The works of Richard Hurd, volume 8 (of 8)

by Richard Hurd

1 St. Peter, ii. 16.

As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

Christianity, while it provides, chiefly, for the future interests of men, by no means overlooks their present; but is, indeed, studious to make its followers as happy in both worlds, as they are capable of being.

As an instance of this beneficent purpose, we may observe, that the religion of Jesus is most friendly to the CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES of mankind.

There is something in the constitution of our nature, which leads men to expect, and even claim, as much independence on the will and caprice of each other, as the ends of society, and the form of government, under which they live, will permit.

Agreeably to these instincts, or conclusions of reason, call them which you will, the Gospel, both in its genius and precepts, invites its professors to the love and cultivation of Liberty. It allows the freedom of private judgment, in which the essence of religious liberty consists: And it indulges our natural love of civil liberty, not only by giving an express preference[26] to it, before a state of slavery, when by just and lawful means we can obtain it; but, also, by erecting our thoughts, and giving us higher notions of the value and dignity of human nature (now redeemed by so immense a price, as the blood of the Lamb of God), and consequently by representing a servile condition as more degrading and dishonourable to us, than, on the footing of mere reason, we could have conceived.

But now this great indulgence of Heaven, like every other, is liable to be misused; and was, in fact, so misused even in the early times, when this indulgence of the Gospel to the natural feelings of men was, with the Gospel itself, first notified and declared. For the zealot Jews, full of theocratic ideas, were forward to conclude, that their Christian privileges absolved them from obedience to civil government: And the believing Gentiles (who had not the Jewish prejudices to mislead them) were yet unwilling to think that the Gospel had not, at least, set them free from domestic slavery; which was the too general condition of those converts in their heathen state.

These notions, as they were not authorized by Christianity (which made no immediate and direct change in the politic and personal condition of mankind), so, if they had not been opposed and discountenanced, would have given great scandal to the ruling powers in every country, where the Christians resided, and have very much obstructed the propagation of the Christian faith.

The holy Spirit, therefore, to guard the rising Church from these mischiefs, saw fit, by the Apostle Peter, to admonish both the Jewish and Gentile converts to conduct themselves as free men indeed, so far as they were, or could honestly contrive to become free (for that their religion no way disallowed); but not as misusing the liberty they had, or might have (which every principle of their religion, as well as prudence, forbad). As free, says he, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness: As if he had said, “Be careful to observe a due mean in this matter: Maintain your just liberties; yet so, as not to gratify your malignant passions under pretence of discharging that duty.” And the better to secure the observance of this precept, he adds—but as the servants of God—that is, “Remember ye are so to employ your liberty as never to forget the service ye owe to God; who, in the present instance, commands you to obey Magistrates; that is, to submit yourselves to the government, under which ye live, not only for wrath, for fear of punishment, but for conscience sake.”

And this caution, so guarded by religious as well as moral considerations, was the more important, because no word is so fascinating to the common ear, as that of Liberty, while the few only know what it means; and the many, of all ranks, in all times, mistake it for licence.

And well had it been if this warning voice of the holy Apostle, which sunk deep into the hearts of the first Christians, had continued to make the same impression on the whole Christian world; which, unhappily, has contemned, or at least neglected it, in almost all ages; but never more remarkably, than in those disastrous days, which the present solemnity calls upon us to recollect and lament.

I. The great quarrel of the times I speak of, was opened with the cry of RELIGIOUS LIBERTY; not without reason, it must be confessed, yet with an ill grace in the complainants; who certainly would have denied to others what they so peremptorily, and indeed with too much petulance, demanded for themselves.

The source of this evil (to do justice to all sides) is to be sought in the Reformation itself; which, when it had succeeded in its great view of cleansing Religion from the corruptions of Popery, concluded that no man could have reason, thenceforth, to dissent from the national church; and that an universal conformity to its discipline and doctrine was to be exacted. The conclusion was natural enough in their situation; and the benefit of such conformity, past dispute. But it was not considered, that differences will arise, many times, without reason; and, when they do, that force is not the proper way to compose them. This oversight continued long, and had terrible effects. It kept the Protestants of all denominations from entertaining just ideas of Toleration; the last great point of reformed religion which was clearly understood, and perhaps the only one of real moment in which the extraordinary persons, whom Providence raised up to be the conductors of our Reformation, were deficient.

In this state of things, it unfortunately happened that the Reformation was suddenly checked by the return of Popery, which forced many pious and eminent men to take refuge in the Protestant churches abroad; where they grew enamoured of certain forms of church-government, different from those that prevailed at home; and which, on their subsequent return, they fanatically strove to obtrude on their brethren, and to erect, under the new name of The Discipline, on the ruins of the established hierarchy. So unreasonable a pretension naturally alarmed and exasperated those who had power in their hands, and had their prejudices too, not less violent than those by which the Puritans (for that was the name they went by) were possessed. The consequence was what might be expected. A toleration for their discipline out of the establishment, which was all they should have aimed at, and to which they had a right, would not have satisfied them; and their iniquitous claim of Dominion was too naturally repaid by penal laws and compulsive statutes: that is, one sort of tyranny was repressed and counteracted by another. And thus matters continued through several reigns; till some more pressing claims of civil liberty, mixing with these struggles for church-dominion, overthrew, in the end, the ancient ecclesiastical government; drove the bishops from their sees, the liturgy from our churches, and brought in the classical regimen, enforced, in its turn, as the episcopal one had been, with the rigours of persecution.

Still, the restless spirit of the times continuing, or rather increasing, this new model was forced to give may to another, which assumed the more popular name of Independency; under whose broad wing a thousand sects sprung up, each more extravagant than the other, till, in the end, all order in religious matters, and religion itself, disappeared, under the prevailing torrent of fanaticism and confusion.

Such is the brief, but just, account of the religious factions of those days: from which we collect how miserably the zealots for religious liberty defeated their own aims; or rather how wickedly they contended for power and libertinism, under the mask of liberty: An evil, which could not have happened, had they paid the least regard to the Apostle’s injunction of being free, but not as using their liberty for a cloak of maliciousness.

II. The claims of CIVIL LIBERTY (which sprung up amid this rage of religious parties) were better founded; were for a time carried on more soberly; and, as was fitting, were, at first, attended with better success.

The mixed form of the English government, originally founded on the principles of liberty, had, from many concurring causes, degenerated into a kind of monarchical despotism, which an unquestionably virtuous, but misinformed and misguided Prince, was for moulding into a regular system. Happily the growing light and spirit of the times excited a general impatience of that project; and produced a steady and constitutional opposition to it. The distresses of government aided the friends of liberty, who managed their advantage so well as, in process of time, to support their claims, redress their grievances, establish their rights, and, in a word, to reduce the Crown, from the exorbitances it affected, within the ancient and legal boundaries of the Constitution.

This the Patriots of that time effected; with great advantage to their country, and with singular honour to themselves. Nothing indeed could have equalled their glory, had their labours in the cause of liberty stopped there. But, besides that some means employed by them, in the prosecution of their best-intended services, cannot be justified; the intention itself of many of them, hitherto so pure, began to grow corrupt; their fears and passions transported them too far; their public ends degenerated into selfish: having vindicated the constitution, their own security, or some worse motive, prompted them to make free with it, that is, to commit the very fault they had so justly resented at the hands of their Sovereign: In a word, the patriots, in their turn, insulted the Crown, and invaded the Constitution.

The particulars are well known. Ambitious leaders arose, or the old leaders in the popular cause turned ambitious. Unconstitutional claims were made: unconstitutional schemes were meditated: what before was self-defence and sober policy, was, now, revenge and hate: the nation grew delirious, and the civil war followed.

The rest is recorded in the disgusting annals of those times. Six desolating years brought on the subversion of the monarchy; and (as if the victors meant to insult the law itself), by I know not what forms of mock-justice, the bloody scene was wantonly closed with the public arraignment, trial, condemnation, and execution of the monarch.

The tragedy of this day was the last insolent triumph of pretended liberty. What followed, was the most avowed tyranny; upheld for a while by force and great ability, but terminating at length in wild and powerless anarchy.

Such, again, were the miserable consequences of not observing the Apostle’s rule of being free, but not as using liberty for a cloak of maliciousness. Freedom was, first, justly sought after, and happily obtained: It was, then, made the cover of every selfish and malicious passion, till the wearers of it were enabled to throw it off, as an useless disguise; when barefaced tyranny and licentious misrule were seen to emerge from beneath this specious mantle of public liberty.

The Restoration, which followed, redeemed these nations from some part of the miseries, which their madness had brought on themselves. But for the full establishment of our civil and religious rights, we were finally and chiefly indebted to the Revolution.

From that memorable æra, we became, in every sense of the word, a free people. Conscience was secured in the exercise of its just rights by a legal toleration: and the civil constitution was restored to its integrity.

III. Such are the observations, which the sad story of the times we have been reviewing obviously suggests to us. And now let us pause a little: And having before us what the nation so long suffered, and what it so late acquired; that is, the horrors of fanatical tyranny on the one hand, and the blessings of established order and freedom on the other; let us inquire dispassionately what improvements we have made of both. Have the black pages of our annals given us a just abhorrence of the principles and practices, which brought that cloud over them? And have the bright ones, which so happily at length succeeded, affected our hearts and lives, as, in all reasonable expectation, they ought? In particular (to keep the momentous admonition of my text in full view) has the most perfect LIBERTY, civil and religious, been acknowledged with that thankfulness it calls for, or been enjoyed with that sobriety which so inestimable a gift of Heaven should naturally inspire?

1. To begin with RELIGIOUS liberty.

Has this great privilege, so rightfully belonging to us, as men, as Protestants, and as Christians, which so many ages had panted after, and the last so happily obtained, Has this invaluable acquisition been employed by us to the promotion of its proper ends, the cultivation of just inquiry, and manly piety? On the contrary, has not the right of private judgment been abused to the worst of purposes; the open profession of libertinism in principle, and its consequent encouragement of all corruption in practice? Has not religious liberty been the cloak, under which revealed and even natural religion has been insulted; infidelity, and even atheism, avowed; and the most flagitious tenets propagated among the people? In a word, has not every species of what is called free-thinking, free-speaking, and free-writing, been carried to an extreme?

But to come to those who are not guilty of these excesses; have we all of us made the proper use of the fostering liberty we enjoy in religious matters? Have we been careful to apply it to the purpose of dispassionately studying the sacred scriptures; of investigating their true sense with a due veneration for the high authority they claim, and for the awful subjects they set before us; and of maintaining our conclusions from them with a becoming modesty, which in such inquiries can hardly be too great? Have we betrayed no symptoms of bigotry even in disclaiming it? Are we ready to indulge that candour to others, which we so justly expect ourselves? And is the public wisdom itself treated by those who speculate, at their ease, under the most tolerant establishment of Christianity that ever existed, Has it been treated, I do not say, with a blind submission (God forbid!) but with that decent respect, which is surely due to it? In short, have we, in our several situations and characters, been careful to exert the full spirit of Christianity, which, one is ready to think, should naturally spring up from Christian liberty; or, at least to observe that temper of mutual forbearance, which should seem to be an easy as well as reasonable duty, now that all unjust restraints and provoking severities are withdrawn?

2. Thus much for our religious liberties. Have our CIVIL, on which we equally, and with good reason, value ourselves, been secured from all abuse? Have we that reverence of just authority, not only as lodged in the persons of inferior magistrates, or in the sacred person of the supreme Magistrate, but as residing in the LAW itself (in which the public will, that is, the whole collective authority of the State is, as it were, concentered)—Have we, I say, that ingenuous and submissive respect for this authority, which not only reason and religion, but true policy, and every man’s proper interest requires? Our boasted Constitution itself, now so accurately defined and generally understood, Does it meet with that awful regard from us, which it justly deserves? Are we anxious, that, of its several parts, each should have its full play, without interfering with any other? And are we sufficiently on our guard against a spirit of innovation, which, after all our experience, can have no probable view of effecting much good, but may easily do unforeseen and irreparable mischief? It is true, in the less perfect forms of government, alterations may not be so sensibly felt. But in a Polity like our’s, so nicely and artificially adjusted, and, like a well-constructed arch, held together by the intimate relation and mutual pressure of its several parts, the removal or even change of any one may loosen the connexion of the rest, and, by disjointing the whole fabrick, bring it unexpectedly on our heads.

Let me, then, repeat the question. Have we that religious reverence for the Constitution which its value, its authority, its compact and harmonious contexture, so evidently demands? And, when it hath bestowed upon us the blessings of civil liberty, in as full measure as is perhaps consistent with government itself, are we only solicitous to preserve it pure, enjoy it thankfully, and transmit it, unimpaired by hasty and hazardous experiments, to the generations to come?

If to these, and other questions of the like sort, we can answer to our satisfaction, it is well. If we cannot, we should lay hold on the present occasion of recollecting the miscarriages and the miseries of past times, and of regulating our conduct by the instructive lessons, which they read to us. We shall see, in every instance I have suggested to you, how the abuse of religious and civil liberty kept operating in those days, till it produced the ruin and the loss of both—the irreparable loss, if it had not pleased a gracious Providence to be much kinder to us than we deserved, or had reason to expect.

Not to profit by this experience would be inexcusable; especially, when the date of it is so recent, and when this solemn day of humiliation (for that purpose kept up by authority) so affectingly reminds us of it. We cannot, if we reflect on what it sets before us, but see in the most convincing manner, that, to reap the benefits of the best government, we must, ourselves, be moderate and wise; and that to use our liberty for a cloak of maliciousness is, at once, the greatest impiety in those who profess themselves the servants of God, and the greatest folly in those who are, and would continue to be, a free and happy people.

SIX CHARGES
DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY.

A
CHARGE
DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY
OF THE
DIOCESE OF LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY,
AT THE BISHOP’S PRIMARY VISITATION
IN 1775 AND 1776.

A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

It having pleased God to call me to the care of this large Diocese, I thought it became me to take the first opportunity, which the established course of Visitation afforded, of meeting my brethren, the Clergy: that so we might be the sooner acquainted with each other; and that, by means of their prudent advice and information, I might be the better enabled to sustain the weighty office imposed upon me.

I may, hereafter, as occasion serves, be more particular in my directions to you. At this time, it will be sufficient to lay before you some general considerations on our common PASTORAL DUTY, and to animate myself and you to a faithful discharge of it.

When our blessed Lord and Master sent forth his favoured servants to labour in that ministry to which he had called them, he addressed them in these memorable words—I have chosen and ordained you, THAT YE SHOULD GO AND BRING FORTH FRUIT, AND THAT YOUR FRUIT SHOULD REMAIN[27]: “That ye may go with this commission to plant my doctrine in the world; and that, by your cultivation of it, it may take such root as to bring forth a fruitful harvest of believers, and continue to do so through all ages.”

But what, then, is this mature and perpetual harvest, which is here proposed to the Disciples, as the end of their labours? Is it a harvest of such believers, as shall barely give their name to Christ? Certainly, not; but of such as shall be found worthy of him. It is a harvest, then, of well-informed, pious, and righteous, believers. This is the precious everlasting fruit, which it was entrusted to their office to produce: and this fruit, the due discharge of their office, under the blessing of God, makes them capable of producing.

In these affecting words, then, of our divine Master (the more affecting, because among the last that were uttered by him) the Apostles, first, and, after them, all succeeding ministers of the Gospel, are called upon to bring forth,

1. The fruit of a RIGHT FAITH in their hearers; as resulting from the soundness of their doctrine. 2. The fruit of PIETY in their flocks; in consequence of a diligent ministration in all the offices of their sacred function. And, 3. The fruit of CHARITY in their Christian brethren; as springing out of their godly exhortations and blameless examples.

Such, my reverend brethren, is the end for which WE are chosen and ordained to serve in the church of Christ. And though, in setting this end before you, I shall but reflect your own thoughts: yet, in doing this, I may be a no unuseful, certainly, no ungrateful, remembrancer; since it is the duty, the desire, and the glory of us all, that we bring forth fruit, and that our fruit remain.

I. The FIRST object of our ministry is, to instruct our hearers in the RIGHT FAITH: and to this end, we are required to take heed to our doctrine[28].

The Religion of Jesus claiming to be from God, the doctrines, it delivers, are as well to be believed, as its precepts to be observed. Thus, a dogmatic theology becomes essential to Christianity; its professors are equally bound by a certain rule of faith, and of manners.

When the Scriptures of the New Testament were made public, these were that Rule of faith to the whole church of Christ. And, if that Church had agreed in the interpretation of them; or, if peace and charity could have consisted with its disagreement, no other provision for the maintenance of the faith had been thought needful. But the Scriptures, like all other writings, being liable to a different construction, according to the different views and capacities of uninspired men; and it being presently found that such difference of construction produced the most violent animosities among Christians, while each sect pretended a divine authority for its own fancies; no remedy occurred for these disorders, but that the catholic church should be held together by one and the same confession, received and acknowledged by all its ministers; or, when, afterwards, this extensive project was found impracticable, that those, who agreed in the same interpretation of the sacred oracles, should be allowed to separate from all others, and unite themselves into one distinct and subordinate church.

Thus, Schism, though it be always an evil, and may be a crime, was introduced into the church, and was even tolerated there, to prevent other and greater evils, as well as crimes, from flowing into it. For, though a diversity of interpretation, in consequence of this liberty, prevailed in different Christian communities, which yet acknowledged the same common Rule, the Scriptures of God; still, peace was, by this means, preserved in each particular community; and, by virtue of that general principle of mutual toleration, which the expedient itself implied, it was, or might be, in good measure, preserved through all the quarters of the Catholic church.

This, in one word, is the Origin, and, at the same time, the Justification, of Creeds and Confessions; which are only a bond of union between the members of each Christian society. For the purpose of them is not to set up human decisions against the word of God; but, by larger comments, and more explicit declarations, in such points of doctrine as have been differently apprehended, and much controverted, to express and ascertain the sense, in which THEY interpret that word, who communicate together in the same Church.

Thus the case stands, before the State gives a preference to any particular Church. Thenceforth, indeed, the State concurs with the Church to enforce one common Confession, by confining the emoluments, which it provides for the encouragement of Religion, to the peculiar doctrines of the favoured Church. This, the State does, in equity towards that religious society, with which it is now so closely connected: it does it, too, in prudence and good policy; because it conceives its own true interests to be concerned in maintaining those peculiar doctrines.

