shall preach, without applying to your church, or the church of Rome, for holy orders; and I shall think my conventicle as reputable a place for preaching as any of your churches; though you, p. 169, think it arrogant in me to make the comparison between them.

V.

I can hardly believe that I am living in the close of the eighteenth century, when I read what you say in this publication concerning the dignity and the power of the priesthood, derived by regular succession, p. 171, from the apostles, and of course through the Popes, and find that you seriously disallow of my authority to exercise the sacred function, &c. As a curiosity, in the year 1784, I am tempted to give my reader a pretty long extract from your work on this subject. After enumerating the mischiefs that you say, p. 170, you have seen in your own country, in the course of your own life, you add, "When I consider that the root of all those evils has been the prevalency of a principle, of which you seem disposed to be an ad. vocate, that every man who has credit enough to collect a congregation has á right, over which the magistrate cannot without tyranny exercise controul, to celebrate divine worship, according to his own form, and to propagate his own opinions; I am inclined to be jealous of a principle which has proved, I had almost said, so ruinous; and I lean the more to the opinion, that the commission of a ministry, perpetuated by regular succession, is something more than a dream of cloystered gownsmen, or a tale imposed upon the vulgar, to serve the ends of avarice and ambition. For whatever confusion human folly may admit, a divine institution must have

within itself a provision for harmony and order. And, upon those principles, though I wish that all indulgence should be shown to tender consciences, and will ever be an advocate for the largest toleration that may bẹ consistent with political wisdom (being indeed persuaded that the restraints of human laws must be used with the greatest gentleness and moderation to be rendered means of strengthening the bonds of christian peace and amity) yet I could wish to plant á principle of severe restraint in the consciences of men. I could wish that the importance of the ministerial office were considered, that the practice of antiquity were regarded, and that it might not seem a matter of perfect indifference to the laity, to what house of worship they resort. I cannot admit that every assembly of grave and virtuous men, in which grave and virtuous men take upon them to officiate, is to be dignified with the appellation of a church," &c.

That these doctrines, which will justify all the violence of the church of Rome, and which condemn the reformation, should be maintained by a protestant divine at this day is rather extraordinary. I can almost fancy that the dial of Ahaz has once more gone back, and brought us to the time of Dr. Sacheverel, if not that of Archbishop Laud. But were I, in my turn, to make an enumeration of the complicated mischiefs that have arisen both to the cause of christianity, and the peace of society, from church establishments (but it would be digressing too far from the object of this controversy to do it) it would soon appear that it was high time that this boasted alliance between the CHURCH and the STATE was entirely broken; as it has proved infinitely injurious to both the contracting parties, though occasionally useful to those churchmen and statesmen who,

to serve the purposes of their own ambition, had drawn the contract.

When I contemplate the dignity you assume as Archdeacon, and the high tone of your whole performance, superior to any thing on my shelves, I wonder that you should profess any respect for tender consciences at all. I find, however, that the respect you profess for dissenters is only for those who are favoured by the laws; so that our obligations to you are not great'; nor do you think there is any impropriety in the restraints of human laws in matters of religion, only you would have them used, p. 171, with gentleness and moderation. How far this gentleness and moderation would go, if you really thought the church in danger, I cannot tell. I am, therefore, happy that you are so easy on that account, as you represent yourself, p. 8.

You are pleased, however, though in no perfect consistence with what you say of the powers of the priesthood, as derived by succession from the apostles, to say, p. 161, "You will remember that I make the learning and the piety of her clergy, of which ample monuments are extant, the basis of her pre-eminence." I have no disposition to detract from the learning or the piety there may be among you; but as you celebrate your own praises, I will take the liberty to observe, that, allowance being made for your superior numbers and superior advantages, with respect to conveniences for study, from which, by a policy as weak as it is illiberal, you exclude dissenters, (thinking, perhaps, to make us despicable, by keeping us in ignorance,) I do not think that the body of dissenting ministers, with all their disadvantages, need be afraid of a comparison with you; and candid persons among the clergy have acknowledged the benefit you have

derived from us; not to say that you are indebted to us for some of your greatest ornaments, as Tillotson, Butler, and Secker.

In what you say of Dr. Chandler (whose infirmity, and I may add whose misfortune, it was to pay too much court to leading men both in the church and in the state), viz. that he preferred the church of England to any other establishment of christianity, p. 161, it would be no great compliment from me if I should say it after him. But I really cannot do it; and if I could adopt your idea of the transmission of the powers of the priesthood from the apostles, and was to conform to any establishment, I should choose to be member of a much older and more venerable establishment than yours, and in which the claim to that valuable succession should be less liable to litigation.

As to yourself in particular, who are so proud of being a churchman, it would have been happy for the public, and likewise a particular satisfaction to myself, if you had had a greater share of that learning of which you think your church possessed. More information would then have been given to our readers by both of us; and at least I might have been able to say with the person who examined Dr. Clarke, Probe me exercuisti. All I can now say is, that I have made some use of your ignorance, though I should have made more of your knowledge, to throw light on the subject of our discussion. My task has been much too easy; but I would willingly have done more if there had been any occasion for it, or indeed a propriety in it.

I am, Sir, your very humble servant,
J. PRIESTLEY.

BIRMINGHAM, September, 1784.

APPENDIX.

The first of the following Paragraphs, which was to have been the last of Letter VIII. p. 232, having been overlooked at the Time of printing, I have thought proper to give it in this place, and to add to it all that follows.

ADMITTING that the apostles had taught any doctrines of a peculiarly sublime nature, and above the comprehension of ordinary christians; yet as all their teaching was in public, and there were no secrets among them, nothing corresponding to the mysteries of the heathens, the common people must have heard of these sublime things, and have been accustomed to the sound of the language in which they were expressed; and they would have learned to respect what they could not understand. They could never have been offended and staggered at things which they and their fathers before them had always been in the hearing of.

Besides this argument for the novelty of the doctrine of the trinity, from the offence that was given by it in the time of Tertullian, when, as far as I can find, the common people first heard of it; that this class of persons were generally unitarians before and even after the council of Nice, appears pretty clearly from several circumstances in the history of those times. Besides, that we do not read of any of the laity being excommunicated along with Noetus, Paul of Samosata, or

Z