persons so offending shall suffer death, or such other punishment as by a Court Martial shall be awarded." By the 3d section of the Articles of War, it is directed, that "every enlisted soldier shall at the time of enlisting, or within 4 days afterwards, have the 2nd and 6th sections of the Articles, with respect to mutiny and desertion, read to him. The 5th article of the 2nd section declares, that "any officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier, who shall disobey any lawful command of his superior officer, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as by a General Court Martial shall be awarded."

Thus is the letter of the soldier's code qualified. The oath of fidelity which he takes is, to bear true allegiance, and to obey the orders of his Majesty and of the Generals and Officers set over him by his Majesty; and it may fairly be stated, that the latter words are left apparently absolute, upon a presumption that his Majesty would never deliver an illegal order. It might be wise, however, to frame the words of the oath in a manner more suitable to the real obligation imposed. The qualifying clauses of the Act of Parliament and Articles of War are read over to the recruit before the oath is administered, and undoubtedly constitute the commentary upon it; but upon occasions of the greatest importance the words sworn to may be a snare to a conscientious ignorant man.

This statement of the written law seems to support the proposition for which I contend; and it is not unaccompanied by decided cases and indisputable authority.

THE

CURATES' APPEAL

TO THE

EQUITY AND CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES

OF THE

BRITISH LEGISLATURE,

THE BISHOPS, THE CLERGY, AND THE PUBLIC,

EXAMINED:

IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR,

FROM A COUNTRY INCUMBENT.

ORIGINAL.

LONDON:

AN ANSWER,

&c. &c.

SIR,

THOUGH "the Curates' Appeal to the Equity and Christian Principles of the British Legislature, the Bishops, the Clergy, and the Publie," is made in the plural number, and professes to emanate from "one half of the English clergy," I must beg leave to address you as an individual, as I cannot find that any of the curates within the range of my acquaintance, have taken any part in the publication; nor do they join in the complaints and accusations with which it so fully, and, I think so unjustly, abounds. When an appeal is made in so public a manner to so large a part of the community, it invites the attention of the whole kingdom; and when sacred characters, the laws relating to the Church, and the whole constitution, are attacked, it cannot be expected that every one will be silent, or suffer those ordinances, which the quiet and peaceable members of our establishment have been accustomed to reverence, to be censured and held up to public dislike, without endeavouring to repel the charge, and to obviate the mischiefs which indiscriminate and unanswered contumely is calculated to produce.

You affirm in the Preface, that you" are sensibly alive to the truth, that an office must needs suffer by any reproach attached to the persons holding it. If, therefore, bishops are the subject of blame, Episcopacy must admit a share of disrepute, and not less our Church, which so highly reverences that sacred function." And yet, with insidious professions of attachment to the function and to the Church, you stamp on the top of several pages of your Appeal, that "the pretence that the bishops sought the curates' good is not

justified by facts." And in one of the pages, which bear the title "the bishops' design in proposing the bill," you maintain, that "the ground upon which they have proceeded is arbitrary and cruel." You profess much regard for consistency;-are your professions and designs in unison? You are fond of contrasting the law with the constitution;-are not the law and the constitution censured by the whole tenor of your publication? Can there be a greater contrast than your affirmation in the third page of your preface, "We have not made use of a single phrase or word with a design to reproach the character of bishops, or to diminish the just and deserved estimation in which they are held;" with that in the 94th page of your Appeal, "The conduct of our bishops, in whichever way we view it, is wholly indefensible?" In the preface and introduction you have warily solicited the indulgence, and awaked the attention of the public, by the seeming candor of your remarks. But in the body of the pamphlet, nothing seems to have restrained you from giving vent to the spleen with which the whole is written, which indeed seems to have given birth to the publication, and to have encreased, as the pages become more numerous, and the censure more strong. In your wish to attract the notice and secure the favor of the legislature, (though you frequently libel it afterwards) you have complimented that truly estimable body at the expense of the Church. "The legislature has properly considered that righteousness exalteth a nation as well as an individual, and has, therefore, provided for its subjects," (I thought the Houses of Parliament were composed of subjects), pure, a spiritual, and a scriptural religion. She has constructed a most simple, comprehensive, and sublime form of devotion to elevate their prayers in their approaches to the sanctuary." are in the habit of quoting authorities drawn from various sources:pray, are you not aware that this remark savors strongly of the heresy imputed to Erastus? And is it not an old sarcasm cast on the Church of England by the Dissenters, that ours is a parliamentary religion? The allegation that we derive our "form of devotion" from the parliament has been so often and so fully refuted, that no true churchman would have expected to have found it revived in the treatise of a professed friend.

66

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I most willingly agree with you in the opinion, that "the Church, strictly adhered to and firmly supported, is the hope of Englishmen." But I cannot accord with the notion, that to appeal to the nation at large against laws enacted recently, and avowedly for bettering the condition of the inferior clergy, and to render those laws and the manner in which they are put in execution objects of attack in an anonymous publication, is either politic, candid, or wise.