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placid now, and I take my leave of this goddess, and also of the godly translator, who profaned a jewish fast by nick naming it after a pagan prostitute, and laid the blame on innocent St. Luke.

The established clergy do not pretend to support their festivals by authority of scripture; but they say their legal authority arises from that act of parliament which ratified the thirty nine articles of their faith, one of which affirms, the CHURCH hath power to decree rites ond ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith. This clause is said by them to mean, that the " governors of the church have power to determine what shall be received and professed for truth among the members of the church, and to bind them to submission to their sentence, though they err in their sentence." These are their own words.

These thirty-nine articles were first produced in a convocation of the clergy in the year 1562they were reviewed by another convocation in 1571-and were afterwards ratified by parliament. It is an unquestionable fact, that the religion of all the good people of the church of England was, in 1562, put to the vote of one hundred and seventeen priests, many of whom could hardly write their names, and several of whom were not present, and voted by proxy, and that ceremonies and holidays were carried by a majority of one single vote, and that given by proxy. Whether the absent member, who had the casting vote, were talking, or journeying, or hunting, or sleeping, is immaterial, he was the God Almighty of this article

of English religion, and his power decreed rites and ceremonies, and matters of high behest.

The insertion of the above clause of the CHURCH'S power in the twentieth article was an infamous piece of priestcraft. It is not in king Edward's articles. It is not in the original manuscripts subscribed by the convocation, and still preserved in Bene't college, Cambridge, among the papers of bishop Parker, who was president of the assembly.

It was not in the printed book ratified by parliament-It was not in the latin translations of those times nor did it dare to shew itself till twenty-two years after, as Heylin, and other high

churchmen allow.

Subscription to this clause is mere mummery; for what does it mean! The church power to decree rites and ceremonies! An absolute falshood. One person in this church, and one person only hath power to decree rites and ceremonies: the common people pretend to none. The clergy have introduced organs-pictures-candles on the communion table-bowing towards the east-and placing the communion table altar-wise: but they had no right to do so: for as the Common Prayer book no where enjoins them, they are expressly prohibited by the act of uniformity, which says no rites or ceremonies shall be used in any churchother than what is prescribed and APPOINTED to be used in and by the Common Prayer book. By what effrontery does a priest allow organs in pub lic worship, after he has subscribed to the truth of an homily, which declares them superstitious! Or

with what presumption does he dare, in direct op position to act of parliament, to invade a prerogative that belongs to the crown! Neither a convocation, nor an house of commons, nor an house of lords, nor all together have a power to decree rites, ceremonies, and articles of faith in the established church of England; the constitution has confirmed it as a royal prerogative, and annexed it to the imperial crown of this realm.

In former times our kings ceded this prerogative to the pope; at the reformation they reclaimed it; and long after the reformation they refused to suffer the other branches of the legislature to examine, or to meddle with it; but in later times this prerogative was bounded, and now it is restrained to the national established church. By the act of toleration the crown agreed to resign, and in effect it did actually resign this prerogative in regard to the nonconformists, and this cession is become a part of the constitution by the authority of the whole legislative power of the British empire. The mode of restraint, indeed, is not so explicit as it might have been; but the fact is undeniable.

The English nonconformists think civil government, natural, necessary, and of divine appointment -they suppose the form of it arbitrary, and left to the free choice of all nations under heaven: they believe the form of mixt monarchy to be the best; but were they in Venice they would yield civil obedience to aristocracy; in Holland to a republic, or in Spain to an absolute monarchy; the best mode of civil government making no part of their religion.-They

think in all states impliedly, and in the British most expressly, there subsists an original contract between the prince and the people-they believe the limitation of regal prerogative by bounds so certain, that it is impossible a prince should ever exceed them without the consent of the people, one of the principal bulwarks of civil liberty :-they think there are ordinary courses of law clearly established, and not to be disobeyed, and they believe there are extraordinary recourses to first principles, necessary when the contracts of society are in danger of dissolution-they think these principles alone are the basis of prerogative and liberty, of the king's title to the crown, and of that freedom which they enjoy under his auspicious reign; and these, their sentiments, are those of the wisest philosophers the ablest lawyers and the most accomplished statesmen that Britain ever produced.

The English nonconformists absolutely deny all human authority in matters of religion-they deny it to all civil governments of every form-they think Jesus Christ the sole head of the christian church-they say the Scriptures are his only code of conscience law-all the articles of their belief are contained in his doctrine-all their hopes of obtaining immortal felicity in his mediation-all their moral duties in the great law of nature explained by revelation-and all their religious rites, and ecclesiastical law, in his positive institutes unexplained, or rather unperplexed by human creeds. They say Jesus Christ himself does not require obedience without evidence-that they

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submit to him, as God gave him, as a prophet, a priest, and a king, on the fullest proof:-they say their religion has nothing hostile to civil government, but is highly beneficial to it-that although it is no part of it to determine the best form, yet it is a part of it to submit in civil matters to the powers that be. On these principles they justify the aposles for embracing christianity, when religious governors rejected it-the first missionaries, who subverted established religions by propagating it—the reformation from popery-and the revolution, that dethroned high church tyranny. For their civil ' principles they are ready to die as Britons, and for their religious ones as Christians.

But we have lost Friday !-No wonder. GoodFriday is a libel against the king of kings, und al ways when loyal subjects approach him the traitor lurks behind, skulks among popes and priests ap hides his guilty head in a cowl, muttering the church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies. Ah Sirrah!

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The article of authority, then, amounts to this. In that system of religion, which goes on the principles of the perfection and sufficiency of scripture, and the sole legislation of Jesus Christ, church holidays are non-entities. In those systems which allow human authority, they rest on the power that appoints them. In this happy country, the power that appoints them is constitutionally bounded, and has agreed to spend its force on as many as choose to submit to it, and to exert itself against all who dare to impede others, who choose

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