Thus, whether we regard the Church, before it acquires the countenance of the State, as intent on truth and orthodoxy, and only meditating how best to preserve that truth in the bosom of peace; or, whether we regard the State, after it affords that countenance to the Church, as studious to provide for its own great object, General Utility, of which the preservation of peace makes so considerable a part; either way we understand why an agreement of opinion is required in the appointed Guides and Teachers of Religion. But, as such agreement cannot be expected, or not maintained, where every Teacher is left to inculcate what doctrines he thinks fit, hence some common formulary of faith (not in opposition to that delivered in the Scriptures, but by way of more precise explanation of what is believed to be its true meaning) is reasonably proposed to the assent of those Guides and Teachers, before they exercise their office in any particular Christian society; as a Test of their opinions; and as a Rule, by which, in subordination to the general Rule of Christians, they undertake to frame their public instructions.

This Confession, or formulary of faith, with us, is the Thirty-nine Articles: to which a subscription is required from every candidate of the Ministry. So that the Scripture, interpreted by those articles, is the proper rule of doctrine, to every Minister of our Church.

It follows from what has been said, that such, as cannot honestly assent to this formulary, must (if they aspire to be public Teachers of Religion) unite themselves with some other consentient Church. This compulsion may, sometimes, be a hardship; but can, in no case, be an injury: or, if some may chuse to consider it in the light of an injury, it is such an one as must be suffered by individuals for the general good of that Society, to which they belong.

It is nothing, that some object to these articles, as improper, or ill-drawn. The Church will judge for itself of these points. Societies have surely the same right of private judgement as Individuals; and, till they revoke a constitution, it should, methinks, be presumed that they see no cause to do it: just as it is very fitly presumed, on the other hand, that such individuals, as will not subscribe to this constitution, cannot. But it is forgotten in this dispute, that, although truth can only be on one side, good faith may be on either.

Still, it may be said—“These articles are themselves liable to various interpretations.” Without doubt, they are: and so would any other, which could be contrived. Yet, with all the latitude of interpretation of which they are capable, they still answer, in a good degree, the main end of their appointment; as may be seen from the animosity expressed by some against them, as too strict. And, if we only use that latitude, which the expression fairly admits, and which the Church allows, they will continue to answer the great end, hitherto effected by them, of preserving, among the members of our Church, an unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Such then is the fruit of a right faith, which the ministers of our Church are required to bring forth, by the soundness of their doctrine.

II. They are, in the next place, ordained to produce the fruit of Piety, in their several congregations, by a faithful discharge of the sacred offices, committed to them.

The Liturgy of the Church of England, in which these offices are contained, is composed with so much wisdom, and is animated, at the time, with so true a spirit of piety, that impartial men have generally agreed in the commendation of it. That the forms, prescribed by it, may be lawfully used, few at this time of day will dispute. That other forms, more complete and perfect, may be devised, as it is not denied by us, who hold those forms, however excellent, to be of human composition only; so, that any such forms of greater perfection are likely to be devised by those who are the readiest to find fault with our Liturgy, will hardly be expected by reasonable and knowing men. Much indeed, abundantly too much, has been said and written on this subject. Most of the defects, which some have pretended to find in our Ritual, are purely imaginary: the rest are certainly unimportant. So that our concern is plainly to submit all deliberations of this sort to the wisdom of the Church itself; and, in the mean time, to give all the effect, that depends on us, to the ministration which it requires.

And to this end, it must be our duty to perform the sacred offices with regularity, decency, and fervour.

1. By regularity, I mean such an observance of times and seasons, and of all the modes of performance, as the Church hath thought fit to prescribe. To this observance we are, indeed, constrained by ecclesiastical penalties: but I mention it as a fit testimony of respect to public authority; and as the means of promoting the true interests of Religion. For what is punctually performed by the Minister will acquire a due consideration with the people: and the uniformity of our service will make the attendance on religious offices more acceptable, more convenient, more edifying to them.

2. Nor is it enough that these offices be performed regularly, or according to stated rules: they must also be performed decently, or with due grace and propriety in the manner of discharging them. For it is not, perhaps, enough considered, how much a becoming celebration of the sacred offices contributes to make men delight in them, and profit by them: or, on the contrary, how much any degree of negligence in the posture, or of impropriety in the accent, or indifference in the air, of the officiating Minister, sinks the credit and authority of his ministration, and deadens the attention and devotion of his flock.

3. Still, this regular and decent discharge of our duty, how useful soever, is but an outward thing, and may, to a degree at least, be counterfeited by those who are, otherwise, very unfit to be employed in this service. To enliven, to animate, to consecrate our ministry, we must bring to it all the zeal of internal devotion; such as is sober indeed, but real, active, and habitual; such as flows from a religious temper, and is wrought into the very frame and constitution of our minds. For to this end, more especially, are we set apart from secular pursuits, to give ourselves up to reading, to meditation, to all spiritual exercises; that so we may be thoroughly penetrated and informed with pure affections and heavenly dispositions. When these prevail in us, they will naturally break forth and express themselves in all our ministrations; they will be seen and felt by all who partake of them, and, by a kind of sympathy, will force the hearts of others to consent with our own.

III. The last and best fruit we are to produce, is the fruit of Charity, or a good life, in those committed to our charge; which is more especially cultivated and matured by our godly exhortations, and blameless examples.

1. As to our public exhortations, and discourses from the Pulpit, such an audience as this cannot want to be instructed in the manner of preparing them. Permit me only to say, “That your Sermons cannot well be too plain; and that they ought to be wholly Christian.”

The word of God is designed for the edification of all sorts and degrees among us, and should be so dispensed as to reach the hearts and understandings of all. And I need not say to you who hear me, that to frame a discourse in this manner, as it is the usefullest way of preaching, so it will afford full scope and exercise for all the talents which the ablest of us may possess.

But, further, you will allow me to observe, that the topics and principles, on which we form our discourses, must be wholly Christian. I do not mean to exclude natural Reason from our public exhortations, but to employ it in giving force to those best and most efficacious arguments for a good life, which the Gospel supplies. I would only say, That we are not to preach morality, in exclusion of Christianity: for that would be to incur the guilt of preaching ourselves, and not Jesus Christ.

The various motives to virtue and all goodness, which may be drawn from the great doctrines of the Christian Revelation, as they are infinitely more persuasive and affecting than all others; so they should be constantly and earnestly impressed on our hearers. To live as becometh the Gospel, is the duty of Christians: and therefore to preach that Gospel must be the proper duty of Christian Ministers.

For that other requisite of a good example, the case is too plain to require more than one word. Our blessed Master has told us, that we are the salt of the earth: and we remember what he pronounces of that salt, when it hath lost its savour. This warning may suffice to guard the minister of the word from gross vice and immorality. But much more is expected from him. He is to excell in all virtue, and in such sort as to make it amiable in the eyes of men. He is to take care, that even his good be not evil-spoken of, and that the ministry be not blamed. For there are certain decencies, which must be ranked by us in the place of virtues. To be wanting in these, is to scandalize the brethren, and dishonour ourselves. Our profession is so sacred, that even our Christian liberty must be abridged on many occasions; and we must deny ourselves an innocent amusement, when we have reason to conclude that others will take offence at it.

How far, and in what respects, this sacrifice must be made to the decencies of our profession, is a matter of great prudence and charity; and can only be determined, in particular cases, by an honest exertion of those two principles.

Ye have now, my reverend Brethren, presented to you a brief sketch of our ministerial duties. And our encouragement, for the performance of them, is, That hereby we shall bring forth fruit, and that our fruit will remain: that is, we shall be instrumental in producing a RIGHT FAITH, a PIOUS OBSERVANCE OF RELIGION, and a TRULY CHRISTIAN LIFE, in our several charges and congregations; and we shall, likewise, be the means of transmitting these blessings to Posterity, and of perpetuating these good fruits to the end of the world. Thus, that which is the end of our ministry, is also the reward of it. Nor will the recompence of our labours end here. In saving others, by the means now recommended, we shall assuredly save ourselves. For, by giving this full proof of our ministry, we shall be sincere, and without offence till the day of Christ; being filled with all the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God[29]. Amen.

A
CHARGE
TO THE
CLERGY
OF THE
DIOCESE OF WORCESTER,
DELIVERED AT THE BISHOP’S PRIMARY
VISITATION IN 1782.

A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

On this first occasion of our meeting, you will think it agreeable to the relation I have the honour to bear to you, if I take leave to remind you of such of your Clerical Duties as tend more immediately to your own credit, and to the good order of this Diocese: Not, as if I suspected you of being, in any peculiar degree, deficient in them; but as, from the general state of the present times, and from the singular importance of them at all times, these Duties deserve to be frequently and earnestly recommended to you.

The Clergy of the Reformed Church of England have always distinguished themselves by the soundness of their learning, by the integrity of their manners, and by a diligent discharge of the pastoral office. But these virtues could not have flourished so much and so long, had it not been for the PERSONAL RESIDENCE of the Clergy. Hence that leisure which enabled them to excell in the best literature: hence those truly clerical manners, unadulterated by too free a commerce with the world: and hence that punctuality in performing the sacred offices, so edifying to the people, and, from their being always upon the spot, so easy to themselves.

Now this Residence, which the very institution of Parishes supposes, and the Common Law intends, has, from early times, been bound upon us by ecclesiastical canons, and, from the Reformation, also by express Statute. So that, in the style of Law, and even in common language, Incumbent is the proper name of every Parochial Minister.

I know, indeed, what exceptions there are to the Statute, and needs must be in a Constitution like our’s, founded on a principle of Imparity and Subordination. I know, too, how many more exceptions must be made on account of the poverty of very many Cures, and the necessity there unfortunately is of having several churches served by the same person. Lastly, I do not forget that, in the case of ill health, and doubtless in other cases that may occur, there will sometimes be good reason for the Incumbent to desire, and therefore for the Ordinary to grant, an occasional suspension, or relaxation, at least, of the general Rule. But, when these cases are allowed for, no Clergyman, who considers the nature of his office, and the engagements he is under, or who respects as he ought, either the esteem of others, or the satisfaction of his own mind, will suffer himself to solicit, or even to accept, an exemption from Residence.

And even they, who have to plead the privilege of the Statute, or can alledge any other just and reasonable excuse, will endeavour to compensate for their absence, by occasional visits to their benefices; by diligent inquiries into the conduct of their assistants; by acts of benevolence, hospitality, and piety; in short, by such means as testify a readiness to do all the good they can under their circumstances, and manifest a serious consideration of the duties which, in some degree or other, are inseparable from the Pastoral Care.

In short, the reason of the thing speaks so strongly for the incumbency of Parochial Ministers, that they, who have the best excuse to make for themselves, will lament their absence, and accept the leave granted to them with regret. And the rest of the Clergy will not allow themselves to desert their charge, and forfeit the dignity and almost the use of their destination, for such slight and frivolous reasons as can neither satisfy themselves nor others: for the convenience, suppose, of living in a better air or neighbourhood; of seeing a little more, or, what is called, better, company; or sharing in the advantages and amusements, be they ever so innocent, of the larger and more populous towns.

Pretences of this sort are nothing, when they come in competition with the decency and utility of being where we ought to be, and among those whom we ought to serve; with the obligation that lies upon us to make ourselves acquainted with the spiritual and temporal wants of our people, and, as far as we can, to relieve them; with the precious opportunities, which a personal residence affords, of knowing their characters, and of suiting our publick and private applications to them; of watching over their lives, and contributing to reform or improve them; of guarding them against the attempts of those who lie in wait to pervert their minds, and indispose them to our Communion; with the heart-felt satisfaction of being beloved by our flocks, or of meriting, at least, to be so; of knowing, in short, that we discharge our duty towards them; and, while we approve ourselves faithful ministers of the Church in which we serve, are promoting the noblest ends which a mortal can propose to himself, The salvation of souls, and the honour and interest of our divine Religion.

These considerations are so animating, that they cannot but make a deep impression upon every serious mind; and are so obvious at the same time, that just to have mentioned them to you must be quite sufficient.

I return, therefore, to the duty of those who, on several accounts, may very reasonably excuse themselves from a constant personal residence. And with regard to such of you as may be in this situation, I must,

II. In the second place, recommend it to you, in most particular manner, that you be careful in looking out for proper persons to supply your place, and that you faithfully co-operate with me in appointing none but regular, well-qualified, and exemplary Curates.

By REGULAR Curates, I mean such as lie under no legal disabilities, and have received episcopal ordination. You will perhaps think it strange that these cautions should be thought necessary. But in our licentious times there are those who will presume to offer themselves to you to be employed as Curates, although they have incurred the public censure of their superiors, or have not perhaps been admitted into holy Orders. You will be careful, therefore, before you allow any one to officiate for you, though for a short time, and on a pressing occasion, to inform yourself of his general character, and to inspect his Letters of Orders.

But, if you mean to take him for your settled Curate, you must do a great deal more. You must send him with a Title and Testimonial to be examined and allowed by me. And then I shall have it in my power, not only to prevent your being imposed upon by irregular persons, but to see that you take for your assistants only such as are in all respects WELL QUALIFIED: including under this term a competent degree of knowledge for the service of the Cure to which they are nominated; a good report of their moral and religious conduct by credible and respectable witnesses; and a willing conformity to the discipline and doctrine of the Church of England.

With these qualifications, it is to be presumed that your Curates will represent you not unworthily, and will instruct and edify your people as you yourselves would endeavour to do, if you lived amongst them. And the rather, as both you and I are concerned to take care, as much as possible, that whosoever is admitted to serve any Cure DO RESIDE IN THE PARISH WHERE HE IS TO SERVE: especially in livings that are able to support a resident Curate; and, where that cannot be done, that he do reside at least SO NEAR TO THE PLACE, that he may conveniently perform all the duties both in the Church and Parish[30].

Still, it is not enough that an officiating Minister, whether principal or substitute, be of no ill fame, and under no disability, nay that he possess the qualifications and the means of discharging his duty. It is further expected of all who are commissioned to minister in holy things, and therefore of Curates as well as others, that they execute their important trusts with fidelity and zeal, that they be EXEMPLARY in their whole conduct and conversation.

To merit the application of this term to himself, a Clergyman will not only perform the duties of his Church with becoming seriousness, and with exact punctuality, but he will be ready at fit seasons to advise or exhort, to comfort or rebuke, as occasion requires, such of his parishioners, whether in sickness or health, as may stand in need of his charitable assistance. He will spend much of his leisure in reading and meditation, particularly in the study of the sacred Scriptures, that he may adorn and purify his mind, and qualify himself the better for his spiritual ministrations. He will even take care that his very amusements be inoffensive, and not pursued with an eagerness or constancy that may give occasion for censure or misconstruction. He will be so far from drawing upon himself the imputation of any gross vice (which it would be dreadful for a minister of the Gospel to deserve), that he will not be suspected of levity or dissipation; but, as the Canon directs, will always be doing the things which shall appertain to honesty, and endeavouring to profit the Church of God; having always in mind that the ministers of religion ought to excell all others in purity of life, and should be examples to the people of good and Christian living[31].

Such is the conduct which the Church requires of those whom you employ in the care of your parishes. I hope therefore I shall not be thought too severe, if I give a particular attention to the appointing and licensing of Curates, and if I expect of the beneficed Clergy that they chearfully and heartily concur with me in this necessary circumspection.

To this end, and that the Church may be served with reputable and useful ministers, I must,

III. Further make it my earnest request (and this is the last particular I have at present to give in charge to you), that you take especial care what persons you recommend to me on all occasions.

It is my duty, and if it were not, it would be my inclination, to rely much on your advice in all things; much more, to lay the greatest stress on your opinion and sentiments, when presented to me under your hands in the solemn way of a Testimonial. No consideration, therefore, I hope will ever prevail with you, no bias of acquaintance, neighbourhood, civility, or compassion (for I shall never suspect my brethren of any worse motive), to give the credit of your testimony to any person whatever that is unworthy of it, whether for the purpose of obtaining holy Orders, or my License to a Cure, or Institution to a Benefice. The most scrupulous good faith must be observed in all these cases; or it will be impossible for me to prevent those scandals, which an unqualified Clergy will be sure to give to the world, and the infinite mischiefs they do to Religion.

Whenever you set your hand to a testimonial, consider, I beseech you, that the honour of the Church is concerned in what you are doing; that the edification of the people, the integrity of their lives and purity of their faith, the salvation, in short, of their souls, depends on your signature. When such momentous interests as these are at stake, inattention is something worse than neglect, and the easiness of good-nature the greatest cruelty.

And now, my reverend brethren, by observing these few plain directions—by residing on your benefices when you can, and by improving that residence to its proper uses—or, when you cannot reside yourselves, by employing only resident and respectable Curates—and, lastly, by a scrupulous use of your credit with me in recommending none but fit persons for the several departments of the Ministry.—By complying, I say, with my earnest request, in these several instances, you will render the government of this Diocese easy and pleasant to me. I reckon so much on your kindness to me as to believe that this consideration will be some inducement to you. But there are others of more importance. For you will consult your own honour, and that of your Order: You will rejoice the hearts of your friends, and stop the mouths of your enemies.

I said, of your enemies; for enemies you will always have, so long as there are bad men. And, while we endeavour to lessen the number of these, it should be our utmost care that none but such be ill-affected towards us. God forbid that the friends of virtue and religion should have so much as a pretence to speak or think ill of us! They cannot have this pretence, but through our own fault. Be we therefore strictly observant of our duty: Let us be seen, where the world will naturally look for us, in our proper places, intent on our proper business; and acting in our proper characters; and we shall infallibly secure the esteem of good men, and till it please God to touch and convert their hearts, we may defy the malice of bad ones.

The truth is, my reverend brethren, it depends very much on ourselves, whether the world shall conceive well or ill of us. Licentious and unbelieving as that world is, a learned and prudent and pious Clergyman will force respect from it. The more it may be inclined to blame, the greater must be our diligence and circumspection. And to animate myself and you to this care, is the whole end and purpose of this friendly address to you.

It only remains that I pray, with the holy Apostle, that we may abound in knowledge and in all judgment; that we may approve things that are excellent; that we may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Him to the glory and praise of God[32].

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen.

The Use and Abuse of Reason in Matters of Religion:
A
CHARGE
OF THE
BISHOP OF WORCESTER
TO THE
CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE.
DELIVERED IN THE YEAR 1785.

A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

Without the use of Reason in Religion, we are liable to be imposed upon by others. With the immoderate or indiscreet use of it, we impose upon ourselves. Both extremes are to be carefully avoided: but the latter, being that into which we are most in danger of falling in these times, will possibly deserve your first and principal attention.

