England, and fourteen for the different claffes of Diffenters
and Methodists. Of about feventy thousand inhabitants, it
is not supposed that more than five thousand attend any
place of public worship on any one day, so that perhaps not
much more than twice this number, that is ten thousand,
attend any public worship at all, or can be faid to have, or
at least much to value, any religion. On the whole, it is
pretty clear, from the best accounts that I can collect, that
there are more perfons attend public worship in this town.
out of the established churches, than in them. Confe-
quently, of the feventy thousand inhabitants of this town,
fixty-five thousand (including the five thousand who have
fome religion, and the fixty thoufand who have none) are
compelled to pay a very great annual fum, to fupport the
religion of the other five thousand. Now, is there any na-
tural reason, or equity, in this? And do these five thousand,
who do not pay a tenth part of the expence of their own
religion, behave better, as citizens, than the other five
thousand, who, befides paying for their own religion, pay
inuch much more towards that of their neighbours ?
do they behave so much better than thofe who profess no
religion at all, as to make it worth the while of the com-
munity at large to be at that expence for them? Were all
the inhabitants left to their free votes, there can be no doubt
but that the fixty-five thousand would bid the five thousand
pay for their own religion, if they chose to have any. Con-
fequently they are taxed and oppreffed to ferve a minority.
If those who attend public worship more or lefs, be efti-
mated at twenty thoufand, ftill as more of this additional
number worship out of the churches than in them, the great
majority will be made to pay for the minority.

Or

As to those who confcientiously worthip God in places which Mr. Madan contemptuously calls conventicles, they certainly behave as well in fociety as those who frequent the churches. Few or none of the criminals whom you are continually carrying to Warwick ever belong to any of our focieties, and we seldom trouble you with our poor. Look

into your jails and workhouses, and you will find very few Diffenters in them. Inftead, therefore, of being treated with. contempt and insult, as we continually are by fuch preachers as Mr. Madan, we are intitled to your thanks; as our religion, which teaches us to behave fo well, and be so little burthenfome to you, not only costs you nothing, but as we contribute our full share to the maintenance of yours.

In fact, you members of the church of England are, in the eye of reason, greatly in debt to the Diffenters. If what we have given to the support of your religion from the time of the establishment of it were reckoned up, it would amount to a very great fum; and that this is a debt, which ought to be repaid, is most evident, because it is money advanced by us for your ufe. If this fum was repaid, as in equity it ought to be, it would fupply all the expence of our religion for centuries to come.

You will fay that you are under no obligation to do this, because what we have paid for your benefit was by Act of parliament. But can an Act of parliament authorize a manifest injustice? And when you are taxed with oppreffing your neighbours in exacting of them that for which you have given them no equivalent, will it be fufficient, at the great day of judgment, to say that you had an act of parliament for doing it? They were acts of parliament that authorized the burning of Proteftants in bloody queen Mary's time. But will those acts of parliament justify Bonner and Gardiner, and other popish bishops and popish statesmen, who promoted that horrid perfecution? You do not believe that they will. And if fo, neither will any act of parliament, paffed before or fince that time, excufe you in the fight of God, for exacting of any man more than, in the eye of reafon and equity, he ought to pay. If an act of parliament will not justify the taking men's lives, neither will it justify the taking their money.

Whatever, therefore, you may think about this matter, the church of England, as a body (without confidering the cruelties inflicted upon the Diffenters during all the reigns

of

of Elizabeth, James I. Charles I. Charles II. and James II.) ftands a debtor in the book of God's account to the Diffenters, for their proportion of tithes, for whatever has been exacted from them for the repair of churches, and for every other expence from which the Diffenters as such derive no advantage. And yet, instead of contributing to the expence of building or repairing our meeting-houses, in return for what we do for yours, you think you do us a great favour in permitting us to build them with our own money, and that we are allowed to live peaceably among you, promoting the good of the country, by our industry and sobriety, which in general are confpicuous and exemplary.

