blind scribes writing to prove that monstrous paradox that the early Reformers were not Calvinists, than which no falsehood in history can possibly be greater; we shall no longer see Prelates acting comedies in honor of St. George, the Arian peculator; nor political Priests interfering at general elections-no,-all these flagrant scandals will be cut off for ever, whilst all that is valuable will remain, and remain with increased beauty and additional splendour. The doctrine of the Church of England can never be destroyed, and if the present form of Church Government is found by experience to be useful, then let it be retained; some government there must be, and no one will find fault with any government when the Church stands on its own merits, and is not supported by the force and terrors of the law, and defiled by the odious corruption of wealth extorted from a reluctant people. The Church of England in America is supported by voluntary contributions, and is much more powerful, much more respected, and much more popular than when it stood by the support of the law. The Clergy there do their duty, the people respect them, the Gospel is preached faithfully, and the scandalous scenes of our most corrupt Establishment are entirely unknown. No Christian, who seriously takes these things into consideration, can wish for a continuance of the present evil system; but all those who have been speculating in Church preferment, all those who have been buying Church livings for themselves or their families, all those who look to the votes of the Bishops, and the influence of the Clergy as convenient helps to the scheme of Government, all those whose hollow Religion will stand detected when the state hypocrisy is at an end, all those whose understandings have been deceived by the false doctrine of the Priests, and who know not what Christ's real Church means, will stand amazed and confounded at the ruin of their idol, and with loud lamentations will cry out alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is her judgment come!! They, however, who know the value of the true spiritual Church, the free Jerusalem, the mother of all the Elect, will laugh at the notion of any act of Parliament or any violence of men touching ber sanctuary; she stands on the Rock of ages, and the gates of Hell can never prevail against her; she may be obscured by the 'noxious trees of proud growth planted in the Lord's vineyard by the enemy of souls, but can never be lost; men know where she is, the secret of the woody labyrinth is to be found in the Gospel, and when the day comes for felling all the rank timber, though their fall will grieve the hairy Satyrs and obscene Lemures who haunt the dark recesses, yet the friends of the free Jerusalem will rejoice as much as these unclean spirits lament and howl.-' Now is the axe laid to the root of the tree, every tree that bringeth 'not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.' These are the plants which the Heavenly Father hath not planted, and

therefore must be rooted up. (Matt. xv. 13.) Let us up, then, and with axes and spades clear away the timber, and so bring to light the stately towers of the true Church, of which Jesus Christ himself is the chief corner stone; let us shew the beauties of the amiable tabernacles to the admiration of all the world, and let us so root out the old timber, that it may never rise up again to conceal the Lord's House, the temple of salvation for all the ends of the earth. Who would not joy to do this holy work? and ought we to mind the lamentations of these routed bellygods, as we drive them from their fastnesses to seek some other wilderness? No-let us not heed their din, we know our duty and with whom we have to deal, and we can laugh at the magic with which they would scare us from this work. We have detected the Whore, we know her by her tyranny, and can say unto her also in thy skirts is found the blood of the poor innocents, we have not found it out by secret search, but upon all 'these.' (Jer. ii. 34.) And we also know that though her Ministers praise the Prophets, and say if we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with the blood of the Prophets'; yet they nevertheless hate and persescute Christ as much as lays in their power, and as long as they had the power they did not hesitate to embrue their hands in blood, as this discourse hath shewn. I have seen the raging malice and spite of the high church party against the Gospel, I have heard their haughty threats and violent language, and I know that the old spirit is in them still unabated; and it is more than probable that if the liberty of the Press were destroyed, the old persecutions would rage in the land within ten years, the gaols be filled with prisoners, and the hangmen be busily employed. The Clergy of France had prepared these blessings for their country twelve months ago, but they failed; the Press is not destroyed yet either in France or in England, and men understand now the tactics and the religion of those men who build 'the tombs of the Prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the 6 ' righteous.'

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POSTSCRIPT.

THE extraordinary violence of my enemies compells me, in a manner, to say some few words about myself, though it is a subject concerning which I would fain be silent; but in truth such a heavy shower of lies and calumnies is flying abroad, that the world will look upon me as one dead, unless I yet lift up my voice in the land of the living. It would appear that the whole tribe of calumniators were silent till the newspapers announced the fact of my having commenced a Lay-Ministry. They then took courage, and thinking that they had me on the ground prostrate, and that I never again should be able to rise up under the weight of this cross, all the Editors of newspapers, Reviewers, Answerers, Repliers, and Letter-writers poured forth the filth of their malice against me, and showed what zealous lovers they are of the Whore of Babylon, by the liberal use of those lies in which she always takes delight. The flood-gates of spite were opened, and ingenuity was tortured to invent the blackest falsehoods, as if the salvation of the Church of England depended on the destruction of one individual.