Indeed the great Apostle of the Gentiles, foreseeing the mischiefs which the pride of human reason would produce in the Church of Christ, gave a timely warning to the Roman converts, not to be wise in their own conceits[33]. And whoever considers the history of the Church from that time to this, will find that nothing has been so injurious to it as the affectation of being wise above, or beside, what is written; I mean, in opposing our own sense of things to the authority of Scripture, or (which is the commoner, because something the modester way of the two) in forcing it out of the sacred text by a licentious interpretation. In either way, we idolize our own understandings; and are guilty of great irreverence towards the word of God.

It infinitely concerns the preachers of the Gospel to stand clear of these imputations; and therefore it may not be unsuitable to the occasion of our present meeting, if I set before you what I take to be the whole office of REASON on the subject of revealed Religion; what it has to do, and what it should forbear to attempt; how far it may and should go, and where it ought to stop; and lastly, how important it is for a Christian teacher, and indeed for every Christian man, to confine his curiosity within those bounds.

I. The first and principal office of Reason on this subject is to see whether Christianity be a divine Religion; in other words, whether the Scriptures, especially those of the New Testament, which contain the religion of Christians, be written by inspiration, or have no higher authority than the compositions of mere fallible men.

Now, for this purpose, you will collect and examine the numerous proofs, external and internal, which have been alledged as the proper grounds of assent to the truth of Christianity: The proof EXTERNAL; first, from Prophecy, involving in it an incredible number of probabilities, some less striking than others, but all of them of some moment in your deliberation; secondly, from Miracles, said to have been purposely wrought to attest the truth of Christianity; recorded by persons of the best character, who themselves performed there miracles, or saw them performed, or had received the accounts of them immediately from the workers and eye-witnesses of them; and not questioned, as far as we know, by any persons of that time, or for some ages afterwards. In the next place, you will consider the INTERNAL PROOF, from the history and genius, from the claims and views and pretensions of this Religion.

Under this last head, you will particularly attend to the promises said to have been made by Jesus to his disciples; and to the manner in which those promises appear to have been made good: the promise of inspiration to the Apostles, and the evidence they afterwards gave of their being actually so inspired.

Above all, you will carefully inspect those books which contain the account of these and other momentous things, as well as the doctrines of Christianity itself; and you will see whether the facts they relate be, any of them, contradicted by authentick history, or the doctrines they deliver be repugnant to the first and clearest principles of human knowledge. You will next inquire whether these books, containing nothing but what is credibly or supposeably true, were indeed written by the persons whose names they bear, and not by persons of later times, or by persons of that time, whose authority is more questionable. You will, further, consider what degree of inspiration these writings claim to themselves, and whether their claims have, in any instance, been discredited and confuted. You will, lastly, take into your account the event of things, and will reflect how far the success of so great an undertaking has corresponded to the supposition of its having been divinely directed; if, in short, you can any way account for what you know and see to be clear and evident fact on any other supposition.

Such, I think, is the outline of what must be thought the duty of a reasonable inquirer into the pretensions of Christianity. To fill up this sketch would require a volume: but you see from these hints that here is room enough for the exercise of the understanding, for the full display, indeed, of its best faculties. If Christianity, which invites, will stand the test of this inquiry, you cannot complain that Reason has not enough to do, or that your reception of it, as a divine revelation, is not founded on reason. Only, let me caution you against coming hastily to a conclusion from a slight or summary view of the particulars here mentioned. You must have the patience to evolve them all; to weigh the moment of each taken separately, and to decide at length on the united force of these arguments, when brought to bear on the single point to which you apply them, the DIVINE AUTHORITY of your religion.

To grasp all these considerations in one view will require the utmost effort of the strongest mind: And, when you have done this, you will remember that very much (so widely extended and so numerous are the presumptions on this subject) has probably, nay, has certainly, escaped your best attention.

However, on these grounds, I will now suppose that a serious man, who would be, and is qualified to be, a believer on conviction, has fully satisfied himself that Christianity is true, and that the Scriptures, in which the whole of that religion is contained, are of divine authority.

II. A second and very momentous use of Reason will then be, To scrutinize these Scriptures themselves, now admitted to be divine; that is, to investigate their true sense and meaning. For, whatever their authority be, as they were written for the use of men, they must be studied, and can only be understood, as other writings are, by applying to them the usual and approved rules of human criticism.

I have already supposed, that you have seen enough of these Scriptures to be satisfied of their containing no contradictions to the clear intuitive principles of human knowledge. For this satisfaction must precede the general conclusion, that the Scriptures are divinely revealed; all truth being consistent with itself, and it being impossible that any evidence for the truth of revelation should be stronger than that of Intuition. Still, it remains to inquire of doctrines taught in these books, and apparently, as to the general sense of them, not inadmissible, what is their precise and accurate interpretation.

And here, besides the use of languages, antiquities, history, and such other helps as are necessary to the right understanding of all ancient books, you will have ample scope for the exercise of your sagacity in studying the character of the sacred writers, the genius and views of each, with the peculiarities of their style and method; in tracing the connexion of their ideas, the pertinence and coherence of their reasonings; in comparing the same writer with himself, or different writers with each other; in explaining the briefer and darker passages by what is delivered more at large and more perspicuously elsewhere; in apprehending the harmony of their general scheme, and the consistency of what they teach on any particular subject.

In all these ways, and if there be any other, your Reason may be and should be employed with all the attention of which ye are capable. And when this task is now performed, and you have settled it in your own minds what the true genuine doctrines of Christianity are; what our religion teaches of divine things, and what it prescribes to us in moral matters; What more remains to be done? Clearly, but this—To BELIEVE, AND TO LIVE, according to its direction.

But, instead of acquiescing in this natural and just conclusion, the curiosity of the human mind is ready to engage us in new and endless labours. “The wise in their own conceits will examine this Religion, and see if it be REASONABLE: for surely nothing can proceed from Heaven but the purest and brightest reason.”

Here, first, they perplex themselves and others, by the use of an ambiguous term: for, by reasonable is meant, either what is not contrary to the clearest principles of reason, or what is clearly explicable, in all respects, by those principles. In the former sense, it must be maintained that Christianity is a reasonable Religion, and that no such contrariety to reason is to be found in it. In the latter sense, it may be true that Christianity is not reasonable, I mean, that the reasons on which it is founded are not always apparent to us: but then this sense of the word is not pertinent to the case in hand; and we may as well pretend that the constitution of the natural world is unreasonable, as that the system of Revelation is so, because we are in the same ignorance, for the most part, of the grounds and reasons on which either fabrick is erected.

In the next place, supposing that, by intense pains, and a greater sagacity than ordinary, we are enabled to see, or guess at least, in some instances, on what principles of reason the great scheme of revelation or some of its doctrines at least are founded, what do we get by the discovery? Only, the addition of a little speculative knowledge, which does not make us at all wiser to salvation, than we were before, and possibly not so wise; since knowledge, we know, puffeth up, and God giveth grace to the humble.

But, lastly, how do we arrive at this supposed pre-eminence of wisdom? Generally, by forcing the word of God to speak our sense of it, and not his; by taking advantage of some difficult texts, and by wresting many plain ones; by making every thing bend, in short, to our presumptuous fancies and preconceived opinions.

You see, then, what my meaning is—“That the EVIDENCE of Christianity, and not its rationale (which, however justly conceived and ably executed, cannot extend so far as curious men require, because Reason itself is so limited); I say then that the evidence of our religion is the proper object of inquiry;” and “that the Scriptures are to be admitted in that sense which they obviously bear, on a fair unforced construction of them, although that sense appear strange to us, or be, perhaps, inexplicable;” in a word, that the AUTHORITY and RIGHT INTERPRETATION of Scripture are what we ought to look after, and not the REASONABLENESS of what it teaches.

The truth is (for I would now, in conclusion, point out to you the mischievous effects of this curious theology, which has so much engaged the minds of Christians), the truth, I say, is, That we know not what we do, when we take heaven, as it were, to task, and examine a confessedly divine Revelation by the twilight of our Reason.

1. One effect is (and can there be a more dreadful one?) that this inquisitive humour, thus leads directly to Infidelity, and even Atheism. For the wise in their own conceits, not being able to clear up many parts of the divine dispensations, whether of nature or grace, to their satisfaction, hastily conclude that there is no fitness or wisdom, where they see none, and make their inapprehension an argument for their rejection of both. A perverse conduct, indeed! but so common, that I doubt whether there be any other so fruitful source of irreligion. But

2. When the mischief does not proceed to this extreme, still it is no small evil, that heresies arise, and must for ever arise, among believers themselves, from this way of subjecting the word of God to the scrutiny of our reason. For this faculty, being a different thing, under the same name, in every pretender to it, and, in its most improved state, being naturally incapable, where the revelation itself is silent or obscure, of deciding on what is fit and right in the divine counsels, must needs lead to as many different views and conclusions, as there are capacities and fancies of curious men. And, as every man’s reason is infallible to himself, because his own reason, his zeal in the propagation of what he calls truth, will keep pace with his presumption, till all is noise and dissonance and discord; till peace and charity forsake the world; till Religion herself disappears; and what is left to usurp her name and place is only an art, or rather a fit, of disputation. Then consider

3. How immense a sacrifice we make to the indulgence of a wanton curiosity. The Gospel was given to fix our faith and regulate our practice; to purify our hearts and lives, and to fill us with all joy and peace in believing. Instead of these substantial fruits, we reap I know not what phantom of self-applause for our ingenious speculations: we lose our precious time in reasoning, when we should act, and hardly ever come to an end of our reasonings: we grope on in these dark and intricate paths of inquiry, without ever attaining the heart-felt joy of conviction: we are so intent on trying all things, that we hold fast nothing: we spend a great part of our lives, some of us our whole lives, in suspense and doubt: and are so long examining what our faith is, and whether it be reasonable or no, that, with a divine directory in our hands, we drop into our graves before we come to a resolution of those questions.

These are the sad effects of this intemperate wisdom, which therefore we shall do well to exchange for a little modest piety. And such has been uniformly the advice of the ablest and wisest men, from the foundation of Christianity down to this day. It would be endless to refer you to particular instances in their writings. Their sentiments on this subject are concisely and forcibly expressed in the following passage of as great a master of reason as hath appeared in the Christian world since the revival of letters, which I will therefore leave with you, and would recommend to your most attentive consideration.

“Rationibus humanis scrutari divinæ naturæ (and what he observes of the divine nature, is equally true of the divine councils) cognitionem, temeritas est: loqui de his, quæ nullis verbis explicari queunt, dementis est: definire, impietas est.” And again—“Satis est ad consequendam salutem æternam, ea de Deo credere, quæ palam ipse de se prodidit in sacris literis, per selectos ad hoc viros, spiritu suo afflatos; quæque post versans in terris ipse discipulis aperuit: ac demum per spiritum sanctum iisdem in hoc selectis discipulis patefacere dignatus est. Hæc simplici fide tenere, Christiana philosophia est: hæc puro corde venerari, vera Religio est: per hæc tendere ad cœlestis vitæ meditationem, pietas est: in his perseverare, victoria est: per hæc vicisse, summa fœlicitatis est. Cæterum HOMINEM ULTRA HÆC HUMANIS RATIONIBUS DE REBUS DIVINIS VESTIGARE, PERICULOSÆ CUJUSDAM ATQUE IMPIÆ AUDACIÆ EST[34].”

A
CHARGE
OF THE
BISHOP OF WORCESTER
TO THE
CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE.
DELIVERED IN THE YEAR 1790.

A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

It has been observed, that men of sense and parts are not always on the side of Christianity: And it is asked, how the unbelief of such men can consist with the honour of that Religion?

We find this topic insisted upon, or insinuated at least, with much complacency, in all the free writings of these times. And some of them, however offensive for their impiety, being composed with vivacity, and delivered in a popular style, gain more credit with unwary readers than they deserve.

It behoves us to be on our guard against those insinuations, and to prevent their having an effect upon others. It will not therefore be unsuitable to the design of our meeting, if I suggest to the younger part of you (for the elder and more experienced have no need of my instruction), if I expose in few words the folly of inferring the falshood of religion from the rejection of it by a few plausible or learned men. And to give what I have to say the greater weight with you, I shall deliver my sentiments on the subject in a short comment on a remarkable text of St. Paul; who has indeed long ago obviated this prejudice, and fully accounted for the supposed fact, without derogating in any degree from the honour of our divine Religion.

For no sooner was Christianity published to the world, than it was opposed by all the wisdom of that age, which was, in truth, distinguished by its wisdom. But then it was human wisdom only, confiding in itself, and wholly unacquainted with divine wisdom. These were often at variance, and sometimes irreconcileable with each other. No wonder then, that not many wise men after the flesh, as the Apostle expresseth it, were called, i. e. converted to Christianity, and that the wisdom of Revelation was deemed folly (as it is in our days, and as it always will be) by the idolaters of their own carnal wisdom.

This early and popular prejudice, therefore, against the religion of Jesus, the great Apostle of the Gentiles found it expedient to remove. And he does it effectually in that oracular sentence delivered by him in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in these words;

“The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned[35].”

The meaning of the words is clearly this: “That no man can, by the force of his natural understanding, however improved, discover the doctrines of the Gospel; nor even relish them, when they are proposed to him, so long as he judges of them by the light of his reason only: and that upon this account, because those doctrines are solely derived from the wisdom of God, which is superior to our wisdom; and will even seem foolishness to such a man, because those doctrines are not such as his natural reason, or wisdom, would suggest to him.”

The text therefore, you see, consists of two distinct affirmations, with a reason assigned for each. 1. That the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: and 2. that he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

I begin with the last of these assertions. I. That the natural man cannot know, i. e. discover, the doctrines of the Gospel, is so clear, that this assertion hardly requires any proof; or, if it do, the reason given in the text is decisive—because they are spiritually discerned—i. e. because the knowledge of them is derived from the spirit of God. For, how can man’s understanding penetrate the secrets of divine counsels? Or, as the Apostle himself manages the argument much better, What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God.

II. His other assertion—That the natural man receiveth not the things of God, i. e. is indisposed to receive them—is more interesting to us, and will require a larger illustration. His reason for this assertion is, For they are foolishness unto him. The reason is very general, and therefore obscure: for you ask how or whence is it, that those things are foolishness unto him?

I answer then, 1. because, he could not discover them. It is argument enough, many times, with the natural man, to reject any doctrine, which his own sagacity was unable to find out. For, taking for granted the all-sufficiency of human reason, and that what is knowable of divine things is within the reach of his own faculties, he concludes at once that such doctrines as he could not have discovered are therefore false. If it be only in matters of human science, a discovery, which very much transcends the abilities of common inquirers, is for that reason ill-received and slighted by many persons. Much more may we suppose this prejudice to be entertained against discoveries which no human abilities whatever could possibly have made.

But 2. a further reason why such things are thought foolish by the natural man is, because they are widely different from his notions and apprehensions. He was not only unable to invent them himself; but, when proposed to him, he cannot see how they should merit his regard, being so little suited, as they are, to the previous conclusions of his own understanding. Now this prejudice is of great extent; and is almost natural to the pride of human reason.

For, supposing a divine Revelation to be given at all, men form to themselves certain notions of what it must needs be; and finding that it does not correspond to those notions, they receive it not, i. e. they conclude it to be unreasonable.

Thus, one man imagines that the Gospel could be only a republication of the law of nature. He finds it is much more; and therefore, without further search, infers its falshood. Another man admits that the Gospel might be an extraordinary scheme for the advancement of human virtue and happiness: but then he presumes that these ends could only, or would best, be answered by a complete system of moral truths, and by making the future happiness of man depend upon moral practice only. He understands that the Gospel proposes to reform mankind by faith, and holds out its rewards only to such as are actuated by that principle. He rejects then a scheme of religion which so little accords to his expectations. A third person allows that faith may be the proper object of reward, but a faith in God only: to his surprize he perceives that this faith is required to be in Jesus, the son of God indeed, but the son of man too, and in him crucified; that the Gospel supposes mankind to have been under the curse of mortality, and to be redeemed from it only in virtue of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. This strange dispensation is nothing like that which he should have planned himself: it is therefore disbelieved by him.

Thus it appears how the natural man is disposed to think unfavourably of the Gospel, because its doctrines are not such as he should previously have expected. But another and more fatal prejudice misleads him. For

3. The things of the spirit seem foolishness to the natural man, because on the strictest inquiry he cannot perhaps find out the reasons of them; and must admit them, many times, upon trust, as we say, or, in the language of Scripture, on a principle of faith only. This experienced inability to search the deep things of God hurts his pride most of all. That the divine counsels are beyond his discovery, may be true; that they should be besides his first hasty expectations, may be digested: but that, when discovered and considered, they should yet elude his grasp, and not submit to be comprehended by his utmost capacity, this disgrace is insupportable to him. Yet such are the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Revelation. “The forfeiture of life and immortality, for all mankind, in consequence of one man’s disobedience,” implies a degree of rigour in the divine justice, of which he cannot understand the reason. On the other hand, “The restoration of that lost inheritance by the transcendent humiliation of the Son of God,” is an abyss of mercy which he can still less fathom. These two principles, on which the whole scheme of the Gospel turns, are not to be scanned by human wisdom, and must be admitted on the authority of the Revelation only. The natural man finds his reason so much discountenanced and abased by its fruitless efforts to penetrate these mysteries, that he has no disposition to receive, nay, he thinks the honour of his understanding concerned in rejecting, such doctrines.

4. The fourth and last reason I shall mention (and but in one word) for the natural man’s unfavourable sentiments of revealed religion, is, That the wisdom of this scheme, so far as it may be apprehended by us, can only appear from considering the harmony of its several parts, or, as St. Paul expresses it, by comparing spiritual things with spiritual[36]; a work of time and labour, which he is by no means forward to undertake. So that, as, in the former instances, his indisposition arose from the pride of reason, it here springs from its laziness and inapplication.

I omit other considerations, which indispose men for the reception of the Gospel; such I mean as arise from the perversity of the human will; because I confine myself at present to those only which respect the exercise of human Reason. Now it has been shewn, that this faculty, as it is commonly employed by those who pride themselves most in it, is unpropitious to Revelation—because, it cares not to admit what it could not discover—because, it willingly disbelieves what it did not expect—because, it is given to reject what it cannot at all, or cannot, at least, without much pains, comprehend. So good reason had the Apostle for asserting, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God!

Very much of what his been here observed of Unbelief, might be applied to what is so prevalent in our days, and is termed Socinianism: which, though it do not disown altogether the authority of revealed religion, yet takes leave to reduce it to a small matter, and to explain away its peculiar doctrines, by a forced and irreverend interpretation of Scripture. So that the difference is only this: the unbeliever rejects revelation in the gross, as wholly inconsistent with human reason; the Socinian admits so much of it as he can bend, or torture into some conformity with his own reason.