This you call toleration, and make a mighty boast of it, as if it was a great favour that you do us, and much more than you are obliged to grant. But thus many other debtors, instead of paying what they owe, abuse their creditors; and many more would do it if an Act of parliament would clear them, and authorize their infolence. Acts of parliaments, to be fure, can do wonders. kings. They changed the from popery to protestantism, protestantism to popery again. your liturgy, and from a trinitarian, can make it an unitaThey can abolish tithes, and order that the falaries of the clergy, like thofe of civil officers, be paid out of the public treasury. They can reduce the emoluments of fome livings, and by that means raise the value of others, fo that every man's falary would bear a juft proportion to his duty. And fuch things as thefe, which the parliament can do, if you were unanimous in petitioning for, you would certainly have.

They can make and unmake established church of England and they can change it from Acts of parliament can alter

rian one.

But there are fome things that king, lords, and commons cannot do; and as they cannot make white black, nor black white, fo neither can they make vice to be virtue, or virtue vice. Consequently, they cannot make that to be honest, which, in the eye of God and of reafon, is effentially dishonest.

An act of parliament may give all my property to my next neighbour, without alleging any reafon for it, and I, having no power of refiftance, must submit. But in that cafe, would not king, lords, and commons be as great rafcals as a highwayman who fhould do the fame thing in the fame arbitrary and violent manner? Do not then depend too much upon acts of parliaments, especially in matters of religion. In all things of this nature obey God and Confult the dictates of your own natural reason and conscience, and then you need not fear what man can do unto you.

not man.

If all who really labour in God's great harveft, and ef pecially those who preach the gospel to the poor (who ftand in the greatest need of inftruction) were to receive their wages, in proportion to the real use of their labours, out of the tithes, and other public funds, from which the clergy are now paid for doing (or rather for not doing) the fame work, it would be no small fum that would go out of their pockets into thofe of the methodist preachers, who have civilized, and chriftianized, a great part of the uncivilized, and unchriftianized part of this country. But if they be not recompenced out of that fund, they will be recompenced out of another, fomething more permanent. When this great globe, and all that it inherit, fhall diffolve, I had rather be found in the company of fuch humble labourers in God's vineyard than in that of the generality of your dignified, and beneficed clergy, who have had their good things in this life.

From the veneration with which Mr. Madan would infpire you for civil establishments of chriftianity, and the abhorrence and contempt with which he treats Diffenters, you would naturally imagine that fuch establishments of chriftianity have been from its firft promulgation, and that our mode of religion is quite an upstart thing; whereas the very contrary is well known to be the truth of the cafe. In every article in which we differ, our fyftem is the antient one, and yours modern.

What

What is it that diftinguifhes Diffenters from the members of established churches? They are the following particulars, and no other whatever. They chufe and they pay their own minifters, without burdening the ftate with any expence on that account. They also difmifs their ministers whenever they are diffatisfied with them, and they acknowledge no authority in any man, or in any body of men, to fettle articles of faith, or rules of difcipline for them. In all these things they judge and act for themselves, holding themselves to be answerable to God and their own confciences only.

These principles are common to all Diffenters, though we differ much from one another in other things, and in all of them we differ from eftablished churches, like that of England. Your creeds and forms of public worship are dictated by acts of parliament. Your minifters, at least most of them, are appointed either by the king, or particular patrons. You have only a right to complain in case of their misbehaviour, but without any other controul over their conduct. You have no power either to chufe, or to dismiss them, and their incomes are fixed by the law; so that whether you approve of their fervices, or not, they can enforce the payment of their dues, to the uttermost farthing by a regular well known courfe of law. They can levy a distress, and throw you into prifon, for the non-payment of tithes, as well as for that of any other debt.

Now all these things are comparatively of late date in the history of christianity, and they took place not all at once, in confequence of any proper alliance with the ftate, which is entirely a fiction of modern times, but one after another, as circumstances were favourable to the clergy. For they, like other bodies of men, never loft fight of their interest ; and the ignorance and fuperftition of former times were exceedingly favourable to them.

When the emperors became chriftians, they gave power to the bishops, whom they were then disposed to favour, to enforce the decrees of their councils, with refpect to articles

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