ADVERTISEMENT. "TRACTS" are becoming once more popular, and it is proposed, in conformity to the public taste, to republish some of the best Tracts by the ablest writers in assertion and defence of Religious and Christian Liberty. They will be issued at a cheap price, and should the advocates of intellectual and religious freedom support the publication liberally, the price will be reduced, as the work proceeds, by the printing of a larger number. Each Tract will be complete in itself, having a separate Title-page; but the series will be arranged for a volume. The Editor pledges himself to reprint the works selected accurately from the original and best editions. He had at one time thought of omitting passages, less suited to the present times, and adding notes to others containing opinions which liberal men now hold at the least questionable; but on further deliberation he has resolved to publish the Tracts entire, and without note or comment,-guarding himself by this notice against further responsibility than is implied in their general argument and pervading spirit. TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND, WITH THE DOMINIONS THEREOF. I HAVE prepared, Supreme Council, against the muchexpected time of your sitting, this treatise; which, though to all Christian magistrates equally belonging, and therefore to have been written in the common language of Christendom, natural duty and affection hath confined and dedicated first to my own nation; and in a season wherein the timely reading thereof, to the easier accomplishment of your great work, may save you much labour and interruption: of two parts usually proposed, civil and ecclesiastical; recommending civil only to your proper care, ecclesiastical to them only from whom it takes both that name and nature. Yet not for this cause only do I require or trust to find acceptance, but in a two-fold respect besides: first, as bringing clear evidence of Scripture and Protestant maxims to the Parliament of England, who in all their late acts, upon occasion, have professed to assert only the true Protestant Christian religion, as it is contained in the Holy Scriptures: next, in regard that your power being but for a time, and having in yourselves a Christian liberty of your own, which at one time or other may be oppressed, thereof truly sensible, it will concern you, while you are in power, so to regard other men's consciences as you would your own should be regarded in the power of others, and to consider that any law against conscience is alike in force against any conscience, and so may one way or other justly redound upon yourselves. One advantage I make no doubt of, that I shall write to many eminent persons of your number, already perfect and resolved in this important article |