It would require a book of no ordinary size to chronicle all the lies published by the church party against me within the last five weeks; though the Gentlemen who have either printed these things themselves, or engaged others in the work, have been careful to send me many of the newspapers, periodicals, &c. &c. in which their labours of love shine forth, for my edification and amusement. To shew their extreme malice, and also to amuse my Readers with the absurd contradictions of illnatured minds, I here collect together some of the fetid herbs that priestly hands would fain throw on the coffin of my reputation. 1. He is mad, and has twice been in a private mad-house. 2. He is a Socinian. 3. He is an Atheist. 4. He is a Roman Catholic. 5. He is a secret Infidel, and will soon openly declare himself to be one. 6. He is connected with the Rev. Robert Taylor. 7. He preaches to form a party amongst the Dissenters at the next General Election. 8. He preaches to shew that he has a London tailor. 9. He is a fanatical enthusiast. 10. He is secretly playing the cards of the high church party, and is to be, ere long, rewarded with ample preferment. 11. He is a missionary of the Unitarians. 12. He has been sent from America to destroy the Church. 13. He is in league with O'Connell. 15. He is piqued because the Archbishop refused to ordain him. 15. He never could construe Greek or Latin in his life, and therefore was afraid of facing the Archbishop's Chaplain. 16. He has studied Greek so intensely, that it has turned his brain. 17. Celebrity is his whole object, to gain this he would rather be hanged than be forgotten, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.

No. 1. is sedulously propagated by a Chief Priest in the south of England, 'whose words eat as doth a canker,' because he is supposed to have been one of my acquaintance in times past. No. 2. was given to the world by that pious newspaper, the Record, and what makes it still more remarkable, the writer knew he was publishing a falsehood; but as the object was to blacken by any means, the stumbling block of an untruth was a small impediment. Nos. 5. and 6. were published by the Times newspaper, which dedicated a long article to the express purpose of calumniating me: for though that newspaper is notorious for a long and indefatigable attack on the Church of England, and did, in that very paper wherein I was slandered, contain a ribald song against the Parsons, yet it is not insensible to the charms of a fee from ecclesiastical hands.

These are the sort of weapons brought forth to silence me! " They come about 'me like bees,' but, alas! they will not obtain their object; for although I can say, with old Latimer, and by experience too, that it is a great work of patience to en'dure the calumnies of a slanderous Church,' yet this patience I do possess, as all the lovers of the Whore shall find to their cost.

The Reverend Gentlemen who have written answers to me and forwarded them, must excuse my reading them; I give them full credit for the usual learning, judgment, and charity displayed by the Clergy of these days, but my time may be much better employed than by listening to their lectures. If they can convince the world in general, let them. My friends who have read these answers assure me, that if all the personalities were withdrawn, the pamphlets would be reduced to a very small size.

For the matter of the Lay Ministry, let me, in a few words, answer my numerous correspondents, friends and foes; had I, instead of preaching the Gospel without an episcopal commission, purchased a good living, received Priest's orders, commenced a vigorous battle with my Parishioners about tithes, kept some half-dozen hunters, had I often been in at the death, frequented the cock-pit, twirled round in the waltz, at balls, joined myself with all the youths of dissipation and fashion, raged against the Dissenters, and entered into a league offensive and defensive with the high church party, I should have been hailed as a true son of the Church, and received with rapture by Deans and Prebends-But an intimate acquaintance with clerical evil has made me spurn this deplorable system, and I have therefore followed the advice of Cyril of Jerusalem. When thou shalt have been found worthy of the grace of God, then Christ gives thee authority to wrestle against the opposing powers of evil; for as he after his baptism was tempted forty days, not that he could not have conquered the Devil before this, but because he wished all things to be done in order and in their proper course, thus do not thou dare to wrestle with the enemy before thy baptism, but having received grace, and, for the rest, being fortified with the armour of righteousness, then begin the struggle, and IF THOU WILT, PREACH THE GOSPEL.

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It is my sincere wish, that no Reader of this Discourse, or of my Letter to the Archbishop of York, should so misunderstand the subject as to suppose that I recommend a secession from the Church, or a disrespect to its spiritual ordinances. If I have influence with any persons, let me exert that influence by persuading them. to pay great respect to all the pious Ministers of the Church, for not only has she in some places religious, worthy, and laborious Ministers, who are an honor to the age in which they live, and a blessing to the Parishes in which they officiate, but the Church herself is, in spiritual matters, fair and holy, and beloved of her head, the Lord Jesus. It is an easy matter for the simplest understanding to see the difference. The spiritual treasures of the Church are held captive in a den of thieves and robbbers, but they are not less sacred on that account: it is our duty to disperse the thieves and rescue the treasure; and there is no way of doing this, but by. honestly, firmly, and conscientiously, in all proper times and places, urging à total separation of the Church from the State, and a speedy confiscation of that which is falsely called Church Property.

Είθ' όταν της χάριτος καταξιωθής, τότε σοι προς αντικειμενας δυνάμει παλαίειν δίδωσι την εξουσίαν, ωσπερ γαρ μετά το βάπτισμα και τεσσαράκοντα ἡμερας επειράτο, οὐκ οτι και προ τούτου νικαν ουκ έδύνατο, αλλ' ότι παντα τάξει και ακολουθία πραττειν εβούλετο, ουτω και τα προ του βαπτίσματος τοις αντικειμένοις παλαίειν μη τολμήσας, λαβων δε την χάριν, και λοιπον θαρσών τους της δικαιοσυνης οπλοις, αγωνίζου τότε, και τι θέλεις, ευαγγελίζου.

W. B. Johnson, Printer, Market Place, Beverley.

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