofed a revifal of the English liturgy and articles, which, in the opinion of many serious and thinking perfons, though not in yours, very much want revifion? Why, also, did you oppose the petition of a number of conscientious clergymen, to be released from their prefent obligation to fubscribe the thirty-nine articles, many of which you must yourfelf, furely, think are not abfolutely effential to chriftianity? Why, then, might not clergymen, as well as others, have been at liberty to fpeculate freely, and think as they faw reafon to do, with respect to them?

On the fame principles on which you oppofed a revifion of the church establishment of this coun→ try, you would, no doubt, have oppofed a revi fion of that of France, of Turkey, or of Indoftan. However, the spirit of reformation, which is now gone forth, is another great power; as well as the exifting fyftems to be reformed by it; and it is a power which grows ftronger as they grow weaker; fo that there can be no doubt which of them will finally prevail, notwithstanding the aid that your potent arm may give them.

You boldly avow your attachment to old establishments, because they are old. "In this enlightened age," you say, p. 129,

“I am bold " enough

" enough to confess, that we are generally men of "untaught feelings, that, inftead of cafting away "all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very " confiderable degree, and to take more fhame to "ourselves, we cherish them because they are pre

judices; and the longer they have lafted, and "the more generally they have prevailed, the more "we cherish them."

On this principle, Sir, had you been a Pagan at the time of the promulgation of christianity, you would have continued one. You would also have opposed the reformation. You would, no doubt, have cherished the long and deep rooted prejudice of the earth being the center of our fyftem, and every notion that was old; the creed of your nurse, and of your grandmother, in oppofition to every thing new.

Cherish them, then, Sir, as much as you please. Prejudice and error is only a mift, which the fun, which has now rifen, will effectually difperfe. Keep them about you as tight as the countryman in the fable did his cloak; the fame fun, without any more violence than the warmth of his beams, will compel you to throw it aside, unless you chuse to sweat under it, and bear the ridicule of all your cooler and lefs encumbered companions. The spirit of free and rational enquiry is now abroad,

[blocks in formation]

and without any aid from the powers of this world, will not fail to overturn all error and falfe religion, wherever it is found, and neither the church of Rome, nor the church of England, will be able to ftand before it.

Inftead of your chimerical idea of destroying no exifting powers, but of converting them to fome ufe, which may answer no better than an attempt to tame a lion, or a tiger, adopt a plainer maxim, infinitely better adapted to the weak faculties of man, viz. to follow truth wherever it leads you, confident that the interefts of truth will ever be infeparable from thofe of virtue and happinefs, and equally fo to ftates, as to individuals.

I am, DEAR SIR,

Yours, &c.

LETTER

LETTER XII.

Of the Sacredness of the Revenues of the Church.

DEAR SIR,

OUR opinion of the facredness, and majesty, of

YOUR

an established church, is moft confpicuous in what you fay of its revenues. On this fubject you appear to have adopted maxims which, I believe, were never before avowed by any Protestant, viz. that the ftate has no power or authority over any thing that has once been the property of the church.

"From the united confideration of religion and "conftitutional policy," you fay, p. 150, "from "their opinion of a duty to make a fure provifion "for the confolation of the feeble, and the inftruc"tion of the ignorant, they have incorporated and "identified the estate of the church with the "mafs of private property, of which the state "is not the proprietor, either for use or domi"nion, but the guardian only, and the regu"lator. They have ordained that the provision of "this establishment might be as ftable as the earth

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with "the Euripus of funds and actions."

If the state be not the proprietor of the church lands, they must be the abfolute unalienable property of the church, that is of churchmen only, and without their confent no alienation of them is lawful. Confequently, if all the members of the House of Commons, the king, and all the temporal lords, fhould vote the alienation of any part of them, it would be mere robbery without the consent of the bishops, or perhaps that of the whole convocation assembled for the purpose; perhaps not even then, the prefent clergy being only trustees, or having a life eftate in a revenue which belongs to their fucceffors. But, furely, if I have any knowledge of the British conftitution, this doctrine is abfolutely new to it, and certainly not deduced from the actual conductof parliament, which has difpofed of a very great proportion of what was once the property of the church. I even queftion whether the principle you here avow, would at this day be acknowledged at St. Omers. The Catholics of France had evidently no idea of the kind, and indeed it is for this that you reproach them.

The Dutch, and other proteftant ftates, have confifcated all the old church property, and pay their clergy from the fame public treafury, out of which the officers of the army and navy are paid; and they,

« EdellinenJatka »