positively admit that, at the present day, there are differences amongst themselves, even on the most important subjects?

But in what language shall we address him on the atrocious calumny cast upon "the great body of the present English Clergy;" a calumny upon their honesty and integrity; if, as he asserts, upon the authority of the Apostate Gibbon, they" sign the thirty-nine Articles with a sigh or a smile?" We trust there is no system prevalent amongst the Papal Priesthood, to blacken the characters of their opponents; and therefore are willing to believe that the quotation fell from Mr. B.'s pen in the ardour of his religious opinions; and content ourselves with positively denying the charge. And, although we could quote the authority of the sceptical Hume, for the small degree of assent which he asserts in Papal countries is given to Transubstantiation, and fortifies himself with two profane tales upon the subject, we will present Mr. B. with a quotation of greater authority, respecting the Priesthood of his Church. *

* Prideaux's Validity of the Orders of the Church of England, p. 122. 4to. London, 1688.

"How many have been made Priests and Bishops among them, who, in the administering of the Sacraments, have never intended at all to do thereby what the Church doth; but at the same time they have performed the outward acts, have inwardly in their hearts out of malice, wickedness, or infidelity, totally disregarded and contemned all that is meant or intended by them. For have not many of them, according to their own writers, been Atheists; many of them Sorcerers and Magicians; and many of such profligate lives and conversations as can never be supposed to have intended any thing at all of Religion in any of the acts of their function, which they have performed; but being, either by the road of their education, or the desire of enriching themselves by Church Preferment got into those Holy Offices; have gone on in the common track, to do as others did for the sake of the gain; while at the same time in their minds, they scoffed at and derided the whole Ministration. And how many, even of their Popes, according to their own Historians, have been such; whom they make the fountains from which, under Christ, all Priestly and Ecclesiastical power is derived: and if any impartial

man will read their lives, I doubt not to say he will certainly conclude the better half of them to be of this sort."

"And to add one consideration more, how many, since the rigour of the Inquisition hath been set up in Portugal, Spain and Italy, that have been Jews in reality, have for fear of the barbarous tyranny of that Tribunal, so far dissembled their Religion, the better to cloak it from discovery, have taken upon them not only the outward profession of Christianity, but the Orders of the Church also, and have become Priests and Bishops therein; as it is well known there have been several instances of it in those countries? And can you think that any of them could, either in the giving of Orders, or Administering of Baptism, ever have any intention of doing thereby what the Church doth? No; they ever are the greatest enemies of our Religion and all the Institutions of it, and always curse and abhor them, whenever under this mask they minister in any of them."

Mr. B. ought to have considered the pictures of the Clergy of his own Church drawn by His

tory, before he recorded any thing to vilify" the great body of the Clergy of the Church of England" and he ought also to have remembered that while the Scriptures were read, and the Public Service of our Church performed in a language which is understood by the People, it must be their own fault if men remain in ignorance of all that is necessary to Salvation: and whilst such a state of things has been brought about by the Reformation, England has certainly benefited in "Spiritual Wisdom" by that event, notwithstanding the untenable sophistry of the enemies of the rights of conscience and private judgment.

A question "Was the Reformation attended by a General Improvement in Morals?" is the most unfortunate for his cause which Mr. B. could possibly have asked. Although he fortifies his position with some absurd and hyperbolical quotations from different divines, chiefly foreign, whom he absurdly and with injustice calls the Patriarchs of our Church; we appeal to a comparison of the present morality of the English Nation, with that total absence of principle, that abandonment to voluptuousness and

sensuality, that disregard even to the outward forms of law, both human and divine, and, above all, with that spirit of uncharitableness evinced in the fiery persecutions, from which no party seems to have been free, and which no one can deny was prevalent in every country at the time of the Reformation. We appeal to the manners, laws, customs and institutions of foreign nations, and particularly those where obedience to the Church of Rome is unlimited. We appeal to the habits and ferocity of the Irish Peasantry, over whom their Priesthood possesses an unlimited influence, and are confident the advantage must lie on the side of that Protestant England, which Mr. B. thus dares to vilify!

Whether these general improvements be attributable to the Reformation or not, their existence is undeniable: they are facts which at least rebut the charge of our having gone back in our progress towards national happiness, since that most remarkable era. Mr. B.'s mistake however seems to arise, in these and some other of his questions in the same chapter, from considering the Reformed Doctrines as accountable for those violent measures and cruel contentions which