But I have considered this species of Unbelief on a former occasion.

At present, I conclude, on the authority of the text now explained and justified, that no abilities whatsoever of the professed unbeliever bring any the least discredit on Christianity, because we know that the two inherent defects of the natural man, pride and indolence, very fully account for his unbelief, without supposing any want of evidence or reasonableness in the Christian Religion.

Let it then be no discredit to the Gospel, that it requires faith, which is but another term for Modesty, in its professors. With this amiable, and surely not unreasonable, turn of mind, the sublimest understanding will not scruple to receive the things of the spirit of God; without it, the natural man cannot receive them: for, as the Apostle declares, and this whole discourse testifies, they are foolishness unto him.

A
CHARGE
OF THE
BISHOP OF WORCESTER
TO THE
CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE.
DELIVERED IN THE YEAR 1796.

A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

The Christian Church has, in no age, been exempt from trials. The faith and patience of the Saints have been successively exercised by persecution, by heresies, by schisms, by superstition, by fanaticism, by disguised or avowed infidelity, and sometimes by downright atheism.

In the midst of these perpetual changes, the duty of US, the Ministers of the Gospel, is one and the same, To preach the word, in season and out of season, that is, whether the circumstances of the time be favourable to us or not[37].

Concerning the evidences of the Gospel, or the grounds on which our belief of it is founded, I say no more at present, than that they have been accurately considered, and set forth at large, by ancient and modern writers, and are in themselves abundantly satisfactory.

Taking for granted therefore, as we well may, the divine authority of our holy Religion, there can be no dispute about the obligation we are under to PREACH it with diligence. But this may be done in several ways: and it may be of use to consider in WHAT way we shall most effectually discharge that duty.

The Apostle delivers the whole secret in one word, when he ordains—If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. And my present business will be to unfold the meaning of this text, or rather to deduce the consequences which naturally flow from it.

We are to speak as the Oracles of God: that is, as men, who have it in charge to deliver the will and word of God.

I. It follows then, FIRST, that we are to preach the Gospel SIMPLY AND PLAINLY; i. e. 1. to deliver Scripture truths, in opposition to merely human tenets and positions: And 2. cogent and immediate inferences from those truths, in exclusion of far-fetched and fanciful deductions.

1. Having a message to deliver, our business is to report it with fidelity, and, as a message coming from God, with all imaginable reverence. Human ingenuity may be employed in other compositions, but has no place here. Our own fancies, and even persuasions, so far as they rest on our own discovery, must be kept distinct from revealed truths; and the two sorts of learning, philosophy and divinity (as the wisest man[38] of the last age advised), are on no account to be blended together. The reason is, that they stand on different foundations; the one, on the use of our natural faculties, the other, on supernatural illumination only. The latter we call Faith; the former, Opinion, or, as it may chance, Knowledge.

Some regard must be had to this distinction, in discoursing on Christian morals, where Reason can do most. But, as to articles of faith, that is, the sum and substance of Christianity, properly so called, the rule is to be observed universally and inviolably.

2. It follows also, from our speaking as the oracles of God, That we take great care how we deviate from the sacred text, either in our conclusions from it, or in our glosses upon it. Our conclusions, unless immediate and direct, and even countenanced by the inspired writers themselves, may easily mislead us. For the nature of the subject being not at all, or very obscurely, known, we have but a dim view of the truths necessarily connected with it. Great caution, then, is in this respect necessary. It is not less so, in explaining the sacred text. An oracle of God should be delivered either in its own words, or, at least, in words clearly, and according to the best rules of interpretation, explicatory of them. The contrary practice is evidently irreverent, rash, and even prophane. Had this circumspection in reasoning from revealed truths, and in commenting upon them, been strictly observed, all those heresies which have corrupted, and still corrupt the faith, had been prevented; and the Church of Christ had happily enjoyed the great blessing we daily pray for, The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

II. It follows, in the next place, from our being instructed to speak as the Oracles of God, that we preach the truths of the Gospel AUTHORITATIVELY, in exclusion of doubt or hesitation.

This is a consideration of great weight, and puts a wide difference between the Christian preacher and the theoretical discourser. When weak men have no ground to stand upon in their moral or religious enquiries but their own industry and ingenuity, they may well suspect the soundness of their conclusions, and had need deliver them with distrust and caution. But the word of God is unquestionable. What is built upon it is certainly true. Our modesty therefore suffers nothing from announcing truths, so derived, with perfect assurance[39].

The advantage of this mode of preaching must be obvious to every body. It was observed by the Jews in the case of our Lord himself; who, speaking as the oracles of God, and as God, astonished his auditory, for that he taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes[40]: as having authority, because he uttered nothing but infallible truth, which he had received from God, and had even a right to deliver in his own name; and not as the Scribes, who might indeed have spoken with authority, if they had duly respected the Law of Moses, which was the Law of God; but had forfeited this advantage by the liberty they took of mixing with it their own glosses and traditions[41]. A perpetual and awakening admonition to the Christian preacher never to forget or betray his high privilege of speaking with that tone of authority which becomes his office, and commands attention[42].

This authoritative mode of preaching requires that we carefully avoid, in our public discourses, whatever has the air of CONTROVERSY[43]. Our business is to speak undoubted truths, not to dispute about uncertain opinions. There are many points, no doubt, relative to the Christian Religion, besides the evidences of it, that may be properly inquired into, but not in our Churches. We are to press there only what we know to be true, and to press it for that reason. Let such persons, then, as are curious to pry into abstruse questions, have recourse to the Schools, where such discussions are in their place; or to Books, where they may be regaled with this sort of entertainment to satiety. But let them not carry this sceptical humour into that Chair, whence oracles only should proceed.

The preacher will indeed say, his design is to recommend and illustrate the truth by the use of reason. It may be so: but let him remember, that the plainest truths lose much of their weight when they are rarefied into subtleties[44]; and that what is readily admitted on the authority of God’s word, becomes doubtful to the common hearer, when we would prove it by ingenious argumentation.

To compleat the character of a Christian Preacher, it follows as a

III. Third inference from the Apostle’s rule of speaking as the oracles of God, That he inculcate his doctrine with EARNESTNESS and ZEAL, and not with that indifference which is usually found, and cannot be much wondered at, in a teacher of his own inventions.

The Christian preacher should, I say, speak with earnestness; that is, with a solicitous concern to instruct and persuade, such as the known truth of his doctrine warrants. This earnestness must also be attended with zeal; by which I mean nothing extravagant or fanatical; but such a fervour of application as must become an Instructor, who, besides the certainty, knows the moment of what he utters.

These rules, it is true, were not unknown to the ancient masters of Rhetoric, who told their scholars, That to convince, and, much more, to persuade, they were to speak with force and warmth. But to do this, they were first to be convinced and persuaded themselves[45]; which, in their case, was no easy matter. For the principles they went upon in their reasoning on moral or religious matters, were frequently such as they could not confide in; or the end they aimed at, in applying to the passions, was in no high degree interesting. In spite of the rule, then, their discourses were often feeble and unimpressive. It is quite otherwise with the Christian preacher. For we are not recommending a scheme of notions which we have framed out of our own heads, or which we think in some small degree conducive to the benefit of our hearers. But we speak that which is indisputably true; and inforce that which, out of all question, concerns us most, “The salvation of our souls, and eternal happiness.” The coldest heart must be touched with sure truths, and cannot impart them without vehemence.

I intimate, rather than express, my meaning to you in few words; both because the time allows me to do no more, and because I know to whom these hints are addressed. For your experience in the ministry of the word must have prevented me in all I have said, and will readily supply what I have omitted to say. I assure myself, therefore, you will come with me to this short conclusion, “That in our sermons we should execute our commission with FIDELITY, because it is a commission—in the way of AUTHORITY, because it is a divine commission—and lastly with ZEAL, as knowing the end of our commission, and the infinite importance of it.”

By this method of instruction (of which there is no want of examples, or even models, in the sermons of our best preachers[46]), by this Apostolic mode of preaching, I say, we shall do justice at once to our ministry and ourselves. By speaking as the oracles of God, we shall speak as we ought to speak; and we shall speak with an energy that can rarely fail of effect. We shall alarm the careless, instruct the ignorant, confirm the weak, reclaim the perverse, disconcert the wise, and silence the prophane. We shall do this, and more, in the strength of him who bade us teach all nations. And if we teach them in the way which the Holy Spirit enjoins, we may confidently expect the completion of that gracious and animating promise—Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world[47].

A
CHARGE
OF THE
BISHOP OF WORCESTER
TO THE
CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE.
DELIVERED IN THE YEAR 1800.

A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

I found it necessary to defer my Visitation of you somewhat longer than the usual time; and have even now no pressing occasion to trouble you with many words of advice or pastoral exhortation.

For it is with great satisfaction I observe that, in the present eventful crisis, the clergy in general, and those in particular committed to my charge, have zealously performed their duty in those instances, that have chiefly called for their exertions.

If the unprecedented expences of a just and unavoidable war, against an enemy the most outrageous that has ever alarmed Christendom, have been felt by all; you have not only supported your share of them with becoming alacrity, but have done your utmost to infuse into others the same ready obedience to the authority of Government, and the same zeal for the support and maintenance of our invaluable Constitution.

If, again, for the punishment of our sins, and to recall us to a due sense of sobriety and piety, it has pleased God to visit us with inclement seasons, and with the usual effect of them, an extraordinary scarcity; you have every where come forth to assist the poor out of your own, not always affluent, incomes, and to solicit the contributions of your parishioners with such effect, as demonstrates their Christian temper, as well as your own watchful care and diligence.

If, lastly, the portentous libertinism of the times hath menaced the destruction of all civil subordination, and even set at defiance all the sacred ties of our holy Religion; you have not been wanting, in your respective spheres, to admonish the people of their duty; to revive in them that veneration of God’s word and will, which had been their support and safety in former ages; and, agreeably to your solemn engagements at your Ordination, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine.

Having then so much to approve in your conduct, little remains but to put you in mind of those standing duties of our ministry, which should never be omitted, and cannot be too frequently recollected by us. And, of these, one is so particularly called for in the present moment, that I shall make it the subject of my address to you.

I mean the duty of Catechizing the children of your respective parishes. For, since the enemies of all goodness are unwearied in their endeavours to corrupt the young and unwary, and to eradicate from their minds, as far as they can, the first principles of religion and virtue, the Christian minister cannot by any means so effectually counteract their designs, as by a contrary conduct. In other words, he must labour incessantly to instruct the rising generation in the first grounds and elements of Christianity, contained in that excellent summary of faith and practice, which the Church has enjoined to be taught in its Catechism[48].

Now the uses of discharging this part of the pastoral care with persevering industry are evidently very great in respect, 1. To the Catechumens; 2. To the congregation present at these exercises; And, 3. lastly, To the officiating clergy themselves, the younger part of them especially.

1. The Catechumens themselves cannot but be greatly benefited by this regimen. For the intention of the Church is, that, by the care of their parents, and by means of those little schools which are set up in all places, young children should be taught, as soon as they are able to attend to any thing, the Church Catechism. And when, by some practice in this discipline, they can repeat it well, they are to be sent to the Minister of the parish, to be by him publicly in the Church, at appointed seasons, proved and examined before the Congregation. This usage being continued for some years, not only the responses to the interesting questions in the Catechism must be deeply infixed in their memories, but something of the sense and meaning of what they have learned, will be gradually apprehended by them. So that, by the time they appear before the Bishop for Confirmation, if their respective masters and teachers be not wanting to them, they must have acquired a competent knowledge of those important doctrines and precepts, which are contained in it. Add to this, that, though at the time of learning their Catechism their knowledge of it be not considerable, yet it is of the highest importance that it be learnt, and that they can readily recite it. For, this foundation being laid, they will, in maturer years, and as their understandings open, the more easily call to mind the rules of their duty, and profit the more by any future instructions conveyed to them in sermons, in the use of the Liturgy, and otherwise.

Such will especially be the case, if the children be accustomed, as they should be, to make their answers distinctly and deliberately; and, if the Minister intermix some short hints and observations of his own, tending to make the sense of those answers easy and familiar to them. So much for the Catechumens; I observe,

2. Further, that the whole Congregation present at these exercises must be specially edified by them.

The parents and friends of the catechized children will, for obvious reasons, take a lively interest in this public trial of their sufficiency. They will listen themselves, more attentively perhaps than they had ever done before, to the questions and answers, and will enter further into the drift and use of them. Nay, the whole congregation will be put in mind of those fundamental lessons of piety, which they had heretofore learnt and repeated themselves, and be now capable of reflecting more deeply upon them. So that the old will carry away with them much solid instruction, while the young are training up to smaller degrees of it.

There is no doubt, then, of the benefit which the Congregation would derive from this practice of Catechising. But it would rise still higher, if the Catechizers, besides interrogating the children, and trying their memories, would further take this opportunity of teaching all present the momentous truths contained in this breviary: I mean, if, during the season of Catechizing, they would make the several parts of the Catechism the subject of their Sermons. And, to induce them the rather to do this, I add,

3. Lastly, that, by exerting their industry and talents in this way, the Clergy themselves will derive no small use from this Catechetical institution.

From the earliest times of Christianity, care has been always taken to provide Confessions, Creeds, and Catechisms, for the use of Converts and the newly baptized. These were so contrived as to contain in few words the fundamental doctrines and commands of our Religion; that so they night be easily understood and remembered. Of these summaries, several were drawn up by our Reformers; and, after some changes and improvements, were reduced at length into our present Church Catechism, the most convenient and useful, because the simplest and shortest, of all others.

All these, whether of earlier or later date, are well known to the Clergy, and without doubt are studied by them.

Besides, some of the most eminent of our Divines have applied themselves particularly to write comments on these Catechisms, to explain their meaning more fully, and to give the most accurate expositions of them. These expositors are so numerous, and so well known, that I should scarce have mentioned the names of any, if two of them, I mean Bishop Pearson and Dr. Barrow, did not deserve to be specially recommended to the student in Divinity, for their superlative excellence.

Now then, by the use of our protestant Catechisms, and of the many learned Commentators upon them, the younger clergy, as well as the more advanced, will have such abundant materials before them, that they may, with no great trouble, and with extraordinary benefit to themselves, draw up a set of Sermons and Lectures to accompany their Catechetical examinations. I say with extraordinary benefit to themselves; because it is certain that he who takes due pains to teach others, teaches himself: nor can the least prepared of our brethren be at a loss to furnish his mind with a competent, indeed a sufficient, degree of knowledge; so as to instruct his congregation in all the Articles of the Church Catechism, that is, in all the necessary points of Christian faith and practice.

In contemplation therefore of these benefits, I recommend this mode of catechizing, and of expounding the Catechism in occasional concomitant discourses, to all my brethren very particularly. The children will be trained up for Confirmation in the knowledge of the first principles of their religion; those of riper years will be confirmed in what they had before learnt; and the teachers of both will advance their own skill and ability by this course of theological study.

We shall be told perhaps by some, that this way of catechizing is the way to fill the minds of the Catechumens with prejudices. And, without doubt, what is taught them in this way is pre-judged for them. But by whom? Not by weak, or unskilful, or dishonest persons; but by men, the ablest, the most learned, and the holiest, that have appeared in the Christian world. Such doctrines, so derived, and, let me add, clearly sanctioned by apostolic authority, may surely deserve the name of truths, and not of prejudices.

I am persuaded, therefore, that a Regimen, so reasonable and so salutary, will recommend itself to your special notice, as the likeliest means of putting some stop to the licentious principles of the times. I will not suppose that your zeal to do good can be, at such a juncture, less operative, than that of others to do mischief. In a word, by adapting a set of clear, plain, earnest, and scriptural sermons to the authorized office of catechetical examination, we shall provide, at once, that our Congregations be instructed in the right way; the way which the wisdom of the Church prescribes; and that we ourselves be duly qualified to impart that instruction.

The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen[49].

APPENDIX:
CONTAINING
FOUR OCCASIONAL TRACTS
ON
DIFFERENT SUBJECTS AND OCCASIONS.

OCCASIONAL TRACTS,
CHIEFLY
CONTROVERSIAL.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The controversial Tracts, which make up this Volume, were written and published by the Author at different times, as opportunity invited, or occasion required. Some sharpness of style may be objected to them; in regard to which he apologizes for himself in the words of the Poet:

——Me quoque pectoris
Tentavit in dulci juventâ
Fervor——
——nunc ego mitibus
Mutare quæro tristia.

R. W.

REMARKS
ON
MR. WESTON’S “ENQUIRY
INTO
THE REJECTION OF THE
CHRISTIAN MIRACLES
BY THE HEATHENS.”
FIRST PRINTED IN 1746.

ADVERTISEMENT
IN 1746.

The following Remarks were drawn up within a few weeks after the publication of Mr. Weston’s Book; but without any intention of printing them at that time, when it was conceived not unlikely that some more elaborate Answer might come out. But nothing of that kind appearing, and it being now no longer probable that there is in fact any such design, the Author has been induced to review his papers, and to give them, with some small additions and alterations, to the Public. How far that Public will esteem itself obliged to him for having suppressed them thus long, he presumes not to say; but believes himself well intitled to the thanks of the learned Inquirer, as having still this merit, that he is the FIRST who has paid his respects to him.

REMARKS
ON A LATE BOOK, ENTITLED,
AN ENQUIRY
INTO
THE REJECTION OF THE
CHRISTIAN MIRACLES
BY THE HEATHENS.

REMARKS ON A LATE BOOK, &c.

The Writer of the Inquiry into the Rejection of the Christian Miracles by the Heathens[50] having, as he is well assured[51], an undoubted claim to one of the two reasons for making a work public, that what it contains SHOULD be new, and not willing that so uncommon a merit should be thrown away upon his reader, is careful to advertise us of this point himself, and accordingly flourishes upon it with much apparent alacrity and satisfaction through a great part of his Preface. For, not content with this bare assertion of his claim, he grows so elate, as to wonder this important theme should be reserved for him[52], and that no sagacity of former times had been blessed in the discovery. Nay, lest his very Patron should neglect him, or as if he suspected my Lord might look no farther than the Dedication, he scruples not to mention even there the excellency of his work; and is very frank in declaring his own good opinion of it[53].

