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"near again, and lifting up the cover of the cup, "looked into it: and seeing the wine, let fall the

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cover again, retired back and bowed as before. "Then the elements were consecrated, and the "bishop, having first received, gave it to some principal men in their surplices, hoods, and tippets; after which many prayers being said, "the solemnity of the consecration ended."

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This, Sir, was the manner in which that celebrated martyr and governor of your church conducted this business of consecration. And, what now think you? Was there nothing ridiculous or superstitious in all this! You seem, indeed, not to have quite so exalted an opinion of this solemnity as his lordship; but as the church has no where (that I know) explained herself as to this matter, nor censured Laud's conduct, nor prescribed any set form in which this ceremony. is to be done, any bishop, I apprehend at present, is at full liberty to use the same, and may now consecrate a church in the same manner as Laud did that of St. Catharine Cree. And, pray, to whom shall I attend as best knowing and expressing the church's sense in this point; to the great Archbishop Laud, or to-the Rev. Mr. White, some time Fellow of St. John's college, Cambridge!

I have now done with your Appendix. There is another office of your liturgy equally liable to the severe exceptions of all well-instructed Christians, and to the sneers of insulting deists, as any I have yet considered; and that is, your office for the ordination of Priests and Deacons. This, if you call me forth again, I may more particularly shew. At present I only ask-Whether to your sober reason it really appears a fit question, to be put to every young gentleman that comes from the university for orders to the bishop, whether he trusts that he is inwardly moved by the holy Ghost to take upon him this of

fice? And for every such young gentleman to declare solemnly, as in God's presence, that he trusts he is so inwardly moved? You well know how many rich livings are in the gift of families, whose sons, or dependants, are educated for the church with no other view but that of its being the most genteel provision, in their power, for their future support in life. You must also be sensible, that the high dignities and great emoluments which are to be found in the church, often lead many young gentlemen to prefer this profession to any other, merely from interested and worldly considerations. You certainly must be better acquainted than I am with the general manners, the taste, and the state, of the two universities: tell me then, before God, is their moral state such, that you can reasonably think every student that comes thence, when he gets a title to a living, and applies for orders to the bishop, doth really feel himself inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to make that application? Ought his feelings to be so hurt, and so pressing a question be put to his conscience? One of the brightest ornaments of your own church, Bishop Burnet, (Pastoral Care, page 96 to 99,) has made the following observations on this point, which deserve the most serious attention of all those who ask, and of all those who answer the beforementioned most important question. "Certain

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ly," says he, this answer, I trust I am so mo"VED, ought well to be considered; for if any

say, I trust so, who yet know nothing of any "such motion, and can give no account of it, HE 66 LIES TO THE HOLY GHOST, and makes his first "approach to the altar, with a LIE in his mouth, " and that not to men but to God. The motives "that ought to determine a man to dedicate him"self to the church, are a zeal for promoting the glory of God, and for raising the honour of the "Christian religion. This man, and only this man,

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"so moved or qualified, can, in truth and with a good conscience, answer, that he TRUSTS he "is inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost; and every

one, that ventures on the saying it without this "is a sacrilegious profaner of the name of God "and his Holy Spirit: he breaks in upon the "church not to feed but to rob it." And, when the bishop lays his hand on the student's head, then kneeling before him, and makes this solemn address,-Receive the Holy Ghost-Whose sins THOU dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins THOU dost retain, they are retained; in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen :-is this a language which can be clearly justified? Do their lordships keep perfectly free of the offence which Bishop Burnet so justly condemns? Is there nothing like LYING to the Holy Ghost in the part which they are called to act in this most serious affair? 1 shall make no farther reflections at present, but only say, that to me it appears really amazing, that, in an age of such discernment, and freedom of enquiry, this form is suffered to stand. And, in the language of your collect, I very heartily pray, "That

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Almighty God, who alone worketh great mar"vels, would send down upon our bishops and curates, the healthful spirit of his grace:"the spirit of wisdom and humility! being assured that this stone of stumbling, in the way of sagacious infidels, will then quickly be removed.

In the mean time let none of the clergy any more reproach the separatists and the sectariés (as they affect to call us) with being enthusiasts and fanatics; for what sect among all who dissent from the church of England (papists only excepted) carry their pretensions to spiritual motions and communications to so extravagant a height as the church itself does! Doth the quaker or the methodist, talk of being moved by the

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Spirit, and of praying and preaching under the influence of the Spirit? Surely it does not become any clergyman to ridicule such language. He ought rather to give those who use it the right hand of fellowship; knowing that he also has been under the like impressions; and that, when he was ordained a deacon, he solemnly declared, before one of the successors of the apostles, that he trusted that he was INWARDLY MOVED by the HOLY GHOST to take upon himself this office.

But to conclude. I have the pleasure, Sir, to be persuaded that your mind is not now filled with those high and swelling thoughts of the excellence of your liturgy, as when our correspondence began. The Dissenters, you find, are not the only persons who except strongly against your forms. Many of your learned clergy have, in a candid and respectful manner, and yet with a becoming courage, expressed great dissatisfaction with them. What effect their attempts for the enlargement of the church's bounds, and for a farther reformation and review, will produce, time alone will shew. Upon its present ground, the situation of the church must appear, to every discerning mind, to be extremely critical and

uncertain.

It is difficult to defend it against the crafty attacks of popery on the one hand, and, I think, actually impossible to support it against the assaults of infidelity on the other. Between these two stones is there no room to apprehend its being quickly ground to powder? To the injurious idea, which many of your forms give of the Christian religion, the unhappy increase of deism is in great measure owing: and there is the highest reason to believe that it will farther increase, if these forms, which are the just offence and ridicu.e of unbelievers, are not soon dismissed. But, when those who boast themselves the successors

of the apostles, and the only regular pastors and ministers of Christ, shall give proof that they are possessed of a truly apostolic virtue, and shall no longer seek their own, but the things of Jesus Christ, a review and a correction of every thing exceptionable will be no distant nor difficult

event.

In the mean time, the dissenters have the satisfaction to reflect, that, amidst various discouragements, they have, by their dissent, approved themselves loyal to the ONLY Sovereign of the church, and faithful to a sacred trust committed to them by God, for which they must give an account. They rejoice in the review, that they have entered their protest against the impositions and inventions of men, which have corrupted the simplicity, enervated the vigour, deformed the beauty, and broken the communion of the body of Christ. And whatever rash censures they may now incur from the prejudiced, the weak, and the interested, they with great assurance hope to be not only approved, but applauded, by their judge hereafter; and at his appearing to receive honour proportioned to their present reproach.

When it shall please the Almighty Sovereign to awaken in the Christian world a spirit of genuine Christianity;-when true honour shall prevail over cowardice and temporising;-when integrity and truth shall triumph over falsehood and error;-when that slavish ignoble principle, that we are to conform to the established worship of the country where we dwell, whatever it be, shall be held in deserved reproach,-a principle that greatly debases and corrupts the human soul, put out its intellectual eye, chains up its noblest powers, robs it of its highest glory, viz. the searching into religious subjects, and offering to its creator a reasonable service;-in short, a principle that directly tends to banish every thing

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