in their opinion, so clearly deducible from the Bible, as to render the belief or observance of it necessary to salvation, we shall soon discover the scantiness of their creed, and be inclined to apply to them, what Badius said of Erasmus, that, “he "rather knew what he should fly from, than what "he should follow." Their expressions were guarded; but the ultimate tendency of their doctrine seems to lead to these conclusions: I. The church and the state are equally derived from God, the author of every good and perfect gift: II. Any number of persons, who are persuaded that Jesus was sent of God, who are sincerely desirous of obeying his laws, who hope for salvation by obedience to them, and who agree to unite in public assemblies for the performance of religious duty, is a christian church; and every christian church thus formed, has a right to delegate to any persons, under any names, and with any powers, (revelation being silent on these points, and tradition wholly out of the question), an authority to superintend and regulate its economy and observances. Such a church may also expel from it those, who disobey either its original constitutions, or the ordinances made under its authority:-still, every such christian church is subject to the controul of the state.All this is in direct opposition to the articles of the church of England. These assign to the church, the power to decree rites and ceremonies an authority in controversies of faith; they also teach that the orders of her ministers have descended from the apostles, and are appointed by

* Art. xx.

God; that the powers given them, in ordination, are communicated to them by the Holy Ghost;and that episcopacy is of Divine institution*: III. The sacraments are defined by the church of England † to be effectual signs of the grace which God of his free will dispenses to us, and by which he works invisibly in us. In opposition to this definition, the disciples of Hoadley maintained that the sacraments were mere signs or declarations of future salvation, and had no efficient power: hence they considered baptism, not as a rite essential to salvation, but as a profession of christianity by the person who is baptized, or by others on his behalf; and the eucharist, not as a rite in which the body and blood of Christ "are verily and in"deed received‡," but as a pious memorial of the passion and death of Christ, and an indication of the party's acceptance of christian redemption by this symbolic ceremony. IV. The doctrines of the trinity and the incarnation, so solemnly propounded by the church of England, were ranked by the disciples of Hoadley among speculative questions. V. They considered that, when the clergy declare their unfeigned assent to the thirty-nine articles, they express no more than an assent to the use of them, according to any interpretation which, in their candid and deliberate judgment, they should put on them, and with full liberty to impugn them, except officially, as from the pulpit: VI. And finally, they explicitly maintained that the sin

* Form of ordination.

+ Art. xxv.

Catechism in the book of Common Prayer.

cerity of a christian believer is of much greater consequence than the soundness of his opinions.

We have noticed the success of Hoadley in the Bangorian controversy: his disciples pursued the triumph, and drew over to them so large a proportion of the established church, that a reform of the reformation took place in it, and removed those, who adopted the new belief, further from the primitive reformers, than these had removed themselves from their catholic ancestors.

3. The disciples of Hoadley then expected to enjoy the fruits of their victory without molestation: but a formidable antagonist arose, who declared war equally against them and the established church. Seizing from each its strongest holds, and abandoning its less tenable passes, the author of the Confessional, equally in unison with the high church, and in opposition to the school of Hoadley, declared for the independence of the ecclesiastical on the temporal powers. In conformity with Hoadley, he rejected the serious belief of the thirtynine articles, and announced, that the Bible, and the Bible only, in the strictest sense of these words, was the religion of the protestants; but he condemned the mental reservation of the Hoadleyans in the subscription of confessions and formularies of faith; and maintained that they could not be conscientiously subscribed, without a sincere belief of the truth of the doctrines, which they were intended by the framers of them to express.

This gave rise to a new controversy:-public opinion seems to have decided it in favour of the

Confessional: yet the thirty-nine articles are still universally signed, but rather as a formulary of peace, than a confession of faith. Thus a further reform of the reformation, and of course a still further removal of the members of the church of England from its first founders, have been effected.

Ultra reforms of a similar nature have taken place in most protestant churches on the continent. Speaking generally, they have carried those who have adopted them, as far from the founders of their church as from the church of Rome. As further removals from the true faith, they are lamented by catholics; but it is difficult for them to observe, without some complacency, the completion of the prophecies of their ancestors on the ultimate ten→ dency of the reformation.

4. Both civil and religious liberty, and, with these, the claim of the catholics to each, gained considerably, both by the Bangorian controversy, and by the disputes produced by the Confessional. The former led, as we have already mentioned, to discussions, which brought Hoadley and his disciples, and even their antagonists, to admit, that, whatever might be the errors justly chargeable on any creed, the professors of it were entitled to an equal participation of the civil blessings of the constitution, unless mischievousness of moral or political principle were justly imputable to them. This was equally admitted in the controversy on the Confessional. Availing themselves of this important admission, the catholics called on their adversaries to show, what principle, morally or

politically reprehensible, or of such a tendency as should prevent their participation, equally with his majesty's other subjects, in the blessings of the British constitution, was justly imputable to them.

It soon appeared that no such principle was justly chargeable on them, unless the supremacy which they attribute to the pope affected their civil allegiance. When this was urged against the catholics, they observed that the supremacy was merely of a spiritual nature, and that it authorized the pope neither to legislate in temporal concerns, nor to enforce his spiritual legislation by temporal power. To this statement, the adversaries of the catholics opposed many instances, in which the popes had claimed, under their divine commission, a right to exercise temporal power in spiritual concerns ;and they cited a multitude of catholic authors, some of whom were truly respectable, by whom the papal pretension had been acknowledged and advocated.

The instances thus adduced of papal pretension to temporal power, the catholics generally admitted; but, when they made this admission, they explicitly declared, that the popes acted on these occasions against divine and human right; and that their title to the temporal power thus claimed by them, was not an article of their faith. They afterwards proceeded further:-and, in 1778, as. we shall mention in a future page of this work, they took an oath, by which they not only disclaimed this papal pretension as an article of faith, but rejected it altogether.