An exordium like this, we know, is generally inauspicious. However, it may serve to one end, not the least considerable, it may be, in an author’s views, to engage the public attention. For it is indeed but natural to inquire into the peculiar merit of a work that could inspire its writer with such boasts, and fill a place in it, till now sacred to a real or pretended modesty, with such unusual confidence and triumph. And this, we are told, consists in the discovery of a new solution of a difficulty about miracles[54], which had long perplexed the Inquirer more than all the rest put together. For, taking into his consideration the argument for the divinity of our holy Religion, as arising therefrom, he could not help thinking it extremely odd, that such numbers of men, for so long a time, could reject what to Christians in general, and himself in particular, seemed to be of so great weight[55]. And the embarras he was under from this difficulty put him upon looking for some solution of it amongst the variety of authors on this subject, both ancient and modern; but to no purpose, it seems, till the felicity of his own genius had struck out a new route, and led him to seek it in the low opinion which the heathens entertained of miracles.

And now the whole discovery is out; and, to say the truth, is every way so surprizing, that an author of less modesty than ours had assumed a still farther merit upon it. For, wherefore else should he rest in the honour of a new solution, when the objection itself is his? And surely at this time of day, when every species of hostility has been tried, and the whole armoury of the enemy been exhausted in the service, it must be deemed a higher praise of invention to have furnished new arms, than to counteract the use of them. Nor do I pay the author too great a compliment in supposing the objection his, since he fairly owns it has always been passed over[56], which, in an age like this, when every difficulty relating to Revealed Religion has been sedulously urged, and honestly examined, is in effect saying it was never started. And, indeed, this is so much the case, that, instead of dreaming of any objection from this quarter, Christian writers have universally agreed in representing the quick and speedy conversion of the heathen world, as an undeniable evidence of its divinity. And, for the truth of the fact, they appeal to the testimony of the heathens themselves complaining of the enormous growth of the new sect; which had spread itself over at orders and degrees of men, insomuch that their altars were neglected, and the temples of their gods left in a manner desolate[57]. Nay, the Christian apologists, we know, braved them to their very face with the incredible progress of Christianity[58]. And thus, instead of its being true, as the Inquirer candidly insinuates, that there was something so exceedingly perplexed and intricate in the subject itself, or something so critical and dangerous in the solution of it, that it was always thought proper to be kept from view[59], nothing, on the contrary, can be more evident than that there is no difficulty to be accounted for at all; or, if some more forward projector should affect to make one of it, the pretence might easily, and without any danger, admit a solution. So that, upon the whole (if a dealer in novelties were not too much disgraced by so stale an allusion), one should be apt to regard the learned writer as having been pushed on to this Inquiry by much the same spirit as, in an evil hour, led the valorous Knight of Manca out upon his rambles. For, struck with the conceit of his own superior prowess, and considering withal the loss the world might sustain by his not appearing in it, he marched forth into the land of Religious Disputation, in quest of adventures; where, finding no real objections to encounter, he was determined however to create imaginary ones, and so, converting the next innocent thing he came at into a monster, laid out his whole strength and force in the combat. Where too the success of the adventurers is not unlike. For the difficulty, if it be one, is much too hard for the abilities of our Inquirer; as, whatever his antagonist was, the unlucky Knight had always the worst of it. For, in examining the other part of the author’s discovery, his answer to the supposed objection, we shall find that as he set out with a difficulty without grounds, so he will salve it by a fact without proof. And this, it will be owned, consistently enough: for, where a phantom only is to be engaged, the hero but exposes himself that goes against it in real armour.

——Frustra ferro diverberet umbras.

But let us hear the fact itself. It is maintained then as the basis of the Inquirer’s whole work, that the heathens in general had a very low opinion of miracles; and that this was not put on by them to serve some particular purposes, but was really a principle that influenced their actions on the most interesting and trying occasions[60]. The Inquirer has more than once[61] expressed his apprehensions that the novelty of his doctrine would, at least with many of his readers, be a prejudice against its reception; but not once, that I can find, does he appear to have entertained any the least distrust or concern about the truth of it. And yet the public will be apt to think this the fitter object of his fears. For, allowing the utmost weight and force to the several testimonies he has put together, the whole amount of their evidence is this:—that a few particular persons, many of them under inveterate prejudices against Christianity, expressed but a low opinion of miracles, which they knew to be FALSE, or of certain REAL ones, which they did not believe. And where is the wonder? Or how has the Inquirer, with all his sagacity, been able to collect a proof of the low opinion of miracles amongst the heathen in general from the unavailing evidence of such witnesses? For, is it strange that the Roman præfects[62] were not the immediate converts of Jesus and Paul, on account of the wonders said to have been done by them? If the Inquirer believes such testimonies to his purpose, I will engage to furnish a long list of them, even as many as there were unconverted heathens, who had the means and opportunity of informing themselves of the truth of his history. Is it remarkable that the miracles of one impostor[63] are not spoken of with much esteem by writers, who were not delivering the popular opinion concerning them, and who had plainly too much sense to believe them themselves? Or is it so much as true, either of him, or the others he mentions, that they were then negligently treated by their professed admirers and encomiasts[64]? Or, were it true, could any thing more be collected from it than that the miracles imputed to them were too trifling in themselves, or too weakly supported, to be believed?

But we have not yet done with the writer’s negative testimonies. For he thinks that of Marcellinus should not be passed over; though the most he can make of it is, that the historian dissembles a miracle[65] wrought to the utter confusion of his Master, and relates an event, which he was not at liberty to confute.

What comes next is indeed positive, but still less to the writer’s purpose. We can scarce think him serious, when he would urge the testimony of Hierocles, Celsus, and Julian, the avowed and virulent opposers of Christianity[66], as an evidence of a general contempt of miracles in the heathen world. Nor has he better luck with his philosophers. For, is the opinion of a few atheistical speculatists[67], and perhaps one or two more of better fame, of the least weight in deciding this matter; especially when it is plain, from the very passage referred to[68], that they saw through the imposture of the heathen miracles; and rejected them merely on that account? Can his Ægyptian Gymnosophists, piqued, as they were, at the reputation of the Indian miracles[69], and yet, in effect, confessing their esteem of them by pretending to work such themselves, can these witnesses be thought deserving the least credit? Above all, is the wonder-working Apollonius brought in to disclaim miracles, and that too in a passage intended only to express his contempt of some fooleries in witchcraft[70]? But what the philosophers could not do for him, the law-givers he resolves shall, and therefore brings in a long list of sages[71], all of them, as he thinks, concurring to establish this point. But how? Why, in his negative way of witnessing, in their making no pretence to miracles—that is, as every body sees, in their making no pretence to what they durst not counterfeit, or did not want; and when it is certain they did pretend to them in the only safe way of a secret intercourse and communication[72]. But the cause is growing still more desperate. For, are the Christian Apologists to be charged with this evil principle[73]? and that only for maintaining, in their occasional disputes with the heathens; what the ablest Divines have ever done, and still continue to maintain, the insufficiency of miracles alone, and if taken by themselves, to establish the divinity of any revelation? an opinion founded, as it should seem, on the express testimony of Jesus Christ[74]; or, if false, which has not been made appear, excusable enough in their situation, when real miracles were owned to be in the power of evil spirits, or when at least the general prevalency of this persuasion amongst their heathen adversaries might render it expedient for the Christian writers to argue on the concession of it. But, ill as this treatment is, the venerable Apologists have no cause of complaint. They share but the same fate, as ONE much their better. For, the dignity of the writer’s witnesses, whatever becomes of their evidence, is still increasing[75]; and having made free with the Fathers of the Church (for I say nothing of his Jews, not only because he confesses them nothing to his purpose[76], but because, if their evidence has any weight at all, it determines the contrary way[77]), having, as I said, made free with the Fathers of the Church, he next claims the sanction of an Apostle. Has then the Inquirer one sure and certain retreat? And is his novelty at last, all spent and wearied as it is, to elude our hopes by finding refuge in the sacred writings[78]? So indeed he would persuade himself or his readers. And this, it must be owned, is no novel practice. It is ever the last expedient of a sinking cause, when forsaken of all human help, and fearing the just vengeance of indignant reason, to strive to support itself by laying hold on the altar. But the Scriptures are no sanctuary for falshoods. We shall therefore esteem it no irreverence to approach the holy place, and, as we are instructed in a like case, to take the fugitive from it. The case appears to have been this: In the Apostle’s design of breaking an unchristian faction in the Church of Corinth, which had arose, it seems, from a vain ostentation of human science, his business was to discredit their misapplied learning with the people, and to check the arrogance of these perverse disputers themselves. To this end, he sets himself to shew that it was not on account of any advantage of skill in human learning or eloquence that God was pleased to make choice of the preachers of the Gospel; but that, on the other hand, he rather chose the foolish, i. e. the illiterate and uneducated, the better to expose the weakness of human wisdom, and to display, with greater force, the power and excellency of the Cross of Christ[79]. And this, he proceeds to observe, is but agreeable to the general œconomy of God’s providence, which doth not conform itself to our views of fitness or expediency; but most commonly by the choice of such instruments and means as to us seem unfit or inexpedient, destroys the wisdom of the wise, and brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent[80]. A remarkable example of which method of dealing with mankind, continues the Apostle[81], we have in the dispensation of the Gospel, introduced in such a manner, and established by such means, as both to Jew and Gentile appear absurd and unaccountable. For the Jews ask after a sign, i. e. look for an outward ostentatious display of worldly power and pre-eminence going along with, and attending on the Messiah; and, under the influence of such prepossession, make that a sign or test of his coming, and even refuse to acknowledge his Divine mission without it[82]. Whilst the Greeks, on the contrary, seduced by the charms of a studied eloquence, or inslaved to the tenets of a conceited philosophy, require the Gospel to be preached in agreement to their notions and prejudices; and reject a Redeemer, whose method of salvation is not conformable to the conclusions of their schools, and whose doctrine is unadorned by the graces of their learning. Whereas, in fact, proceeds the Apostle, our commission is to publish, in all plainness, a religion to the world, fundamentally opposite to the prejudices of both. For its main doctrine, and on which hangs all the rest, is that of a crucified Saviour; which therefore, as being offensive to the fond hopes and expectations of the Jew, and not suited to his ideas of the Divine power and greatness, is to him a stumbling-block: And being a method of salvation neither agreeing to their conceptions of the Divine wisdom, nor set off with the colours of heathen wit, is to the Greeks foolishness. Though yet it is to both these Jews and Greeks, when rightly instructed in the ways of God’s Providence, both the power of God and the wisdom of God[83]. Thus we see, at length, what the writer’s sacred authority is come to; which, having no foundation but in the groundless comment a mistaken passage is thus easily overturned and confuted. For from hence it appears, that the Apostle, far from attesting his whimsy of the low opinion of miracles amongst the heathens, does not so much as of Miracles at all: or, if he must be made an evidence in the cause, gives judgment against him; as plainly enough expressing his opinion, that it was not a contempt of miracles, but the conceit of wisdom, which made the great difficulty to converting the Pagan world.

And now having dispersed his cloud of witnesses (which, unlike the sacred one it would seem to resemble, instead of illustrating and reflecting a fuller light on the fact it surrounds, serves only to obscure and conceal it) having shewn, I say, if not the falshood of his fact, at least the insufficiency of his evidence to support it, I might fairly dismiss the remainder of his book without any confutation; the following chapters, as he tells us, being intended to account for this fact, which he presumes to have fully established. But, as he appears unwilling to rest the whole of his cause on the merit of so slight an evidence, and has therefore engaged for a further confirmation of it in the following pages[84], it will be proper to collect in a few words, what additional evidence may arise from that quarter: And in doing this, I shall think it sufficient to examine, not his premises, but conclusion; and so, leaving him in full possession of his facts, to argue with him, in agreement to the design of these slight sheets, on the weight and force of his deductions. And here,

1. Allowing him to have proved the vanity of the heathen pretensions to miracles, c. iv. v. vi. in the fullest sense he can wish; and that no real wonder was ever wrought, or oracle delivered, by any of the numerous pretenders to either, what will the author say is the proper inference from it?—That therefore the heathens could not but have a low opinion of miracles? That, indeed, would be to his purpose; but nothing can be less supported. For were not such miracles and oracles at least generally believed? Or, if several impostures were detected, does the author imagine that such detection would utterly sink the credit of all future miracles[85]? A writer, so skilled in the workings of superstition, and who appears to have taken much pains to pry into the dark corners of humanity, ought to know, that the passion for wonder is a foible too intimately connected with our nature to be thus easily driven out from it. And the history of mankind gives the strongest confirmation of this, in relating, as it does, notwithstanding the presumed effect of such discoveries, the very ready reception, which Miracles have ever met with. The truth is, the Inquirer might as well have set himself to prove the vanity of the Popish pretension to miracles, and then have inferred, from the frequent detection of impostures amongst them, that therefore the Papists cannot but have a very low opinion of miracles. This, I say, had been as logically inferred; and yet, I believe the first traveller from Rome, or next account he should look into of Italy, or Spain, would infallibly spoil the argument, and confute his conclusion. And, to do the author justice, he seems not unconscious of this, when, after all the learned pains he had taken to establish this point, he allows, that though his argument had shewn, what little reason the heathens had to think, that miracles had ever been wrought amongst them at all, yet it does not of consequence follow, that they would certainly make use of the light, that was held out to them; but observes, that whether they did or not, their esteem of miracles will be but little increased; for if ever they were alarmed by an appearance, which they could not tell how to account for, or over-borne by the weight of such testimony, as they could not tell how to invalidate, the principle of magic was one general recourse.

2. His strong-hold, then, we see, at last, is Magic. We shall follow him therefore one step further, and try if we cannot dislodge him from it. The fact conceded to him is, that the persuasion was pretty general in the heathen world, that by means of magic, that is, of certain superstitious rites, and sacrifices, and by certain words and invocations of dæmons, many things could be done exceeding the power of man; and that accordingly many seeming miracles, wrought amongst them, were imputed to this power of magic. But then to infer from hence, as the Inquirer would have us, that therefore the heathens under the persuasion of these principles, must necessarily entertain a very low opinion of all miracles, is sure concluding too fast. For, though I could admit this to be a tolerable reason for the rejection of some Pagan miracles, it does not, we see, at all affect the Christian; which only are, or ought to be, the concern of his book. So that the argument, fairly stated, confutes itself. For it stands thus: The heathens conceived many miraculous appearances, produced for some trifling or noxious purpose, to be in the power of certain persons, acting under the power of bad dæmons[86], and by the means of certain magical, and superstitious rites.—Therefore they of necessity entertained a low opinion of all miracles, though wrought by pawns, claiming their power and pretensions from God himself, for purposes the most momentous and benevolent, and without the interposition of any sacrificial or superstitious rites[87]. But this is not all: We learn from the history of the propagation of Christianity, that in certain places (and who can doubt in all where the pretended powers of magic were opposed to the genuine workings of the Spirit of God?) such methods were used by Christ and his Apostles, as were sufficient to manifest the difference of their miracles from those of magicians, and to assert the divinity of their mission, in the very judgment of the magicians themselves[88]. And this, as it seems, always with such illustrious evidence, as to render it inexcusable in those, who had the opportunity of seeing and examining the difference, to remain unsatisfied of it. For I cannot but think it worthy the Inquirer’s regard, though no novelty, that the Heathen charge of magic, was but in other words the Jewish accusation of Beelzebub; either of them the genuine result of pure unallayed malice, and, concerning which, our Saviour’s determination is well known. And therefore when the learned writer contends, that the Heathens had a low opinion of miracles in general, on account of the supposed power and efficacy of charms, and magical incantations, he might with equal reason here have taken upon him to shew, that the Jews also had it low opinion of miracles in general on account of the supposed power of their diviners, and sorcerers, of which we likewise bear much amongst them, and from their ascribing, as we know they did, many miraculous effects and operations to them: an opinion, which, I presume, the learned writer will not find it to his purpose to maintain.

3. As to the author’s argument from the multiplication of the Heathen Gods (which is the only remaining part of his book I think myself concerned in[89]) if he means to conclude from it, that in consequence of the multitude of pretended miracles, flowing from such belief, miracles themselves must of necessity lose their force, and sink in their esteem[90], it is very frivolous, and admits an easy answer. For, besides its inherent weakness of bad logic, in concluding from a cause of possible efficiency to a certain effect, it has the misfortune, in common with his other reasonings on this subject, to be confuted by plain matter of fact. And, for his satisfaction in this point, I refer him once more to the case of the Romanists; who, notwithstanding the multiplicity of their saints, all of them dealers in miracles, and swarming in such numbers as to equal, if not exceed, the rabble of Pagan divinities, do not yet appear to have contracted from thence and disrelish, or disesteem for miracles. The truth is, the whole additional evidence arising from the main of his book in confirmation of his pretended fact, that the Heathens entertained a low opinion of miracles, is so very inconsiderable, that, as we now see, it hardly amounts to a bare probability. For, after all, the reader will perhaps incline to think, contrary to what the learned writer directs him, that such prevalency of magic, and multiplicity of gods, is no bad proof of the esteem and credit, that miracles were in amongst them. At least, ’tis no unfair presumption, that a people could not be so averse to miracles, as the author pretends, nor generally be possessed by a thorough contempt of them, when, notwithstanding the frequent detection of false miracles, and more than one degrading solution at hand for the true, they should yet be able to maintain their ground, and take such footing in the popular belief, as to be continually affording fresh occasion to imposture, and fresh encouragement to the dealers in this traffic to practise on the wonder and credulity of mankind.

2. And whoever sets out with this surmise, (which is apparently not ill-founded) will find it greatly strengthened in observing, that of all the reproaches cast upon the Heathen world, and of all the prejudices objected to them by the first propagators of Christianity, this of the contempt of miracles was not so much as once mentioned, there not being the least hint, or remotest intimation in the sacred writings of their labouring under any peculiar prepossession of this kind. A circumstance perfectly unaccountable, if what the Inquirer contends for be true, since such prepossession could not but greatly obstruct the Apostolic labours, and make it necessary for them to bend their first care and application that way.

3. And it raises the wonder still higher to observe, that whilst the Heathens escape uncensured in this respect, the Jews are severely rebuked for their incredulity and disregard miracles[91]; where too, by the very cast and turn of the reproof, the Heathens are to be understood as less chargeable on this head, than the Jews.

4. But, what has still the worst aspect on the writer’s scheme, is, that whilst the Apostles are quite silent as to this charge upon the Gentile, nor appear once to rank it in the list of such impediments, as retarded the conversion of the Pagan world, they are at the same time very express in declaring to us, what the chief of those impediments were. They in part have been already suggested[92], and were, if St. Paul may be credited, in reality, these: 1. A conceit of superior wisdom amongst the men of letters and education[93]. And, 2. The corruptions and gross idolatries of the people at large[94].

