way which he could not contemplate, and who himself uttered the anathematized sentiment,"Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him"? How dangerous is it to throw about thunderbolts! How perilous, as well as presumptuous, to attempt to occupy the throne of Christ, and wield his scepture.

Well might Paley remark of established creeds and confessions, that "they are at all times attended with serious inconveniences: they check inquiry; they violate liberty; they insnare the consciences of the clergy, by holding out temptations to prevarication: however they may express the persuasion, or be accommodated to the controversies, or the fears, of the age in which they are composed, in process of time, and by reason of the changes which are wont to take place in the judgment of mankind upon religious subjects, they come at length to contradict the actual opinions of the church, whose doctrines they profess to contain; and they often perpetuate the proscription of sects and tenets from which any danger has long ceased to be apprehended."

The professed object of these creeds was, to avoid diversity of opinions! Suppose it gained: and if the standard thus erected be not the real gospel after all; as, unless the framers were

infallible, could not be assumed without presumption; they are then found false witnesses for God; or rather against him, in his revelation ; and suborners of false witness from contemporary millions, and successive generations.

If they be the truth, still that truth is held in unrighteousness when not received on the proper authority-that of Christ. What is truth without inquiry; without knowledge; without those moral influences which only attend principles when clearly understood and firmly believed? Let contention rage for ever, if it can only be hushed into the silence of death,

Has controversy been avoided? Let the annals of the Church reply. It has raged there as much as if the articles had never existed, and on as many subjects. (f)

Connexion with temporal powers, is a scriptural sign of the apostacy. To this there can be no plea but guilty; nor is there any mode of considering it, in which it does not appear unfavourable to genuine religion. The notion of an Alliance was once prevalent, though it is not often advocated now. Can Church and State ever be independent parties, forming a contract? Does Christianity release its believers or priests from allegiance, and enable them to treat with their prince? There is much more sedition in that notion than in any Nonconformist heresy. If, as is the fact, we consider the Church as dependent upon, and patronized by the

1. Many will

State, what are the consequences? suspect the whole to be a political trick. Priests hired by the State are a standing army to keep down obnoxious opinions. Hence in most countries, where religion is established, there has been a large proportion of secret infidels among the higher and literary classes. 2. The preferred sect will not be selected on account of the purity or liberality of its creed, but of its fitness for the purpose of the Civil Governor. 3. The great

ends of public instruction will be too often neglected for sycophantic attendance on the great who dispose of Church honours. 4. The remuneration of the clergy will be oppressive and unequal; proportioned neither to labour nor merit. These and a thousand evils may and have resulted; and many of a political nature into which we cannot enter here. A privileged class is formed, among clergy and laity, enjoying peculiar rights and emoluments, and looking contemptuously on others, to the destruction of political equality, social harmony, and Christian liberality.

I shall only advert to three Church mysteries, by way of specimen. 1. Its Trinitarian Creed, falsely ascribed to Athanasius, which rivals any thing, and every thing in Popery, from which this forgery came, which is indeed a distilled essence of incomprehensibility. 2. The Lord's Supper. The 28th Art. declares this to be "not

only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ." To which the Catechism adds, that "the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper." What this means it is hard to say. It may not be quite transubstantiation : it is not further from that than from Christian simplicity. Baptism is the third mystery; by which the child is taught to declare (Catechism) that he was "made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ;" and of whom the priest declares (Baptismal Service), after he has sprinkled him in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that he is regenerate. This is either Is it not deplo

miracle, magic, or superstition. rable that professed ministers of Christ, parents, sponsors, babes, should be brought together in the house of God, to perform such scenes, in which they affix no meaning to what they do,

and believe in no reality, or else are under as

gross superstitions as those of the wildest of our enthusiastic sects?

The Romish practice of invoking saints is

disclaimed by the Church of England; but the worship of the Trinity is retained, and with it, of necessity, those representations of the Deity which are in our view so degrading.

The 1st article commences with a fine description of the Deity: "There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible." Compare this with such adorations as the following: (Litany :)" O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God: have mercy upon us, miserable sinners. Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance of our sins: spare us, Good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood-by the mystery of thy holy incarnation; by thy holy nativity and circumcision; by thy baptism, fasting, and temptation; by thine agony and bloody sweat; by thy cross and passion; by thy precious death and burial; by thy glorious resurrection and ascen sion."-And all this is addressed to GOD!

In Ordination, the Candidate must profess to be moved by the Holy Ghost; and the bishop, a frail, unauthorized mortal, pronounces-" Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office of a priest ;—whose sins thou forgivest, they shall be forgiven; whose sins thou retainest, they are retained; in the name