congregations in the town, who do not consider themselves as freed from the obligation of "remembering the sabbath-day, to keep it holy," members of this Society. You have therefore given the congregation in Castle-street an exclusive honour, to which they have neither a right nor a desire to lay claim. Many respectable and valuable characters from that body of Christians became members of this Society for the suppression of vice, while others among them, from principle, declined it. You represent the Society as a tolerated sect, acting against the members of the Established Church. While this is an absolute falsehood, in relation to the Society, is it not, at the same time, a libel on the Established Church and her members? For have you not here, Sir, classed all the sabbath-breakers in the Establishment, and considered the tolerated sect as the only persons who pay any regard to the Lord's-day? But I must check myself-you do not like the term, Lord's-day. You say, the Sabbatarians* affect to call Sunday the Lord's-day; and again, you assert that the Dissenters, after the Reformation, began to call it the Sabbath, and that since that, modern sectaries have gone a step further, calling it the Lord's-day. But have you not here libelled our

* There are no Sabbatarians in Reading. This is a body of Christians who observe the seventh day, or Saturday, as the sabbath; and who are to be found principally, if not entirely, in the Baptist denomination.

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legislators, by classing them with sectaries? For
do they not, in all their public acts, universally
term Sunday the Lord's-day? You farther assert,
that the observers of the sabbath "do not pretend
to bring any proofs from Scripture in support of
their system, but content themselves with quoting
obsolete acts of parliament." The former part of
this assertion is an untruth, as may be seen by the
publications of the Society, as well as by docu-
ments which may be found in an appendix* to
this work; while the latter part is a libel on the
Constitution; for is it not such, to denominate
laws which are constantly acted upon by our ma-
gistrates and judges, obsolete acts of parliament?
Nay, I ask whether you have not virtually libelled
our gracious sovereign himself? For you neces-
sarily consider his proclamation as nugatory, or
class it with obsolete acts of parliament; while
also the ridicule which you have thrown upon the
Reading Methodists for calling Sunday the Lord's-
day, must with equal force fall upon the person
of the SOVEREIGN OF BRITAIN. I quote his Majesty's
own words, and leave my readers to judge.
"We do hereby strictly enjoin and prohibit all
our loving subjects, of what degree or quality
soever, from playing on the Lord's-day at dice,
cards, or any other game whatsoever, either in
public or private houses, or other place or places
whatsoever; and we do hereby require and com-
* See Appendix, No. II.

mand them, and every of them, decently and reverently to attend the worship of God on the Lord'sday, on pain of our highest displeasure, and of be ing proceeded against with the utmost rigour that may be by law.... ... And we do hereby strictly charge and command all our judges, mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and all other our officers and ministers, both ecclesiastical and civil, and all other our subjects, to be very vigilant and strict in the discovery and the effectual prosecution and punishment of all persons who shall be guilty of the profanation of the Lord's-day........ and to put in execution the statute made in the twentyninth year of the reign of the late King Charles II. intituled, An Act for the better Observation of the Lord's-day, commonly called Sunday. . . . .

and also an act passed in the twenty-first year of our reign, intituled, An Act for preventing certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's-day, called Sunday...

The above extracts from his Majesty's proclamation, published in the year 1787, and commanded to be read four times a-year in all our churches, is a direct refutation of your attack on the Reading Society, and all that you have asserted in opposition to it, as well as a most striking comment on your correct and sage remarks on the Lord's-day, &c. &c. In consequence of this proclamation, a society was formed in London, in the year 1788, called the Proclamation Society, for

the purpose of enforcing it; and if it be not a defence of the societies in general formed for the suppression of vice, I am totally incapable of understanding the plainest language that can be penned.

Will not many of your readers, when they see your observations on the Lord's-day, conclude that you would have made an excellent advocate for promoting the purpose of the revolutionary legislators of France, when they passed a law for abolishing the Christian sabbath, and instituting in its stead the deistical decade ?

In

your further remarks on the Reading Society, you assert that informations were soon laid, and the offending parties fined. This is another untruth. No party was ever fined; nor was any information ever accepted by the magistrates, or formally laid by the members of the Society. In a quotation, (the sense of which you have unwarrantably altered by your Italics,) taken from a letter written by the Committee to the attorney whose integrity you so highly commend for refusing to undertake the causes of the Society, you draw an illogical inference, and assert that the passage "evidently implies, that if, in the judgment of the Society, they should think the magistrate remiss in his duty, it would be their duty to remind him of it by a civil process." You may be assured, Sir, on the very best authority that you possibly can receive on the subject, that the

passage implied no such consequence. It was a mere expression of hope, that a magistrate of Reading would never act in a manner that would occasion such a discussion as that alluded to; without any reference to the consequences. Will you, Sir, never cease to calumniate? So far from purposing to remind the magistrate of his duty by a civil process, the Reading Society desisted from its intended operations, merely because the magi strates in general, though not without exception, discountenanced their proceedings. I speak neither by way of defending nor of blaming the Society; but merely to state truth in opposition to error. My own sentiments undoubtedly coincide with those of some others, who thought that when the magistrates manifested disapprobation towards the plan and intentions of the Society, the latter, without continuing to court the positive approbation of the former, should have continued to exercise towards their persons and office that respect which is their just due, and have brought before them their cases for judgment. On this plan the Society would not so easily have failed in their operations. Their mistake undoubtedly arose from a too earnest desire of obtaining the magistrates' positive approbation and co-operation. Could these have been procured, a desirable end would undoubtedly have been obtained; but as they could not, the path of the Society ought, in my opinion, to have been according to the direc

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