5. But what! it will after all be asked, Is there then no truth in what the leaned writer has advanced concerning the Heathen contempt of miracles; and in particular, is his long detail of principles and circumstances, concurring, as it should seem, to produce such contempt, utterly without all force or meaning?

This has no where been said; and the contrary is what I am now ready to affirm. For, to do the Inquirer justice, it was upon the basis of a good, old truth, that this wondrous novelty was erected. A fine writer[95] will tell us what it was. “We may observe,” (says he, in accounting for the silence of Pagan writers in respect of our Saviour’s history) “that the ordinary practice of MAGIC in those times, with the many pretended PRODIGIES, DIVINATIONS, APPARITIONS, and LOCAL MIRACLES amongst the Heathens, made them less attentive to such news from Judæa, till they had time to consider the NATURE, the OCCASION, and the END of our Saviour’s Miracles, and were awakened by many surprizing events to allow them any consideration at all.” We see here the ground-work of our author’s performance, and have determined to our hands with great accuracy, how far his general position is true, and to what extent the particular circumstances and situation of the Heathens would in reality affect their opinion of miracles. Had the learned writer confined himself within these limits, he would, I conceive, have had reason and history on his side, and, whatever alarm he may be in from the froward and contentious spirit of party in religion, no enemies to oppose him. But then this, it must be owned, had been saying nothing new: The world had lost the benefit of a discovery, and the author, what of all things he would most regret, the glory of INVENTION.

THE
OPINION
OF AN
EMINENT LAWYER, &c.
FIRST PRINTED IN 1751.

THE
OPINION
OF AN
EMINENT LAWYER,
CONCERNING
THE RIGHT OF APPEAL
FROM THE VICE-CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE, TO THE SENATE;
Supported by a short historical Account of the Jurisdiction of the University.
In Answer to a late Pamphlet, intitled,
“An Inquiry into the Right of Appeal from the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,” &c.

Is ne erret, moneo, et desinat lacessere.
Habeo alia multa, nunc quæ condonabitur;
Quæ proferentur post, si perget lædere.

BY A FELLOW OF A COLLEGE.

THE OPINION OF AN EMINENT LAWYER[96], &c.

The dispute concerning Appeals, which at present engages the attention of the University of Cambridge, is apparently of such importance to the peace and welfare of that great body; that it could not but be expected from any one, who proposed to deliver his thoughts upon it to the world, that he should at least have taken care to inform himself perfectly of the merits of the question, before he presumed, in so public a manner, to concern himself in it.

It must, therefore, surprize the reader of a late Inquiry into the Right of Appeal, &c. to find, that the writer of it, whoever he be (for as he chuses to conceal name, I shall not take the liberty to conjecture of it) should adventure to treat a matter of this consequence, without any distinct knowledge of the state of the case itself, or indeed without appearing to possess one single qualification, which is required to do justice to it. For the question, discussed, is of such a nature, that it cannot be determined, nor indeed tolerably treated by any one, who hath not a pretty exact knowledge of the History, Customs, and Statutes, of the University; and who is not, besides, at least competently skilled in the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws. And yet this writer, as though nothing else was required of him, besides a confident face, and willing mind, boldly undertakes to decide upon it, under a perfect incapacity in all these respects. Instead of an accurate acquaintance with the Practice and Usages of the University, it appears he had no further knowledge of them, than what a few hasty and ill-considered extracts from the Register had supplied him with. So far is he from being conversant in the Statutes of the University, that he blunders in every attempt to explain the very easiest of them. And, as to his Law, he has only skimmed the surface of it for a few frothy terms, without giving the least proof of his being possessed, in any degree, of the sense and substance of it. This utter inability to discuss a point, he had voluntarily undertaken, must be thought the more extraordinary in a person, who, throughout the whole, assumes an air of authority; and though he professes modestly in his title page to enquire, yet, in effect, prescribes and dictates from one end of his pamphlet to the other. The tone of this disputer, whatever becomes of his reasoning, is all along decisive; and he does and must insist, as if he thought his very word of force enough to bear down all the reason and argument, that could be opposed to him.

Indeed the superior airs he gives himself, on all occasions, are not without their use. For persons unacquainted, as the generality of his readers must needs be, with the question itself, are readily enough inclined to believe, that a person so assured, cannot be so entirely ignorant of the merits of it, as in fact he is. And they who know better, cannot but apprehend somewhat from the assumed authority of a writer, who talks so big; however his total insufficiency might, in other respects, provoke their contempt. For my own part, I could not help considering him as a person of eminent dignity in the University; whose rank in it might give him a right to dictate to the school-boys of the place; for so he gives us to understand, he conceives of the Members of the University Senate[97]. In pursuing my conjectures further about him, I was sometimes inclined to think, from the very reverend regard he every where professeth for the Heads of colleges, that he must, himself, be one of that illustrious body and was led to excuse the superiority of his manner from reflecting, that a habit of governing absolutely in his own college (for so he thinks Heads of colleges have a right to govern[98]) had insensibly inspired that despotic style and language, which were so disgustful, and had looked so ungracefully, in any other. But then, again, my profound respect and esteem of that venerable order, and my actual knowledge of the great talents, with which these reverend personages so worthily preside in their high places, would not suffer me to imagine, that any of their number could be so unqualified to treat a matter of a merely academical nature, as this writer had shewn himself to be; and especially, as it immediately concerned their own authority, which they so assiduously study, and so perfectly understand. On the whole, I was forced to dismiss this conjecture, as having no reasonable foundation to rest upon, and, in perfect civility and good manners towards a set of men, for whom I have so sincere an honour, could only conclude him, at last, to be some weak and shallow pedant; unknown and uncountenanced by them; whose vanity had done him an ill turn; and thrust him unadvisedly on a weighty office, which he had no warrant, as he had no abilities, to discharge.

Under this opinion, both of the writer and his performance, which, as the reader sees, I took not up upon slight grounds, it was not likely I should ever think of giving myself the least trouble about either; much less that I should believe it worth the while to undertake in form, the examination of a foolish pamphlet, which indeed, I had hardly patience enough to peruse. The truth is, it had lain for ever unnoticed by me among the rubbish, which of late hath so oppressed the publick, on the subject of our academical disputes; or, at least, had been left for some future Academic to discourse of, at his leisure; had it not been for the Opinions of two truly learned and respectable Lawyers; which the Inquirer had thought fit to intersperse, as a little needful seasoning, in his insipid performance; and which, indeed, give it all the real weight and authority, it can possibly carry with it to men of sense.

The Inquirer, as supposing these gentlemen to afford some countenance to the good cause, he is maintaining, thinks fit, on the mention of their names, to drop his crest a little; and, in a lower tone of voice than usual, affects to treat them even with some appearance of respect. Yet this he does in so aukward a manner, as shews it was not usual or familiar to him, to descend to such submissions; for, as the height of that civility, which he was willing to express towards them, he chuses to distinguish them only by the title of the Gentlemen of the Long Robe. What impression the idea of a sweeping train may possibly make on the phantasy of this writer, I know not; but I, who am more concerned about the heads than the tails of these learned gentlemen, should have thought it an apter compliment to have turned our attention the other way. Unless, perhaps, he was secretly conscious, that by a little unfair dealing in the proposal of the Queries, in relation to which their opinions were asked, their Answers themselves did no real honour to the more essential part of a great lawyer, and so far willing to pin the credit of them intirely on their gowns. In plain truth this was the very case, as will appear from the Queries themselves, and the Answers; together with a few observations, which I shall beg leave to subjoin to them.

“After stating the 42d and 48th of Queen Elizabeth’s Statues, some circumstances of Mr. A—’s behaviour, and that an appeal of the same nature with his was not quite unprecedented, the two following Queries were put, [Inq. p. 28.]

“Qu. I. Whether, in this case, the Vice-Chancellor and his assessors have not acted solely under the 42d Statute; de Cancellarii Officio; and whether any appeal can lie against the suspension of A. by virtue of that Statute? or whether this case must be deemed one of the causæ forenses, and of consequence subject to an appeal by virtue of the 48th Statute, de Causis Forensibus?

“Qu. II. Whether, if in the case above stated, the said A— hath a right to appeal from his suspension; the same right of appeal will not follow to every delinquent scholar, who shall be punished a trifling mulct or piece of exercise by the Vice-Chancellor?”

After stating, says he, the 42d and 48th Statutes, &c. Whence it appears, that no other evidence was laid before the Lawyers, with regard to the right of appeals, than certain extracts from Q. Elizabeth’s Statutes: Which was not the most certain method of obtaining an accurate decision. For, though the Queen’s Statutes alone, as we apprehend, afford sufficient evidence of our right, yet they are by no means, as will presently be seen, the whole evidence.

But, waving this consideration, let us come directly to the Queries themselves. The first is a master-piece in its kind, and may be of use to instruct future querists, how to propose their doubts in the most convenient manner.

For instead of asking the Lawyers, whether the powers, given in the 42d Statute, are subject to appeal, the question is put to them, whether in suspending Mr. A— they had acted under that Statute? Again; instead of inquiring whether the jurisdiction given in the two Statutes be the same or different, the Query is (on supposition of a difference) to which class of tryals Mr. A—’s case belonged? In short, the Lawyers were made to believe, that this was the main point in dispute, whether the case before them was of a criminal or (as the Inquirer expresses it) of a forensic nature.

It would have been hard indeed if a design so well laid, and so artfully conducted, had failed of success. Accordingly, we find both the Lawyers expressly declaring, that the case in question belonged to the 42d Statute, and from thence seeming to infer, that an appeal is not to be allowed.

Answers to the Queries.

“To Q. I. I am of opinion, the Vice-chancellor’s authority in the case above stated is well founded by the 42d Statute, de Cancellarii Officio, and that the Vice-chancellor and his assessors acted under that Statute; and that this case does not fall under the 48th Statute. And I am of opinion that an appeal does not lie in the present case.

“To Q. II. This in effect is answered by what I have said upon the first Question. And if an appeal might be allowed in the present case, it would be of most fatal consequence to all discipline in the University; since it would take away all distinction between the two Statutes; and every scholar, who should fall under any censure or punishment inflicted by the Vice-chancellor, might have his appeal; and the 42d Statute would be entirely of no effect.

“Dec. the 12th, 1750. W. N—.”

“To Q. I. Upon consideration of the two Statutes above recited, it seems to me that the first was calculated to give a jurisdiction and power to the Chancellor, or, in his absence, to the Vice-chancellor, to interpose in criminal matters, i. e. in matters relating to discipline: the latter gives a jurisdiction or cognizance in civil matters, i. e. matters of controversy concerning civil rights: and therefore the first gives power, contumaces, &c. suspensione graduum, carcere, aut alio leviori supplicio judicio suo castigare: by the latter, power is given to determine causas et lites, viz. causas forenses, for that is the title of the Statute. As to the first, I think that the jurisdiction is final in the first instance: for his power is judicio suo castigare; and it must necessarily be so, for immediate imprisonment seems to be one of the punishments which he may inflict against which there can be no appeal, for it may be executed before there can be any appeal. As to the other, viz. the civil jurisdiction, there the statute requires speedy determinations; but gives an appeal from his sentences in foro, and prescribes the manner of appealing. Upon these principles, I think that no appeal can lie, the suspension of A— being grounded, I think, on the Statute de Cancellarii Officio; and that this is not causa forensis within the latter Statute.

“To Q. II. If all offences against the Statutes are punishable by this Statute, the punishments for the minora, as well as the majora delicta, would be appealable; which I think would be absurd.

Linc. Inn, Dec. the 13th, 1750. R. W—.”

It is seen that both these opinions rest on one common foundation, viz. that the 42d Statute gives authority in none but criminal, the 48th in none but civil causes. Now if this support shall appear to be wholly imaginary, all that is built upon it must fall to the ground. Let us proceed then to examine the Statutes themselves; or rather simply to represent what is contained in them. We shall have no occasion for nice distinctions, or remote inferences; the plain literal sense of the passages to be cited will overthrow at once the principle we are opposing; will afford such an evidence as cannot be resisted, until a method of interpreting shall be found out, wholly independent on the received rules of Criticism and Grammar.

The 42d Statute is entitled De Cancellarii Officio, and contains an enumeration of the various powers conferred on him by the University. It gives him a right to hear and decide controversies; to call congregations; to give and refuse degrees; to punish the transgressors of the Statutes; to see that the University officers do their duty; to inflict censures on some particular sorts of offenders therein named, in some cases with, in others without, the consent of the Heads; to give or refuse leave to Members of the Senate to go out of a Congregation before it is ended, and to impose a mulct on those who depart without leave; to require the presence of regents and non-regents at Congregations and Conciones ad clerum, and to punish the absent; and, lastly, to make new Statutes, with the consent of the University.

Now I think I may safely refer it to any reader, whether the single design of this Statute was to convey authority in criminal causes? or, whether it be not manifestly an enumeration of the various branches of the Chancellor’s power, intended to give, at once, a general view of the whole?

If any one shall think that the administration of civil justice is not here included, I must desire him to read again the very first clause. Cancellarius potestatem habebit ad OMNES—controversias—tum audiendas tum dirimendas. Nothing sure but the most outrageous zeal for a desperate cause can make any one affirm that the word controversias is necessarily confined to the trials of offenders. But, if not, then the Statute gives jurisdiction of both sorts, in civil as well as criminal causes.

With as little foundation has it been asserted that the jurisdiction given in the 48th Statute relates only to civil causes. The single ground of this assertion is the title of the Statute, viz. De Causis Forensibus. It happens that a certain set of men, by endeavouring for a long time to deceive others, have in the end deceived themselves. For I would, in charity, suppose them to be sincere, when they translate causæ forenses, causes between party and party. It is true, no such use of the words can be found in ancient authors, or, in what might have been more convincing to them, modern Dictionaries. But what then? Admitting that a school-boy would have construed these words trials in court, or public trials, yet this sure cannot be alledged as a precedent to grave and wise men: much less can it be expected they should reverence quotations drawn from heathen writers, who had no idea at all of the ways of supporting discipline in an University.

But if the title of the 48th Statute will not confine the jurisdiction it gives, what shall we say to the Statute itself? It begins with these plain words, never afterwards restrained or limited, OMNES causæ et lites, quæ ad Universitatis notionem pertinent, tam Procancellarii quam Commissarii judicio subjiciantur. If this clause be not general, I should be glad to know whether a general clause be possible? whether any words can be invented of sufficient extent to include trials of every sort? But it is not indeed to be thought strange that the same profound critics, who would confine omnes controversiæ to criminal causes, should confine omnes causæ et lites to civil causes only.

After all, I have a good mind to give up this point, for the sake only of trying the experiment, what advantage can be made of it: Let it, then, be supposed that the jurisdiction given in the 48th Statute, and the appeals allowed in it, belong only to civil causes; and let it be further supposed that the 42d Statute relates merely to criminal causes. What will follow? That the Queen’s Statutes allow no appeals, for that the omission in this Statute amounts to a prohibition? Nothing can be wider from the truth than this conclusion. For, 1st, the powers given to the Chancellor may not be exercised in an arbitrary manner, but in strict conformity to the customs and privileges of the University: If this restriction were not always to be understood, the Chancellor might confer degrees by his sole power; for no mention is made in the Statute of the consent of the University. The powers, then, here given to the Chancellor are to be limited by the known rights of the Senate; and among these rights no possible reason can be given why that of appeals should not be included: a right (as will presently appear) of very great antiquity, perhaps not less ancient than the University itself. 2dly. The very same clause which impowers the Chancellor to judge omnes controversias Scholasticorum, that is (as we are now to render the words) all offences committed by Scholars, requires him to judge secundum jus civile et eorum privilegia et consuetudines; and consequently to judge not finally, but under an obligation of having his sentence re-examined on an appeal made to the University.

There is another argument in Mr. W—’s opinion, which seems indeed at first sight, to be more specious. He observes that the Chancellor is to punish contumacy and some other offences judicio suo, and seems to think these words might be intended to prevent appeals. But the learned person must excuse my differing from him also upon this head. The Queen’s Statute De Off. Cancell. is copied, with some alterations, from a Statute upon the same subject in the first collection, she gave the University; as that was verbatim from one of King Edward’s. In this Statute the Chancellor was empowered to punish judicio suo et assensu majoris partis præfectorum collegiorum; that is, he was appointed judge, they assessors. But the latter Statute of Queen Elizabeth distinguished these punishments into two sorts, regard being had to the importance of the punishments themselves, and to the rank and condition of the offender. In causes of less moment, and towards offenders of inferior rank, the Chancellor was to proceed judicio suo; in others, non sine consensu præfectorum collegiorum. These two clauses being so manifestly opposed, we cannot surely mistake, if we interpret the former by his sole judgment, or by his single authority; and suppose that nothing further was intended than to enable him to pass sentence, without[99] the concurrence of the Heads; a circumstance which will never shew that his decision ought to be final.

There is one point more in which I cannot help dissenting from the gentleman last named. He seems to think there can be no appeal from a sentence of imprisonment; because such sentence is to be executed immediately. But I need not observe to so good a judge, that an appeal apud acta may suspend this execution; and he has not favoured us with his reasons why this manner of appealing may not be allowed (as it always has been allowed) in the University.

As to the second Query, it is a doubt altogether superfluous; and seems to have been proposed for no other reason than to obtain opinions concerning the expediency of appeals; which is not surely a point of law. The learned gentleman, who has declared his sentiments on the question, must therefore pardon us if we do not receive them with the same deference, as if the subject had fallen within the proper limits of his profession.

But I think it unnecessary to dwell any longer on these Queries, or the Answers to them; since it is clear that the learned persons were abused by a partial and unfair representation of the case; of which had they been fully informed, as they should have been, by laying before them a just view of the question in debate, and by furnishing them with the proper materials for decide upon it; there is no reason to doubt that persons, so eminently qualified to judge of all disputes of this nature, would have given much more satisfactory opinions about it, and such as the University might safely admit, as decisive in the present case. And I think myself authorized to say this the more confidently, as it luckily happens that the proper Queries concerning this very point were, some years ago, put more honestly by a very excellent person, at that time Vice-chancellor of the University; and therefore answered very differently by the greatest Lawyer[100] of this or any age; from whose decision though there lies an appeal, yet his sentence never was, as indeed no good man had ever cause to wish it should be, reversed.

These Queries, together with the Answer of this great person to them, I purpose laying before the Reader, as a full and perfect confutation of all that has been yet advanced against the right of appeal to the University; and carrying with it more authority than any thing which the most knowing academical advocate could possibly say for it. But, that the reader may come the better prepared to judge of the merits of his determination, and as some further support to it, for the satisfaction of such as are unacquainted with the state of the case itself, I have judged it not improper, in the first place, to draw together a brief historical account of the jurisdiction of the University; collected from authentic monuments, which are well known to such as are versed in academical matters; and which, if there shall be occasion, will be produced at large in a more proper place.

