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verity; not the sophistry of the bar, but the sophistry of the church.

Did the great Supreme govern his empire by an act of uniformity, men might be damned for believing too little, seraphs degraded for believing too much. The creed of the inhabitants of Saturn might be established, and theirs that dwelt in the moon only tolerated. In such a case, what a fine field of controversial glory would open to the divines of these two provinces of the kingdom de origine mali. Almighty Father, can a blind belief please thee? Can thy creatures believe what they cannot perceive the evidence of? Can all understand the evidence of the same number of truths? Formed with different organs, educated in different prejudices, dost thou require the same services? Art thou indeed the hard master who reapest where thou hast not sowed? Far from all thy subjects be such a thought!

Conclude then, that if God be a rock, and his work perfect, if VARIETY be the characteristic of all his works, an attempt to establish UNIFORMITY is reversing and destroying all the Creator's glory. To attempt an uniformity of colour, sound, taste, smell, would be a fine undertaking; but what, pray, will you call an attempt to establish an UNIFORMITY OF THOUGHT?

You will say, christianity is not the religion of nature, but the religion of revelation; what therefore may seem absurd to philosophy, may be explained

by christianity. Perhaps the Founder of our holy religion may have established uniformity. If he has, uniformity may be a christian though not a philosophical idea. Well, this shall be inquired in the next letter.

ON THE

RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT.

FROM THE ARCANA.

You have often admired that Dedication to the Pope which is prefixed to a piece of Sir Richard Steele's, entitled An Account of the State of the Roman Catholic Religion throughout the World."Your Holiness," says the writer, "is not perhaps aware, how near the churches of us protestants have at length come to those privileges and perfections, which you boast of as peculiar to your own. The most sagacious persons have not been able to discover any other difference between us, as to the main principle of all doctrine, government, worship, and discipline, but this one, that you cannot err in any thing you determine, and we never do. That is, in other words, that you are infallible, and we always in the right. We cannot but esteem the advantage to be exceedingly on our side, in this case, because we have all the benefits of infallibility, without the absurdity of pretending to it, and without the uneasy

task of maintaining a point so shocking to the under'standing of mankind."* This is not a libel; this is a satire; the worst is, this satirical stroke is true. The church of Rome refuses the Scriptures to the people; some protestant churches grant the sight of the book, but retain the meaning. Can you see any difference? Search or not search, read or not read, the sense is fixed, it is at the peril of your preferment to vary.

Whence church governors pretend to derive this right does not signify. It can neither be derived from the nature of christianity, the doctrine or practice of Christ or his Apostles, the condition of man in a state of nature, his condition as a member of society subject to magistracy, nor indeed in England from any thing but the act of supremacy; an act which transferred a power over men's consciences from the pope to the king. His Majesty Henry the VIIIth, by a master stroke in politics, preferred an indictment against the whole body of the clergy in Westminster Hall, and obtained judgment upon the statute of præmunire, whereby they were all declared to be out of the king's protection, and to have forfeited all their goods and chattels ; and then pardoned them on two conditions; first, that they should pay into the exchequer £118,840. Secondly, that they

* [The curious Dedication, from which these words are quoted, was written by Hoadly. See the whole article in the present Collection, Vol. i. p. 255. ED.]

should yield his Majesty the title of sole and supreme head of the church of England; a title which by subsequent declarations was so explained, as to annihilate the right of private judgment, and yet private judgment gave birth to this very act.

Suppose his Majesty Harry the VIIIth, exercising the authority allowed by the act of supremacy, and among other things forming a creed for his subjects; suppose him a man of shallow capacity; would not his creed have been too lean and poor for many of his subjects? And on the contrary, suppose him a man of an exalted genius, of a prodigious stretch of thought; would not his creed have been too rich and full for many more? But the impossibility of exercising such a power was discussed in the last letter; this is to canvass the legality of it.

No mean can be lawful in itself which destroys the end for which it is appointed. Now the end to be obtained is the establishment of christianity. But how can the depriving men of the right of private judgment be a lawful mean of obtaining that end, seeing christianity is a personal obedience to the laws of Christ arising from a conviction of their excellency, and their connexion with certain facts of whose certainty evidence is given, which evidence to be received must be examined? Christianity proposes truths of speculation and truths of practice; if men can examine and ascertain the first by proxy, why not obey the last in the same manner? But who can love or fear, believe or hope, by substitution?

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