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PREFACE.

IN submitting the following pages to the public, there is no occasion, I conceive, to make a very comprehensive preface, as the reader will find so many of my views apologized for, when he comes to the Ecclesiastical Canons. My principal object is to show, that, with whatever defects the Church, as at present constituted, may be charged, it is capable of being made subservient to the best purposes, both spiritual and temporal, in the hope that "those who are given to change" (Proverbs xxiv. 21,) may be inclined to confine themselves to legitimate change, that is, reform, without retaining any hankering, if they have really felt any, for subversion under the mask of the word "reform." I address myself to Christians; for it is contrary to all our experience of human nature, to suppose that infidels (of which there are too many) can use the word reform in a candid spirit. Here I will mention a line of argument frequently adopted, by, among others, the editor of the Examiner, whom I mention by name, presuming that he is a Christian, consequently sincere, and because no editor excels him in abilities of the highest order, however a few may equal him. He argues, first, from several passages in the New Testament, that large church temporalities are unscriptural. If he is right, any temporalities at all are wrong, beyond enough to procure " food and raiment;" and therefore he was inconsistent, a year or two ago, in his proposed scale of stipends, I forget exactly what, except one item of £1500 a year to the primate; and, secondly, he, sitting down in his "fine linen" shirt, writes as if the parable of the rich man and

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