The University of Cambridge was possessed of a jurisdiction over its own members, as clerici, many years before any was granted to it by charter from the Crown. This jurisdiction, being ecclesiastical, seems to have been originally derived from the Bishop of the diocese. The causes cognisable by the University were chiefly causes of correction; the rule of proceeding in the Court was the ecclesiastical law, and Statutes of their own making, consonant to that law. The censures inflicted upon offenders were either ecclesiastical, viz. excommunication, suspension, &c.[101] or such as were appointed by the Statues for particular crimes; and the names of places, offices, pleaders, the same as are used in Ecclesiastical Courts to this day.

This jurisdiction was not usually exercised by the University in its collective capacity. But a particular officer was empowered to exercise it, under the name of Chancellor; who as official[102], acted by an authority derived to him from the University, was accountable to them for the use of it, and liable to have his acts annulled at their discretion; every person who thought himself aggrieved by the Chancellor being at liberty to apply to the Body for redress.

When an Appeal was brought before the University, they usually authorized Delegates to hear and judge it, as was agreeable to the practice in other Ecclesiastical Courts.

The jurisdiction here described was not originally independent; for no academical decision appears to have been final. An Appeal always lay from the judgement of the University by their Delegates to the Bishop of the diocese, till the University was exempted from his authority, and their jurisdiction made final by Royal Charters, confirmed by Act of Parliament.

In the reign of Henry III. attempts were made to carry Appeals directly from the Chancellor to the Bishop, and so to pass over the Appeal to the University, which ought to have been an intermediate step. But Hugh de Balsam, Bishop of Ely (the founder of Peter-House), by a rescript, dated Dec. 1264, entirely frustrated all such attempts.

Hitherto, the Appeals to the University had been from causes of correction and censure. The University was not as yet possessed of jurisdiction in civil causes. Scholars were first allowed to implead the burgesses and other laics of the town of Cambridge, in all kinds of personal actions, before the Chancellor of the University, anno 33 Ed. I. From that time, the University began to acquire a civil jurisdiction, which, by degrees, was inlarged and established by grants from the Crown in succeeding reigns. And now, in consequence of this jurisdictions, Appeals were extended from criminal to civil causes. Accordingly, in a rescript of Simon de Montacute, Bishop of Ely, which bears date 16 cal. April, anno 1341, there is express mention of Appeals to the University in causes of both kinds. For the design of this rescript is to commission the University to determine finally in all civil causes, without a further Appeal to his Court; and to prevent frivolous and vexatious Appeals from the University to him in criminal causes, by laying the Appellant under the obligation of an oath.

This addition of civil power did by no means abrogate or lessen the spiritual. We find, in the reign of Hen. VI. that all sorts of ecclesiastical authority were adjudged to belong to the University, by the Prior of Barnwell, the Pope’s delegate; and it was then made appear, that all these branches of power had both been claimed and exercised time out of mind. It is certain, the probate of wills hath at all times belonged, and still belongs, to the University. The power of excommunication was exercised as late as the reign of Hen. VIII. and the power of absolution is exercised at this day. This ceremony is constantly performed on the concluding day of each term. And here, to observe it by the way, gentle Reader, a goodly and reverend spectacle it is, to behold the spiritual Head of our University spreading his paternal hands, like another Pope, over his erring and misguided flock, who, in all humility, receive his ghostly absolution on their knees.

It is true, the new objects of litigation, introduced by the royal charters, occasioned an alteration in the Law of the University. For the ecclesiastical laws did not suffice for the decision of controversies about civil rights, particularly contracts between scholars and townsmen, and breaches of the peace. From the time, therefore, that these new causes came before the Chancellor, to the reign of Edward VI. his Court was directed, as our Spiritual Courts are now, by a mixed kind of law, made up of canon and civil law[103]. Yet this must not be understood without restriction. For the University, like other corporations, had all along a power of making local Statutes; and not unfrequently particular usages acquired the force of Statutes, from long continuance.

But whatever changes were made, either by express Statute, or in consequence of a more extended jurisdiction, the practice of appealing from the Chancellor to the University still continued; only, as was observed, with this difference, that it now was allowed in civil, as before it had been in criminal causes.

The right of appeal which then subsisted received a fresh confirmation from the Statutes made by the University itself. In these Statutes the right is not only referred to and presupposed, but directions are given in regard to the manner of exercising it[104]; which directions, till cancelled by succeeding Statutes, established the right as effectually as if it had been originally introduced by Statute. The times when many of these Statutes were made cannot be fixed; but it is certain they were collected and transcribed into the Proctors’ books between the year 1490 and 1500.

In the reign of Edward VI. a body of new Statutes was given in a Visitation under an ecclesiastical commission; which enjoined, among other things, that the jurisdiction of the University should be directed by the Civil Law; that is, as every one understands, a mixture of the Civil and Canon Law; or what Oughten calls Jus Ecclesiastico-Civile; the same which prevails in all Ecclesiastical Courts to this day. And, in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, Statutes were again given to the University in a Visitation under a like commission; which were almost an exact transcript of those before given in the reign of Edward VI. The right of appealing from the Chancellor to the University received no alteration from these Statutes. For there is no change in either of them by which such Appeals are forbidden or even restrained. Accordingly, the practice appears to have continued to the time when Queen Elizabeth gave her second body of Statutes (under the broad seal indeed, but not by Visitors under ecclesiastical commission), which was in the year 1570. What alterations have been made by these, or by the practice of later times, remains to be considered.

It is plain from several passages in Queen Elizabeth’s new Statutes, that many of the ancient Statutes and customs of the University were designed to be continued; and in Stat. 50 we have a direction given, by which we may understand what Statutes and customs were to be preserved, and what not. Those only she declares to be taken away, quæ Scripturis Sacris, institutis nostris, istis Statutis adversari videbuntur; of which number the practice of appealing from the Chancellor to the University was not one.

There is, besides, the less reason to imagine this practice was abolished, because, in Stat. 42, the Queen requires all causes to be heared and determined secundum jus civile; and in her Charter to the University, confirmed by act of Parliament, secundum leges et consuetudines suas, ante tunc usitatas, which, as appears, were agreeable to the Civil Law. This law allows Appeals in cases of correction and censure; and therefore it is certain that Appeals were allowed by Queen Elizabeth.

Indeed, nothing but a clear and express prohibition could make us imagine, that the right of appealing, a right of particular importance, was designed to be either wholly abolished, or restrained only to civil causes. And such prohibition, had it been the Queen’s intention to forbid Appeals in any case, might the rather have been expected, as, in the 48th Stat. where several directions are given concerning Appeals, one ancient usage of the University[105] in relation to them is expressly forbidden: nec secunda provocatio omnino admittatur. Yet she gives not the least hint of restraining Appeals to any particular sorts of causes; which surely were an unaccountable omission in this place, had she actually intended to lay them under any such restriction. And, indeed, it is evident from a MS. of unquestioned authority, that neither the Body of the University, nor the Heads themselves (some of them supposed to have been concerned in compiling the Statutes), had the least imagination of such restraint. What I mean is, a MS. in C. C. C. Library, containing some Complaints of several of the Body of the University, in the year 1572, against Queen Elizabeth’s second edition of Statutes, and the Answers of the Heads, &c. One of their complaints is the frustrating Appellations, by transferring the power of nominating Delegates from the Proctors, in whose hands it was before lodged, to the Caput; and by encreasing the forfeit of Appeals, from a very inconsiderable sum to 20s. with an addition of 2s. to be paid to the Proctor; an expence which, as was then urged by the Body, would prevent poor scholars injured from the benefit of appealing, having not so much money. What, now, is the answer of the Heads to this complaint? Why, that, for the stay of the quietness of the University, it was necessary to lay Appeals under these restrictions. Not a syllable is said against the right of appeal itself in any case; though the complainants had expressly set forth the importance of having Appeals unincumbered by these limitations, for the redress of wrongs in general. Nay, the wrongs they apprehended are even specified; such as punishments of a regent in the regent-house, for modestly asking a question; or of a disputer, for modestly disputing; which, if we are to call them causes at all, are surely causes of correction.

Nay, so far are these Statutes from prohibiting Appeals, that they have actually given the strongest sanction to this practice, by admitting the right in very general terms, and prescribing rules for the exercise of it. Stat. 48.

The subsequent practice till of late years cannot now be known, either from the neglect or corruption of the University Registers, who have not taken care to record the proceedings before Courts of Delegates. Only a few loose papers have been accidentally preserved, from which it appears that Appeals were allowed in civil causes, and there is no reason to imagine they were discontinued in causes of correction, as no distinction was made by the Statutes on trials between civil and criminal causes.

But if it were true in fact, that no Appeals had been heared between 1570 and 1725, in causes of correction and censure, yet this would not affect the right, any more than the want of Appeals from a censure of a peculiar sort would render that single kind of censure unappealable. For, a right extending to various particulars will not surely be lessened from want of opportunity or inclination to exercise it in every one of them. And such disuse would be the less strange in the instance before us, because the discipline of the University hath been chiefly supported by censures inflicted in particular Colleges. Little of this business is left to the Vice-chancellor; and they who know the University, and wish well to it, will not, perhaps, desire to see more of it in his hands.

If the supposed disuse of Appeals in criminal causes shall yet be thought to have abolished the right, the opinion now to be produced will at once remove such suspicion; even though it should not be insisted, as it may, that this pretended prescription itself is already destroyed, by three instances of Appeals in causes of correction, the first of them in the year 1725.

But, before I proceed any further, I would beg leave to make one general observation on what hath been now advanced. It is this: A great Civilian had expressly affirmed, “that Appeals are always admitted in those Courts where the civil and ecclesiastical Laws are in force, where penance, suspension, deprivation, or any censure is inflicted as the punishment of a fault[106].”

To all which the writer of the Inquiry gives his entire assent: The observation, says he, is undoubtedly just. Now the capable and impartial reader is left to judge, whether it be not most evident, from the facts here offered to his consideration, that the jurisdiction of the University is, in the properest sense of the word, Ecclesiastical; and further, whether the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws be not of force in the University Court. The dispute then is brought to a short issue. Appeals are, by the full consent Of the Inquirer himself, to be admitted.

I come now to the OPINION itself; of which I will only say, further, that it was not given by the great person hastily or negligently, but with all the care and deliberation which so important a matter deserved: as is clear, not only from his diligence in calling for and inspecting the Commissary’s Patent, which, he clearly saw, was of moment to the determination, but from the time he took to consider it. For the Queries appear to have been put some time before Christmas; and this Opinion bears date the 18th of March following.

Qu. I. “Whether Appeals to Delegates by the Statute de causis forensibus are restrained to civil causes, in which two parties are litigant?”

Ans. The Statute de causis forensibus is penned in such general terms, that I think the Appeal to Delegates thereby allowed cannot be restrained to civil causes only, wherein two parties are litigant, but doth extend to causes of correction and censure; the rather because the Appeal from the Commissary to the Vice-chancellor is given in the same clause, and in the same manner, with the Appeal from the Vice-chancellor to Delegates; and the words of the Commissary’s Patent extend as well to causes of correction and censure as to civil causes. Now there can be no doubt but that an Appeal lies from the Commissary to the Vice-chancellor in all cases. The entry in Mr. Tabor’s Register imports that, even in causes of correction, an Appeal lies from the sentence of the Vice-chancellor, when he doth not act jointly with the major part of the Heads of houses.

Qu. II. “Whether by the Statute de Cancellarii officio, which binds the Vice-chancellor to proceed secundum jus civile, an Appeal to Delegates can now lie in a criminal cause against a prescription of 200 years to the contrary, excepting only the case of Campbell, anno 1725?”

Answ. There can be no prescription in this case, because the question depends on Statutes, given within such a space of time, as the Law calls, time of memory.

Qu. III. “In case the Delegates should receive an Appeal, from the Vice-chancellor’s court in a cause of this kind, and cite the Vice-chancellor to appear before them, what the Vice-chancellor should do? Whether appear before them, and appeal from the sentence of the Delegates to his Majesty in council; or not appear, but apply immediately to his Majesty by petition; praying a prohibition, to stop the proceedings of the Delegates?”

Answ. Supposing that there is a right of appealing to Delegates, from the sentence of the Vice-chancellor, in a cause of correction or censure, no authority can be interposed to stay the Delegates from proceeding. But if the Delegates should not have a jurisdiction, his Majesty in council cannot grant a prohibition to them: and if upon an incident of this kind, the Vice-chancellor should think fit to bring the point to a judicial determination; the only proper method, is by applying to some of the courts at Westminster, for a prohibition to the Delegates proceeding.

18 March 1730.

The reader sees, by this determination, that the question turns entirely upon this point; whether, supposing there had been no Appeals in cases of discipline from the year 1570 to 1725, as is asserted, but without proof, the intermission of the exercise of this right for so long a space, could amount to a legal abolition of it. To which the great Lawyer, whose Opinion has been recited, replies expressly, NO. If any should then ask, what evidence there is of such a right subsisting at that time? Besides the Statutes themselves, insisted on in the Opinion, I can now refer him to the brief hints which compose the preceding account of the jurisdiction of the University; and which the reader may be assured, are advanced on the best grounds. Much more might, indeed, have been said; for what I have thought fit to deliver at present on the subject, is but a small part of that evidence, which can and will be produced, if it be found expedient to do it. In the mean while, I may well excuse myself from this trouble. For to talk further on these matters to a person, who appears so wholly ignorant of the History of the University, as the Inquirer, were a vain waste of time; and to take the pains of confuting particular objections, founded on that ignorance, a still vainer. Only I will condescend to put him in mind of one essential defect in his argument which runs through his whole pamphlet. It is, that he all along goes on the supposition, that the express authority of Statute, is required to make good the claim to Appeals. And he therefore very idly lays out his whole strength, in attempting to prove, that no such express authority is to be found, either in the old or new Statutes. I own, I could not but smile, at first, to observe the Inquirer addressing himself, with so much importance, to this task. But, when afterwards I came to consider, the labour and difficulty, with which he was forced to make his way, for this wise purpose, through the discouraging δυσνόητα (for so I presently saw, he found them to be) of the old Statutes, I could not, upon second thoughts, but pity his unnecessary sufferings about them; and was even tempted in my own mind, to blame the waggery of the Fellow of a College, whose request had drawn him into all this trouble, and who, to divert himself with him, had plainly put him on so wrong a scent. The truth is, I could not think this usage fair in his good friend, to request him to draw out his sentiments, on such a point; especially, as he tells us, his time was so precious, and that he had so little of it to spare, amidst the variety of his necessary avocations[107]. It had, surely, been more kind to inform him at once, as I shall have the goodness to do, that no body, who understood the matter in debate, ever pretended to found the right of Appeal on express Statute; it being well known, that the right stands entirely on the nature of our jurisdiction; in consequence of which, there has been a continued immemorial practice of appealing in the University; supposed indeed, and admitted in both the old and new Statutes, and authorized by the prescription of various rules, for the exercise of it; but neither expressly commanded, nor prohibited in either.

And now, having done this act of charity towards the Inquirer, which may prevent his future pains, in puzzling and perplexing himself with the study of the old Statutes; I shall have reason to expect, in return, his good leave to expostulate with him pretty freely on the use, he proceeds to make of this unhappy blunder. For, plumed with the vain conceit of the University’s resting their claim on the sole express authority of Statute, he goes on, to insult so considerable a body of men, in the most opprobrious manner; as guilty of the most absurd and irreverent behaviour, as well towards our illustrious Chancellor himself, as the Vice-Chancellor, and his brethren, the Heads of Colleges. What I mean, is in relation to the Grace, which the assertors of the right of appeal thought fit to propose, in order to refer the decision of this point to the arbitration of the Senate. He harangues, for several pages, on what he calls, the irregularity and indecency of this proceeding; and affects besides, to cavil at the substance of what was proposed in it. But, good Sir, where was the irregularity of the Senate’s presuming to confirm, by their own authority, a right, essential to their constitution, authorized by immemorial prescription; and which no single Statute, they act under, in any degree contradicts? Or, where was the indecency of opposing the exercise of that power in the Vice-Chancellor, which is inconsistent with the very nature of our jurisdiction; for which, he can plead the sanction of no Statute; and of which he was never rightfully possessed?

As to the Grace itself, the substance of what it proposed, was to this effect: “That the right of appeal, from the sentence of the Vice-Chancellor to the University in all cases, should be confirmed to every member of the University; but that this right, with regard to persons in statu pupillari, should be exercised only by the tutor of each person, interposing in his name.” This, it seems, gives great offence to the Inquirer; who, in his tender concern for the authority of the supreme magistrate, is perfectly shocked, to think of the consequences of such a right being acknowledged; and is prophet enough to foresee, that it would bring the lowest disgrace upon his office, by warranting the arraignment of him, as he puts it, before Delegates, upon no very important occasions[108]. But his fears are as groundless, as the insinuation, which he labours to convey under them, is impudent and unjust. For, though an appeal be claimed ab omni gravamine utcunque illato (which sure is nothing but reasonable, as the Statutes make no distinction, and the practice, as well as Law of the University, equally authorizes Appeals in every case) yet, why should he throw himself into this unseasonable panic, when all frivolous and vexatious Appeals are expressly provided against, by a considerable pecuniary caution, and when the Delegates themselves are, in effect, of the supreme magistrate’s own appointment[109]? Would the members of the Senate, does he think, appeal from any judicial sentence, though ever so just and statutable, on no very important occasion, when a certain expence is necessarily incurred, and when there could not be the least hopes of redress? Or, would any tutor can he imagine, who has a character to maintain, and who is not less concerned to support good order and discipline, than the supreme magistrate himself, interpose his claim of Appeal for his pupil, without, at least, some fair and reasonable grounds?

