reconcile myself. Those of course, I either altered or omitted, and some passages of the Nicene Creed being of that kind, I was exceedingly provoked and irritated one Sunday morning at receiving a most impertinent, insolent Mandate in writing, signed by the town-clerk and some others of the Corporation, ordering une, as if I had been their menial servant, to repeat DISTINCTLY every word of the Nicene Creed. **** I hastily resolved to bid the clerk, if I stopped in that creed, to proceed with it himself." He says this happened but once; one Sunday Morning." What happened? that he bid the parish-clerk go on without him; but he admits that before this, he used to alter or omit certain passages. Would the weak man avail himself of poor equivocations like this? Driven to miserable shifts, even these cannot serve his purpose. Before service commenced on that particular Sunday morning. in which he bid the clerk proceed without him, he receiv ed a written requisition to repeat every word of the Nicene Creed DISTINCTLY; which proves that he had read it indistinctly on former occasions; and would he have us infer that he never pretended to read, when he did not read, nor make use of any trick to induce the good folks of Tewkesbury, in the simplicity of their hearts, to think that he was reading that Creed, whilst he was mangling it. What could induce my sensible deceased relation, the late Mr. Martin, Town-clerk of Tewkesbury, AN ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN, to sign with others of the Corporation such a paper, if the minister had not previously been a delinquent?-Now look at the pitiful contrivance of Mr. Evanson to keep his preferment and salve his tender conscience. The Nicene Creed may be sung or said in Cathedrals it is chaunted by the choir, the officiating minister only beginning the first words." Was the Nicene Creed sung, then, in Tewkesbury Church? Nay it was read: and if the minister did not read the whole of it, he was guilty of a scandalous omission.

I said, (O. C. M. Jan. p. 47.) that Mr. Evanson tried many miserable expedients to keep his parish, and hug his heresy at the same time.-Here, too, he confesses the charge. He tells you he determined to assign the morning duty at Tewkesbury to his curate, and to officiate at his other living himself. If he thought it wrong to repeat certain passages in the Liturgy in his own person, how could he put his curate upon that duty! If he thought it damuable, why should he expose his curate to the con

sequences

sequences of the judgment. Yet after all;-his curatè doing it, whilst he himself derived emolument from the act; he did it himself in the contemplation of equity, qui facit per alium, facit per se, as my good Lord Kenyon used to observe. No, he put his curate upon doing it, that he might keep his parish and hug his heresy at the same time. And pray how was the duty performed at his other living of Longdon, whilst he was afraid to face my relation and the other adherents to Orthodoxy at Tewkesbury. Did the parish clerk follow instructions kindly, at Longdon? Did the parishoners there detect those alterations and omissions which had given such just offence in the corporation ?

In 1773, a prosecution was commenced against this Impugner of the Church as a true and Apostolical Church, the public worship, the articles, the rites, and ceremonies of the church of England; against this revolter after subscription, this contemner, or at least evader, of the Rubric; and it continued for several years. Gentlemen, who was the defendant? was it not Mr. Evanson? Who was it that protracted it by every expedient that could be derived? Was it not the same ingenuous Mr. Evanson? And does he now pretend to talk of resigning both his livings; as if his resignation had been an act of pure spontaneity? Nay, verily, after having clung to his preferment, with the most obstinate pertinacity," for several years, after having made himself odious at Tewkesbury, after having pronounced the Orthodox doctrines of the church of England (as he himself admits, p. 259, habetis iterum confitentem reum,) to be "not Doctrines of the Apostles, but of the apostate Church of the Apocalypse, he resigned his livings I think, because to hold them any longer exceeded his own assurance.

This abuser of the church, this man who cuts down scripture according to his own fancy, who charges antiquity with forgery, and modern times with folly, calls honest Jonathan Drapier's animadversions upon his conduct, a scurrilous attack upon his moral character. Truly Jonathan is proud of being abused in such good company as the Catholic Church of Christ, of which he deems himself the humblest member. No, Mr. Evanson, as to your moral principles, mend them as fast as you can; I have given a specimen or two of them in this letter, of which the common sense of all men can take cognizance; and I think all men will be of one opinion respecting

them;

them; saving and excepting always the members of that miserable conventicle (as the Bishop of St. Asaph, then Archdeacon of St. Albans, once called it) in Essex Street. As to scurrility—I call a spade a spade; if my antagonist be offended, let him improve his manners and reform his opinions, and then Jonathan will try to say as many civil things of him as he can. Till then, J. D. will never compromise with Heresy. I dare say, Herod did not like to be called a For, nor the complotting members of the Sanhedrim, serpents; nor Elymas, a child of the Devil; nor Simon Magus to be told, that he was in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity; I warrant you, Cerinthus impeached mightily the want of liberality in St. John, when he leaped out of the bath non lotus, seeing that Heretic in it; and I make no doubt the Heretics of all ages have thought the censures of the church illiberal, and the remonstrances of the Orthodor rude; Jonathan Drapier, however, cannot, to soothe heretical error, soften his language. If a man, at his counter, shall offer him false mouey, he will collar him without hesitation, and deliver him to the magistrate; and if a partizan of Heterodoxy shall defile your pages with false doctrine, he will expose the culprit at the bar of the public. Never will J. D. prostitute to an heretic the language due to a Martyr,

