divine at this day is rather extraordinary. I can almoft fancy that the dial of Ahaz has once more gone back, and brought us to the time of Dr. Sacheverel, if not that of Archbishop Laud. But were 1, in my turn, to make an enumeration of the complicated mifchiefs that have arifen both to the cause of christianity, and the peace of fociety, from church eftablishments (but it would be digreffing too far from the object of this controversy to do it) it would foon appear that it was high time that this boafted alliance between the CHURCH and the STATE was entirely broken; as it has proved infinitely injurious to both the contracting parties, though occafionally useful to thofe churchmen and ftatesmen who, to ferve the purposes of their own ambition, had drawn the contract.

When I contemplate the dignity you affume as Archdeacon, and the high tone of your whole performance, fuperior to any thing on my fbelves, I wonder that you should profess any respect for tender confciences at all. I find, however, that the respect you profess for diffenters, is only for those who are favoured by the laws; fo that our obligations to you are not great; nor do you think there is any impropriety in the reftraints of human laws in matters of religion, only you would have them uted, p. 171. with gentleness and moderation. How far this gentleness and moderation would go, if you really thought the church in danger, I cannot tell. Jam, therefore, happy that you are so easy on that account, as you reprefent yourfelf, p. 8.

You

You are pleased, however, though in no perfect confiftence with what you say of the powers of the priesthood, as derived by fucceffion from the apoftles, to fay, p. 161. "You will remember that I make "the learning and the piety of her clergy, of which "ample monuments are extant, the bafis of her "pre-eminence." I have no difpofition to detract from the learning or the piety there may be among you; but as you celebrate your own praises, I will take the liberty to obferve, that, allowance being made for your fuperior numbers, and fuperior advantages, with refpect to conveniences for ftudy, from which, by a policy as weak as it is illiberal, you exclude diffenters (thinking, perhaps, to make us defpicable, by keeping us in ignorance) I do not think that the body of diffenting minifters, with all their disadvantages, need be afraid of a comparison with you; and candid perfons among the clergy have acknowledged the benefit you have derived from us; not to say that you are indebted to us for fome of your greatest ornaments, as Tillotfon, Butler,

and Secker.

In what you fay of Dr. Chandler (whofe infirmity, and I may add, whose misfortune, it was to pay too much court to leading men, both in the church and in the state) viz. that he preferred the church of England to any other establishment of christianity, p. 161. it would be no great compliment from me, if I fhould fay it after him. But I really cannot do it; and if I could adopt

your idea of the tranfmiffion of the powers of the priesthood from the apostles, and was to conform to any establishment, I should chufe to be member of a much older and more venerable establishment than yours, and in which the claim to that valuable fucceffion fhould be lefs liable to litigation.

As to yourself in particular, who are fo proud of being a churchman, it would have been happy for the public, and likewife a particular fatiffaction to myself, if you had had a greater fhare of that learning of which you think your church poffeffed. More information would then have been given to our readers by both of us; and at least I might have been able to fay, with the perfon who examined Dr. Clarke, Probe me exercuifti. All I can now fay is, that I have made fome use of your ignorance, though I fhould have made more of your knowledge, to throw light on the fubject of our difcuffion. My task has been much too eafy; but I would willingly have done more, if there had been any occafion for it, or indeed a propriety in it.

APPENDIX.

The first of the following paragraphs, which was to have been the laft of Letter VIII. P. 79, having been overlooked at the time of printing, I have thought proper to give it in this place, and to add to it all that follows.

DMITTING that the apoftles had taught

any doctrines of a peculiarly fublime naire, and above the comprehenfion of ordinary hriftians; yet, as all their teaching was in pubc, and there were no fecrets among them, nothing orresponding to the mysteries of the heathens, the ommon people must have heard of these subme things, and have been accustomed to the ound of the language in which they were exreffed; and they would have learned to refpect what they could not understand. They could ever have been offended, and ftaggered at things vhich they, and their fathers before them, had dways been in the hearing of.

Befides, this argument for the novelty of the doctrine of the trinity from the offence that was given

P

given by it, in the time of Tertullian, when, a far as I can find, the common people first heard of it; that this clafs of perfons were general unitarians before, and even after, the council of Nice, appears pretty clearly from several circumftances in the hiftory of those times. Befices, that we do not read of any of the laity being excommunicated along with Noetus, Paul of Samofata, or Photinus (though unitarians are acknowledged to have been in great numbers in their days, and to have been in communion with the catholic church) when the two laft were depofed from their fees, the comman people were their friends. After the bishops had depofed Paul of Samofata, he could not be expelled from the epifcopal houfe till the aid of the emperor Aurelian was called in, and he may be fuppofed to have been offended at him, for his having been in the intereft of his rival Zenobia. This could not have been neceffary, if the ma jority of his people had not been with him, and therefore, if his depofition had not, in fact, been unjust:

As to Photinus, he was fo popular in his diocefe, that his folemn depofition by three councils could not remove him from his fee. "He defended himself," fays Tillemont (Hiftory of the Arians, Vol. I. p. 116) " against the "authority of the church, by the affection which