But the insinuation, as I observed, is still more impudent, than his apprehensions are groundless. For what he would covertly signify under this impertinent sollicitude for the honour of the supreme magistrate, is, that the Delegates, who are the representatives of the collective body of the University, are unworthy to take cognizance in any case of the acts of their officer[110]: Nay, that the members of the Senate itself are a company of factious, disorderly, licentious boys; who are impatient of any authority themselves, and would be sure to concur in all cases to countenance the irregularities of one another, or of the youth of the place; by setting them loose from all restraint, which the Statutes and discipline of the University have provided against them. There is something so outrageously insolent in this abuse of the body of the University; a body consisting of three or four hundred persons; the youngest of which is of the degree of Master of Arts; almost all of them clergymen; and the greater part of equal age, and it may therefore be presumed of equal prudence, as many of the Heads themselves; that I should be cautious of charging it upon him, if he had not expressed himself in terms too clear to be mistaken. For he has the assurance to advance in so many words, that “if the person who apprehends himself to be aggrieved, may happen to be a member of the Senate, and, as such, may possibly bear with indignation the thought of having any part of his conduct judicially animadverted upon; if it be further considered, that his particular friends and acquaintance may possibly think the same in his case, and that all the advocates for, and the warm assertors of independency will be sure to think so in every case, I do and must say, &c.” And, again, in the words of the very provident Mr. Tabor, a little doting registrary of the University, a century or two ago; whose mumpings this writer has the confidence to oppose, to the united sense of the University, at this day: “What dangerous cure does that state hazard, when for the sullen distemperature of one active member, the ruling head must bleed, that suffereth enough otherwise; and all the discontented parts of the body must sit in judgment on it; nay when Sense must disapprove or disallow the acts of Reason? If this Appeal be suffered and countenanced to pass current, farewell the power of Chancellor and Vice-chancellor; my young masters of the regent house will and must judge, examine, and rule all; yea, their censures or judgments must stand or be disallowed at their will and pleasure. Good Sir! by all means labour to smother this Hydra; it will have more heads than we shall overcome, and breed a greater mischief than we are aware, in these times of liberty and discontent[111].”

Such are the sentiments of this forward Inquirer of the Senate of the University of Cambridge: sentiments, which must needs create in the breast of any man of sense, who is a mere stranger to us, the strongest resentment; and for his public declaration of which, were the author known and considerable enough, he would judge him to deserve the severest censure, the University has it in its power to inflict. But what must those think, who have an opportunity of knowing the characters of the men, whom he thus vilely traduces? Almost all of them fellows of colleges, many of them tutors, whose sobriety and good behaviour have recommended them to places of trust and profit in their respective colleges: Men, who are under the obligation of oaths, to maintain and promote statutable discipline, and regularity; who are trained in the habit of restraining and correcting academical disorders of all kinds; and whose situations and interests require them to be as watchful to support just authority and good order, at least, as the Heads of Colleges, or the officers of the University themselves. And the censure is the more grievous at this time of day, when, by the confession of the partizans of the Heads themselves[112], extorted by the very evidence of fact and truth, there never was a time in which the elder part of the University were more sober, temperate, and regular; when fewer excesses of any kind were chargeable on the fellows of colleges; or, indeed, when they were more prudent and exemplary, in their behaviour, in all respects. But the charge is not only unjust, but has a direct tendency to discredit and destroy that reasonable authority in the University, which this prater, if he means any thing by his talk, would seem ambitious to support. For how is the great affair of education and good government in this place to be carried on, but by means of those very persons, whom he would represent in so ignominious a light? For, certainly, how much soever the University may owe to the Heads of Colleges, in their capacity of legislators, yet, for the execution of those laws which it seemeth good to their wisdoms to enact, they must still depend on the concurrence, I had almost said, on the sole authority of their inferiors. And how shall such authority be kept up, when they are thus upbraided, as abettors of every act of licence; and represented to the younger part of the University, as patronizers of that ungoverned independent spirit, which it is their office to restrain? Nor can I think so ill of the policy of these great lawgivers, as to believe that they will chuse to concur with this officious Inquirer, in representing them in such a light. For what will become of that balmy ease and quiet, in which these sovereign guides of youth so delight to wrap themselves, if the care of government must, after all, devolve on their shoulders; when a course of injurious calumnies shall have disabled their subordinate ministers from taking their place, and bearing, as at present they most commonly do, the full weight of it?

But to return to the Grace itself, from which this reviler’s treatment of the whole body of the University has a little diverted me. He labours much, as I observed, to impress on the reader’s mind the opinion of the frightful consequences with which a right of Appeal in all cases would be attended; and to give a sanction to these fears, he alledges the authority of the learned gentlemen of the long robe, who, it seems, have pointed out the absurdity of such a practice, and the pernicious effects of it[113]. But what is all this tragical declamation to the purpose? Where is the sense, as I before asked, in supposing the University Senate would concur in every attempt of its idle and disorderly members to get themselves relieved from a deserved and statutable censure? Or, how should those learned gentlemen, whose robe he still hangs upon, be better able to judge of the expediency of this practice than the Senate of the University itself? Indeed he thinks the absurdity of this right of calling the supreme officer of the University to account for his judicial determinations the more glaring, in as much as, even in private colleges, no act of discipline of the Head, he fancies, was ever liable to be reversed by any of the subordinate members: nay, he is persuaded that his good friend, the Fellow of a College, for whose instruction all this is designed, were he even authorized to new model the Statutes of his own College, would not chuse to vest in his brethren the Fellows such a power of controuling the acts of the Master[114]. What the Colleges are which are here glanced at, and which leave the Master full power to exercise every act of discipline without controul, the Inquirer himself best knows. For my part, I have always understood that acts of censure in all private societies, such acts I mean as are of consequence to the reputation and interests of their members, are not left to the caprice of the Master, but are passed by the joint authority and concurrence of the Society itself; unless, perhaps, I am to except one little College, in which, it is said, the Master claims to himself this sovereign and uncontroulable authority. But, then, this is no fair precedent. For the members of the College have nothing to apprehend from a licentious and wanton abuse of such power; as well on account of the known candour, equity, and moderation of the worthy president of that society, as for that a few exertions of it would leave him no subjects to preside over.

But, whatever may be the case of this one foundation, the despotic form is not, I believe, statutable in any other. Nay, the authority of the fellows to controul the acts of their Head in some Colleges, I have been told, goes so far, that they are even impowered, in case of an utter inability (such as may arise from extreme folly, dotage, or the like) to govern prudently, to remove him forthwith from his place. And surely this must be deemed a wise and sober institution; at least, were I authorized to new model the Statutes of any College which wanted it, it is such an one as I should certainly chuse to vest in it.

But there is one circumstance in the Grace which, it seems, provokes his more especial dislike. And, unluckily, it is one which any other, who considered the tenor of it, would be likely enough more especially to approve; as shewing the singular moderation and good temper of the persons who proposed the Grace, and as studiously contrived to prevent all imaginable abuses of it. It is, that the right of undergraduates to appeal should be exercised no otherwise than by the interposition of their tutors[115]. A provision of great prudence; and which the proposers of the Grace, in their concern to support authority and just government, purposely made to obviate the only abuses that could be possibly apprehended from it. For, if the wanton exercise of the right to appeal were to be feared from any quarter, it certainly must be from the inferior members; whose youth and inexperience might make them forward to appeal from any censure, however reasonable, and of which, therefore, the tutor of the person censured, who is under all the ties of interest and duty to act discreetly and warily, is left to judge. Yet this provision, wise and moderate as it is, appears to the Inquirer extremely strange; because, by means of such a limitation, a tutor might prevent his pupil from appealing in any case, though the supreme Magistrate of the University would be empowered to prevent it in none. As if the judge who passed the sentence, and was therefore concerned to support it, were as fit to determine, whether the party aggrieved should have the liberty to appeal from it, as an indifferent person who had no concern at all in it. Nay, the tutor, as was observed, would be obliged, by a regard to his own authority and character, and (I would add, but that the Inquirer is pleased to make no account of that obligation[116]) by the religion of an oath, to proceed with all imaginable caution in advising him to such a step.

In every view, then, this objection to the Grace must appear very unaccountable. And the rather, when the reader understands that this clause was, with the greater readiness and pleasure, inserted into it, as this Vice-chancellor himself, whose goodness and candour require no encomiums of mine, had intimated, and even declared, that a provision of this kind was all the restriction upon the liberty of appealing which he wished to see made to it. For this excellent person was so much convinced of the propriety and expediency of this claim in general, that he very frankly professed his approbation of it, and only wanted to secure his authority, where indeed the only danger lay, from a torrent of Appeals, which, as he apprehended, might pour in upon him from the younger sort. So that, I think, we shall hear no more of this objection; and I am even not without the fond hopes, that, after this information, the Inquirer himself, whatever displeasure he might conceive at this part of the Grace before, will now grow into good humour with it.

After all, one cannot but suspect, that the Inquirer must have some better reason for his strong antipathy to this Grace than any that has yet appeared. The violent heat it puts him into, whenever he touches upon it, demonstrates, there must still be something at the bottom of this matter, which is the object of just offence. In looking narrowly for it, I found it at last, half smothered under a very shrewd and indirect insinuation, which I shall bring to light, after having presented the reader with his own words:

“I see not how a Grace of this kind could be offered, consistently with the Resolution said to have been taken at one of your first meetings, to assert the right of Appeal in such a manner as was warranted by the Statutes of the University: Nor am I less able to reconcile it with those professions of deference and respect, which at the same time were thought proper to be made for our great and illustrious Chancellor. No person would receive a greater pleasure than myself from seeing all the members of the University, however divided in other points, agreed in entertaining the highest sentiments of regard and veneration for him; but I confess, that this is a pleasure I am not very likely to have; till one set of men shall be pleased to give clearer and less questionable testimonies of this, than by opposing every useful regulation he recommended, and endeavouring to lessen and curtail an authority, which is only vested in the Vice-chancellor as his representative and locum-tenens[117].”

Here, then, we have all the venom of his heart injected into one malignant paragraph; which, under the gilding of a compliment, is to do its office without offence. And yet, it is plain enough what he would insinuate. It is neither more nor less than that the advocates for this right of Appeal are an unquiet, factious set of persons, bent on opposing all measures that tend to promote the good of the University; and, to say all in one word, listed in a vile cabal to dishonour, revile, and abuse their Chancellor himself. The gentlemen against whom all this is levelled must, I am persuaded, hold such senseless and licentious calumnies in such contempt, that I should not merit their thanks for attempting seriously to confute them. And yet I cannot help saying for them, that the Resolution hinted at in this place was drawn up with so respectful a regard to the authority of the Statues, and to the honour and dignity of our great Chancellor, as, one should think, might stop the mouth of Malice itself. Yet all this can be overlooked by our candid Inquirer. And on what pretence? Why, because some of those persons, who came to such a Resolution, had different sentiments, it seems, of the expediency of the late regulations from this writer; and because this claim of Appeals tends to lessen the authority of the Vice-chancellor. For this he modestly calls opposing the Chancellor, and curtailing his power.

Well, then, the crime is now out; and, to say the truth, if it be a crime, the University is deeply involved in it. For, when the late regulations were first proposed to the consideration of the Senate, a considerable majority were clearly of the same opinion as these culprits: and, with regard to the present claim, the University may be almost said to be unanimous in supporting it. But what in the mean time must be this scribbler’s sentiments of that most noble and illustrious person, for whose honour he here professes himself concerned; and of whom, it seems, he can think so unworthily, as to believe, that a liberty in judging concerning the expediency of some academical laws, which he had the goodness to propose to them, should give offence to one who has no other aim than to serve the University in a manner the most agreeable to their best judgments; and which, I am satisfied, they used the more freely, on a full persuasion that such liberty could not be taken as an instance of disrespect to him. This I should not doubt to call, of itself, a sufficient confutation of the idle calumny. But it comes with the worst grace imaginable from a declared enemy to the right of Appeals; who must know, if he be at all acquainted with what passed at that time, that the principal reason, which induced the University to oppose the regulations, was the just apprehension they were under, of an encroachment on this very right; not indeed from the Chancellor, who had no such intention, nor even any knowledge of it, but from certain forward directors in that affair, who gave the clearest and least questionable proofs of their designing to make the new laws the instruments of their own tyranny in this respect. So that, if any offence was given by the University on that occasion, the blame of it should fall elsewhere, and not on those on whom it is here so invidiously cast; persons, who on every occasion have testified the sincerest honour for their Chancellor, who venerate him as the protector and patron of the University, and would humbly co-operate with him to the attainment of those good ends, which it is his sole endeavour to promote.

But what follows, if possible, is still worse. A second charge against the University is, that they are endeavouring to lessen and curtail an authority, which is only vested in the Vice-chancellor, as his representative and locum tenens. What the collective body would return to this accusation, I pretend not to say; I have no commission to answer in their name. But, for myself, and those whose thoughts I have the opportunity of knowing on this matter, I answer boldly thus: That we are not in the least apprehensive of giving offence to this great person, who is more solicitous for the maintenance of the just rights of the University than any other member of it, by any respectful and moderate endeavours to assert our own reasonable privileges; that we are well assured, he approves, and is ready to countenance, all such honest endeavours; and that, lastly and chiefly, we are therefore earnest in our endeavours to lessen an authority (if that must be called lessening which is but preventing its being usurped), because it is vested in, and must be constantly exercised by his representative. For, whatever liberties he may presume to take with the assertors of this claim, I will venture to assure him, that, were unappealable power itself to be exercised only by our Chancellor, who is too high in rank, and too noble in nature, to be under any temptations of abusing it, though we might still think the authority unreasonable and dangerous in itself, we should esteem ourselves in perfect security under him, and could safely trust the administration of it to his care. But, as the person who by our Constitution is vested with it, is and must be a very imperfect representative of the Chancellor, in this as well as other respects, we hope to be forgiven by every equitable judge, if we are not forward to compliment ourselves out of our privileges; and have little inclination to lodge our liberties in less worthy hands.

After all, one would be glad to know a little more explicitly of this writer, since he professes himself so little satisfied with the conduct of the University, what those clearer and less questionable testimonies of their regard for the Chancellor are which he so loudly calls for, and the want of which, it seems, hath made his life so distasteful and uneasy to him. And, I think, I durst almost take upon me to guess at them. No doubt, they are such as these: “That the University Senate would be pleased to make no distinction in any case between the supreme Magistrate and his representative, nay, and his representative’s representatives”—“That they would courteously give that honour to his locum tenens or locum tenentes, without perhaps one single merit to justify such a claim, which the illustrious rank and dignity of their Chancellor himself, his eminent virtues, and services to the University, all conspire to challenge and demand from them:”—In a word, “that the University would offer themselves as willing instruments to carry into execution every paltry project, every low and selfish design, which little men in office are apt to form for themselves; and all this under the notion of its being a tribute of respect to the supreme Magistrate, and an instance of their veneration for him.”

Such as these, I can readily believe, are the testimonies of respect the Inquirer wishes to see paid to the Chancellor, and which, no doubt, would administer that sincere pleasure, which at present he divines (and, I trust, truly) he is not very likely to have. But does he think the Chancellor is to be abused by this thin pretence of respect? that true greatness is to be taken by this mere outside of an officious and false compliment? On the other hand, I dare be confident that nothing is more disgusting to him than such sycophancy; and that he is so far from allowing this conduct in the Inquirer, that he even disdains to have his cause and dignity so defended. “For, though (to use my Lord Bacon’s words on a like occasion) I observe in his book many glosses, whereby the man would insinuate himself into his favour, yet I find it to be ordinary, that many pressing and fawning persons do misconjecture of the humour of men in authority; and many times seek to gratify them with that which they most dislike.”

But the virulence of these malignant calumnies hath held me on a very unnecessary argument too long: I return again to the Inquirer, to whom I have but one word or two more to say, and shall then take my final leave of him.

You have talked, Sir, very importantly of the pernicious consequences of a right of Appeal in the University. The reasons on which you would ground these so anxious fears have been examined, and exposed, as they deserve. But, granting that some slight, nay, that some considerable inconveniencies might arise from it; were this any good argument, think you, against the subsistence of such a right? What would become of all the liberties which just government leaves us, nay, of the blessings and privileges which indulgent nature bestows upon us, if the accidental and occasional abuse of them were thought a reason sufficient to extort them out of our hands? Should you not have considered that a right of Appeal is one of the most important and valuable rights which mankind enjoy in society, and which, indeed, is almost essential to the very being of it? And would you have this sacred claim, patronam illam et vindicem libertatis, as a great ancient calls it, rudely and inhumanly wrested from us, on the frivolous pretence of some possible or even probable abuse? Had you been as conversant in the civil law as an Inquirer into such a question should have been, you might have found cause to entertain very different opinions of it. For the great masters in that science were as well aware as you can be, that such a right was liable to some abuse; but which of them ever thought this consideration of force enough to decry or abolish it? On the other hand, they acknowledge the inconvenience, yet assert and vindicate the use. Give me leave to refer you to one passage (you will find L. 1. D. De Appell.), very express to this purpose. “Appellandi usus quam sit frequens quamque NECESSARIUS, nemo est qui nesciat: quippe cum iniquitatem judicantium vel imperitiam re corrigat; licet nonnunquam bene latas sententias in pejus reformet, neque enim utique melius pronuntiat, qui novissimus sententiam laturus est.” What will you say, now, to this? That Ulpian, who affirmed it, was a factious, turbulent boy? one of those whom you disgrace under the name of the warm, assertors of independency, and who bear with indignation the thought of having any part of their conduct judicially animadverted upon? I presume to think you would hardly venture on this assertion. Nay, I please myself with hoping, that, when you have well considered this so sage and venerable sentence of an ancient Lawyer, you will even be disposed to abate of your vehemence in declaiming against such as go on his principles at this day.

Seriously, Sir, it is a bad cause you have engaged in; and, in mere kindness to you, I would wish you to relinquish it with all speed. The claim itself of Appeals, as I have had the honour to shew you, is of long and ancient date; indeed as ancient as the Constitution of the English government itself. Of what consequence you may chance to be in your political capacity, it is impossible for me to say; if you are of any, and should proceed in these Inquiries, I should go near to apprehend that the House of Commons itself might take umbrage at them; for the rise of that great part of our Constitution is not usually, I think, carried higher than the point from which the right of Appeal hath here been deduced. Or, do you think you may safely make free with the Constitution of an University, though it were dangerous meddling with that of the State itself? This may be true, indeed; but where is your generosity in the mean time? Why should the thoughts of impunity encourage you to such an attack on the rights and privileges of a body of men, who, though unable to punish such offences against themselves as they deserve, have yet been generally secured from all outrage, by the very regard and reverence which the public hath ever paid to them? In a word (for I would not hold you longer from your necessary avocations), it may be worth your inquiry, when you shall think fit to sally forth on another adventure, what the Learned of Great Britain have done, that they should have their liberties written and inveighed against in so outrageous a manner; and, amidst the securest enjoyment of every civil right, under the justest and most equal Government in the world, what peculiar circumstances of offence have so inflamed the guilt of the scholars of this land, that they, of all his Majesty’s good subjects, should deserve to be the only slaves.