It was, perhaps, with little less than a prophetic spirit that a very learned and worthy prelate has expressed his wish,---"That something was " done to convince the world that the clergy of "the church are not averse to a reformation of

some parts of her public service; since, other"wise, they may give offence by their obstinacy " and seeming infallibility; and, if a storm should "arise, may run a risk of having the tree torn up " by the roots, which they might have saved by a little pruning."*

The period, my lords, is approaching in which the angel is commanded to thrust in his sharp sickle, and to gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, (i. e. of the mundane, or worldly church,) because her grapes are fully ripe. A disposition seems moving in all nations around us, in nations where it could least have been expected to appear, to scrutinize and retrench the exorbitant claims and revenues of the church, and to demand some of the immense superfluous wealth of that oppulent ally for the pressing exigencies of the state. And if, in countries where popery reigns in all its rigor, these retrenchments are made; what may not justly be expected in our own, where dissoluteness and want of principle (as the pious Archbishop above observes) spread widely among the higher ranks, whilst the lower are divided into numerous sects, not zealously attached to the pomp of the established worship; and whilst the emissaries from Rome are seducing thousands into their tents, all whose power and cunning will be exerted to the utmost, on the least inviting occasion, to demolish the fortress whose artillery hath severely galled them, and upon whose ruins they hope again to raise their exploded superstition to its ancient grandeur.

*

Effay on Spirit, preface, page 53. + Rev. xiv. 14...

:

Is there any way more likely to procure a lengthening of tranquillity than, as the prophet advises, to break off iniquity by righteousness, to correct mistakes, to supply deficiencies, to remove the rocks upon which the integrity of thousands hath been miserably wrecked, to demolish separating walls, and to extend the arms of the church as wide as those of Christ and the apostles were extended. That church alone, which is built upon this catholic and wide bottom, is likely to stand firm and to sustain the shock of rising storms.

Having trespassed, I fear, too much upon your lordships patience already, I shall proceed no farther than to remind you, that, as your lordships have the glory of standing in the first rank of the defenders of our holy faith, and many learned men of your body have, with irresistible force pleaded the cause of christianity against its avowed enemies, so there is a service, yet behind, to which God, your country, end the interest of religion, seem loudly to call you forth. Christianity, my lords, lies bleeding of the wounds it hath received in the house of its friends; wounds by far the most dangerous of any under which it suffers: there are none more able than your lordships to apply a healing hand. The high reverence and esteem in which your lordships are held by all ranks of the clergy, and the influence you are possessed of in the legislature, will give a weight and success to any salutary counsels your lordships may propose, which cannot so easily be obtained from any other quarter. Through the favour of heaven, we are blessed with a government which, there is reason to believe, needsonly to be petitioned by those who have the administration of spiritual affairs, to ease them of any grievances, to supply any defects, and to alter or reform whatever, in the present system, may need to be reformed.

Many of your predecessors, my lords, have been so penetrated by the love of truth, so devoted to what they believed to be the genuine doctrines of christianity, that they suffered bonds, imprisonment, and even a tormenting death itself, rather than support, by their influence or example, the cause of superstition and error. But your lot, my lords, is cast in much happier times. You are so favourably circumstanced, that you have it in your power to forward the reformation of those corruptions in the English church which the wisest of your body presume not to defend; and, at the same time, you may preserve your temporal emoluments, recover your declining influence in the christian church, give peace to thousands of sincere, but at present aggrieved and offended christians, enlarge and be enabled triumphantly to defend the catholic ground upon which alone the reformation can possibly be defended; and, in short, may cause yourselves to be considered by the present, and honoured and revered by future generations, as the illustrious friends of genuine and uncorrupted religion, of liberty, and of truth.

But permit me, my lords, to remind you, that these advantages, even great as they are, vanish into nothing, when compared with the future glorious recompence which will await every sinecre friend to the interest of pure and undefiled religion, as it is delivered in the gospel of Jesus.

You, my lords, are all hastening, and some of you very near to the invisible and eternal state. It must sometimes, surely, affect your minds in the hours of calm meditation, that you are to appear (stripped of every present flattering distinction) before Jesus Christ the supreme pastor and king of the church, in a character more peculiar, I might say more responsible, than that of other men. Can it be forgotten, that such extensive powers,---such distinguished privileges. in this life,---must be strictly accounted for in

the next?

That your lordshipsmay have the unspeakable satisfaction in life, the consolation at death, and the glory in a future state, of having exerted, with all the resolution and zeal of christian bishops, the great powers of which you are possessed:---that, when your Lordships shall soon stand (as it must, my lords, be very soon) before the supreme pastor, to render an account of your high station in his church, it may appear, to your everlasting honour, that you were ready not to risk only, but even to sacrifice every worldly interest, in order to rescue the christian name from the reproach you saw it suffer, prays with great sincerity,

My Lords,

Your Lordships

Most obedient, &c.

A CHRISTIAN.

DR.

POSTSCRIPT.

R. Stebbing, in his late instructions of a parish-minister, Part II. owns,---That the doctrine of sacerdotal absolution has no foundation in scripture:---"That some of the methods, prac"tised in the primitive church, with regard to " restoring penitents, had very much the air of "a farce; that, for the first thousand years, the "forms of absolution ran all in the form of a

prayer, and not in the form of a peremptory "definitive sentence, as it now stands in the po"pish forms, and in one of our own forms from "them (the visitation of the sick.) The popish "form of ordination also," the learned doctor observes, " is retained in the church of England. "These two forms are relative to each other, and "cannot stand separately; for, the one conveys "the power which the other exerciseth, and they " are novelties alike, and it is very much to be "wished that they were both properly altered. "Dissenters would find less matter for censure, " and infidels for profane raillery."

"The late bishop Bull (he says) who was one " of the ablest scholars, the staunchest church"men, and the best christians of his time, when "he was upon his death-bed, refused to have this "form read; and ordered the minister that at"tended him, to use that form which stands in "the office for the holy communion in its stead." The worthy Doctor "freely blames those who grasp at the shadow of an authority which, in "truth and substance, we must all renounce.

"