Fit is not inconsistent with your plan, I shall think myself much favoured by your inserting the following observations; which are seriously intended to confirm those whose minds are not satisfied, and to lay at rest the controversy

troversy respecting the Living of Critchill, in the county of Dorset, which has been carried on with much asperity, not to say with indecency.-I must take it for granted, that the Rev. Mr. Marsh has, hitherto, held the consolidated living of Critchill for the Rev. Wm. Sturt's nomination, notwithstanding that it has been asserted, by one of Mr. Sturt's family, that Mr. Marsh received the presentation from Mrs. Sturt, the patroness, upon the con, dition of resigning it absolutely, at the expiration of two years. That a clergyman should hold a living at the will of the patron, is almost an absolute impossibility; if it were possible, it is a doctrine the most pernicious, and never to be tolerated. It is, therefore, evident that Mr. Marsh has, hitherto, held the living of Critchill for the Rev. William Sturt.-I will now make a few observations on the nature of holding livings for minors. It ap pears to me, that holding livings for minors is purely an indulgence on the part of the bishops. That the person, for whom any particular living is designed, might not be deprived of his prospects in life, merely because he wants a few years only of the age required, the living is in the mean time, put into the hands of a clergyman approved by the patron and the bishop of the diocese, till the minor has completed the full number of years, and is in all other prospects found qualified to take upon him the important charge of the care of souls. For, let us not think, as Mr. Bingham in his reply seems to think, that the bishop has only to enquire if the candidate be of a proper age to hold a living; neither let us look on livings in general, in so temporal a light as Mr. Bingham is disposed. Mr. Bingham in some parts of his pamphJet, considers a living as an estate held for a term of years; he in effect, says to the tenant, your lease is expired, you must instantly quit these premises. In one sense, indeed, a living is an estate held for a term, but, surely, it is infinitely more than that; it is the most serious of all human undertakings, and when properly executed, the most ornamental to the character of a man. If livings were always considered and treated with that seriousness which they deserve, the incumbents themselves would be, I am confident, looked on in a more respectable light, and patron's would not abuse their privilege in that disgraceful manner in which they do at present. I máy now conclude that Mr. Marsh has held the living of Critchill for the Rev, Wur. Sturt, and not for the patron

ess,

ess, that Mr. Sturt has arrived at the age required, and that Mrs. Sturt has called on Mr. Marsh to make room for her son: I will also assert that Mr. Marsh has tendered his resignation to him, who is the proper person to receive it, that is, the bishop of the diocese, and that, in so doing, Mr. Marsh has done as much as could be required of the most conscientious man. But, says Mr. Bingham, many others say the same, if Mr. Marsh has resigned, why does he not prepare to quit the house, &c. Surely, Mr. Bingham cannot require to be informed, that a resignation is no resignation until it is accepted; and as the bishop is evidently the acceptor, he very properly says to the person who tenders his resignation, "I cannot allow of your quitting this living, until I have ascertained that the clergyman who is to be your successor, is duly qualified." Surely Mr. Bingham cannot require to be informed, that a clergyman may be refused admission to, and, when in possession, may be dismissed from a benefice, in consequence of improper conduct, but at no time, can a clergyman capriciously vacate a living; it must be done with the approbation of the bishop. In the present instance, Mr. Sturt has really, in consequence of Mr. Marsh's resignation, tendered his credentials to the bishop, and they have been rejected as insufficient. No case, surely, can be clearer than this. The bishop's testimony to Mr. Marsh's conduct is most satisfactory. Let us then be no longer unsettled by the assertion, that Mr. Marsh has deprived Mr. Sturt of his subsistence. Mr. Sturt may assure himself that, as soon as he can prove himself fit to hold a living, the preferment will not be withholden from him; and may be, at all times, conduct himself with that exact propriety which eminently distinguishes the present incumbent.

May 6th, 1805.

A FRIEND TO BOTH PARTIES.

ANECDOTES.

KING CHARLES the First.

HIS excellent monarch was most rudely and barbarously insulted by the puritanical ministers wherever

they