(though that is sometimes highly exclaimed against) but the enjoining of the thing that rer ders it offensive: and it appears from this case, that Dissenters will do that to please themselves which they will not do to please God; who hath enjoined us all to be at peace with one another, and to agree in his worship.

Sponsors in Baptism, and the signature of the Cross, are objected to. But the first is only a prudent provision, as a farther security for the child, if the parents should die, or be of such characters as renders them unfit for sponsors; which the child cannot help. The signature of the Cross can give no offence (as one should think) to any person who delights in the memory of the Cross itself. The purest ages of the Church used it on all occasions, particularly in exorcisms, which were antiently a part of Baptism, and there are some pretty clear intimations in the Scripture for the use of some signature on the forehead; and the first of all signatures is that of the Cross. For motives of worldly traffic, the Dutch, instead of preferring it to a place in their foreheads, trample it under their feet: and our Dissenters reject it from an affection to their schism. If the Papists are superabundant and superstitious in the use of the Cross, what is that to us? If they repeat the

Lord's

Lord's Prayer twenty times in an hour, are we not to repeat it all*?

9. It is farther objected to our Church, that the people have a right, an unalienable right, to chuse their own ministers; which with us they are not permitted to do.

As for the patriotic term unalienable, it is applied to the rights of nature, which are unalienable because they are inherent. But here, it can only mean, that the Dissenters

resolved not to part with it. the subject, I must lament

claim it. and are

On this On this part of with tears in my

eyes, the great abuses in the Church of England, in respect to patronage and admission into Church-livings. But in bad times, no regulations are sufficient to secure us from corruption; and even the very means appointed to keep out bad men, will let them in: for there are times, when persons of no conscience or character may act with impunity; and the worst of men are the most ready to play with all religious securities. That this case would be mended if the choice of ministers were always with the people, is by no means clear. For nothing is so common as for people to be divided in interests and affections

VOL. IV.

K.K

* See the use of the Signature of the Cross in Baptism, fully and learnedly vindicated in Bennet's Abridgment of the London Cases, chap. vi.`

tions on very unworthy motives; and thence many great and scandalous disturbances arise; and a parish is so divided into parties, that perhaps they do not come into humour again for some years. Besides; suppose a Socinian should have got possession of a pulpit, and preached the people (or a few of the most active, noisy, and cunning, who overbear all the rest) into heresy: whom would they chuse, but a Socinian, at the next vacancy? And would it not be much better that an Orthodox minister should be put upon them? If the people have this right, then all the people have it; and consequently a Socinian congregation have a right to chuse a Socinian minister. How the Scripture hath been handled, as to this affair of popular election, was noted in the Postscript to the Essay on the Church.

10. Though the Dissenters have no ministry by Succession, they make light of this defect, and think they are as well off as we are, because they say, our right of ordaining came down to us through the channel of Popery.

Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, in a Church, were no invention of Popery, nor is our suc cession any more affected by Popery, than the Apostles' Creed, which is also come down to us through the channel of Popery; and so is Canon

of

of the Scripture itself: yet we take the old Creed and the old Scriptures, and think them as good às ever. The Church of Rome is under such an opprobrium with Protestants, that it is a convenient bugbear, brought forward upon all occasions by those who want better argument, to frighten us out of our Church principles, and cover the weakness of their own innovations. But the succession of Church offices is no more affected by the errors of Popery, than a man's pedigree is affected by his bodily distemper, or the distempers of his parents; and if the man, by alteratives and restoratives, is cured with the blessing of God, he returns to the state of his purer ancestors of a remote generation. A self-originated upstart, who has been railing at him for things past, in which he had no share, may take his name, and claim his inheritance; but when his title comes to be examined, the true right will appear, and justice will take place.

If we trace the pedigree of the Church of England far enough backwards, we find a Christian Church of the Episcopal form in Britain, with an independent right and authority of its own, before Austin set his foot in the country, as the messenger of Rome. At the Reformation, this Church did but return to its original

K K 2

original rights, with an Episcopacy independent of the Pope, and enjoyed it for some years, with the general approbation of the people, and there was no such thing as a Presbyterian in the nation. It was approved and congratulated for its felicity by the reformed of other countries: and even Calvin and Beza then little thought that they should have any followers so mad, (I use their own word) as to reject such an Episcopacy as ours, which had freed itself from the usurpation of the Papacy. Calvin, in his Epistle to Cardinal Sadolet, said of those who should reject such an hierarchy, that he should think them, nullo non anathemate dignos, i. e. "that no curse could be too bad for them." Beża would not believe that any could reject the order of Bishops in a reformed Church. If there be such, said he, God forbid that any man in his wits should assent to the madness of those men*. And in the same Book †, speaking of the hierarchy of England and her Bishops, he says, Let her enjoy that singular blessing of God, which I wish may be perpetual to her. Such at that time were the sentiments of Bexa and Calvin; who afterwards found

it

* Ad Tract. de Minist. Evang. ab Hadr. Sarav. Edit. Belgo. c. i. + Chap. 18.