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 af 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 understanding 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? If to deny the right of private judgment be destructive of the nature of christianity in general, it is more remarkably so of the christianity of the reformed churches. The right of private judgment is the very foundation of the Reformation, and without establishing the former in the fullest sense, the latter can be nothing but a faction in the state, a schism in the church. The language of the reformers must be something like this when they proposed subscription. "Gentlemen, the right of private judgment allowed of God, and supported by all kinds of argument, hath been challenged and exercised by men for upwards of five thousand five hundred years; we ourselves have recovered it from the pope, who had unlawfully usurped this right, and as God, sat in the temple of God. In virtue of this right, we have examined the holy Scriptures, fixed their meaning, and engaged the king to support a creed, which by delegation we have composed for his Majesty, and for all his subjects. In us the right of private judgment ceases, and should England continue five thousand five hundred years longer, no man shall exercise this right without suffering all the penalties we can inflict. Indeed all Europe is but just emerging from barbarity, learning is but in its infancy, and England is torn and rent with civil dissensions. In all probability, peace may succeed war, learning may diffuse itself, and invigorate to maturity; and a hundred years hence men may arise infinitely more capable than we |