to fuffer imprisonment for a year and a day, and to pay a thousand pound fine; (that is, many hundred of pounds beyond the prisoner's utmost abilities) and to give fecurity for his good behaviour during life. Mr. Whifton's cafe is more univerfally known, and especially to your lordship, who is acquainted 'with his expulfion from his profforship, and from a lecture in Cambridge, and turned a starving with a wife and a numerous iffue. But ftill it may be faid that the opportunity is given to thefe enemies to fow the tares, notwithstanding thefe attempts: and accordingly beth these gentlemen write; and write fo well, that they have great weight with many that read them. If fines, imprifonments, and deprivations are not fufficient to put a stop to them, I fee not what can do it but greater extremities ftill, that is, death; which furely not any one principle of reafon, or any one doctrine of Jefus Chrift can justify.

Your lordship goes on thus: The Jews reckon they are forbid even by the law of Mofes to revile the gods of other nations which were · no gods: but that the Son of God, whom we ▪ and all Chriftendom adore as the God of our Salvation, fhould be reviled, trampled on, * and put to open fhame by thofe of our own 'nation,

nation, in contempt of the laws of the land,. as well as of God, uncontrouled, without any animadverfion-is unaccountable, both in • prudence and religion." p. 158.

The reader is here told (with what juftice your lordship will confider) that those whom your lordship is pleased to ftile Arians, revile, trample on, and put to open shame the Son of God. Whence fuch a charge could arife I cannot conceive. Do they revile, whom they adore? Do they trample on that person whom they daily praife? Do they put to open shame, him, whom they thank for his kindness, condefcenfion, love and benefits towards them? Surely this must appear very shocking, to say? that a man reviles the being whom he daily praises, and prays to; for whofe fake he daily fuffers, and is ready to undergo the feverest: trial that can be inflicted. What are the marks of love, of gratitude, and of the most profound refpect, if a readiness to submit to any temporal inconveniencies for any one's fake is deemed reviling and contempt? Should Mr. W. retort this charge on his adversaries,. and openly affert that in confequence of their fcheme, they revile and trample on the peerless majesty of the God and Father of all, fure I am, that every ferious chriftian would detesti the imputation, and think that religion fuf fered

H.5.

fered more from fuch uncharitable cenfures;. than it could do from the denial of any point, in which the Scriptures have determined. nothing clearly...

There is but one point more that I shall trouble your lordship with, and that is om account of the fuggeftion which your lordship has made, that thofe who are in authority have the real guilt of being partakers of other mens fins, if they do not provide a speedy remedy to the evils your lordship complains of; for, qui non prohibet, cum patest, jubet: P. 158.

That a juft and proper remedy ought to be applied to every real evil is readily acknowledged; and therefore I declared for the only remedy that appears to me to be confiftentwith reafon and with revelation; and I as heartily defire that every man may be brought to fee the errors of his ways, as your lord, hip does. But I hope I am not a partaker of another's fins, if I cannot come into a scheme of perfecution; or if I cannot but think that the only proper method of dealing with rea fonable men is conviction, and the preffing them with arguments from reason and revelation. This makes me admire at what your lordship alludes to, when you intimate that

there

there is not at present given to the proper champions of our faith an opportunity to refute and reclaim [men] from their errors, p. 158. Are the clergy, my lord, now refrained from fearching into Scripture, or from fearching: into antiquity, in order to find proper materials to refute any error? Are they restraind & from writing or from publishing their thoughts? Or what way of refuting and reclaiming men from error is prevented by his majesty? Trué it is, that Defender of the faith is not an empty title,' ibid. Yet permit me, my lord, to express my wishes, that if the faith can no way be defended. but by fines, imprisonments, or deaths, that it may ever continue an empty title. 'Tis better that that fhould be ab emp'y title, than that ever it fhould be maintained by that which is antichriftian; and which if profecuted by every crowned head, must make the chriftian world a fcene of blood and cruelty.

But by comparing what your lordship fays here, with what you have faid p. 156. 'tis eafy to fee that your lordfhip blames thos who are in authority, that do not advise his majefly to give the fathers and paftors of our church leave to freak for themselves, and indeed for the king. i. e. that the convocation hould determine this controversy. That 16 " Thas t

“That should be permitted to fit and act in tak"ing care of that flock of Chrift, of which "the Holy Ghoft has made them overfeers, and which the laws of the land have committed "to them," p. 156—7.

Before I confider the thing proposed by your lordship, I cannot but obferve, that your lordship in the former paffage wanted the convocation to REFUTE errors: here 'tis to fit and act. I think the ufual method in convocation is not to refute errors; 'tis not to convince mens judgments, or to produce reasons for what they do, but to determine the truth or falfhood of a notion authoritatively. Synodical affairs are always tranfacted in a judicial manner; whilft private perfons, i e. men in their private capacities, usually attempt to refute any error that happens to arise.

As to the method by your lordship propofed, that Thofe who are in authority are. partakers of other mens fins because they do not fuffer the convocation to fit and act, I will lay before your lordship the fentiments of two very great men, who have been reputed ornaments, the one of the antient church, the other of our own church.

The firft is, Gregory Nazianzen, that dear friend of Bafil. Many bishops being met at Conftantinople,